Ruby Tuesday
Well, I've actually got an interview at noon, so I'd better bang this out pronto so that I can take my time getting ready. (It's been so long since I've gotten ready for work that I might forget an important step.)
Well, today I continue my salute to Laze-Inducing Inventions. Next up:
2. The Television Remote Control
I know I've said this before, but as the youngest child in a family growing up in the 70's I effectively was the channel changer for about a decade of my life. My sisters thought nothing of punching me until I got up and changed the channel, and I of course had to stay by the television until they decided on a program they liked, or there'd be heck to pay when I went to sit down again. In a funny way, I guess I was their energy-saving device.
As a channel monkey I would also be in charge of getting the station to come in as clear as possible (this was before cable, children). This involved moving the aerial around until the station stopped squiggling around and being fuzzy. Of course, every one of us knew that the picture would come in clear as a bell as long as we held onto the aerial and stood to the side with our leg in the air, but as soon as we'd go to sit down it would go back to the white-noised mess it was before.
And then... In the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Four something wonderful happened. My mom finally caved and installed glorious cable television (withOUT the porn channels, though. I'd still have to go to my friend's house for that.) The really wonderful thing about it was that it came with a... a... *sniff* remote control. Of course, my sisters had moved out of the house by then, but I had grown into a lazy teen myself, and it was still a glorious, glorious time to be alive.
Sure, it was still connected by a cord to the box on the television, but it was just about long enough to reach our couch. All one had to do was to strain on the edge of the cushions with arms outstretched to reach the magic "clicker", as we called it, and pretend that we were relaxing in comfort as we changed back and forth from The Beastmaster to a documentary on World War II to The Cosby Show to the Parliament Channel. Also, you still had to get up to adjust the volume. But it was wonderful nonetheless.
Over the years remote controls have changed. They've converted over from great big round dials to giant clicky buttons to smaller, more wieldy buttons; from consoles as big as a binder to sleek beautiful wands that are easily misplaced and broken. Remote controls freed a generation of child slaves from channel changery, made advertisers renegotiate their contracts with the devil in order to get and keep our attention, but most importantly, saved people from the mental strain of staring at a thing intently for long minutes to see if they could use telekinesis on an object far away.
The clicker, the changer, the converter... Call it what you may, but the remote control has forever changed our lives and enlazened us to a massive degree. Just witness the panic that is induced when one goes missing. Thank you, remote control inventors. Without your vision heart disease and thunder-thighism would not be what they are today.
Well, today I continue my salute to Laze-Inducing Inventions. Next up:
2. The Television Remote Control
I know I've said this before, but as the youngest child in a family growing up in the 70's I effectively was the channel changer for about a decade of my life. My sisters thought nothing of punching me until I got up and changed the channel, and I of course had to stay by the television until they decided on a program they liked, or there'd be heck to pay when I went to sit down again. In a funny way, I guess I was their energy-saving device.
As a channel monkey I would also be in charge of getting the station to come in as clear as possible (this was before cable, children). This involved moving the aerial around until the station stopped squiggling around and being fuzzy. Of course, every one of us knew that the picture would come in clear as a bell as long as we held onto the aerial and stood to the side with our leg in the air, but as soon as we'd go to sit down it would go back to the white-noised mess it was before.
And then... In the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Four something wonderful happened. My mom finally caved and installed glorious cable television (withOUT the porn channels, though. I'd still have to go to my friend's house for that.) The really wonderful thing about it was that it came with a... a... *sniff* remote control. Of course, my sisters had moved out of the house by then, but I had grown into a lazy teen myself, and it was still a glorious, glorious time to be alive.
Sure, it was still connected by a cord to the box on the television, but it was just about long enough to reach our couch. All one had to do was to strain on the edge of the cushions with arms outstretched to reach the magic "clicker", as we called it, and pretend that we were relaxing in comfort as we changed back and forth from The Beastmaster to a documentary on World War II to The Cosby Show to the Parliament Channel. Also, you still had to get up to adjust the volume. But it was wonderful nonetheless.
Over the years remote controls have changed. They've converted over from great big round dials to giant clicky buttons to smaller, more wieldy buttons; from consoles as big as a binder to sleek beautiful wands that are easily misplaced and broken. Remote controls freed a generation of child slaves from channel changery, made advertisers renegotiate their contracts with the devil in order to get and keep our attention, but most importantly, saved people from the mental strain of staring at a thing intently for long minutes to see if they could use telekinesis on an object far away.
The clicker, the changer, the converter... Call it what you may, but the remote control has forever changed our lives and enlazened us to a massive degree. Just witness the panic that is induced when one goes missing. Thank you, remote control inventors. Without your vision heart disease and thunder-thighism would not be what they are today.
posted by Alanis at
8:55 AM
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