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Going solo
Technophobe. Technologically illiterate. Or just plain stupid when it comes to hi-tech stuff. Call me what you will. Actually, it's not so much that I find it hard to understand new technology. It's more a case of not being interested enough to want to.
I'm buying an iPhone as a gift for a loved one for Christmas. A much-loved one, obviously, to be spending the kind of ridiculous money it costs for the 'privilege' of becoming part of the Apple conglomerate. Coughing up that much money is one thing, but having to set it up and understand how it works is quite another. Which is why I've prevailed upon the nice tech-savvy girl in the phone shop to do it all for me.
At the weekend, my son showed off his new smart television to me. I'm not such a technical ignoramus that I can't appreciate the merits of such new designs. It's super-sleek with no border or casing at all around it, just screen. It can do a multiplicity of stuff, functioning as a television, a cinema screen and able to access the Internet and all that entails such as viewing music videos and other clips from YouTube. It can do much more but my interest waned after hearing and being shown that much.
He demonstrated the amazingly sharp high-definition by running a slideshow of his wedding pics. I ooh-ed and aah-ed at the quality. Until that is, he showed an up-close of me caught unawares by the wedding photographer on the big day. That was just a little TOO high definition for me. Wrinkles, lines and my lop-sided smile were all on show. Damn you, HD!
My sister has a lovely new BMW. The dash looks like the cockpit of an aeroplane. I travelled to Cork with her in it at the weekend. It sounds a little warning in advance of a call coming in to her integrated Bluetooth. Oh, impressive, I thought. In fact it makes a variety of sounds, for all different reasons.
The one I disliked intensely though was the beeping warning for reversing. Getting close to something? Beep beep. Closer still? Beep beep beep. A bit too close? Beep beep beep beep beep. It actually begins to sound more frantic. Now she's had a while to get used to all this so she was quite blasé about the beeping as she backed into a parking space.
I, on the other hand, was getting more stressed by the minute. "It's fine", she reassured me as she continuing inching back. It was only when it began sounding a continued blast of urgent beeping, as if to say "for feck's sake!" that she stopped. I really wouldn't be able for a car that gave me that kind of hassle. I'll stick with my usual method of knowing when to stop when my bumper hits the barrier or the wall or whatever.
She also has one of those fancy new fridges that looks like it could chill a supermarket worth of food. It too beeps at her. It sounds when the door isn't properly closed. You walk away, only to be summoned back by what sounds like an angry fridge telling you to shut the damn door properly. I couldn't be doing with that. Anyway, I slam the door of my own fridge shut, most of the time with my knee, so tight it's vacuum sealed.
I don't even like the timer on my oven. I'll time things myself, thanks very much. And I hate the microwave 'pinging' at me. I'll take it out in my own time, thanks very much.
My sister bought an Apple iPad in Australia a couple of years ago. I'm not one of these people that is so enamoured with the brand that I get a thrill from being in their (admittedly) trendy and innovative shops. So, I left her to it and went clothes shopping across the road. I ran out of money I bought so much while I waited for her, it took that long for her to queue, have a consultation, chose which one she wanted and have it all set up for her.
I was asked by a family member to get a couple of iPods in the Apple store in New York a few years ago while I was visiting there. I found the place, took one look at the queues of people waiting to enter the Holy Grail of technology stretching right up the street and hightailed it outta there. It wasn't the Big Apple I'd come to see.
When he first got an iPod, my son insisted I have a listen. I would love it, he assured me. He even made the concession of scrolling through his heavy metal collection to find an instrumental piece I would appreciate. He was right. My God! It was like the orchestra was playing in my head, for me only.
Naturally enough then, when I got a present of an iPod Nano last Christmas, I was chuffed. I'd be able to enjoy my music while walking and on the go. Alas, because no-one set it up for me and put music on it and I was lacking in the wherewithal to do it myself, its languished in a drawer for the past year.
My daughter has come to the rescue though. She asked me recently what I wanted for Christmas. She interrupted my long-winded reply detailing all the things she shouldn't buy me because I had them already/didn't like them/wouldn't use them, saying "You have an iPod Nano, don't you?" I admitted, somewhat sheepishly to this advanced-technology-loving person that I did but that I had never uploaded any music on it or used it.
"OK" she said, in that take-charge way she has. "Post it up to me along with a list of songs you want on it. I'll upload them for you and buy you a dock so that you can charge it and use it in any room in the house as well. Christmas present sorted." Bless her. She has come to my rescue at other times of technological ineptitude. And she doesn't 'tut-tut' or roll her eyes at my inadequacies like my sons do.
I might be taking only a small chunk out of the Apple, but at least it's a start.
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