Tuesday, November 06, 2007

the magic talking box in my living room

The Mathematician moved in with me several months ago. With him he brought vast amounts of really expensive recording gear (see #3 of Six Things to Know About Me in Bullets). This gear is not just designer jeans expensive. It's Prada bag expensive. And some pieces of it are certified pre-owned compact car expensive. I do not understand what many of these gadgets do, and because they are so expensive, I am afraid to touch most of them.

In addition to owning lots of expensive recording gear, we are now the proud owners of a really big, marginally expensive high definition monitor. Once the Mathematician purchases the uber-computer he has been designing in his mind for months, it and all of his recording gear will become one with the aforementioned monitor, and just like that, my living room will double as a semi-professional recording studio. For now, the HD monitor simply functions as a TV. It does a great job in that role! We watched the Sox win the Pennant & the World Series on it, and it looked like they were right there in the living room with us.

Last night, while I should have been working on my book or perhaps organizing all of the small details I have to coordinate in honor of the Mathematician's birthday next Tuesday, I decided I should watch a little TV. Since I'm a cookbook publicist it counts as work if I watch the Food Network, right? The Secret Life of...here I come. Remote control in one hand, dinner in the other, I hunkered down on the couch for what I hoped would be a blissful hour of vegetation.

Then I realized I had never turned our 'television' on by myself.

Uhh...there's two remotes here. Am I supposed to use this one, the one that says Universal Remote? Or that one, the small gray one?

And how am I supposed to turn this monitor thingy on?


And which piece of gear needs to be on for this to work? The one with the enormous buttons on it that twist like a volume button? Or that one, with all the switches?

I pushed every "ON" button I could find. I tried different combinations. I turned things that seemed "ON" "OFF", then back "ON" again. All to no avail.

After a few minutes of staring at that lifeless gray screen, I returned to the kitchen to eat my dinner, book in hand.

Looks like the only vegetation I'll be encountering tonight is my beet salad.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

While I entirely sympathize with your plight, 2 romotes, my dear is next to nothing! Have you ever seen my coffee table? It has taken me 2 years to learn how to turn on my TV, but G-d forbid I should want to watch a DVD. I have no freaking clue how to even turn the thing on, let alone the difference between an HD DVD and a blueray. Boys!

:-) Shanna

Kitty said...

You so have me beat!!! When did blueray happen? I was just getting used to the idea of "HD"!