Voice Recognition In Three Parts

Barbara: Part One: I, like many people, hate the sound of my own voice. Hate. It. I find it high and thin and just plain plain. Would that I had one of those smoky voices a la Kathleen Turner (never mind that it’s gotten so low over the years, she now sounds like a man, a sexy man, but a man nonetheless (sorry, Kathleen, I still think you are smokin’) ). But I’ve never had the discipline for nightly nightcaps and packs of cigarettes (you kids know I’m joking, right?). Anyway, you get my drift—throaty, sexy voice = good. My voice = bad. So imagine my horror on seeing video footage of me at a party. Yes, there was some drinking involved, certainly there was a room full of people over whose voices I insisted on bawling (BabyFesters, if you’re reading this, it was your voices), and what, under these circumstances, happens to a high, thin, plain voice like mine??? It gets so high and so thin, dogs howl in recognition (or abject distress). It is a nails-on-chalkboard-tin-foil-in-mouth-squeal-a-thon. I was devastated to hear it. That might sound unfairly dramatic, but let’s face it, we all have those moments where we see ourselves from a vantage point and we shudder. Not that I’m proud of it, not that I encourage it. It just … is…

Part Two: This is a nicer tale. You remember when I blogged about my aunt going to visit my mom in Montreal at the same time as us and I got to see her??? Well, consider this the ultimate in voice recognition: two generations, three women, all with variations of the same voice. If my sisters were there, it would’ve been five women. Seriously, we all have such similar voices, people will mistake us if they don’t see our faces. It’s funny sitting back, over dinner say, and listening to your own voice in other people’s mouths (okay, that sounds weird, but you know what I mean). And, okay, I don’t actually hate the voice in other people’s mouths. (Except when we all compete to talk and then the aforementioned high-squeal-tin-foil thing happens times 3 … or 4, or 5, or whatever.)

Part Three: Best part ever. I’m not a gadget hound. When I hear that new, amazing stuff has come out, the wondrous news kinda goes in one ear and out the other. So if it wasn’t for my husband’s thoughtfulness, I would never have noticed—never mind gotten—the new Siri iPhone. Not trying to rub anything in, folks, but just have to say that the future is looking pretty cool. You can now lift a phone to your mouth and it will understand you!! It will write out emails and texts and notes! In perfect English (or French or Spanish or whatever)! It will capitalize names! It will punctuate! It will spell correctly! (It will also entertain you with hilarious misquotes: when Phil voice-texted his brother that he’d picked up wine for the party with a concise, “I bought your booze”, it became, “I bought your boobs.”) Snafus notwithstanding, for a dweeb who can’t figure out how to navigate the tiny little phone keyboard, who would rather wait to get home than attempt it, this is truly voice recognition at its finest. 

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Apple, if you're listening--we can work something out ;)

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