Gadgets

When I bought my Blackberry, I thought about the 30-year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a cell phone that plays music, takes videos, pictures and
communicates with Facebook and Twitter. I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and two great grand kids
could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends
every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world. My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the
bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to
live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.


The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my
tool bench with the Blue tooth [it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife and
everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. I had to take my hearing aid out to use it, and I got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside that gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10
minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-u-lating." You would think that she could be nicer. It was as if she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep
sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next lights. Then if I made a right turn instead. Well, it was not a good relationship.

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least
she loves me. To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for four years, but I still haven't figured out
how I can lose three phones all at once and have to run around
digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but
this sudden "Paper or Plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never
remember to take them in with me.
Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or Plastic?" I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look. I
was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, No, but I do toot a lot......"


P.S. I know some of you are not over 50. I sent it to you to allow you to forward it to those who are. We senior citizens don't need any more gadgets. The tv remote and
the garage door remote are about all we can handle.

Re: Gadgets

Yesterday I parcelled up and posted a "smart" phone that I bought only 3 months ago, my son had sold it for me on ebay for a loss of about £60. Why did I sell it ? Because it was far too smart for me and I found that even texting with the touch-screen key pad took me three times as long as my older, simpler mobile. Designers of these gadgets should make them more user-friendly.

Re: Gadgets

I asked oldest grandson if he had a breathing problem cos every time I said "Ooh Connor" he sighed and said "What've you done now??" don't know why he always assumes I've done anything, it just happens.

Re: Gadgets

My mom used to talk into a voice recorder, noting every step she took while trying something for the first time on her Mac. Then if there was a problem she'd hand the recorder to my brother and he'd troubleshoot. Very clever of her I thought.