Brain Legbum

Current Mood: hooky
Current Music: "All Over Now" by Great White

Have you ever seen a commercial for a GPS navigator called TomTom? The mainly car-based device gives audible directions to direct you around and shows a digital real time map to help. Okay, so they're not the greatest commercials, but it's kinda catchy. It kinda gives an otherwise bland device a bit of friendliness, dare I say character?

At any rate, I had the pleasure of recently hitting the road to attend a graduation dinner for a dear friend of mine, Alex Semchuck (member of the Ship of Fools).

I was joined by other Fools Benji, Renee, Andrew, and Eric.

While on the road from Benji's house in Valparaiso to our destination in Illinois (making it the furthest West I have ever traveled), I had the unique pleasure of seeing a TomTom in action. It was actually kind of boring in retrospect, but I suppose the bulk of the driving was on highway. We could not find the volume, so the commands kinda snuck up on us...and while I could say that I would have liked the directions to come a bit sooner to the turn, overall I have no big problems with it. When we missed an exit, it automatically re-plotted our course. The visuals were pretty clear and colorful, though sunlight made a bit of a problem occasionally. Once the route was set (before the car was started), we didn't have to push a button the entire trip. Nobody even looked at the backup map. (Yes, we had a backup map. Benji was driving and I was the copilot).

The best part, though, was being in the car with the Fools and talking to TomTom like it was much more intelligent.

First, general car things, like:
* TomTom, can you vaporize the cars ahead of us?
* TomTom, is it gametime?
* TomTom, steer us away from that field of wrenches (one of the icons on the screen).

There were the submarine commands:
* TomTom! Ramming speed!
* TomTom! Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!

Then the space ship commands:
* TomTom! Open the pod doors. (to which somebody thankfully replied in a robot voice "I'm sorry, Ryan. I can't do that.")
* TomTom! Engage the deflector shields and deploy the fighters!

Which of course led to endless Star Wars quotes:
* TomTom, that stabilizer's broken loose again, see if you can't lock it down!
* His TomTom is off. Luke, you've switched off your TomTom, what's wrong? Nothing! I'm allright.
* TomTom! Intensify the forward batteries, I don't want anything to get through! (reply: "Too late!")

The best quote, however, went to Andrew. TomTom got too interested in his personal life:

TomTom: So, how are the wife and kids?
Andrew: I don't have a wife.
TomTom: Maybe you should brush your teeth and bathe more often.
Andrew: Okay, MomMom.


If nothing else, I want a TomTom (even a broken one) in my non-existent car to bark orders at. So much fun!