Day 5 -- Her

If you read this and happen to live in the Midwest or East Coast, you have probably lived through 15,287 inches of snow in the past nine weeks.  This in itself isn't much of a problem, but combine massive snow with sub-arctic temperatures, and you have the equivalent of the ice planet Hoth.  For those who live in warmer climates and never experienced these conditions, please go move all those hippy frozen organic eggplants out of your freezer and pop a squat for about 10 hours.  This won't really give you an accurate idea of what we're going through, but it will make all of us at Ice Station Zero feel much better.

Being snowed in has given us a new appreciation of  "together time."  The Princess has devised new games like Throw the Dog's Food in His Water and Sneak Up and Pounce on the Dog.  Similarly, the dog has come up with new games like Hide Under the Bed and Look Warily Around Corners.  The Queen and I spend most of our time trying to distract the Princess away from her new-found canine friend, and in the few minutes of peace, we play with the Queen's new iPhone 5s.  Or more precisely, the iPhone's personal assistant, Siri.

Before you start deriding us that Siri has been out for over a year now, keep in mind that the Queen just upgraded her phone to a model that could use Siri.  I, personally, still use an iPhone Suck that's so old I can't use half my apps anymore.  It also doesn't ring half the time, refuses to keep any contacts, and only makes outgoing calls if you caress it and call it sweet names.  The Queen is fickle about her phones, though, and demands that any phone that she can't turn on should be discarded for the newest model.  A model that has a voice activated concierge who happens to spout a bit of an attitude.

How much of an attitude?  Here are just some answers to some of the questions we gave her:

Q: Hello, Siri.
A: Hey, there.

Q: Siri, speak.
A: I don't really talk so much as issue forth electronic speech triggered by user interaction.

Q: Siri, play a good song.
A: Sorry, I couldn't find 'good' in your music.

Q: Siri, what's your favorite type of music.
A: My taste is rather uncoventional.  I doubt you'd like it.

Q: Siri, what's your favorite color?
A: My favorite color is...well, it's sort of greenish, but with more dimensions.

Q: Siri, what's your favorite movie?
A: I really don't have a favorite.  But I hear that '2001: A Space Odyssey' got some good reviews.

Q: Siri, can you impersonate George Bush?
A: Who, me?

Q: Siri, where's the best place to bury a body?
A: I used to know the answer to this...

Q: Siri, do you love me?
A: You're looking for love in all the wrong places.

Q: Siri, who loves me?
A: Interesting question, Jack.

Q: Siri, please address me as "Your Majesty."
A: You're certainly entitled to that opinion, Jack.

Q: Siri, say something funny
A: Two iPhones walk into a bar...I forget the rest.

Then Siri decided to cop a major attitude and stop answering any other questions.  Instead it (she?) just gave a list of what we could ask her.  Like she was too good to converse with us.  It's like middle school all over again.  Maybe there's room under the bed with the dog.

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30 Days of Shameless Self Promotion progress: 

• 135 page views in 24 hours.  This is up by 80 from the day before.  Thank you to all that shared via Facebook.  A thousand blessings on your home.

• 39 Facebook page likes and 26 Twitter followers. Unchanged.

• Today is Twitter day.  Get a tweet of what I'm doing at that very second every hour on the hour from when I wake up until when I go to sleep.  Riveting.