The Confessions of a Non-Geek
We recently decided to add a sound bar and woofer to the new TV. It looked like a pretty straight forward hook up. Two wires to the TV and the woofer just plugs into the wall and Bluetooth does the rest. So, I got it all hooked up. Shortly thereafter we (I) lost the TV remote. It’s a small, sleek, black thing, with only about four buttons along with volume and channel toggles.
Now the new TV had been synced to our Direct TV remote, so we didn’t have much use for the Samsung remote, but I still wanted to find it so I looked over, under, in, and around everything in the living room. No remote.
Then the TV and sound bar started acting funny. Just one of their tricks was to all of a sudden, without any help from me or the TV remote, ratchet up the sound from where ever we had it set to 100. Way too loud for anything. And the mute would come and go at odd intervals, again without the assistance of me and my Direct TV remote. Then it started getting creepy. I normally sit in my chair with the TV remote on the arm of said chair, my laptop in my lap, and supporting pads, pens, and a book to read on the floor next to the right side of the chair. The TV started to react to my getting up, or even making any sizable move. If I got up the sound would increase. If I stood up the mute might come on, only to go off again as I walked away from the chair.
We had a window that kept popping up, covering most of the screen, making available to us some adjustments. My remote had no effect on this window. Along with this window would come a loud one second explanation in Portuguese. We found that we just had to be patient and wait for this window to disappear on its own. This rogue window also seemed to be actuated most of the time by my moving around in my chair.
So, the Geek Squad person came. As I was explaining the mysterious happenings, he said, “I’ve been doing this for fifteen years and this has never happened before, but I’m guessing that your remote is in your chair.” As soon as he said that I knew he was right, but being his first in fifteen years dumb enough to lose a remote in a chair then sit on it and wonder what was going on, did nothing to bolster by self-esteem.
So, we turned the chair on its back and looked and poked around. Then we put it back up on its feet and both of us felt in all the possible crevasses available to us. Then we turned the chair on its back again, and went through the whole underside once again. Now the underside of the chair is all black as is the remote. Finally, our Geek found the thing, almost as good as new, but certainly good enough to send out signals consistent with my sitting on it, or changing position, or working the foot rest. So, after hooking up the sound bar and woofer again, he left. Everything seemed to be working great. We’ll see. My experience has been that machines are more apt to misbehave when they think the only person around is someone who can lose a remote in his chair.
