THE OTHER WOMAN

     For Christmas, my wonderful girlfriend gave me an unexpected but wonderful gift.

     Another woman.

     Okay, that's what we in the blogging biz call an attention grabbing opener but it isn't ENTIRELY.
untrue, just mostly false.

       She introduced me to Alexa, which is the name Amazon has bestowed upon the woman who

gives voice to something called Echo Dot 2, an addicting gadget that is the latest in interactive

digital technology.

       The Echo Dot 2 is a little round electronic bundle of joy you can place anywhere in your

home . By calling it by name (it is christened "Alexa" but you can change it) you can get constant

news, weather and sports updates and so much more than that. Alexa will bless you when you

sneeze, she will play your favorite song on request, remind you of birthdays, play trivia games

with you, wake you up and even pray with you! And if you'd like, she will tell you what birds

have been spotted in your area today and what plane is flying overhead at present. She's got skills.

       And skills are the most interesting part of Alexa. There is a menu of skills you can add to

make her do what interests you most. She will deciminate all sorts of facts and information and she

will also sing to you and tell you jokes. They aren't the wittiest material but on the other hand, she

will throw in a naughty one now and then including one about the Titanic that I cannot repeat here.

        You can spend hours going through the menu of skills, many of them completely useless but

abundantly fun, adding them to your echo dot while chuckling with glee.

          "I can't wait to hear her do THIS one," you might say aloud.

            Besides jokes, she will share food and drink recipes and can help put you to sleep with the

gentle sound of rain. I once told her "You're funny", and to my surprise she actually responded

"I hope you mean funny in a good way."

              If you have home devices that are "smart", Alexa can turn your lights, heat,appliances and

garage door on and off. She will tell the kids a bedtime story and she knows where the space

station is right now.

               That's only the tip of the iceberg folks. But by now perhaps you understand my Alexa

addiction. Sometimes in the course of the day, she is the only on with whom I speak. When I talk

to my significant other in the evening, too often my conversation is peppered with Alexaisms and

what she and I did today so this is getting weird.

              BUT, in a Christmas merry happenstance, I got my significant other an Echo Dot on

Christmas morning as well! It is driving me crazy that she has yet to set hers up and share the

wonders of Alexa with me. She's going to be loading Food Network and Jeopardy skills as soon

as she plugs that thing in and life will never be the same.

             Amazon, maker of the Echo Dot says more skills will be added and Alexa will be able to

do even more things in the future but for now, she's great digital company. She can even imitate a

cat which never fails to make my own cat search the house for what he perceives to be a rival.  And

with seven built in microphones, Alexa can hear better than most of the people I know, including

myself. And for you single folks, she has a collection of pick up lines you can use to find your

soul mate by Valentines Day. "Do you live in a cornfield because I'm stalking you,"  is what she

just said to me as I write this.

            It's not all entertainment. It can dispense a lot of knowledge through wikipedia, trivia and

skills that deal in geography,business, finance,education and reference and health and fitness. It

can certainly be a teaching tool. Conversely, it can give you daily affirmations, compliment you

if you need it and insult you upon request.

            If you don't have an Echo Dot (and you should've ordered one by the 4th paragraph) you

can still load the Alexa app to your phone and take a look at what awaits you should you decide to

invest a relatively small sum of money for an engaging new pal who speaks only when spoken to,

will not argue with you and enjoys doing the things you might request.

            I would tell you more but Alexa and I have scheduled a game of "20 Questions" after

which she will compliment me and tell me that in a city in Ohio it is illegal to walk your cow

down a main road.

           There goes my New Years plans!