The house I live in has two really big TV’s (sort of). Remember when computer projectors came out? You could project your Power Point presentation onto a screen (or a sheet, or even a wall, in case your screen budget was exhausted for the year) so, at the same time, everyone in the room could see how boring Power Point presentations were. Well it turns out, those same projectors can be hooked up to your TV or cable box and effectively create a really big TV.
The house I live in also has three cable boxes, a LCD TV, a Plasma TV, a DLP TV and three CRT TV’s. They all get ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, HNN, ESPN, and lots of other letters I can’t remember. Altogether: over 200 channels of “there’s nothing on” (but that’s another story). The house also has a VHS player, 7 DVD players, and a BluRay player, for watching “no good movies anymore.” And all these devices came with one of the true wonders of modern technology, the remote control, without which, we would have to actually get up to adjust the device; which might dramatically reduce the pleasure we receive from watching “nothing” or “no good anymore.”
All told there are 20 remote control devices ( I know because even though I can no longer add numbers in the double digits, I own a calculator; but that’s also another story): 20 remotes, wonderful, wireless widgets with, unfortunately, 20 unique designs. Each remote contains from 18 to 54 buttons (yes, 54) and, believe it or not, no similar buttons are located in similar places on any of them (not quite true, several have the main power button in the vicinity of the upper right hand corner). I say similar because some buttons that do similar things don’t have similar names on other, yet similar, remotes.
Not to worry, several remotes are “universal,” and can be programmed to operate devices other than the one with which they came. Just follow the simple 27-step process to enter the unique device code for each other device you wish to control from your universal remote. “Should you make a mistake during this simple process, simply start over.” Needless to say, I elected to forego the time-saving process. Being a real man, I can master 20 different remotes with ease. Bring it on!
My wife, on the other hand, is not a real man (to my everlasting delight) and seems to encounter a bit of confusion when faced with the challenge of turning on the projector (and the external fan we had to install because it tended to overheat and shut off repeatedly, don’t get me started); turning on the cable box; set the cable box to the correct device; turning off the cable box because we are going to watch a movie; turning on the BluRay player; setting the BluRay player to the correct device because it also lets us watch TV or go on the internet; turning on the Bose sound system; setting the Bose to the correct device because it also plays CD’s and has a built in radio (FM only); and then toggling through the “source” options on the projector because it thinks we are still trying to watch television. And finally, turning everything off, including the lights and air conditioning (don’t worry, we have a remote) because now it’s very late (past 7:30 pm) and time to go to bed.
The up side of all this? Despite having too much life insurance, and at times being a bit difficult to live with, my wife will probably continue to put up with me. She enjoys, on occasion, watching “nothing on” or a “no good anymore” movie.
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