Desktop ✓
If not for my husband, I wouldn’t watch TV.
Laptop ✓
Smartphone ✓
iPad ✓
Spreadsheets ✓
Documents ✓
Photo editing ✓
Zoom ✓
GPS ✓
Social media ✓
Email ✓
Texting ✓
Website ✓
TV…fuggedaboutit!
If not for my husband, I wouldn’t watch TV. Not that I don’t love it…my life is greatly enriched by the wealth of superb programming he finds, night after night. But that remote? Believe me, I’ve tried, to no avail. Because suddenly there’s a new feature, a second remote, the latest gadget, another streaming service…I give up.
Besides, it’s nice to have my own private Entertainment Director.
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RetroFlash/100 words (including checkmarks)
Barbara BucklesArtist, writer, storyteller, spy. Okay, not a spy…I was just going for the rhythm.
I call myself “an inveterate dabbler.” (And my husband calls me “an invertebrate babbler.”) I just love to create one way or another. My latest passion is telling true stories live, on stage. Because it scares the hell out of me.
As a memoirist, I focus on the undercurrents. Drawing from memory, diaries, notes, letters and photographs, I never ever lie, but I do claim creative license when fleshing out actual events in order to enhance the literary quality, i.e., what I might have been wearing, what might have been on the table, what season it might have been. By virtue of its genre, memoir also adds a patina of introspection and insight that most probably did not exist in real time.
Characterizations:
funny, right on!
I’m with you 100%, Barb. I even tried to write down directions for each of our remotes, but that’s no longer helpful because I don’t remember which is which. Guess I could label them/
So funny, Barb. We tried so hard to get everything into one remote, but, like you, they’ve grown over the years. I still know how to turn things on and change channels, but the Apple TV remote is awful! I’m impressed that you can do everything else on your list. Good for you!
I hear you. What a list of tech we have accumulated. Yet just managing the basics is tough enough—even Retrospect is a challenge to navigate. I can turn the “smart” TV on and off, most of the time.
Great flash, Barb. I totally feel your pain about the TV. Although I’ve fixed partner Dick’s computer issues within minutes, he’s got our TV system, especially the audio, set up in the most complex way possible, so normally I just go with the “standard” cable. Some streaming requires three remotes to use, and I’m not up for that.
Love this RetroFlash, Barb. I’m impressed that you know how to make checkmarks! We don’t have cable in my house, so just 3 remotes – the TV, the DVD player, and the Roku. I can manage all of those.
If there’s been one good thing about the pandemic, I’ve spent so much time with Netflix and other streaming options, that I have mastered all the things my remote will do. Not much of a brag, but there it is.
Me too Bebe, and when my son is visiting he and his father actually fight over the damn remote.
That’s when I leave the room.
Well done, Barbara. Same is true in my household. “My” Barbara Can. Not. Function. in the TV area. The A/V area is, however, my forte. I have a programmable device that controls all the components. There is an app on my desktop that allows me to add functions and assemble macros to literally reduce everything to a single button push, e.g. “Watch TV” will turn on the monitor, the cable box and the receiver, enter the right settings, and voila.
Another Barbara with her own Entertainment Director? I don’t know about her, but I don’t mind at all. Of course I have some say over what we watch, but it’s nice to let someone else do the heavy lifting.
Grat RetroFlash, Barb! It really summed up our collective tribulations beautifully as well as succinctly.
But how can you even write of “remote control” in the singular? When I upgraded our cable system last month (DIY, I’ll have you know), I was thrilled to reduce the number of remotes I normally have to use from five to four. As far as I am concerned, “master remote control” is the greatest oxymoron ever invented.
LOL! The one of which I write (and show) is the “emergency” remote control so that I can at least turn on the TV. There are others I know nothing about, and prefer to keep it that way. Like you, I’m no Luddite…but enough is enough.