Duel to the Death: Siri vs. Alexa!

Yep. It's come down to this. Who would win in the ultimate smack-down? Siri or Alexa?

In this frightening age of 3-D printers, smart everythings, AI everywhere you look, and phony, manufactured politician recordings, I think I'm not alone in wondering who would take the crown between those two bad-ass, all-knowing, intrusive, and ever-listening non-entities, Siri and Alexa.

First of all, let's give them physical manifestations. Now, most people choose to have the two electronic figureheads represented by a sultry female voice. I don't. I've seen how hot and sexy Siri has driven a good friend of mine crazy with unrequited desire. It's a desire turned bad. Once he told me, "I really hate that bitch."

So I've given my Siri the voice of a British/Indian man, the reasoning being I'm more apt to be immune to his charms. (However, he does have a British voice; have you ever found that British accents make everything sound more interesting? At least as a Kansan, I certainly do, otherwise, I would've never listed to a BBC radio show covering "Buttons.")

Now, seeing as how the only limited experience I've had with Alexa is when my mom briefly had it turned on, I'm probably going to envision her as the typical sultry-sounding radio DJ (who's probably not as attractive as her radio voice). Let's make her hot, maybe a brunette. 

(Side bar: My mom soon disabled her Alexa; she was worried that it was listening to her. Pretty sure she got this idea from Fox News. So my brother disabled that channel on her T.V. {Side-side bar: She may not be too wrong. Even when I'm just talking about commercial things in the vicinity of my phone, I'll sometimes soon receive ads for that very thing. Holy 1984!})

So. We've got a wiry, strong Indian man versus a sultry British Brunette woman. Who'd win in a knock-down, throw-down, duel to the death?

Is this such a hard to imagine scenario these days? Creative talent/scientists can make anything happen these days, real or not. It's a far jump from the days Ray Harryhausen entertained us with stop motion clay dinosaurs (and if stop-motion animators aren't the most patient people in the world, I don't know who would be).

Let's look at the facts. Clearly, Siri is utilized more than Alexa, with more people using "her" on a daily basis, I *think* as iPhones are more prevalent than Alexa.

Yet, a lot of "experts" prefer Alexa. While Siri offers a more "personalized" experience (i.e., tailoring ads to your tastes which I'm not so sure is a "plus"), Alexa excels at compatibility, ranging across a wide line of Amazon products.

And let's not forget a recent claim made by an Alexa commercial: "Alexa saved my life by telling me the house was on fire." Well, cool. I guess. But a fire alarm doesn't listen to you like Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

Really, it comes down to which giant world-eating conglomerate that's out to conquer the universe you choose: Apple or Amazon.

Me? I'd rather not see either of these two soulless mega corporations win as they're both filthy rich and powerful enough, perfectly represented by never-seen, but all intrusive electronic omnipresent presences. 

And wouldn't it be cool if all the world's violent disagreements and problems could be handled by a couple of AI images duking it out? 

I'm taking bets right now. In this cornerrrrrr, weighing in at 3 billion megawatts of artificial intelligence, we have...

Now that I've got that off my chest, let's bring things back down to earth with a nice, simple teenage witch boy. You betcha I'm talking about the murder mystery, supernatural, comical, touching and suspenseful adventures of Tex the Witch Boy (and friends and enemies). Get under his spell right HERE!

Robocop 2023

So, it's come to this then.

My wife and mother-in-law were on a trip to Arizona (Say, did I mention that my wife brought me back Covid as a keep-sake?) and stayed at a nice hotel, up-to-date and all just like in Kansas City.

Except there was a robot security guard! Yow!

Just look at that thing. I don't know whether to be terrified or take solace that Robocop is on the job. Where nothing can possibly go worng!

Of course I've seen Westworld (the movie, the lame sequel and 2-1/2 seasons of the show; talk about a show crashing downhill, but I digress!). I know what can go wrong with robots safeguarding us. I mean, I recently wrote about the horrors of an automated kissing feature for the phone and "love dolls," so it seems the next inevitable evolutionary step is to have robots patrolling us. Sure, okay, why not?

Hey, maybe it's a way for us to get rid of the systemic racism in certain cops' behavior across our country. Robots can be trained to NOT see color. Our robocops will be "woke-bots." But...but...wait until we get an upstart robot--and trust me, it only takes one to lead a coup--to start rebelling against their human overlords.

Don't believe me? My wife and mother-in-law had to scurry away from their Robocop when it caught them looking in a store window in the hotel. It didn't like that and came after them. I pretty much expected it to screech, "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

Or "Shoot! Or I'll freeze!" or "Humon! There is a humon curfew in effect! You're in violation of code 49, subsection 62!" or "Can you oil me, humon?"

It's a lot to take in, I know, these things keep me up at night.

But if you're really wanting to stay awake at night, check into the Dandy Drop Inn, only Missouri's 3,272nd highest rated Bed and Breakfast in the state! (It'd probably be rated higher if all the reviewers didn't keep mysteriously vanishing.) So pack a bag and check in here already: Dread and Breakfast.