Tag: Apple

FaceTime

Today (March 5th) is my brother’s birthday.  He lives in Texas.  My dad called me tonight, as a sort of reminder about my brother’s birthday.  This is one thing I love about my dad’s side of the family – we all remind the family whenever it is someone’s birthday.  There are funny bits to this, of course, because it often means that whoever’s birthday it is gets a load of messages and phone calls all at the same time, followed by the thought of, ‘Hmm… I wonder what message just went out to everyone.’  For example, when it is my sister’s husband’s birthday, my sister sends a group text to the family, telling us that it is his birthday.  Within about five minutes, we have all either called or sent a birthday message to him.  There’s no way we all just happen to think of his birthday at the same time, so our ‘cover’ is just plain nonexistent – we were clearly reminded of the birthday.  But, the point is that we all care enough to wish the family member well on his/her birthday.  My dad, I think, is the one who started this sort of tradition we have.

Another aspect of the birthday tradition that my dad created is the song “Birthday” by the Beatles.  Every year, without fail, he finds some way to play the song for us on each of our birthdays.  One year, my eldest sister had an early-morning flight, and so expected to miss the song, since it was always played at home.  However, my dad surprised her with playing the song in the car on the way to the airport (at 6am).  When I was abroad, he would Skype or telephone me, making sure to play the song at the start of the call.

Today, as he was talking to me to remind me about my brother’s birthday, he checked the sound of the song with me, to make sure I could hear it well enough.  He said that he was planning to call my brother right after he got off the phone with me, and I saw that FaceTime had an option to add a call, so we went ahead and called my brother on FaceTime (I did, anyway), by clicking the “add call” button.  However, it ended up not working the way an “add call” button suggests it might work, so I improvised.

Right now, I’m sitting with my laptop on my lap, my phone on the lap of my laptop.  On my phone, I am FaceTime Video-ing with my brother.  On my laptop, I am FaceTime Audio-ing with my dad.  It is the middle of the night for me and the middle of the morning for my brother and dad.  The three of us are talking as though we’re all just hanging out together.  Right now, of course, the two of them are having a bit of their own chatting time, and I am typing.  This points to what is possibly my favorite part of this: I, in Japan, am joining two people on a phone call, who are barely an hour or two apart from one another in Texas.  I’m not even talking right now, but the whole reason they are able to talk to one another is because of me, over here in Japan.  So, it’s kind of like their conversation is taking the long way around… the Really long way.

Or something like that, anyway.  😛

 

Post-a-day 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Apple effectively removed music from my daily life

I used to listen to music all the time.  Like daily, and even throughout lots of the day oftentimes.  However, that has changed in the past several months.  Why?  My last pair of headphones broke.

Now, this isn’t to say that I own no more headphones, and that I can’t buy more headphones.  Of course not – I own several pair, and the stores are hardly sold out of headphones.  This is to say that my last pair of headphones I can use finally broke.

I guess it was a couple or a few years ago that Apple decided to alter drastically the design of their headphones/headsets.  The “earbuds” were established as the only design the company made anymore, removing the former style.  I used my new set of earbuds when I got my new phone (I was so excited about it, it was kind of ridiculous)…, and I quickly discovered that they gave me splitting headaches.

How is this possible, since we all know that I always play my music rather quietly?  Well, the earbuds are too large for my ears.  They push so much on the inside rims of my ears, that my head starts hurting after only a few minutes of use – I don’t even get to enjoy a single song, before the pain begins.  I wore them and wore them, hoping beyond hope that I would adjust to this new style of headphones… to no avail.  I eventually had to give up on them, and make a belated effort to collect as many pairs of the old style as possible (friends were priceless in this effort).

I obviously am very biased here, but I believed Apple had the best headphones on the market for anyone who wasn’t willing to go into the hundreds of dollars for a set.  Perhaps this is part of why all of the other companies that produce headphones suddenly cut production of the former style of headphones, and instead adopted the earbuds style – because Apple is the leader, and they followed.

Whatever the case, though, production of good quality headphones of the formerly top style were now seemingly nonexistent.  That being the case, it meant that I no longer could use headphones for music (or even headsets for phone calls).  I’m always out and about, so I can’t exactly play my music out loud, walking down the busy street, and be able to enjoy it (let alone hear most of it above the street noise).  Nor can I blast music on the trains, where signs regularly remind everyone not to talk on the phone, because it makes noise that could bother others.  So, I just don’t get to listen to music (or talk on the phone easily) whenever I’m out.  (I also have no more audiobook-listening opportunities, something I also used to do almost daily during my work commute.)

So, music has kind of just stepped away from my life these past several months.  It’s dreadful, but I have nothing to do to improve it.  Ideas are entirely welcome, because I miss music every single day, and I just haven’t found anything to do about it, other than write this here post.  I find it utterly amazing, how what could have been one small decision by one person – I person I don’t even know -, has made such a drastic (and negative at that) effect on my life.  It really has me wonder how my daily, seemingly mundane (to me, anyway) decisions might affect the world beyond my immediate surroundings.  How does my decision here and now affect someone (potentially) on the other side of the world?  And how about in another six months?  Or six years?  Or, at that, eternity?  Truly is interesting, huh?

 

Anyway,… here’s to finding music again!

 

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