Remote Control Terrorism

You might call me something of a technology freak. I love gadgets, always have. I fall short of my brother's titanic curiosity for gadgets - he has always possesed the mystic ability able to take them apart and successfully put them back together again, while I have only ever been able to manage taking them apart, with varying degrees of success in reassembling (though the median is very close to 0 (and yes I do SO mean median - sometimes I did more damage trying to put them back together than I did in taking them apart)). In the intervening time between childhood (defined roughly as, oh, I don't know, last week?) and now I have discovered 2 important theorms about taking something apart:

1. If you take a device apart and put it back together again, you will always find a part that you left out sitting on the table or floor next to where you were working, the absence of which doesn't seem to affect the operation of the device at all.
   
   By repeated application of this theorm, if you take something apart and put it back together again enough times, it will eventually not have anything left in it at all and will continue to function perfectly.
   
   
2. Sometimes the only thing that's need to fix something is to take it apart, nose around in it for a few minutes, and then put it back together again, optionally saying something like "That should do it," without having actually done anything at all.

Anywy, being the scatterbrain that I am, I quickly leaped onto the PDA bandwagon. My first PDA was the first Handspring Visor they ever made. It had like 3 colors and enough memory to hold 10 phone numbers if you didn't mind it forgetting one every now and then. But, it was very slick, had a memory expansion slot (an unheard of feautre of PDA's in 1999), and made me the envy of the computer lab where I worked at IU.

I had this device for 4 years, and it served me faithfully until one fatal evening last year. I was leaving work, exiting my building on the top floor (of three) onto the external stairwell. I was putting my Visor (wrapped cozily in its neoprene rubber carrying case) into safe keeping in my internal jacket lining pocket when I fumbled it. It literally leaped out of my hand for no reason I can think of, bounced perfectly on end and, the case being rubber, bounded down the half-flight of stairs where by all rights it should have knocked against the railing and come to a halt. It did not. Its last bounce caught a funny angle as it flipped sideways and snuck through the bars of the railing, plummeting the 30 feet to the parking lot below.

"Well," I thought to myself, "it's in a sturdy rubber carrying case, it might be OK!"

I ran to the balcony and looked down to see that the thing had taken a flying leap so that instead of falling nicely into the bushes below the railing, it was instead lying in a puddle of water on the pavement.

"Well," I thought to myself, "it's water - resistant, it might still be OK!"

At this time a car backed out of a spot directly adjacent to the puddle, backed directly over my PDA case, and then drove over it again as it pulled foward and made its getaway.

"Well," I thought to myself, "That about does it."

Sure enough, I fished the poor thing out of the water, unzipped the case and saw a signifigantly flattened PDA with shattered touch screen, and I'm reasonably certain that no amount of taking-apart-and-putting-back-together was going to cure it. Time for a new toy!

Enter my current PDA, a Sony Clie' NX-60. It has many features which I adore, but my favorite by far has to be the built-in universal remote control. Since almost all PDAs come with an infra-red port for transferring files and sharing contact information with other PDAs, it seemed logical to Sony to beef that sucker up and make it strong enough to control other components, like stereos, cd players, TVs and the like. The Clie comes with a universal remote control interface and thousands upon thousands of pre-programmed remote control codes for various components.

If you're like me, this is a clear invitation to create mayhem. The first time I ever got to use this feature was while eating lunch with the St. Philips Cathedral Choir after a service. It is the habit of this group to grab lunch at any one of many local eateries after the 11:45 service (which gets out at around 1:00, if the guy facing the other way is especially long-winded, or if there are many babies in need of washing); on this particular day we were at the Rock Bottom Brewery. I was seated at the end of the table, which was perfect since the tennis match I wanted to watch was showing on the TV directly in front of me. I made vague references to the conversation around me while maintaining steady, relentless focus on the match. It was a VERY good match (although the only thing I remember about it now is that Justine Henin was playing), and I was enjoying my lunch immensely when all of a sudden the TV flickers and golf appears on the screen.

I am a tennis fan. A completely over-the-wall tennis fan. I love to play it, watch it, talk about it - if you really want to get me in a dudgeon you get me talking about why Atlanta has not one fucking professional tennis tournament despite having the Stone Mountain Tennis Center, a world-class facility (where Wanda and I saw Andre and Lindsay win gold medals). I have more than 80 matches from as far back as 1987 archived on VHS tapes. I grew up idolizing first McEnroe, then Lendl, then Miloslav Mecir (The Big Cat, as he was known, moved like a goddamn ghost, was known for his gleeful mauling of all Swedes on tour), Edberg, Agassi (ask Wanda about the shorts), Becker, Slobodan Zivojinovic (I swear that's a real name), Dr. Dirt (not a muppet), Pete Sampras, and now I dream of hitting just one shot like Roger Federer.

Suffice it to say, I was not pleased.

I then remembered that I had in my possession the means by which I could set my situation to rights again. I looked at the TV.

Sanyo.

Brought out my Clie and put it into universal remote mode. Selected TV-> Sanyo. Clicked the "last channel" button.

TENNIS!

Aw, yeah. I put the Clie down and happily resumed my meal. A few minutes later the waitress comes by. She looks at the TV as she's walking to her station and I see her do a classic double-take. Now, I know she's thinking to herself, "Hunh! I thought I changed that channel!" And sure enough, she picks up her remote and changes the channel again.

GOLF!

She puts down her remote, and the second she has her back turned I hit the "last channel" button again.

TENNIS!

A few minutes later the waitress is coming back through her station and does an identical, spot-on match of her first double-take. I can really see the wheels turning now, she's convinced that something is wrong. This time I'm ready. She changes the channel.

GOLF!

I don't wait for her to walk away this time, I immediately hit "last channel" while she still has the remote in her hand.

TENNIS!

She emits a little gasp of horror, looks at the remote as if it were stinging her hand.

GOLF!

TENNIS!

GOLF!

TENNIS!

GOLF!

TENNIS!

GOLF!

TENNIS!

She gives a little scream, drops the remote onto her station board with a loud clatter and scurries off. A few minutes later she comes back with bull-necked managerial type in tow.

"Frank," she says plaintively, "This is really wierd, you got to watch this! Watch what happens when I try to change the channel here!" She picks up the remote and flourishes it at the TV.

GOLF!

I don't do anything. The waitress is shaking a little bit, staring at the screen so hard I'm sure an alien is going to leap out of her skin and demand to know what the hell is going on. The TV remains tuned to golf. Frank the bull-necked manager glances about as askance at Waitress as I've ever seen anyone glance askancefully at anyone else, shakes his head and stalks away muttering something I wish I could have heard. The waitress is now looking at the remote, stunned. I'm looking at her. When she lifts her eyes from the remote to the TV, I strike.

TENNIS!

The waitress screams again, louder this time, throws the remote onto the ground, shattering it into many pieces and beyond all hope of further disassembling (at least, not without some serious government clearance and access to a LOT of electricity), and runs off - we do not see her the rest of our lunch; nor did anyone try to come and change my fucking channel.

Game, set, match.

My brother, who has a left-hander's view on mayhem, has an absolutely brilliant idea that involves going to a crowded, rowdy bar where some very important sporting event, such as a college football bowl game, or a super bowl or world series game is being shown on a big-screen TV, waiting until some culminating moment and at the very apex of tension, turning off the TV. The closest I've yet come to this is being at a sports bar in Chicago with my dad and my brother, drinking some damned fine beer and randomly turning off TVs behind the bar, to the great annoyance of the barkeeps. At one point some very large, burly men starting cycling through the crowd looking for the asshole with the remote; if anything is true, though, it's that a table with almost any three guys at it has a hard time looking more harmless than a table with me, my dad and my brother sitting at it, beers in hand talking about architecture, which is what we were doing in between pissing off bartenders. The Clie looks nothing like a remote, and so is the perfect weapon for a crime whose victims need to get out more anyway.

I haven't used the Clie for this sort of thing in a long time. I should probably start taking it out with me again to keep in practice, only it has developed an alarming tendancy to chew through a fully charged battery in about 8 - 10 minutes. A new Clie battery costs about $50, which isn't so bad, but...

I wonder what kind of new toy I can get?