Say hello to the smartest man in the world. Yes. I’m talking about me, um, myself, or whichever word is correct. I can’t seem to ever remember.
I’ve never been long on the English language since I find it takes itself way too seriously and has way too many silly rules that folks break anyway.
Regardless, as we enter 2017, I am now the smartest man in the world. I have ALL the answers. Want to know who won the Stanley Cup in 1966? I can tell you. Want to why red and blue make green or whatever color they make when they’re slopped together? I have your answer.
Want to know how to spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? Well, I actually I just spelled it. But you get the picture. How about the square root of 125,121,607? If it has a square root, I can tell you what it is despite my below-average skills in algebra and advanced mathematics. I’ve always thought numbers should stay with math and letters with the alphabet, thus my confusion with all things algebra.
That’s right, I can tell you anything you want to know – as long as I’m in my living room or at least in shouting distance. The world is at my command as soon as I utter the magic words – OK Google.
It was my Christmas gift to me. I got myself a Google Home, one of those things you ask a question and it scans every data bank in the world and gives you an answer in like two seconds. I told people I got it to help with my novel writing. And, in a way, that explanation is somewhat true as I can ask Google the proper spelling or ask it for other words like a thesaurus, all without having to put my creative juices on hold to thumb through a book for the answer.
It can even find points of fact for me without me having to research it. I may have to Google a mention on the cover of my next book.
However, if the truth be known, the main reason I got it is because I’m lazy and this should make me even more so.
“Hey Google, what’s the temperature outside?” is my first question each day. Before Google I would simply open the door and stand there in my underwear to gauge the temperature. Now, I spare the neighbors seeing me at the door in the morning in my boxers.
“Hey Google, play White Christmas,” I said repeatedly over Christmas, each time Bing Crosby crooning his rendition of the classic. I listened to a lot of Christmas music this year.
There are few things my Google Home can’t do. I just noticed on the inter webs that it will soon be able to even control various aspects of my car.
“OK Google, drive me to work,” I will say someday, likely clad in my boxers since they’ll be no need to get dressed since Google will do all the work for me. “OK Google, type my stories and make me some coffee. Oh, and play me some White Christmas.”
Standard reporter Duane Sherrill can be reached at 473-2191.