ben on Humzoo

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
More Local Coverage

Today at work for some reason we had no internet and no ability to call long distance. It was a problem that made me pick up a phone book to look up a number...THE HUMANITY!!!! While the entire building was complaining (rightly so) in the afternoon I pissed everyone off by saying "I thought we are about More Local Coverage"

Thats our news slogan....and no one thought it was funny at the time.

The number I was looking for was not in the phone book so I used Google 4-1-1
What a great freaking invention....a free 4-1-1. I'm not sure how they do it or why they do it...but it saved my life today.

If you've never used it.....try it 1-800-555-GOOG

6 Comments

1) My husband has a huge crush on Goog 411. If he's sitting in front of a computer, with a phone book at arm's length, he'll still call it. Usually it gets the place you want on the first try but sometimes the voice recognition must get kinda drunk cause every now and then you'll get something that is not even close to what you're asking for.

SallyPants Wednesday, May 28, 2008

2) Voice recognition doesn't work for me because I talk funny.

LimeyGeorge Thursday, May 29, 2008

3) You do? Y'all can't talk much funkier than someone from south of the Mason-Dixon line.

dannie Thursday, May 29, 2008

4) I think they must get samples of American accents to test the system. They probably don't have such a large pool of people with foreign accents for the same purpose so it doesn't work so well. I have to keep repeating things and it drives me insane when I hear "mmmm....I'm sorry, I didn't get that....."
I just end up shouting at the computer while the voice keeps its cool and repeats the question over and over.

LimeyGeorge Thursday, May 29, 2008

5) Dave doesn't do well with automated systems either. I can't figure that out. It's funny to watch, though.

Courtney Heinzel Thursday, May 29, 2008

6) Honestly, I can relate to what you are saying. When I moved to Nashville. Tenn. from Michigan when I was 20, nobody could understand me on the telephone (you remember that ancient technology:>)Everyone asked me what couuntry I was from. It got to be funny, if not just a little insulting, after all I was speaking English.

dannie Thursday, May 29, 2008