Wednesday 5 May 2010

TECHNOLOGICAL TANTRUMS

A work chum of the Beast was bragging of buying a Robot vacuum cleaner.The Beast is troubled by this on two fronts . Firstly being a bit of a puritan , the Beast values the cathartic experience of cleansing ones environment with a vigorous thrashing around with the dyson.
Secondly , the Beast has previously had a rather bad experience with autonomous gadgets.
A few years back I bought the newest gadget on the block , the Tivo TV recorder , it downloaded its own TV guide and made decisions about what programs to record for you by monitoring what you were watching/recording. (The prerunner for todays sky plus boxes)
It all started well enough , the Beast would have a nightly feast of comedy , sci fi and documentories that the Tivo had selected for my pleasure . Sadly this idyllic state of  being was not to last . Within a month the dratted object began developing a little personality  disorder of its own and started an obsession with crap teenage soap Hollyoaks . This became so bad that it began bumping things of my record list to record yet more hollyoaks repeats and omnibus editions untill it eventually refused to record anything else .................and do you know what..........the damn thing looked smug.....
The Beast decided on decisive action and scoured the manual and found a very well hidden option in the depths of the menu system where you could select a program and forbid that is ever recorded again .
Well this caused a mexican standoff for a couple of weeks were the devil box sulked and refused to record anything , but it eventually buckled and began recording my requests again .......but I knew all was not well , I used to catch it twittering to itself when I left the room , I could see it through a crack in the door , thinking it was alone , lights would flash , disks would grind and wirr and it would stop the minute I walked back in. I just knew it was plotting .Eventually the Hollyoaks recordings  started again, just the odd one occasionally and then it went completely bats and the whole total Hollyoaks wipe out  started again.
The battle ensued for months , forbidding Hollyoaks , the sulking , running down in the night to disconnect the blasted thing from the mains when I heard it twittering and plotting in the wee small hours.
Eventually I could take no more and a final trip to the dump bought the whole sorry episode to an end.
Now just imagine the havoc  a rogue autominous vacuum cleaner could wreak  , sneaking about tripping you up  , hiding in cupboards and flying out when you least expected it and attaching itself to various parts of you anatomy and giving you a very nasty suck..noisily mounting the Dyson  on the fireside rug whle you have the Vicar round for tea .As Mrs Pouncer would say....its beyond reason
This is one gadget the Beast will be giving a  very wide birth !
What paranoid luddite fantasies are you nurturing dear readers ????

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

is worried for his freind!!

eroswings said...

See? This is how the machines take over. Once they start to do things on their own and start thinking for themselves, next thing you know, they're taking over the world and trying to wipe out humanity. Then our only hope is for a nekkid California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to travel back in time to save humanity.

The Mistress said...

Are you ready to Roomba?

BEAST said...

Anonymous said...
is worried for his freind
Thats nice Anon :-)

BEAST said...

eroswings said...
See? This is how the machines take over. Once they start to do things on their own and start thinking for themselves, next thing you know, they're taking over the world and trying to wipe out humanity. Then our only hope is for a nekkid California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to travel back in time to save humanity.

I have enough to contend with without Arnie running round my house buck nekkid . Yet another reason to stick with the Dyson

BEAST said...

MJ said...
Are you ready to Roomba?
A pussy gag
I might have guessed !

Inexplicable DeVice said...

Is Tivo still a going concern? It can't be up to much if it's got enough time on it's hands to be fixated with Hollyoaks.

I'm fine with gadgetry. Well, except for all this new-fangled stuff that's full of electricity...

BEAST said...

Inexplicable DeVice said...
Is Tivo still a going concern? It can't be up to much if it's got enough time on it's hands to be fixated with Hollyoaks.

I'm fine with gadgetry. Well, except for all this new-fangled stuff that's full of electricity...

I agree Mr IVD , one knew where one was with majick , demons and stuff , this so called 'electrickery' is a flash in the pan.......you mark my words

Anonymous said...

I dont have time to watch tv at all these days. Other than Dr Who naturally...

The Mistress said...

Are you having problems with your itchy bumhole again?

Ms Scarlet said...

How could you leave the poor little blighter at the tip? That's just cruel. Somebody else may take him home.
Sx

BEAST said...

mutleythedog said...
I dont have time to watch tv at all these days. Other than Dr Who naturally...
Are you out 'socialising' Mr M , obviously as you know I am not allowed out after dark , and that judge said some very unpleasant things...... I am most upset

BEAST said...

MJ said...
Are you having problems with your itchy bumhole again?
Just been rather busy of late Miss MJ , so much washing up and so few hours

The Mistress said...

Well you missed the photo I took of you testing mattresses.

And I suggest you drop by on Thursday.

BEAST said...

Scarlet Blue said...
How could you leave the poor little blighter at the tip? That's just cruel. Somebody else may take him home
The thing was evil Miss Scarlet , have you ever watched Hollyoaks for god sake

BEAST said...

MJ said...
Well you missed the photo I took of you testing mattresses.

And I suggest you drop by on Thursday.
Ooooh I will be over to look at the photo as I have AN EVENING OFF mwa ha ha ha HA HA HA and I will log in on Thursday for sure Mis MJ :-)

About Me

My photo
Doing Other Stuff for a while.Mail /MSN messenger on beastch@hotmail.co.uk...COME AND SAY HELLO GO ON YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO