We got a got a voice directed operation system vcr from the Goodwill tonight.
and then.....
Mike: "VCR SET CLOCK!"
Mike: "hmm...." (changes channel on the tv, and we get that amazing white snow we haven't seen since the '90s)
VCR: Displays "Hello" but says nothing.
Mike: pushes a lot of buttons, and announces that we need to set it to mono mode.
...
puts in a tape, and it plays with a lot of hissing and tracking issues.
VCR: Displays "Alarm" but says nothing
Mike: "VCR PLAY!"
it actually starts playing!
Me: oh my god, did it actually work?
Mike: No, I hit the button.
He then tries to rewind it, and discovers it was at the beginning... then:
Mike: "VCR PLAY! PLAY THE MOVIE! CHRISSY!..."
Me: What?!
Mike: "It's not listening to me!"
so then he takes out his phone and....
Mike: (in his special voice reserved for telling his phone what to do): "GOOGLE: VOICE DIRECTED OPERATING SYSTEM!"
a few minutes later he tells me that our new vcr got 3 out of 5 stars rating.
we are now watching some old episodes of The Muppets on vhs. tracking issues resolved, but no luck getting the voice directed business to work.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Sunday, June 23, 2013
The Mike Stories, Pt. 50
It recently came to my attention that I had not yet posted about Mike's Lie Box.
Circa December 2008, Mike and I found ourselves discussing his lies, and where he must keep them all. I guessed that he must have a "lie box" for them... and it became a funny inside joke. I told him that I was going to give him a lie box for Christmas. He didn't believe me. Between then and Christmas he would periodically ask me what I was giving him for Christmas - and my answer was consistently "a lie box." He thought I was being cheeky right up until Christmas day.
Below is the e-mail that I send out to everyone I had an e-mail address for:
Dear friends & family,
I'm writing because I need your help with a unique project... I am making a "lie box" for Mike, for Christmas. I'll explain: Sometimes Mike "accidentally" tells lies (most commonly, I'll ask him where he put something, and he'll tell me that he "hasn't seen it in months"... then I'll find it sitting right next to him)... So I was joking with him the other day that he must have a "lie box" to keep all of his lies in... I told him it must be like a toy box, except he keeps lies in it instead of toys. After brainstorming with him for a while about what a "lie box" might be - we decided it would be a smaller box, and everyone's lies could be written on pieces of paper and kept inside - and Mike thought it could even be turned into a game somehow. I jokingly told him I would give him one for Christmas...
...so that's where your help comes in handy! I think it would be fun to actually make a "lie box" for him for Christmas, and put some actual lies in there that people have told. I'll print them out on nice paper and have them laminated... who knows - maybe it really will become a game you can play when you visit us at our new house. ;)
if you'd like to help - please send me the most interesting/funny/etc. lies that you have ever told (I don't need the stories behind them - just the lies themselves). They will go in the box, right along with Mike's infamous "I haven't seen it in months"!
Thank you for your lies ;)
Chrissy
---
After that, e-mails rolled in daily, detailing some of the best lies my friends and family had ever told. Some were naughty, some were kind of evil, and most were hysterically funny. I printed each one up on a separate card, and had them laminated. They now reside in a fancy metal box. In 2011 I did an update to the lie box, including some new lies from a smaller group of friends. The request in 2011 didn't elicit nearly the volume of replies that the original request did.
Mike has been tinkering with the idea of creating a website for the Lie Box since 2008. Sharing these incredible lies is irresistible.
so... what's your best lie?
Circa December 2008, Mike and I found ourselves discussing his lies, and where he must keep them all. I guessed that he must have a "lie box" for them... and it became a funny inside joke. I told him that I was going to give him a lie box for Christmas. He didn't believe me. Between then and Christmas he would periodically ask me what I was giving him for Christmas - and my answer was consistently "a lie box." He thought I was being cheeky right up until Christmas day.
Below is the e-mail that I send out to everyone I had an e-mail address for:
Dear friends & family,
I'm writing because I need your help with a unique project... I am making a "lie box" for Mike, for Christmas. I'll explain: Sometimes Mike "accidentally" tells lies (most commonly, I'll ask him where he put something, and he'll tell me that he "hasn't seen it in months"... then I'll find it sitting right next to him)... So I was joking with him the other day that he must have a "lie box" to keep all of his lies in... I told him it must be like a toy box, except he keeps lies in it instead of toys. After brainstorming with him for a while about what a "lie box" might be - we decided it would be a smaller box, and everyone's lies could be written on pieces of paper and kept inside - and Mike thought it could even be turned into a game somehow. I jokingly told him I would give him one for Christmas...
...so that's where your help comes in handy! I think it would be fun to actually make a "lie box" for him for Christmas, and put some actual lies in there that people have told. I'll print them out on nice paper and have them laminated... who knows - maybe it really will become a game you can play when you visit us at our new house. ;)
if you'd like to help - please send me the most interesting/funny/etc. lies that you have ever told (I don't need the stories behind them - just the lies themselves). They will go in the box, right along with Mike's infamous "I haven't seen it in months"!
Thank you for your lies ;)
Chrissy
---
After that, e-mails rolled in daily, detailing some of the best lies my friends and family had ever told. Some were naughty, some were kind of evil, and most were hysterically funny. I printed each one up on a separate card, and had them laminated. They now reside in a fancy metal box. In 2011 I did an update to the lie box, including some new lies from a smaller group of friends. The request in 2011 didn't elicit nearly the volume of replies that the original request did.
Mike has been tinkering with the idea of creating a website for the Lie Box since 2008. Sharing these incredible lies is irresistible.
so... what's your best lie?
The Mike Stories, Pt. 49
Mike has a terrible sense of direction. Even with GPS navigation, his talent for getting lost is astounding. To help him deal with this problem, he has been looking for a new app for his phone. He wants one that we can both install, so he can "find me" when we're separated and trying to find one another (as recently happened at Marymoor Park).
The first app Mike downloaded worked like an interactive map, and you could add friends to your circle and see where they were if they had their app running. It also showed you where registered sex offenders lived. You could touch their little house icons on the map, and it would pull up their photo with a description of what they had been convicted of. All of this creeped Mike out. Personally I found it useful. I like knowing where those bastards live, and knowing what they look like - so I can actively avoid them! Mike, though, was determined to find a different app.
Today Mike told me about a new app he had downloaded. So far he seems to love this one. He says it's like interactive GPS where it gets feedback from other users about how fast various routes actually are, you can post an alert when you notice a cop hiding out to catch speeders... and according to true Mike fashion, he told me all of this (and attempted to show me most of it) while driving. I reminded him several times that he shouldn't be playing with his phone while driving (you can get a traffic ticket for that in our state).
After a couple of minutes of quiet in the car, Mike suddenly tells me "There's a ninja coming up!" I gave him a look, and asked "a ninja?" ....at which point he held up his phone and showed me, saying "yes! a ninja! see!" (it was somebody's user icon, which happened to look like a ninja) - the "ninja" had a name - Steve, or something. I don't remember. Apparently Steve the Ninja was another driver who was also using the app, also driving on I-5. I asked him why on earth he needed to know who else was driving on the same road as him. He told me:
"In case you want to chat them up, like the old school ham radios. 'Breaker Breaker - hey buddy, what's up? Breaker Breaker Over'"
(I suspect that's not actually how one would speak on a ham radio?) ....but it seems that his new app does have a feature that would allow you to send a voice message to the other drivers.
so I asked him the obvious - "what is this? a new strategy for making friends?" - which he seemed to think was a good idea.
Personally I'd rather know where sex offenders live than try to befriend strangers on my morning commute.
The first app Mike downloaded worked like an interactive map, and you could add friends to your circle and see where they were if they had their app running. It also showed you where registered sex offenders lived. You could touch their little house icons on the map, and it would pull up their photo with a description of what they had been convicted of. All of this creeped Mike out. Personally I found it useful. I like knowing where those bastards live, and knowing what they look like - so I can actively avoid them! Mike, though, was determined to find a different app.
Today Mike told me about a new app he had downloaded. So far he seems to love this one. He says it's like interactive GPS where it gets feedback from other users about how fast various routes actually are, you can post an alert when you notice a cop hiding out to catch speeders... and according to true Mike fashion, he told me all of this (and attempted to show me most of it) while driving. I reminded him several times that he shouldn't be playing with his phone while driving (you can get a traffic ticket for that in our state).
After a couple of minutes of quiet in the car, Mike suddenly tells me "There's a ninja coming up!" I gave him a look, and asked "a ninja?" ....at which point he held up his phone and showed me, saying "yes! a ninja! see!" (it was somebody's user icon, which happened to look like a ninja) - the "ninja" had a name - Steve, or something. I don't remember. Apparently Steve the Ninja was another driver who was also using the app, also driving on I-5. I asked him why on earth he needed to know who else was driving on the same road as him. He told me:
"In case you want to chat them up, like the old school ham radios. 'Breaker Breaker - hey buddy, what's up? Breaker Breaker Over'"
(I suspect that's not actually how one would speak on a ham radio?) ....but it seems that his new app does have a feature that would allow you to send a voice message to the other drivers.
so I asked him the obvious - "what is this? a new strategy for making friends?" - which he seemed to think was a good idea.
Personally I'd rather know where sex offenders live than try to befriend strangers on my morning commute.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
The Mike Stories, Pt. 48
Mike and I were enjoying a quiet evening at home, relaxing and watching British comedies, when all of the sudden....
B O O M !
something LOUD fell in the other room. Morpheus was with us when it happened, so we knew he didn't do it. so initially we assumed a cat must be to blame. wrong.
the real culprit? Mike. (what did you expect?)
Mike recently made a batch of beer and bottled it. He was worried that it might not produce any carbonation in the bottles. He opened one about a week ago, though, that had produce a nice amount of carbonation. Tonight he put a couple in the front room, ready to take one to his buddy tomorrow. That one exploded. And not just blew the cap off - the bottle literally exploded. The piece that's left looks like Mike's ready for a bar fight. And now there is now beer all over the room - floors, walls - everything. What Mike is really doing is making beer bombs. (want one?)
B O O M !
something LOUD fell in the other room. Morpheus was with us when it happened, so we knew he didn't do it. so initially we assumed a cat must be to blame. wrong.
the real culprit? Mike. (what did you expect?)
Mike recently made a batch of beer and bottled it. He was worried that it might not produce any carbonation in the bottles. He opened one about a week ago, though, that had produce a nice amount of carbonation. Tonight he put a couple in the front room, ready to take one to his buddy tomorrow. That one exploded. And not just blew the cap off - the bottle literally exploded. The piece that's left looks like Mike's ready for a bar fight. And now there is now beer all over the room - floors, walls - everything. What Mike is really doing is making beer bombs. (want one?)
Friday, March 15, 2013
The Mike Stories, Pt. 47
Me: since you won't go and get cookies for me, i'm going to go and get some myself!
Mike: Where are you going?
Me: To the bar!
Mike: What?!!
Me: I'm going to Safeway - where do you think I'm going? Duh!
Mike: Will you get something for me?
Me: like what?
Mike: Well, actually I want two things. Krill oil...
Me: ok...
Mike: and Bud Light Lime
Me: .....um... I may go to the store in my pajamas sometimes, but I will not be seen buying Bud Light! No way!
Mike: You have standards
Me: That one totally crosses the line! Not gonna happen!
....I got him this instead:
Mike: Where are you going?
Me: To the bar!
Mike: What?!!
Me: I'm going to Safeway - where do you think I'm going? Duh!
Mike: Will you get something for me?
Me: like what?
Mike: Well, actually I want two things. Krill oil...
Me: ok...
Mike: and Bud Light Lime
Me: .....um... I may go to the store in my pajamas sometimes, but I will not be seen buying Bud Light! No way!
Mike: You have standards
Me: That one totally crosses the line! Not gonna happen!
....I got him this instead:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)