The Goat Pen

Did DS say he got his wife at an auction?

We went to one of those things at the church we took my kid to for preschool the first time. They had a cakewalk where you pay $1 to walk around in a circle until the music stops and the person closest to the number chosen wins the cake or pie. They had a shit ton of cake, I mean, there was literally almost a cake or pie for just about everyone there. My wife won a cake on her first try and then my kid won one after about 3 tries. I was doing it, too, the whole time, so i'm already in for about $8, which is about what I would pay for the 2 cakes they had won. But fuck if I was going to go home empty-handed and I figured it was for a good cause, so I kept playing, probably another 3 or 4 times. Then this dude who clearly was a church member comes over and says, "You know, if the people who have already won would sit out, then maybe some other people could win." I just looked at him, looking at my empty hands and said, "I know. I've spent about $15 so far and I don't have anything to show for it." Which I didn't because my wife and kid had already made it clear that they weren't going to share their treats with me.

I ended up running out of ones and quit playing.

So the moral of this story is I don't know why people always say teams with so-called easy brackets in the NCAA Tournament get a cakewalk. My experience with a cakewalk is that it was hard and disappointing and ultimately made me feel empty inside.

LOL

kudos for throwing in a moral at the end

LMAO

Well done

Also, I have never seen a cake walk at a harvest sale back home.

That's because when they see your fat ass lumbering up, they hide the cakes...

"I just looked at him, looking at my empty hands and said, "I know. I've spent about $15 so far and I don't have anything to show for it." Which I didn't because my wife and kid had already made it clear that they weren't going to share their treats with me."

Man, you're a long way from Leave it to Beaver and The Waltons, where the fambly's were kind, where the fambly's shared...

In fairness, though, Grandpa Walton was a flaming homo in real life. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Goodnight, John Boy. Goodnight, mama. Goodnight, Jim Bob.... Jim Bob? Mama, this is John Boy, Jim Bob can't say goodnight right now, Grandpa is fucking him in the ass...

never knew Grandpa Walton was gay in real life. Makes sense, he had great hair

at any rate, wanted to tell you guys about the Amazon Fire Tablet I bought.

If you're not into Alexa, this won't mean much, but I have a few echo-dots and a fire-sticks with Alexa. This is going to be alot of information that you won't care anything about.

one thing I like about Alexa on the fire stick is I ask Alexa for the weather or to play music and it shows the information - 5 day forecast, album cover with lyrics,whatever on the TV screen

one other thing we've done is I've mounted bluetooth sound bars in the kitchen, living room and bedroom and we have echo dots connected to them. So when we play music or ambient sounds or whatever, its much better sound quality.

The fire stick is bluetooth as well, so you can connect sound bars, head phones , etc. When I'm attempting to work out on that rower, I have bluetooth headphones I wear to listen to Netflix.
However the fire stick has some limitations - they don't have timers, alarms and a few other key features the echo dot has, and they aren't hands free.

You can connect an echo dot to the fire stick and make it hands free, but you don't gain functionality

The reason I'm writing this is because watching the commercials for new Echo Show - essentially its an echo with a screen - it has built in speakers, and the like. Its only a 10" screen but with the camera you can use skype to make video calls, or use ring for home security, or visually see the things like weather , albums and song lyrics plus the TV side of it - Netflix, Hulu, Prime (albeit on a 10" screen) which at this point is pretty much what I want.

But its $229.

So while I was looking around I found they have the 10" Fire Tablet with Alexa Hands Free -which means the Alexa is always listening, just like an echo dot - so essentially its an echo show without the speakers, which I don't want anyways because I prefer to have better quality sound connected via bluetooth.

So for $109 (refurbished) I bought one and mounted it on the wall in the kitchen on a $11 TV mount and $9 case with a swing out arm, so we can position it how we want. The mount also disconnects so we can take it with us on the road or whatever

I'm really happy with it - since the kitchen is our primary hangout, we can position it without being in the way or taking up counter space to show us recipes, make a video call (via wifi) to our daughter, play music with lyrics, weather, set timers, alarms, read an audio book and I'm sure a bunch of other stuff. We have some smart home stuff so by voice we can turn on lights, set the temperature and I ordered an Alexa enabled garage door opener yesterday

As you can tell I'm really into this whole hands free automation thing

fwiw, you can get an 8" Alexa that is the same thing for sub $90

My main takeaway from all that is that you play ambient sounds in your house...

hedge wrote:My main takeaway from all that is that you play ambient sounds in your house...

when we sleep we do

we have several choices but our go to's are "wind in trees", "rain on tent" and "thunderstorms"

I also like "distant train" but my wife says it annoys her.

I find it drowns out alot of other noises, like my night owl son clumping up the stairs at 2am and slamming doors

I also like how you said "when I'm attempting to work out on the rower"...

hedge wrote:I also like how you said "when I'm attempting to work out on the rower"...

keeping it real

actually I really enjoy it - as long as I have something to watch on TV.

the cat had to find out the hard way you don't brush up against the seat of a rower when its being used. I think the fur has grown back by now.

"So while I was looking around I found they have the 10" Fire Tablet with Alexa Hands Free -which means the Alexa is always listening, just like an echo dot"

So Alexa is what they're calling Big Brother now?

hedge wrote:"So while I was looking around I found they have the 10" Fire Tablet with Alexa Hands Free -which means the Alexa is always listening, just like an echo dot"

So Alexa is what they're calling Big Brother now?

that does mess with people, when they realize that thing is monitoring every sound you make waiting for the action word Alexa

whoever is listening to me at Amazon headquarters just hears me farting alot

Well at this rate, you won't even have to interact with your fambly at all in a few years. Sweet. Also, if they can ever figure out a hands free way to jack off, I think I know who the first customer is going to be...

hedge wrote:Well at this rate, you won't even have to interact with your fambly at all in a few years. Sweet. Also, if they can ever figure out a hands free way to jack off, I think I know who the first customer is going to be...

or bake a cake

We have 3 Alexas in our house. The inlaws sent them to us so they can have daily conversations although I suspect my FIL is listening in on us.

So, we've had them for 2 years or more, at least the first one. I wanted to hear some Foreigner while I was making waffles this morning and couldn't get Alexa to play what I wanted. Finally my kid comes and says, "Dad, it's Alexa, not Alexis."

Damn, I'm fucking old for real

[youtube]pC9m45AIsGY[/youtube]

Why is there a red triangle with an exclamation point in my browser header when goatpen.net shows up? I think aTm is working for the Russians. It's either that or he's trying to hack eCats porn collection or BRMs recipe book.