I now have an Echo

Occasionally, I list the things that a successful baby boomer should have in his possession. The last time I wrote on this topic I announced that I was catching up with my peers, I even had a Roomba, albeit an old one,  but still lacked the latest thing, an Echo.

Like a lot of my peers I viewed Alexa as creepy and something that I certainly did not need. Recently though, I have been doing chores in the kitchen and wished I could listen to pod casts while cooking or washing clothes,  as well as  have access to more radio stations than my vintage clock radio provided.

Last week I got a birthday present from a distant relative, and what should it contain but, an Echo!👲 I am now up to date (I still don't have an ex wife and a daughter with a summer place but you can't have everything). I now have a friend I can talk to who lives in my kitchen.

To be honest, at sixty dollars, it is a bargain. I understand it is a loss leader to sell more products, but even if you just use the free stuff it is useful. I can now say, "Alexa, play the Slate political gabfest" and it will. I can ask to play a radio station and it does. I can set a time alarm, find the weather, get a new Spanish word for the day, hear the Dow average, and get a recipe for Mince pie. It doesn't have a large music library unless you pay extra, but if you have ordered music from Amazon over the years it will play songs from those purchases.

I have to admit it feels creepy talking to the thing, a man alone in the kitchen talking to his new friend. I guess I can say it added a new skill to my resume. Supervising an artificial  friend.

Editor's note: No I don't have Spotify  but that is permissible for a baby boomer, if not for someone under 50.

Is it by Churchill or will I have to sell my uncles farm in Normandy?

Netscape has a tendency to thrust on us unfunny comedy specials, silly millennial sitcoms and schmaltzy Christmas specials.  Still, by searching through the caverns of its fare, one can occasionally find an obscure show that is good for a few laughs.

My latest find is the very British "Fake or Fortune". It shows how a painting's provenance is analyzed using high technology, talking to families associated with the history of the work, and listening to the opinions of art specialists. The specialists criticized one Churchill work by noting that the Prime Minister sucked at drawing people and that the  people in the painting in question are too well executed.

The thing I like most about the show is when they interview people who have some connection to the work. Here we are given a rare look at the gentry of England with their posh accents,  living in genteel poverty in grand castles with bad plumbing.

Fiona will ask Philip "Oh dear perhaps if we could meet the daughter of the Earl of Thwickham they could tell us if the painting was in their uncle's will." Then we go to a beautiful room with chandeliers and Chippendales (but I suspect poor wireless) and get to meet  a dear eighty year old woman who sadly tells us that the wills were destroyed in the fire of 1949.

In an attempt to add drama to the story, our hearts are usually tugged at by the news that if the painting is real the owners will be able to salvage the horse farm in Sussex or bring the castle up to code. We are made to really feel for old moneyed Britishers whose lives will be so much better if only they can prove that the Monet in their possession is the real McCoy.

Editor's note: Sorry for all the Netflix reviews. I need to get out more. Now they are trying to get me to watch a Christmas show in German with subtitles. Fake or Fortune is also on YouTube.

How America ruined England

I've been happily advancing through season 3 of the Crown. Like most Americans, I find the trials of tribulations of Britain to be entertaining and satisfying, perhaps even more than our tawdry history here in the colonies. Sadly if unintentionally, many of the problems that appear in the Crown can be traced to America. Episode after episode shows how the glory that was Britannia has been laid low by the influence of those ruffians across the Atlantic.

Wallis Simpson, an American, is the first person to try to take the Royals away from their mission by stealing their future king. Then the Americans had to come in and win the war against the Nazi's, much to olde Winston's chagrin. Then, hat in hand, they had to beg America for money and used dear Lady Margaret to lure it out of the hands of that awful American president from Texas.

Prince Philip gave an embarrassing interview on the American TV show, Meet the Press, and caused much consternation at Buckingham Palace. Harold Wilson happily is shown destroying the small town commerce of Britain by opening an American style supermarket.

Today, beyond the scope of the Crown, the indignities continue. We have an American TV star married to a prince. We have dear Prince Andrew brought down by an American businessman and purveyor of underage delicacies. If only the Americans had kept their rock and roll, Walmarts, and other corrupting  influences on their side of the Atlantic, Britain would be much happier than it is today.

Quid Pro Quo

If there is one good thing that has come out of the Impeachment hearings, it's that all of us now know what "Quid Pro Quo" means. I'm waiting for someone to name a bar after the term, perhaps in a place frequented by lawyers.

Truthfully, we all live by quid pro quo everyday. We get something we want in return for something we reluctantly give. Our parents want us to go to Aunt Clara and Uncle Ben's 50th wedding anniversary. We see how we can use this to our advantage and the next thing you know we have borrowed the boat for the weekend.

Our son is complaining about needing a new pair of sneakers. We get him to agree to go to Aunt Bertha's house for her birthday. The son gets his sneakers and Aunt Bertha gets to see her favourite nephew. Quid pro Quo.

Our boss wants us to go to a meeting. We don't want to go. Our boss lets us take the day after Thanksgiving off. We go to the meeting. Quid pro Quo.

Unfulfilled quid pro quo can get a bit murky. Is it quid pro quo if the kid gets the sneakers and then gets a cold on the birthday of dear Aunt Bertha?  Our girlfriend wants  us to visit her parents, we go, but that night  she cuts off our sexual advances. That is thwarted quid pro quo. Sine qua non? 

California and the American dream

Northern California, as well as the Los Angeles area are experiencing the twin disasters of fire and power outages. They say that things always happen first in California and it looks like the damage from climate warming are coming there first.

Among my friends at college, the general view of where to move after college was decidedly in favor of California, or at least, the west. "F--k New Jersey" they all said. "I'm getting out of here to where the chicks are good looking and the air is clean. California is where I'm heading." Moving to Califiornia has always been the American dream.  I know there's an old expression, be careful of what you wish for.

Shameless

I know I'm eight years behind, but I've just finished season 1 of Shameless am quite impressed. It's a show about the real America as lived by a family of con artists in a snow filled Chicago. The leader of the clan, Frank Gallagher, is living the American dream of having family members work for him while he hangs out in bars and collects disability insurance.

What a great show. I'm sure it goes downhill from the first season but I am having a swell time. Here's a sociologist interpretation of the show. Now on Netflix.

The $1500 frozen pizza

It was a rainy afternoon and I had been driving all day and I felt like a beer. I drove into a friendly looking bar and ordered a brew. Next to me was an older man with a golf hat on and a smile to his face. He looked at me and said, "The last frozen pizza I made cost me $1500."

I suspected I was about to hear a story. I turned off my cellphone, sipped my beer and said, "Really, how did that come to be?"

"I was a chilly night and I was too lazy to cook. Instead I took a frozen pizza out of the fridge and put it in the oven. My oven only has a top burner because the bottom one is broke. I turned it on and to my surprise, for the first time in years both burners worked and the oven got nice and toasty.

" After ten minutes I could smell the pizza but I hear a sort of sizzling sound. I opened the oven and it was full of black smoke. The pizza was done but apparently, so was the oven.

"I went to PC Richards and picked out a Samsung oven that would match my TV and cell phone. The lady said, "we'll install the oven if it has a plug.

" My set up is the old fashioned kind that has a wire going from the oven to the wall.

"Sorry, but you need a 40 amp plug. Call an electrician and have him put in a wall plug and I'll order the oven.

"The electrician came and said he could install a plug on the back wall but only if I got rid of the old oven first, since he needed the area to work. I went onto Nextdoor and found a guy who hauled old electronic equipment. He was an organic farmer and hauled stuff with his son and truck for extra income. He was late coming over because his pet turtle escaped and he had to find him.

"The electrician came back and put in the new wall plug, but let it loose against the wall. When the PC Richards guy came he drove a hole in the wall and put the plug there, giving me an extra two inches of space so the oven could go flush against the wall.

"Finally I had a new oven with timer gizmos, a convection oven, a warming tray and other stuff I don't know how to use. The oven heated up the place so much I needed to turn on the air conditioner. That's when I noticed the air conditioner didn't work.

"I changed the battery in the thermostat but I still got no results when I turned on the fan, the air or the heat. Finally I called the air conditioning guy."

My new friend sipped his beer and the bartender winked at me. "He's been telling that story all week. Anyway I make better pizza here than he can make at home."

"Anyhow" the storyteller continued, "the air conditioning guys checked the thermostat and found out  it wasn't  getting any power. They checked the air handler and found out it wasn't getting any power either. They monkeyed around with my fuse box. Finally there was an a - ha moment. The switch in the air handler was frozen. Apparently when I first shorted out the oven, it blew the fuse in the air handler and burned the switch.

"The air conditioning guys charged me two hundred and fifty dollars for the service call." The cost of that, the hauler, the electrician and the oven cost me fifteen hundred dollars."

"So, after all that, how was the pizza?" I asked.

"I over cooked it. I guess I got to get used to the new oven."

I finished my beer and got ready to leave. By now the bar was filling up and so was the highway.

Editor's note: Now that I reconciled my checking account I see that they only charged me $150 for fixing the air handler.