Aug 3, 2009

One thing I thought I had discovered about the new car is that there is no way to play my iPod through the car's radio. I read the owner's manual and discovered that the more souped up models come with a set up in the center console that allows one to use the car radio to control an iPod. My mid-line car does not come with that feature. Maybe you can spot the auxiliary jack, I couldn't. Bright and early this morning Noah and I headed out to a local car audio shop to find out if there was some gizmo that could be connected to the radio that would allow an iPod to be plugged in. The fellow at the audio place patiently explained to me that the car's radio/CD player is integrated into the dash and cannot be replaced. He asked me to show him the car. When we did, he reached under the power source (formerly, the cigarette lighter), flipped up a tab and said, "Your only choice is to use this". The "this" was a jack that lets me plug in the iPod. It's all in knowing where to look. If you don't live in a small or medium sized city you may not have experienced this phenomenon. I like to call it the "Oh, God please let it happen to us, too", and it is a longing of small market media people. For instance, if a plane crashes in New York, local news types in smaller cities all over the country run that story with an accompanying sidebar story that asks, "Could this happen here?" Usually the words are uttered by some field reporter standing in front of the airport. After all, if there are going to be tragedies anyway, why should we be left out? You may have heard that there was a fairly big earthquake in Mexico this morning. It was about 330 miles SE of Tijuana. Hooterville is 450 miles east of Tijuana so, using the Pythagorean theorem, we can conclude that Hooterville is about 550 miles from the epicenter. Several local citizens were queried about how the "Big One" affected them. Comments ranged from, things swaying, to one guy who said his coworkers felt something to a woman who said her dogs had been acting "weird" all day. As for me, I'm oblivious. As always. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

6 comments:

The Bug said...

That's really funny that they decided the earthquake might affect you guys! I always hate those local personal interest interviews - but that could be because I don't have a lot of patience with actual people...

Megan said...

There's this smart gal at Cal Tech that they always talk to when there's a quake here. And she always has to answer the same stupid questions every single time. I bet it drives her insane.

Barbara said...

I have one of those cigarette lighter things to hook up my iPhone in the car. The only problem is my arms needs to be about 3 feet long to reach it once it's hooked up because the cable is only about 10" long. That's what happens when you deal with a generic design!

Glad you're still well grounded in Hooterville. Hopefully the earth is resting peacefully once again.

Kurt said...

I never noticed earthquakes when they happened in my own city (San Francisco).

Bella Rum said...

My house shook for a few seconds one time. We don't have earthquakes out here. I went outside to see if a huge truck was driving by. I had no idea what it was until I heard about it on the news.

Steve Reed said...

"Localizing" the story is a staple of regional journalism. Sometimes it works better than others.