I backed my car out of the garage yesterday. I usually don’t put my seat belt on until I’m ready to leave my driveway, so I have to endure a monotonous barrage of bleeping while I’m driving in such a recklessly unrestrained state. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for seat belts, it’s the bleeping ding, ding, ding that gets me.
But that’s not my car’s only party piece. Insert a CD, bleep. Eject a CD, bleep. If I open the door and leave the key in the ignition, Bleep, bleep, bleep. If a passenger gets into the car while the engine is running, bleep, bleep, bleep. Every time I don’t do things as the car wants, I get bleeping dinged. Sometimes I wonder who’s the man and who’s the machine.
It’s not just my car that bleeps. Our microwave bleeps when its done cooking. Good idea, but why does it then have to bleep every thirty seconds until I take the food out of the oven? I mean the microwave has turned itself off, nothing’s going to get burnt.
My iPad bleeps every time it receives an email, great, but not at 3am. The DVR bleeps, and somewhere there is an option on the TV to make it bleep (but I found that one and killed it).
Every single kid’s toy with batteries bleeps, and like every kid’s toy it gets played with long beyond what the United Nations would consider cruel and unusual treatment. Come to think of it, we have a couple of toys I’d like to put through some cruel and unusual treatment.
The door alarm bleeps. If you open a window, bleep.
If bad weather is comming, the radio bleeps – even if it’s 60 miles away in Dallas.
Twitter messages, mail messages, turning you computer on and off, bleep, bleep, bleep.
Every manufacturer thinks that I should be paying attention to their product, whether I want to or not … and 99% of the time its not. It’s like I don’t have say in what I do with my life.
So what’s driven you bleeping mad this week?
Cheers.
Loved this. Speaking of bad weather, my personal favorite is when they break into regular tv programming any time there’s a thunderstorm (Do these affect anyone except pilots?)any closer than southeastern Manitoba. Do we in Fort Worth need to know about that? And they never seem to interrupt the commercials – just the show.
Hi David
Yes, comming from the UK I find it weird that rain gets such high billing on the TV over here, and as you say, they only want to tell you about it when it doesn’t interrupt the ads.
Cheers!
Ha. Love the e-mail option 😀 Bleep!
Yes Nigel, I hate all the bleeps too, but I turn them off wherever possible. At least, anything bleeping on the computer is turned off. Luckily, my cars are old, no bleeps :).
Although, I’m so used to the seat belt, that if I back out the car without my seat belt on I start fussing on the seat, wondering what is off with it :D. My brain bleeps :D. Actually, it doesn’t happen. It’s an automatic movement, before I start the engine the seat belt is on, without thinking of it.
Bleep!
Hi Irene
Bleep to you too! 🙂
Ah yes, one of the great thing about older cars is lack of electronic nannies. I’m all for wearing a seatbelt, I just resent being told to put it on by a bleep.
Love the Mac though I do, I hate it’s start-up chime. It’s a gong sound and its a right pain to silence it. They’ve had the same noise for 20 years and never introduced an option to turn it off. Ho hum.
Thanks for the comment.
Cheers!
Have you seen a movie called “Noise”? In there, our hero goes all over New York City smashing cars whose alarms are shrieking endlessly. During one scene, the character played by Tim Robbins says something like this*: “Why do we have to keep up with that beeping everywhere? They treat us like children, as if we weren’t clever enough to look out for cars in the street when walking.”
I do agree, most beeps are superfluous, and I think they are there to avoid even more absurds demands made by dumb people to get some easy cash. You know, the kind of retards that sue McDonald’s because they didn’t warn her she shouldn’t pour hot coffee on her lap.
* I saw the translated version. Actual dialogue may be different.
Hi Alexander. No, I haven’t seen Noise. I just looked it up on IMDB, looks good, I’ll have to see if its on netflix. I live in Texas and don’t suffer from car alarms too much, but NY’s got to be different. It’s not the sort of place you’d expect to be quiet though.
I think you’re right that most of the noises we get inflicted on us as as much to do with preventing litigation as out of any concern for the consumer.
Cheers!