Years ago when a friend bought herself a fancy new car, my favorite thing about it was the backup camera. I’m an aficionado of the “where’s this road go?” school of exploring, you see, and sometimes you need to be able to turn around in very tight quarters. And my usual partner in exploring is really bad at telling me when to stop. She’s afraid she’ll send me and the car tumbling down a mountain, I guess, so instead we get a move like this.
I wanted a backup camera. Really bad.
My car is a 2007 Corolla. She (my Precious) came with a three-CD changer as part of the stereo. So that led to…well, I don’t like to listen to commercials, and I hate DJs talking. HATE. So I made two CDs of some of my favorite songs, and stuck those and a CD of soft jazz for headache music in, and they stayed. For years.
YEARS.
Sometimes I’d put a song on repeat, and not notice for a couple days. Once the child and I were headed up the mountain, and halfway up she asked if we could please just turn the music off. She couldn’t take that song one more time.
Recently I did something about both problems. I had a new stereo, with screen, put in my car, and I had them install a backup camera.
When the tech was showing me the basics of my new system, he told me to “play something” from my phone. He was very surprised I didn’t have any music on my phone! But I played an audiobook, and he showed me the quick run-through, and yay! I was off.
I love the ability to play music that I want, and to change it, in my car. I love the backup camera. I don’t love how my car stereo now tries to guess what I want, and seems somehow to always get it wrong.
A friend used to say when I was struggling with something– be smarter than the machine you’re working on.
You might imagine I often wanted to smack him.
The first three times i got in the car and the system was on (turns on with the car!) it paired with my phone and started playing my audiobook. Since I listen to audiobooks at night, to go to sleep, that’s a bad plan! But it didn’t want to change, because it was in Car Mode, and I should not be messing with stuff when driving! There’s no button for “shut the eff up, I’m in the carport.”
Here’s part of the problem–I use Amazon Prime to corral my music, and I use it at home on my computer, I use it (now) on my phone, and I use it at work on that computer. So I get in my car, and it’s trying–even though forbidden to use data!– to figure out what I was last listening to and get that going. Meanwhile I just want it to play any of the songs I have now downloaded to my phone. I don’t care which, or I would have set that up.
Yesterday I got in the car and it started playing Jimi Hendrix. Now, I have a lot of respect (of course) for Jimi Hendrix, but he is not on any of my playlists, and definitely not downloaded on my phone. Unfortunately I was in a hurry to get home, so I was stuck poking at things (the phone, the screen, the phone) during red lights. When it changed to the Doors, I switched to radio. (Can’t stand the Doors, sorry. Jim Morrison can bite me.) I caught the end of Bohemian Rhapsody (always a win!) then drove the rest of the way home trying to find a radio station actually playing music.
I guess that’s always the way of it–when you get a thing you really want, and find out it’s not really as wonderful as you thought. But the battle will go on. I may yet prove Smarter than the Machine. In the meantime…that backup camera? I’m really liking that backup camera.