The last word with Tom McGouran and Joe Aiello

Tom says...

If you know me at all, you’ll be aware that I have a love/hate relationship with technology. I love what it can do for me, and I hate trying to get it to work.

I recently embarked on a four-day trip to Minneapolis with my girlfriend. As we departed, she announced that she had a portable GPS unit that we could use. Now, of course, as long-time Winnipeggers we do know that if you want to get to Minneapolis, you head south, and then veer east at some point and you’ll get there.

It does seem, though, that everyone has this new technology, so why not give it a go? So, from my passenger position in “shotgun,” I began to go through the prompts on the GPS unit to find the most efficient route to Minneapolis.

I was stumped at the first step. You’re required to enter your destination, which seems simple enough, but not if you’re me! I spent the first hour or so of our drive trying to figure out why this piece of technological crap wouldn’t recognize the name Minneapolis. Surely it had heard of the place. People from here have been going there for as long as I can remember. Certainly, they must have included it inside the little hand-held unit I was now cursing.

As it turned out, you were required to enter the state in the U.S. you wanted to go to at the outset. I spent the first two hours searching the State of Alabama for Minneapolis! I can tell you there are some really interesting sounding towns and cites in Alabama, but there is definitely not another Minneapolis.

Once I realized my mistake, it took just a moment to find it and marvel at the female voice giving me directions. I should add at this time, I was quite comfortable listening to that, since it was far from the first time a woman was telling me where to go!

Now that our route was confirmed, I discovered other functions that I could play with, including changing the voice that tells you where to go to a guy’s voice, or even Manuel speaking in Spanish, but I chose to stick with the female voice, because, as a guy, I felt some weird familiarity with having her tell me what to do.

If you’ve ever used one of these things, I’m sure you’ll agree that after a while, it starts to take on human characteristics, and we started to treat it as a third person in the car!

After programming it to find various locations in Minneapolis, we’d find ourselves looking at and addressing the unit in a discussion of whether that was the best route or not. One thing you discover is that the GPS is never in a mood to discuss alternatives. She has decided the route we’re all going to take and that’s exactly what we will do. However, it is so good at getting you where you want to go, eventually you stop questioning and offering your opinion and just obey. In fact, after a while, we found we couldn’t go anywhere, without asking “her” for the route.

I still struggle with all new technology, but once I can figure it out, I’m all over it and, of course, become the requisite slave. In fact I would have loved to go to work this morning and do the morning show on 92 CITI FM, but the battery was dead in the GPS and I no longer knew how to get there.

Joe says...

I can’t believe it’s already time for the holiday issue! I guess that’s also telling me it’s time to get organized with Christmas shopping. That I pretty much have down to a science—gift cards! Yessir, cash in the form of plastic for everyone from all their favourite stores and restaurants. Easy for you, and it allows everyone on your list to purchase whatever they want. Plus, it eliminates any paranoia you might have that your gift will be the one labeled “re-gift” by the recipient. But I don’t want to talk about “re-gifting.” I want to talk about the “me-gift”: the gift that will always fit, always be worth the investment, and always be appreciated. The one YOU buy for YOU.

You know how the holidays can be—go, go, go! Well, if it’s getting you a little down, the perfect pick-me-up is a “me-gift.” I know when I feel a little blah, I like to go clothes shopping. My wife just shakes her head and wonders “What guy does that?” Well, as she found out a long time ago, a guy who suffers from PMS: Pleasing Myself Shopping. But I’m not talking about hours upon hours of checking out stores, I’m talking about just one stop.

Recently I was having one of those days and figured it was time to turn it around. I knew I had a busy couple of weeks ahead with special events and wanted to look good. I ended up at Vittorio Rossi Clothiers on Corydon Avenue. I drive by the shop pretty much every day and drool over the men’s clothing in the windows displays, yet had never stopped in. Well, that all changed. I walked in to see what these magicians could do with this 44-year-old magic trick.

This was no illusion! This shop was like a fabric fantasyland, a paradise of patterns. I had just found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for the refined! What colours! Pants, dress shirts, casual shirts, jeans, t-shirts, sport coats, jackets, belts and ties! Row after row and wall upon wall filled with beautiful possibilities.

The great thing is, even if you have limited colour coordination abilities, it doesn’t matter. These guys are the experts who know how many combinations there are and can put it all together for you, just like their displays. As my good friend Glen says, “Tell them you want to buy the mannequin!” Voila—instant high-end outfit!

I don’t know who ever came up with the line: “To feel good you have to look good,” but I would like to add the line “... and that will make you happy!” I “me-gifted” myself a little happiness that day because the new clothes put me in a great frame of mind. Still working on the rest of the frame... that’s a New Year’s project!

Treat yourself this holiday season, and enjoy your “me-gift.” Hope your holiday season is a happy one!