Bluetooth - the Unbrushed Truth

When I bragged to the Curmudgeon Societé Executive Council that I was their go-to guy on technology, they greeted me with open arms. Six white-haired 80-year old guys (those WITH hair) weren't exactly out in front on things technological. I remain convinced to this day that they really, deep down inside, harbor a resentment toward Ma Bell for inventing touchtone dialing. 

So here I was, saying, for instance, how great Bluetooth was. 

What I didn't tell them was that Bluetooth was primarily developed for phones in your pocket to converse with earpieces in you ears 2 feet away. On a good day, that includes your car, since most of us drive within a couple feet of the dash. 

But Bluetooth really caught on and makers of devices wanted to use it for all sorts of fancy things - heck, it can go 30 feet easily,they claim. Hah!  In their dreams.  Or in Utah, maybe. You should never, ever turn your back on Bluetooth. Really. Literally. Your body can cut the signal. And we won't even go into the effects of walls. 

Happily, the Executive Council is still playing with the Spheros I gave them. Yes, I know they run on Bluetooth, but no one is about to turn their back on a Sphero on the run..or roll, as it is. 

Fast Talkers

This is getting ridiculous. You're innocently listening to an ad on the radio (with, typically, a minimum of attention) and then at the end, they put on this fast talker to race through all the conditions that surround the "deal" being advertised. With minimal attention, you have barely managed to catch what the product was and maybe - maybe - one of the adjectives they used, like "biggest," "fastest," "cheapest," etc. There is NO WAY anyone hears what the fast talker said.

But somewhere, some overly-paid lawyer convinced them that by doing this, they would be magically protected from idiots who would go ballistic if they popped in to take advantage of said deal and found out that there were some limiting conditions.

Drug ads in magazines are worse - a full page ad about some wondrous drug followed by TWO pages of warnings and conditions. (The 'in rare cases' warnings are the best, though: you may die by skin rot, maggots may take up permanent residence in your pee-pee, talk to your doctor if you get a 4-hour erection, etc.) But nonetheless, these are prescription drugs - you would have to consult your doctor anyway, and you would get the scoop directly from him!

I'm all for "deals" on products and wondrous products, but if some idiot gets them on the black market and their Johnson falls off, I say caveat emptor, people. 

Twitter

We curmudgeons had a little huddle recently and decided that in addition to the US mail and email, the curmudgeon world didn't need yet some other communication thing.  

So we decided to keep the Twitterverse thingie on the down-low. These guys already promptly inadvertently drive off the road when their cell phones ring, so it seemed prudent. And "the Twitter" seemed to attract bored kids, Hollywood types and other sorts that we really didnt want anything to do with anyway. 

Then the Twitterverse graduated from chatty 13-year old girls to recording the Arab Spring. Crap. They started asking me about it. "Should we be on this Twitter thing?" "What is 'on twitter'?" "Do I have to remember to type 'dot com'?" "What button on my TV remote control do I hit?" "Why didn't you tell us about this back when we could have profited obscenely when it went public?"

I had to think fast. Turns out, all my TV watching came to my rescue. I used Brisco County Jr's famous line: wait for the "next big thing" - that's where the smart money is. They're thrilled. My term expires shortly - I will be long gone if the shit actually hits the fan, but I'm betting on Brisco. 

Tornadoes Part II

I recently was laughing to Thomas Magnum's shenanigans while waiting out my first "Tornado Watch." It had everything a teenage overnighter would have - TV, plenty of popcorn, and gossip. 

OK, not so much of the gossip bit, as it was amongst the cats and a tad one-sided. So I penned my hilariously stated case about tornadoes in New Jersey. Well, am I ever eating crow (where DO these sayings come from?). 

A Tornado touched down IN THE TOWN NEXT DOOR yesterday. Boy is my face red. This climate change thing is really starting to get annoying. 

Happily, the tornado touched down 1) in the town next door - not ours - and 2) couldn't find a trailer park, so promptly went off in search of its primary food source. I hope it tells its buddies that there is simply no good tornado tossing in New Jersey. 

Hold on - Higgins is doing his "Oh...my...God" bit. That Magnum!

Latvia, Part II

Yes, I am a curmudgeon.  Yes, I have very specific views on things that represent those of an organization of like-minded souls, the Curmudgeon Societé Generale. And, yes, I am big enough to rise to adjusting my views when presented with facts that contradict earlier pronouncements.

I recently mentioned Latvia as a prime new market for curmudgeonry. I apparently unleashed a whirlwind. The article drew something like 4 times the interest of anything else I had ever published. The Repor drew more Latvians that week than Americans! The Societé is most impressed - curmudgeons across the pond!

Latvia is a deservedly proud nation with a climate that hovers around minus 20 degrees in the winter and all the way up to 66 degrees in the summer. Sounds like why I only visit the family compound in Maine during July & August and never in the winter. 

But I now have high hopes for neighboring Estonia - it's the size of New Hampshire plus Vermont with half the population. 

I'm starting to realize they have little bitty countries in Europe.