Remote Control Freak

I'd seen an RCA remote control a while back that was more palm-sized than I'd seen before. In particular it was smaller than the last one of that brand I'd bought and I thought about it a day or so and then went back for it. I was primed for it by then.

I didn't get it, though, because I'd been mistaken about the price. The Dollar General Store had it priced as high as anybody else in town had theirs. Getting irritated, even if only at myself, I didn't buy it. Instead I went down the road and bought one of the usual RCA remotes at Wal-Mart. Now this one was exactly the same as the one I bought not too long ago for another TV in the house. It was bound to be good, I thought.

As it turned out, it wouldn't program the code number for this Signature brand (Ward's) TV. I read the instructions repeatedly, tried all the options. Direct entry, manual entry, automatic entry (where you sit there like a robot and press the button 200 times and hope to see a certain pattern of blink-blink-blank-blink. None of this idiocy worked. I tried the old universal remote on the TV that I needed to control, but it wouldn't work, either. At the same time, the new remote WOULD operate the other TV's in the house!

I had to think about this. So the new one wasn't "broken", but also was of no damn use to me. One and one and one is... I just gave up on it and took it back to Wal-Mart for a refund. I told them what it was not doing, though I left out the confusing part about how it was working on Any Other TV than the one I'd bought it for. I didn't think they needed to know that and I certainly don't need an extra remote control that doesn't do any controlling. Now I have an old RCA remote that still operates it, but is utterly unreliable. It figures.

You know, I just Hate shopping. I'm sorry, I do. I'd rather be shot than have to accompany any serious shopper to the Mall. As for my own purchases, I am ususally rocket-boosted. I don't know if there are men who are good at shopping or who like it, but I'm certainly not one of them. If I can make up my mind at all--I frequently can't and thus leave with nothing--it turns out like this. A disaster. And even a bigger waste of time than it was a disaster.

How the women in my family can enjoy shopping at all, much less So Much, I cannot fathom. If everyone was like me, the entire American economy would crash to the ground. The capitalist system would fail. Well, it had to end sometime.

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THE TIMES WE TRIED

Washed out, washed down, torn yet
By the smile and the frown,

Let go, let be, let
Borne-by-the-wind
Be sail-in-the-attic
And formless-on-either-side,

Try Give, try Take,
Try time-by-the-tide
On-the-loose,

Let Hope be the style
With none-that-matter-yet,

And cry, cry out, cry hard
For all the times-we-tried.

rcs.

Current draft: 04/20/04

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Feebly Coming, Crawling Along, that sorry old Attraction (moving slower and sloower all the time!): oh, hell let's just put the BAD DRIVING blog on Hold for now! Some day my prince will come…
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "I often quote myself, it adds spice to my conversation." -- George Bernard Shaw

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