Technology in Normal entries

There’s a million ways to feel old; losing hair, memory, creaking joints when you stand up, shaking your cane at young whippersnappers speeding past you, or pretty much anything that involves either the phrase young whippernsnapper or just young. Today mine is both among the top five clichés and the one I thought I’d be least likely to say; fucking technology is fucking me without any fucking lube or warning.

Let’s not even bring up how many times I’ve talked to onstar about, well, WTF’s and the like. Ok, we will talk about the last time “Um, hi Melanie from onstar, I just got a new phone and I’m trying to pair it with my in car hotspot and Bluetooth, and, well, shit, I’m not just pushing buttons, but I have no idea what any of my passwords are, not used to being prompted by a salesman and, honestly, I tried all my usual ones.”

She politely walked me through everything. She used the voice I used to use for tech support; it’s the sweet honeyed end of patronizing. Son of a bitch, I’m officially a curmudgeon. I used to be just a cur, ok, maybe a mangy cur. Worse yet I thanked her for patronizing and am considering keeping on star when my free six months are up.

Yeah, one of the many perks of buying both a car and a phone this month. Not only the big price drops (though my phone is leased) but all sorts of freebies tossed in, like, onstar for instance, and, with the phone, something I would never buy, the VR goggles. I mean I think I’m getting them. Pain in the ass to register for. Still, I got a best buy gift card for 250. Though they did talk me out of the phone, I did some research and went back. Halfway through a sale with store related tech problems and fumbles, the guy actually asked me why I came back.

I assume he wasn’t being a smart ass and I thought it was a great question, I mumbled something about promos. I think he wanted something about the store or him, but if he did he didn’t show it. It’s possible he was as genuinely surprised as I was that I came back. The AT&T store wasn’t offering a best buy gift card. I probably could have gotten something out of them, but didn’t feel like fussing and feuding.

A few weeks ago when the echo dot came out under fifty bucks I got one and some special bundle on a speaker for it. Both are still in the box. Fucking technology. Heh, I thought about a power inverter in my car and having the car and echo talk to one another. To be fair to myself, I do have an amazon account so there are a number of features I’d use. Um, will use when I unpackage.

The car and the phone were practical. Oh, and replacing the old Keurig too, an original model. Car was uncomfortable, new one financed at 2.34 %. The phone had a battery life of a phone call (the galaxy s6 could not switch batteries) and the Keurig was falling to pieces, part of which I blame on my little sister who somehow wedged the draining stand so it was impossible to drain. It wasn’t easy to do, but I found the one model of Keurig that wasn’t 2.0, or at least the one model that amazon had in stock. It works pretty much like the last one. That particular techno-cluster-fuck was for my moms benefit, I think I could figure out the Keurig 2.0.

Ok, I can figure it all out, but it’s frustrating that any of it is difficult for me. I used to be the guy to answer tech questions, not ask them.