Pickles by Brian Crane for September 12, 2021

I agree, Earl; there are way too many remotes now.

“Hold on, this is my bookmark for magazines.”

His chances of finding anything good on TV are remote.

Now what book will he read? So many choices from which to choose

That’s a good outcome. Cheaper than all that electrona, too.

Have they not heard of those “universal remote” thingies??? I’m sure that Nelson could “program” one of those thingies, for them!!

/SHMIRK/

You actually know what a Roku is? I’m impressed…. I’ve had one since 2012. I use an Ultra now.

The absolute worst that I’ve encountered is the Apple streaming remote. That is the dumbest, least decipherable gizmo I’ve ever seen.

The remote that came with my cable box, programmed by the installer, stopped linking to the TV after about two months, and I haven’t got it working again yet. Back to multiple controllers, especially for the Roku function.

So now he’s going far away to read a book – remotely?

You can even talk to our remote.

“What’s on first, Opal?”

Distance yourself from remote control!

I find most of my remotes control most of the functions on most of the things, so just grab whichever is closest and it’ll probably work. The worst part is having to dig out the actual TV remote to change some obscure setting.

The battery companies love it!

It will be difficult to read a book with Opal cranking up the volume of some obtuse show.

My grandfather had a nifty way of dealing with all his remote controls. He hot glued them all to a thin masonite board. It was big enough that it was tough to lose, and when the batteries croaked, individual remotes were easy to pry up for replacement.

You made the right choice Earl.

Just put ID Labels on them Earl ;-)

I have a Universal remote that works perfectly for what I need to do. So naturally, they’ve stopped manufacturing them.

This comic would be funnier if it wasn’t so tragically true.

What is a roku

Remote THIS! Nothing is simple anymore.

Our air purifier’s remote and the space heater’s remote use the same command signals, for different purposes. So, we don’t use the remotes for either.

I have 4 remotes. There’s the TV, The cable box, the DVD player, and the Fire Stick. I was able to program the one for the cable to act as a universal remote, and it operates all of the devices except the Fire Stick. You just have to know which buttons to press. The only other problem is that the TV has only 2 HDMI inputs, so I had to buy a splitter and have to actually get up and use the toggle switch to go from DVD to Fire Stick. I’m used to it, but things can be confusing to others who come to visit and try to navigate the system.

I go to a friend’s house and the entertainment is watching him trying to turn on the TV. He has 4 remotes and sound systems and god knows what, but he has to use all 4 to get going to watch TV. In the old B&W tube days it took a long time warm up and watch. But this takes about 20 minutes of fumbling. Why he doesn’t label things, I don’t know, but he’s like that with most things, just fumbles around. Don’t even ask about when he programs his GPS, LOL!!

Hooray! for books! Legere et Doce… or something like that. Perhaps I need to re-read my Latin textbooks. : )

It is ridiculous how many remotes we have. I’m not even sure how to use them.

Nowaday, Earl can read by just using his tablet. Lots of ebooks out there. But an actual book is better in so many ways.

I remotely remember that one.

Ah, the good ole days, when you had to get up to change the channel. SIGH.

Good advice earl. Read.

That’s why I labeled ours.

Believe it or not I have 10 remotes.

Best idea he’s had in quite some time.

A friend of mine had a vcr with a hard wired remote. Nice to not have to get up to start, stop, pause, or rewind but dont trip over the cord.

That works until your eyesight goes.

We bought a Fire TV from Amazon a few years back, and we’ve been happy with it. It’s the remote that’s the problem. We had to get a second one for “just in case” we lost the other, since the TV is worthless without the remote.

Anyway, it is an older model and impossible to find a replacement remote with a power button or volume. All it can do is change the freaking channel.

Fortunately the make a phone app that does what we need. Except that it has to reconnect every time you shut the tv off or close the app.

Surprised Nelson has not programmed just one to run all the stuff.

Wow, this really touched a nerve. The Roku does the TV and my streaming service lets me record using the Roku. We don’t mess with a DVD player anymore. Freedom!

I deal with two since my cable company said I cannot get my DVD player to work using their remote. But it’s not so bad, since generally whatever I wish to watch, I need one.

As a handyman I hang and setup TVs a lot. By far the hardest part of the job is to instruct the new owner how to use it and which remote does what. I try to include a universal remote in the project, but even that gets difficult for a lot of people. My wife doesn’t watch TV if I’m not at home.

Ask Nelson to tune it. That’s what I had to do in the ’50s.

Label makers are your friend.

The cable remote, tv remote, Blu-Ray remote, and DVD/VCR remote handle everything. The remote caddy handles all of the remotes. Once the TV audio and video settings were input it is not needed unless we want to change input devices, so it’s never more than needing them all at once. We have tried several universal remotes but even though nothing except the DVD/VCR is more than 4 years old they don’t seem to be able to do more than power up or power down any of the machines. We are so used to using more than one remote that we can live with it.

Always the best thing to do.

First, I got rid of the often inoperative cable box (Charter); second, bought a Roku; third, stream my Charter via Roku; use one remote to turn on tv and activate the Roku device.

I agree you have too many remotes, good book. For us another week prime time dramas.

I gave up long ago when I needed 3 remotes to play a cd using my old stereo. My brain scrambles when I read all your remote comments! My eyeballs start to spin….

“Have you seen the remote to my Kindle?”

So very true. Read istead.

Good idea.

And why do they make all the remotes look alike? They seem to all be flat black with red numbers and buttons that are tiny with microscopic printing. It’s difficult to see a flat back button against a flat black background. Everything is black on black. Ten or so years ago remotes were silver color with red or blue large buttons with easy to read words. Very simple and easy to use. But the ‘powers that be’ decided that wasn’t ‘cool’ so they made all remotes tiny, matte black with black buttons and black words.