Saturday, January 12, 2008

Electric Devices

Projects

Continuing with my haunting by electric devices, I will tell you the tale of new car.

Perri - the periwinkle Vue, came with XM Radio, OnStar and hands-free dialing. I have yet to be impressed by these innovations. I am still listening to NPR, PRI and BBC news. I am still rotating my favorite CDs. The only person that has so far benefited from the XM Radio was my 8 year old nephew when we tuned into XM kids. Actually, I enjoyed that station as well. I love signing "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and "I Went to the Witch Doctor." A college student explained to me how to program my radio stations. Because as you know, I believe that there will always be a college student that will explain new technologies to me making manual-reading unnecessary.

when I had a two students in my car, we tried the hands-free dialing. First, let me explain to you what nonsense it is.

This is from the website

Keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road with OnStar Hands-Free Calling. OnStar has the only built-in, hands-free wireless calling system of its kind, providing you with a safe and reliable connection.

A single button-push for safe driving
Better connectivity in areas of limited cellular reception
Fewer dropped calls
Calls sound better, since they're controlled through your surround-sound speaker system

All of that for about $.15 a minute. Seriously. My car has its own phone number. The dealer tried to tell me that it was a safer way to use a phone while driving. I tried it for myself. Imagine yourself and two people about 12 years younger who tend to know everything. You want to impress them with your fancy calling feature. You say "Dial 555555555" for about 20 minutes. Each time Claire, the call-assistant, gets it wrong. Now, I may write with bad grammer but certainly I don't speak it so poorly that Claire can't connect a call. (I wrote about Claire last year and I spelled grammar wrong on purpose) I really hate Claire. She messes up an otherwise delightful day. After 20 minutes of this, I am so frustrated that I am driving recklessly and my passengers are bent over with laughter.

They told me to get a bluetooth headset. Which as you readers know, I used to despise. I don't want homeless technology when I just want to be able to talk on the phone when I am in the car without causing a wreck. I did some "research" on EBay and found a New Bluetooth Hands Free Car Kit Speaker for cell phone. I know, it is bluetooth and I hate bluetooth technology. Even so, it is cheaper than hands free dialing and it works with equipment that I already have. It goes into the cigarette lighter. I love it but it has annoying feature. when I first got it, it would retrieve my calls while I was in the house. In other words, I would press the green button on my cell phone and the call would be transferred to the bluetooth speaker. At first, I thought my phone was simply broken. I reset it. I charged it. Yet, it continued to "drop" my calls. it was two days before I realized the bluetooth as catching my calls. Two days.... I finally read the manual and learned that its range was not one meter but 10 meters.

Why? If it is a hands free car kit why does it need a 10 meter range? if it plugs into your cigarette lighter, why does it need a 10 meter range?

Stop reading if you are a man......

You probably have noticed that I have been sharing with you my progress on various yarn and reading projects. My greatest fear is to never finish things. So, I am sharing with you to motivate myself.

I wanted to share with you the pretty yarn that I am using on the baby blanket


Mondial "KINDER BABY" knitting yarn - in #588 pink, blue, medium blue, white multi, 70% new merino wool, 30% acrylic,	Doris "VULCAN" knitting yarn (color-pink and blue multi) 100% viscose