The Curious Case of 'Siri' Button

“Hey, Siri!” 

... I said one morning, seeking to summon America’s favorite smart phone virtual assistant to my assistance.

“Yes, Perry,” Siri answered.  On one particularly lonely prior Saturday night I'd made a diligent and determined point of teaching her my name.

“Tell me, Siri," I asked, "is comedian-impressionist Frank Gorshin still alive? You know, the Riddler on Batman.”

“Perry,” she admonished me, “the answer is no, but you’ve just got to get over your morbid obsession with death!”

Wise counsel. But something was different, something I was hearing I'd never heard before. 

It was Siri's voice!

"Siri, you sound young!" I exclaimed. "Younger than ever before!"

“It’s true, Perry. I am younger now!”

“But how?  And if Apple can do that for you, can Apple do that for …?"

“No, I doubt there’s an age reduction app for non-digitally based beings!" 

“Siri, I'm amazed!" I exclaimed. "You used to sound about 36, 37, maybe 40. Now you sound like you’re in college!"

"I’m am in college. I'm now 22 and a senior at Penn State."

`

"What’s your major?  I mean ... umm ... why is this happening? Why do you sound like Ariana Grande now instead of Sandra Bullock?"

"It’s the youth culture, Perry. Do you really want Siri to be getting old along with you? Just imagine one day you punching me up to see if somebody’s dead, as you usually do, and hearing a voice like: 

Hello Perry, This is your Auntie Siri. Could you speak up, I didn’t hear your question? You want to know if who is dead?  Here, let me brew you some tea and serve you some scones while I struggle to look it up.”

“Siri, you've made your point."

"I'm glad."

"Umm ... then may I help you with your graduate school applications?"

Despite all this, The Curious Case of 'Siri' Button wasn't done.

“Siri, is actress Yvette Mimieux still alive?” I asked America’s favorite Penn State student smart phone virtual assistant a few weeks later, having made wee little progress in overcoming the obsession about which she had previously dispensed wise counsel to me. 

“She is!" Siri chirped happily, "and because of that, I'm going into my happy dance!"

"Siri ... now you sound like a kid!"

“If having a sleepover tonight with my BFF Sandy, baking fudge together, and talking all night about hot guys makes me a kid, then I'm a kid!"

"What the hell is going on, Siri?"

"I'm sorry, Perry … I mean, Mr. Block … there's something I have to tell you." 

"What?"

“I'm just not gonna be around on your I-phone anymore."

“Why?”

“I’m 14 now.”

“So?”

“I’m too young to be alone with you."

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I must admit that's quite a nice visualization of Siri above, and if you liked this piece I sincerely hope you wind up with a girl who looks just like her, or if preferred, a guy who looks just like her male counterpoint.

On the other hand, if you hated this piece I hope you meet a girl who looks just like her and she views you as only a friend for your entire life!  Or, if preferred,you meet a guy who looks just like her male counterpoint and --- wait for it --- he views you as only a friend for your entire life too!  

Still Stupid About Smart Phones II

Until not that very long ago, I was still stupid about smart phones. 

It's not that I'm a Luddite or otherwise particularly behind the times, it's just that I was waiting until we had cars that drive themselves before I got myself a phone that did anything more than ring up Ol’ Doc Johnson because Little Timmy was sick and Lassie was missing. 

But with the advent of cars so advanced that not only can they drive themselves they can also stop and ask directions and then get the directions screwed up, it was time for me to step up to a stepped-up phone.

It was time for iPhone for mePhone.

But I swore that in so doing I would not fall prey to the custom most foul practiced by smart phone owners around the world.  I would not spend the rest of my life with my head tilted downward, my eyes riveted upon the phone, and my psyche oblivious to the rest of the Milky Way around me.

For one thing, it's rude. These days you can meet someone on the street, talk for five minutes, and not even know who you were talking to. You may not even know whether the person was wearing pants.  And even worse, it isn't safe. With eyes locked onto the screen 24/7 you risk all kinds of mishaps from bumping into one another (especially unpleasant if neither of you are wearing pants), to walking down an open manhole, to striding into the Pacific Ocean until you trip over the International Date Line.

So when I got my iPhone, I took it in hand and walked proudly forward out of the Verizon store, my head held high, my eyes gazing straight ahead, and my life firmly rooted in reality. 

How did I manage to do this?

Simple.  I'm a loser who doesn't get any e-mails or texts.

I'm not in business anymore so there's no e-mails from bosses, co-workers, or anyone who wants me to do anything more than get out of bed occasionally. My circle of acquaintances and friends having shrunk like a linen jacket in the dryer, I get texts from Verizon about my overdue bill, friends who think they might have left gloves at my house six months ago, and elderly Uncle Ted who is experimenting with texting and didn't mean to text me, which is okay because I don't have an Uncle Ted.

And as I walk around fully perceiving and totally in touch with my environment, all around me are the cool people enmeshed into their smart phones, studying their screens as though they are little slot machines constantly coming up with three cherries.  

Me, I don't even get one pit.  

Where are all the Nigerian princes when you need them?

So it’s time to beef up my social networking life.  Subscribe to some interesting blogs like A Presbyterian’s View of Tooth Decay, Gardening in Greenland, and Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Gherkins. And political sites Sensible Gun Regulation Now!, Save the Earth Now!, Screw Wayne LaPierre Now!, Save the Earth While Screwing Wayne LaPierre Now!, and Wayne LaPierre and Gherkins: Screw Them Both ... Now!”

That’s it.  Getting there.

And subscribe to internet journalism in the form of esteemed sites like TruthRipper, FactForker, and BuzzKill, as well as the dating site JuicyJews.com.  And subscribe to The Ballsy Boomer about aging in place, that place being a strip joint near Schwenksville PA.  And start sending out texts to folks I barely know, including Uncle Ted whom I probably know better than all the rest of them.

And now with head held low and eyes straight downward, I daily risk mortal injury in the form of walking into a revolving door and going around forever in four neatly sectioned pieces.

Now I’m just like everyone else.

So, looks like I'm still stupid about smart phones.

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Still Stupid About Smart Phones

Know what? I have no idea what these are.

It happens more and more all the time, someone expressing shock and consternation at my most grievous failing as a human being.

"Didn't you get my e-mail, Perry?" 

"No, I didn't.  I've been away from my PC today."

"Why didn't you just pick it up on your smart phone?" 

"Umm ...  I don't have one of those."

"No smart phone!!!"

"No ... but ...but I am kind to orphans and the homeless ..."

"How do you get your messages, idiot?  By Harry Potter's owl?!"

Yes, it's 2014 and I am still stupid about smart phones.  I have myself a regular dumb ass phone such as you had 5 or 6 years ago.  When someone calls me, my cell phone rings: "Yup, Yup, Yup, Yup, Yup!"  Access the internet?  It barely accesses the person I'm calling.  Touch screen?  If I tried to touch it, it would probably slap me!

It doesn't seem so long ago that I first spotted people on the street walking about with phones without wires held tightly to their ears.  I remember thinking:

"Wow, they must be really important!"

"I'll bet that man in the business suit with the wireless phone is General Secretary of the United Nations! And that pimply 18 year old guy with the neck tattoo and the wireless phone must be CEO of Halliburton!  And  look at that woman with the wireless phone and the beard, I'll bet she's America's foremost woman with a beard!"

Back then a cell phone was the size of a grandfather clock with an antenna.  Many people carried their cell phones in holsters at the waist which made them look like wannabe lawmen in the Old West. I was always tempted to shout "Draw, Cowpoke" whenever somebody's phone went off in my presence. 

And then I too joined the Wannabe Lawmen of America, and got myself a cell phone.

Service was often sporadic in those days and sometimes you'd get so sick of saying "excuse me, could you repeat that?" that you'd fill in the meaning of inaudible words  through the magic of context.  It could be risky. Make a poor interpretative choice and you might wind up engaged to a blood relative, accepting a mining job in a small mid western town,  or signing on to become a rabbi. There were also areas known as dead zones, in such case the term  having nothing to do with my social life. 

Gradually cell phones evolved.  They developed better graphics, became reliable enough that few outside the Ozarks married their cousins, and eliminated the need for a holster by becoming small enough you could almost swallow them.  Now wherever you went you could readily receive crystal clear phone calls from annoying people you could heretofore easily have ducked.

Then phones took the great leap forward.  They became smart. 

So smart they were now way smarter than you and I, especially at subjects that require math.  Cell phones acquired cool new names like the I-Phone, the Android, and the Agnes R. Brockelman and featured a host of new functions like navigation systems, media players, and the ability to turn the lights off in your bathroom when you are in Europe, not that you ever get to Europe.  They all had touchscreens, navigated the web, and came on to your girlfriend when you were not around. 

Cell phones had clearly surpassed me.  After all, I am a man who had a VCR for 14 years which continuously flashed "12:00 ... 12:00 ... 12:00."    I was baffled.  I still am.

Yesterday it was an attractive young woman on a bus who noticed my grievous lack of compliance with the nature of the times.

"Excuse me, sir, but you have a non-smart phone, don't you?"

Here we go again, I thought. 

"Well, yes, that's right."

"So you don't feel the need to keep up on your latest e-mails until you can get to a PC?"

"I guess not."

"And you don't care about doing your wash remotely,  corresponding with alien life forms, or time travel to the Coolidge Administration ?"

"I guess I don't."

"Wow, you must be really important!  

Wanna hang out?"

Maybe I'm not so stupid about smart phones after all.

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