Mute This!

Our lifetime has brought about some pretty damn amazing technological breakthroughs, wouldn't you agree?

But none quite as miraculous as the power to selectively mute certain people.

Here's the gist:

Matt Richardson, a video producer for technology magazine Make, likes to keep the TV on in the background while he works but got irritated when certain celebrities came on the air. So he invented "The Enough Already," a device that let him put those bothersome blowhards on mute automatically.

Using a versatile piece of computer hardware called Arduino, Richardson cobbled together an infrared device that he programmed to decode his TV's closed-captioning system. The device monitors the closed-captioning track in real time, and automatically puts the TV on mute for 30 seconds when certain keywords—the ones Richardson programmed it to pick out—appear. He made it in about a week, working in his spare time, he told CNN, and his prototype cost about $70 to put together.


I submit to you the Top 5 words/people (in no particular order) I would mute if given the technology:

1. Taco Bell
2. Kardashian (all. And since they're all the same, they count as one).
3. Fox News
4. Chelsea Handler (she's not funny, do not argue this with me, you will not win)
5. Palin (any and all)

Please share yours!

Make a U-Turn When Possible

So, my brother got married this weekend. I got a new sister and it all went off quite beautifully. Particularly because after her non-walking flower girl duties were over, we left Wee ‘Burb with Scott’s sister and we had the night to ourselves to dance and imbibe a few adult beverages and just generally relax.

We managed to keep our drinking to a reasonable volume and get to bed at a reasonable time. We both woke up like two different people. I said to Scott: “Seven hours of sleep uninterrupted by dog and baby is like seven weeks of sleep!”

Giddy, we decided to partake of the overpriced brunch at the hotel. In the middle of my eggs benedict, I had a bad feeling in my gut.

I looked at Scott and whispered: “I think I left my GPS sitting out in the car.”

Guys, I NEVER leave my GPS out. EVER. We have a real problem in Suburbia of cars getting broken into for GPS and iPods. So I’m cautious. I usually carry it in a case in my purse. But Cous Cous ate the case. Yeah, I don’t know, either.

Also, I have a blown fuse and so one of our doors doesn’t lock with the automatic keychain thingy. That was the door where we had hung our suit and dress and such. I doubted highly we remembered to lock that when we were carrying luggage, the baby, and precious clothing.

Scott kind of rolls his eyes and does his I need to be patient with my paranoid wife voice and says: “Stephanie, nobody cares about GPS anymore, that’s like old technology.”

I shrug, let it go. Get to the car and stare at my very empty GPS holder. I look at Scott. He convinces me to check around the car. I start to get really upset, feeling ooky and violated.

So then I go to plug Scott’s phone in the charger and realize…they left me the GPS charger and took my cell phone charger. So now I’m doubly pissed because I have to buy a new GPS, and now a new car charger.

And then we’re driving and I get that feeling again.

I look at Scott and say: “we have our home address plugged into the GPS.”

So let’s just say I didn’t sleep well and today has been a rather edgy day as I wait for these criminals to come and grab me and my virtue along with my GPS charger.

Where I Begin to Question if I am Just a Luddite

Lately I seem to be taken over by machinery that’s far too complicated for my simple mind.

It started when we moved in and Scott bought this fancy schmancy washer/dryer combo. All the features he listed by way of explanation of why he had spent a small fortune on said machinery made me shudder: it has a feature where it turns the dryer off when the clothes are done, you can set the water levels, you can set it to do jeans specifically, it has a setting for whites. On and on and on.

What the hell happened to delicate and permanent press? High medium and low dryer settings?

I studied the manual as hard as I studied for the SATs, so afraid was I that I would break the damn thing. About two months in, the washer flashed at me “F-22.” I had to search through the manual to determine that “F-22” meant that I had put too many clothes in the damn washer. I mean, the door closed, nothing was hanging out. But it had done its washer computation and determined the size of the clothing would not work with the water levels I had pre-set.

I am ashamed to confess I muttered, more than once, “eff you F-22” in my investigation.

Also? I’m very resentful that this machine thinks it knows better than me when clothes are dry. So many times I’ve set the dryer and gone out and run errands or something, come home to grab a pair of pants and find out the bottoms are still soaked. And yet the “clothes dry” light is blinking.

Oh my God, you guys, the lights! It’s like an effing NASA launch in my utility room!

It took me weeks to figure out how to disable the beeps, because that about drove me to the looney bin. One beep for when the cycle is almost done, one beep when it is done, another beep if you’ve left the clothes in there for an hour (if I leave them in there less than three days, I consider that an efficient week, never mind a freaking HOUR).

More recently, my mother-in-law bought me a new electric toothbrush. You guys, I’m a girl that gets excited about coupons, so you can guess what something like this did to me. I freaking love practical gifts, and my precious electric toothbrush had broken 6 months ago, prompting me to spend those 6 months complaining about how rough the manual toothbrushes are made these days, and constantly licking my teeth, swearing they felt fuzzy even when I had brushed them multiple times.

So I open the box and there’s like 50 pieces to it! And 3 manuals. One for the setup, one for the toothbrush itself, and one for this gadget that’s like…well, I’m not sure. A GPS unit?

The manual says it will monitor optimal brushing pressure, time how long I brush (which actually would be quite useful, as my concept of time goes out the window at night when I just want to hit the pillow), and locate hidden planets in the atmosphere.

It took me about 20 minutes to set up the actual toothbrush and I am ashamed to admit the extra part sits in the original bag, so afraid I am of somehow rendering the whole thing useless by attaching it.

What do you think? Are machines running or ruining our lives? Or am I just turning into a Luddite in my 30s?