Despite my blog being titled “child stuck in a mans body”, I cannot work technology for shit. Kids these days can set up a Wembley Stadium rock concert, my half brother Max can take one look at a TV/DVD player/Skybox and set it all up and it will work pefectly.
I however cannot do this. I spend 30 minutes sat on the floor sadly looking at all the wires, becoming frustrated with the poor english in the instruction manual, and end up throwing it across the room and swearing quite a lot. Dads will relate to this.
Last week I bought a webcam. After many years of refusing to buy one, I walked into PC World and spent over £60. My thought process being “You get what you pay for”. I’m sure some of you will shake your head at me. Although im sure lots of other men will agree with me. So i plug this webcam in, follow the CD instructions, click the button “start a video call”… NOTHING. Other persons webcam comes on, the sound on my webcam comes on.. but no video. Why? There is no logical reason why it should be doing that. Instructions were followed to the letter. All the settings in Windows Live Messenger were set correctly. And it still refused to play ball. I have to do weird fiddly things to get it working, rather than simply pressing A BUTTON.
It is also very undecisive on whether it would like to run quite smoothly, or run at 5 frames per minute. Tuesday night i ran the webcam all night while downloading something (completely legally of course), internet windows up, Media Player blasting music at me. Worked fine. Tried the webcam now with no other applications, and it was like it was just taking a picture every few seconds. And no matter how hard i tried, it always froze on very undignified positions. Me with eyes shut. Me with my mouth open about to shove some dinner in it. Me looking fatter than usual. Me with a finger up my nose. You get the idea. Again, no logical reason it should be doing this.
So essentially ive given up using this webcam for most conversations. The moment theres some slowdown… “Nope, cant be bothered” and i turn it off. What a good use of £60!!! =)
(ironically my mouse has started complaining its running out of batteries.. and the “dont show me this message again” message keeps coming back. Sigh)
