Well, you know. We used to chuckle when my dear ol' Mother would say to me, "You need to fix my Goddamn cable TV."
"Mom, I'm 500 miles away from you. Did you press a button on the remote that I told you not to press?" And then we'd discuss further, while I'd try to diagnose (from 500 miles away) what she might have done.
We had great cable TV (and internet) in Texas. When you wanted to change a channel on the TV, you punched in a number on the remote and the next channel popped up immediately... just what a TV should do. You could press "Guide" and see what is on this evening. The price of it was in our Homeowners' dues, which had been negotiated for an outstanding price for every residence on our island. Easy.
The internet speed in the new house is good. Not as good as what we had in Texas, but not slow (the speed varies throughout the day). We do not have cable - Steph prefers using Hulu... so, we have been learning that. You can get most of the same channels as cable, including the local networks, which is what we watch most often.
Last night when Steph and Dan came to visit (they will start their move-in process in another week or so), I asked for some "instruction" with Hulu... because every change of channel takes a bunch of pushes on the tiny TV remote. I have no doubt she was thinking of me laughing at her Grandmother. ;-) I may have said, "Fix my Goddamn Hulu TV," in a decidedly old person voice.
The remote has no numbers on it for changing channels...
The TV (and the remote) is smart. Is it "smart" to have to push buttons about a dozen times to get to the channel you want, instead of inputting a two-digit number? It makes me think that perhaps "smart" isn't always an improvement. Now, before you say, "Oh, Jim, you just have to get used to the new remote," the TV we had in Texas was the same brand and model. Same remote. We understand how to use it. It's just that having to scroll through stuff to get to where you want seems to be a big step backwards. And heaven forbid if you have to type in a title to search: you have to scroll through the equivalence of a QWERTY on-screen keyboard to spell things out one letter letter at a time... and then press the up/down/left/right arrows a bunch of times to get to the next letter. Painful. And for the record, before smart phones, I had a flip phone where you had to press a number 1 to 3 times to get it to equate to an alphabet letter. I thought that was painful, too, back in them olden days. (hear that old person voice in your head when you read that sentence)
I'm sure in time we will come to think of all this button pressing as being normal... but for now, it just seems like calling a change "smart" when, in fact, it is pretty stupid. Newer isn't always better - better is better... and if you can't make something better, why mess with it?
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Speaking of "old": when we were at the DMV getting our drivers licenses yesterday, the young lady working with us asked my hair color... I said, "Mostly gray," - Joan said, "Your hair is brown." The lady looked at me and waited for an answer: "Gray." So, that's official.
It's OK - I got my 15% senior discount at Denny's yesterday, too.
3 comments:
We have similar issues. We use a Channel Master DVR as an input to our main TV. You can pull up the channel guide or scroll through with up/down arrows, but there is no direct tuning, or jumping between two channels. I put up with it because we record almost everything and only from over-the-air broadcasts. No cable or streaming here. If I have the inclination to sit around I should have a guitar or a cat in my lap. The original full-function remote is no longer in production and when we had to replace it, they directed us to the universal "Simple Remote" which looks a lot like yours. If I had a remote keyboard and did not have to do the painful tedious scroll/typing you described, I might watch YouTube on my big screen sometimes. Instead I always watch anything like that on the desktop in my office.
I recall being shocked the first time anyone asked if I'd like the senior discount, but my M-I-L had already warned us to always say "yes". I am no longer shy about it at all. The amusing thing is the State liquor store for buying hard booze. Policy requires that they card everyone and my standard answer is usually, "Young lady the t-shirt I am wearing is old enough to drink".
"Young lady the t-shirt I am wearing is old enough to drink". LOL Thanks for the morning chuckle.
I think I was 47 the first time a young person at a drive-through gave me a senior discount... I said, "Thank you." When you're 17 years old, anyone over 30 looks like a senior citizen.
At the Denny's where we had breakfast the other day, Joan pulled up a review of the place on her phone... they were all positive, except one that said, "There are a lot of old people at this Denny's," ... in Surprise, AZ... not really a surprise! ;-)
After our "lesson" with the remote, it is less frustrating. Certainly not "smart" or "convenient," but with as few as 18 pushes, I can now come up with the channel I want almost 42% of the time.
We were also surprised with photos. Every year Alice's company put on a big dinner event and part of the festivities was a portrait if you wanted it. After getting the photos we always wondered who were the grandparents that keep photo-bombing our shots? Oh wait....
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