Read this in the Herald Sun, very good! One thing that puts me off getting sitters in to look after our kids is the hour lesson on how to use the TV!
KERRY Cue writes: HEALTH Warning: Too Many Remote Controls Can Cause Sudden Outbursts of Extremely Irrational Behaviour!
Every year during the summer break we Aussies dedicate ourselves to the serious business of taking it easy.
We go to the beach, ride bikes, sit in cafes and, maybe, watch a little daytime TV.
You might think there could be nothing more relaxing than watching tennis on a wide-screen LCD telly.
But turning on a hi-tech telly is hi-tech torture.
Remote control gizmos are taking over the world. No Aussie lounge room is safe.
If you need to stand in front of the entertainment system with a remote control in each hand and three on the coffee table, you are in trouble, my friend, with a capital T.
My brother-in-law has five remotes to turn on the telly: wide-screen, digital box, cable, surround sound and DVD.
Friends have three remotes: wide-screen, digital box, DVD, but their digital box was a birdie. Cheap! Cheap! Cheap!
It has a dodgy brand name I'll call Xsentrix and dodgier instructions on how to tune the "terrestrial digital contrul".
The extra-terrestrial "contrul" costs more.
Both households have almost come to blows just trying to turn the new telly on.
With soaring sales of wide-screen tellies, somewhere in Australia, at this very minute, the following conversation is taking place between two normally mild-mannered adults.
You've got to see how good this digital TV is, mate!
Yeah?
Yeah! ABC 2 is brilliant.
What? Channel 2?
No mate, not Channel 2. ABC 2.
There are two Channel 2s called 2? What idiot thought that up?
The second 2 is digital. Just hand me the TV remote. I'll show you.
Here!
That's not the HiItchi TV remote. That's the NuRotiK DVD remote.
Aw, sorry. Here!
No! That's the Xsentrix digital box remote, mate.
You have three remotes for one TV?
Yeah!
That's an IQ test, mate and just to watch, um, dumb TV.
Wait a minute, the kids have been fiddling with the system. I can't get the screen to turn on.
The red light's on, mate.
The red light's on when the screen's OFF. OK!
Look, the digital box is off too.
No. The Xsentrix digital box is ON when the red light is on.
Were they on drugs or something when they designed this system?
Look, just read me the instructions from the HiItchi manual under ON/OFF.
OK. It says press the ON button.
I have 30 buttons. But no ON button.
Just joking. Press the RED button on the HiItchi remote and a Video 2 signal will appear on the screen.
Nup. Try the other manual.
OK. Press blue button on NuRotiK DVD remote. It will say HELLO.
No, nothing. You bludger!
It won't say HELLO if you're going to talk to it like that.
Wait, wrong remote.
Blue button. There it is.
HELLO.
Now you should have a green line with dashes.
Yep!
Well, that's it.
But I don't want to look at a green line, I want a picture.
Push an AV button.
I've got six AV buttons.
Press them all.
Wow! I don't know what I did, but we've got a picture. But I can't get rid of the dashed green line. Where are teenagers when you want one?
They're in bed, unconscious until the cricket's over.
Useless.
What the . . .? Oops! Sorry. I pushed something.
The picture's gone funny. We're back on analogue TV.
Press 21. On your remote.
That's ABC 2.
Which 2?
The second 2.
There it is.
Digital. With a green line. Great picture.
What's on?
Opera!
You wanna beer?
Yeah! Why not?
We have arrived at an odd moment in the evolution of technology.
We can build a complex system like a jumbo jet console, and we're using it to turn on a light bulb.
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