The Glory of Techmology

Werk recently upgraded† to the latest Microsoft Outlook, which includes a voice-to-text for voice mail.

Let's back up: if someone leaves a message on my office phone, I get an email with the caller ID and a play button that I can either send to my phone‡ or listen to via a media player on my computer.

PLUS... when I got a company-sponsored cell phone,§ they hooked my Outlook to it, so I¶ get a copy on my cell phone of the email that contains a copy of my work voice mail when someone leaves a message on my work phone.#

Hans and I were toddling off to lunch yesterday, when my phone tick-tocked†† to tell me I had a message. When I checked it, I recognised it as a voice mail notification,‡‡ but it also had the following text§§:




Let's back up again: Brother wants to be black. At times, Brother has thought he was black. He's pretty hip to the hip hop culture, so I read the text and thought it was an actual text or an email maybe. At first, I said to myself, "Self, Brother is having problems with his autocorrect." Then I decided he was rapping some hep slang that I simply wasn't down with.¶¶

Two or three minutes of examining context and I realised it was voice-to-text## and it was kinda screwed up.

By that time, I really wanted to know what "brooklyn truck" was going to be.

Here's the actual voice recording:




And here's a transcript:

"Yo, it's your brother. I'm probably going to give you... drop you an email too, but I just thought I would check maybe if you could, um, drop by here on your way home today real quick so I can slip you a key, go over, y'know, what to do with the cat and stuff.††† Awesome. Alright, thanks. Bye."

"Brooklyn truck" is now acceptable Untiedt sibling slang for "real quick."‡‡‡


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): And I use the term loosely.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Desk phone, that is.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Which isn't quite the treat it sounded like at the outset. I can't call the carrier for help, I can't add international texting - even if I pay for it myself - because if IT has to support too many odd requests they'll explode, and I don't have a mouseball on my phone and I hate that. As I whine about this, I'm wondering if I need to spend some time in a Third World country to gain perspective.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): ...can be in close, personal contact with work 24 hours a day...

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Screw the Hokey-Pokey, *that's* what it's all about.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Because that's the noise I chose to represent notifications.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): It had a picture of a phone.

§§FOOTNOTE (jump back turn around): Which was the first time I'd seen text on an email with a picture of a phone on it.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (throwin' up gang signs yo yo): Word to your mother like it's hot. And a bag of chips.

##FOOTNOTE (in for a penny or two): When I said the Outlook upgrade was recent, I apparently meant, like, yesterday.

†††FOOTNOTE (I'm just so terribly cross): Brother and his girlthing are going to Costa Rica for a week. B-cat (Beatrice, Brother's cat) is a travelling man's cat and has always been perfectly capable of entertaining herself for days on end. Brother is blaming it on the girlthing - he says ever since Cindy moved in, B-cat thinks she needs attention all the time. Hence the need for a catsitter.

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (we're on the right track): I feel confident I can speak for Brother too when I say, "Don't feel you need to be an Untiedt sibling to use this wonderful new slang phrase. Spread the world! Share with your friends!"