Grandpa tells me that people had their weight in control back in the late 70s because remote controls were not so common then. People still had to get up and flick the television to change the channels. I usually counter that I doubt anyone would have bothered, what with a handful of channels, there probably wasnt any programming that would have you flicking the channels in a night; forget in a minute ; the way we experts have to do channel surfing to ensure we watch two programs simultaneously.

Since my carpal tunnel syndrome is being aggravated by this pesky keyboard (more on which later today) and more so by the dastardly remote control, I am definitely getting myself one of these voice based remote controls. In addition to swapping between and controlling TV, DVD player and cable box with voice commands, the remote even lets you blurt out cryptic commands like "news," "sports," "weather," "boobies" -- and it will switch to your favorite channels that offer such fare.

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