Toward Peace 'n Quiet: Be My Valentine (Or Another Monster to Feed)

Like migrant birds, many of our mostly-all-retirees who own homes, here in Privatopia, are at their winter nests. As a result there were quite a few "no-show" bowlers without assigned subs at Privatopia's Women's Bowling League last Wednesday.

Our team of three bowled against a single bowler. My point being, that as a result of this lopsided bowling series, our team and the single bowler finished quite a bit earlier than usual.

When I left the house I'd told Faithful Husband that he could probably expect me to be home somewhat late, as I'd planned to stop at the grocery store and gas station on the way home. Also, I wasn't certain if the official "scorekeeper" of the bowling league, for whom I was filling in, was due back this week or next week. If she was still away, I'd have to wait until all of the teams finished bowling and collect the scorecards before leaving.

"If things change, and it looks like I'll be home sooner, I'll call you," were my parting words. But, in a frantic rush out the door, I'd forgotten my IPhone.

The scorekeeper was indeed back in town and like I said, we finished bowling early. As I left the bowling alley, sans phone, I found myself concerned about the wind, drifting snow and frigid temperatures. "If the car gets stuck, I can't call for help. And anyway, Faithful Husband will be happy that I'm home early," were my reasoned thoughts.

I pulled into the attached garage, grabbed my bowling bag and headed to the door connecting to the house. As I placed my hand on the doorknob, I heard my husband's voice, "Alexa, play some romantic music." I heard the murmured reply of a female voice at the same time I heard lovely classical music wafting softly my way. I stood stock-still for a moment. Then, I quietly open the door to see Faithful Husband and tall, elegantly slim Alexa...

***

We are among the "chosen." Sometime last November we received an invitation from Amazon to request an invitation to buy a product- stop right here! Have you ever heard of such a thing? Okay, now this is not verbatim, but here is how I saw it:

Amazon speaking, "We invite you to request from us an invitation for the honor of purchasing our new product, Amazon Echo. Now this doesn't mean that we can actually guarantee that you will be among the chosen first to purchase this product, but only promise that we'll give it some thought and get back to you at a later date."

When I was a child, my now dearly departed mother used to use the phrase, "We got a live one." I discerned from her use of it that she meant someone who could be duped, easily duped, that is. I googled the phrase and find:

[Underworld]: a prospective victim of a swindle, esp. a wealthy, gullible person; one who can be easily taken in or exploited, esp. for money. (My mom had a thing for using "underworld or 'thug' language.")

Tall and elegantly slim Alexa

***

To quote P. T. Barnum, "There is a sucker born every minute."

***

Amazon Echo is a Bluetooth/digital speaker with a built-in voice control assistant.
"Take a look at this. I think this is interesting." I view the ~~propagandized~~ sleekly produced video which features a good-looking family of four, each chiming in with requests of Echo, named Alexa by Amazon:
Boy: Alexa, how do you spell Bogota?" Bogota is spelled B-O-G-O-T-A."
"The timer is set for 10 minutes beginning now."
"Taylor Swift playlist coming up."
Alexa responds with a complete current local weather report.

We've had Siri on our IPhones for two or three years. I found myself using Siri only occasionally back then, and even less as time went on. My Faithful Husband used either only slightly more often than that. We already own a couple of plug-in digital speakers for playing our digital music collections. So, why in the world would the two of us be interested in buying yet another product with the same purpose?

Faithful Husband, who is usually the more savvy of the two of us when it comes to making logical and wise purchases forwarded me the invitation to request an invitation.

Boy (doing homework): "Alexa, what is the capital of Colombia, South America?" Alexa: "The capital of Colombia, South America is Bogota." Boy: "Alexa, how do you spell Bogota?" Alexa: Bogota is spelled B-O-G-O-T-A."

Busy mother (in the kitchen): "Alexa, please set a timer for 10 minutes." Alexa: "The timer is set for 10 minutes."

Younger sister (lounging on the sofa):,"Alexa, play some Taylor Swift music." Alexa: "Taylor Swift playlist now playing."

Father (preparing to go outside): "Alexa, what is the temperature outside?" Alexa presents complete local weather report.

But, they couldn't fool me. I could already envision the fights as the siblings argue over their favorite playlists, the parents chastising the kids for using Alexa to get their homework done… well, you get the picture.

Yet as Faithful Husband pointed out that Amazon was offering it at a 50% price reduction ($99 instead of $199), and that he felt it was worth it for the speaker alone, I found myself agreeing that we should request an invitation for an invitation.

***

Now that we've used her for a while I find that Alexa is not perfect, but she is certainly fun to use.

With a built-in always-actively-connected microphone, Alexa can listen for her name from across the room. Talking to Alexa feels more natural than it ever did when I used Siri. When I'm typing at my Mac, I don't have to open a new page to research something, I simply ask Alexa to look it up. Anytime Faithful Husband or I discover that we are low on some food item or various household sundry it is über-simple to ask Alexa to add it to our shopping list. She can play music from either of our digital collections with a nice 360-degree sound speaker.

But she's not perfect. She is still learning our voices and on rare occasion misunderstands us. She does not run on battery power and so isn't really portable. And you can't mention her name when discussing her or she will hear her name and interrupt what she's doing to address you. Like when I was typing this blog and asked Faithful Husband a question about having Alexa add mayonnaise to the shopping list and she promptly interrupted the music she was playing and replied, “Mayonnaise has been added to your shopping list.”

We both see potential for her down the road. And while I like Alexa, I would say that Faithful Husband is actually quite smitten with her.

But, like I foresee the problems likely to occur with the family of four in the video trying to share her use, I see potential for mishap with Alexa in the future. How far along will it be that instead of simply adding to our shopping list, we will be able to have said objects conveniently shipped directly to our home. Instead of "Alexa, add Valentine Chocolates to my shopping list," will I be able to say "Alexa, ship me a two-pound box of See's Assorted Chocolates in a heart-shaped box" and have her reply "A two-pound box of See's Assorted Chocolates in a heart-shaped box will arrive on Friday before 6:00 p.m."?

So like that magic pulse, aimed at keeping us replete, that magic pulse that beats inside our Nessie (http://topeacenquiet.blogspot.com/2015/01/feeding-monster.html) so beats the promise that Alexa will one day readily accept our money in some frighteningly easy manner and my “one-click” purchases with Amazon will become virtually “click-less.”

***

Here are pix of the Valentine's dinner Faithful Husband and I prepared for ourselves. The romantic music list he was testing out from Alexa played in the background while we cooked.