{"id":5091,"date":"2020-02-04T21:17:35","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T05:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/?p=5091"},"modified":"2020-02-05T15:40:59","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T23:40:59","slug":"alexa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/alexa\/","title":{"rendered":"ALEXA!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last December a dear friend gifted me with a life changing present, although I couldn\u2019t have known how life changing<\/em> at the time. I tore open the bag with glee, careful not to spill onto my plate of spicy noodles at a Thai joint in Hollywood. \u201cOh my God! It\u2019s Alexa.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Yes, THAT<\/em> Alexa. The lady voice that answers all your questions (well not quite) and plays all the music you love (yeah\u2026right). Up to now I have resisted bringing a third member into our family of two. Especially a disembodied being you plug into the internet 24\/7 and that some believe can, and does, eavesdrop on you. The whole idea of \u201cprivacy\u201d is getting more \u201cfluidy\u201d these days. So I wasn\u2019t interested in letting \u201cBig Sister\u201d move in. But jeesy peesy<\/em>, she arrived. As a gift.<\/p>\n

So my husband sets her<\/em> up in the living room on a small table surrounded by a cluster of watchful ukuleles. We plug her<\/em> in and ask her<\/em> a question. “SIRI, what\u2019s the weather today?” Nothing. \u201cSIRI what\u2019s the weather today?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with this effing thing?\u201d I say to whomever<\/em> is listening. Can you tell we are Apple People? It was hard enough to get the \u201cSiri\u201d thing down. And now\u2026<\/p>\n

“A-LEX-A!” Our voices are rising to middle school gym teacher level. “What is the weather today?” With her soothing, everything-is-okay-even-though-the-world-is-burning<\/em> voice, she gives us the highs, the lows, the wet, the dry. All the information we need to get us out the front door in appropriate attire.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you Alexa.\u201d And she replies. \u00a0Oh yes she does.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cYou\u2019re welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then my husband exclaims, \u201cAlexa, have a nice day,\u201d Can you believe? We are imploring a plastic gizmo with innards that include a mini-tweeter, woofer, cables, system board, bluetooth chip and God-knows-what-else<\/em>, to have a nice day. \u201cYou too,\u201d she chirps. Alexa is very polite.<\/p>\n

My husband decides quickly he needs more decibels and orders a speaker boom box with its own R2-D2-like nesting pod for Alexa. It also has a big green light that looks like a giant eyeball that follows us around the room. If the guardian ukuleles could talk they might be saying \u201cWTF.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cAlexa. FART!\u201d With the bigger speaker we can really hear THAT. We ask her to do it again and dissolve into gales of laughter. We ask her to sing a song. Right now she\u2019s singing about what makes her happy and is accompanied by a ukulele. I think it\u2019s called \u201cI\u2019d Like to Say Thank You\u201d and has a kind of \u201cBaby Shark\u201d feel. When I ask her to sing another she does a rap song about Jackie Robinson.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlexa, tell me a joke.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s the lemon\u2019s favorite dance?\u201d The Twist.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAlexa, tell me another joke.\u201d
\n\u201cDid you hear about the new squirrel diet? It\u2019s just nuts.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAlexa, tell me another joke.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat do you call a dragon with heartburn? Bad news for the next village.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

(Like I have time to have a conversation with a robot).<\/p>\n

\u201cAlexa, tell me another joke.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s tough to write a joke. The other day I told a joke about a toilet, but it tanked.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be looking elsewhere for my comedy material.<\/p>\n

I have several albums that are streamed on Amazon, Spotify and all those online services, so of course I lean into her swirling light and say \u201cAlexa, play songs by Cali Rose.\u201d She launches into some raucous garage band something-or-another<\/em>. \u201cA-LEX-A, play songs by (now I\u2019m spelling my name really slowly) C\u2026A\u2026L\u2026I\u2026R\u2026O\u2026S\u2026E.” She takes a long a pregnant pause.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m using the word \u201cpregnant\u201d for a reason because recently my husband asked Alexa \u201cwhat is your gender?\u201d She replied, \u201cI\u2019m female, in character.\u201d Well…okay.<\/p>\n

But I digress. After Alexa\u2019s pregnant pause<\/em> I am suddenly hearing my own voice singing my own song coming out of the magic disc. I cannot lie. This is very exciting.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s a little something to keep in mind: Alexa messes with relationships\u2026<\/p>\n

When I\u2019m in the bedroom and I hear my husband talking in the living room, I think he\u2019s talking to me. After all I\u2019m the only other<\/em> person living here.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019d you say, honey?\u201d I yell down the hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m talking to Alexa\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Our lives are forever changed. And \u201chave a nice day.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Last December a dear friend gifted me with a life changing present, although I couldn\u2019t have known how life changing at the time. I tore open the bag with glee, careful not to spill onto my plate of spicy noodles at a Thai joint in Hollywood. \u201cOh my God! It\u2019s Alexa.\u201d Yes, THAT Alexa. The lady voice that answers all your questions (well not quite) and plays all the music you love (yeah\u2026right). Up to now I have resisted bringing … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[200],"class_list":["post-5091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogentry","tag-talking-to-alexa"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2,"label":"blog entry"}],"post_tag":[{"value":200,"label":"Talking to Alexa"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/ALEXA-GREEN-768x1024.jpeg",768,1024,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Cali Rose","author_link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/author\/crbauthor\/"},"comment_info":2,"category_info":[{"term_id":2,"name":"blog entry","slug":"blogentry","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":139,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":2,"category_count":139,"category_description":"","cat_name":"blog entry","category_nicename":"blogentry","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":200,"name":"Talking to Alexa","slug":"talking-to-alexa","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":200,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5091"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5102,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5091\/revisions\/5102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}