Slingbox (or I Aine No Sherlock)

Do you know this—Slingbox?

Slingbox is the Splenda of Internet electronics. (I have a theory that as soon as they announce that cancer has been cured and that portly older guys will not die as a direct result of their excesses, they’ll add one disclaimer: except for Jay thanks to the mountain of Splenda he consumed.) Anything this easy, this reliable, this…um…this…(hold on, let me think of the right word…) is too good to be true. 

See Slingbox is…um…a box—OK I guess you figured out that much. It attaches to your home television receiver (cable, satellite, etc…) and connects it to the Internet, thereby allowing you to use your laptop or mobile device to watch your television whist you are away from home. See where I’m going with this?

Big Brother

A week before Christmas 2012 my brother came to visit us in North Carolina. On a day when golf seemed like too much work, he chose “shopping” as the alternate plan. That should have been my first clue because shopping for Lar is actually buying. When he asked to go to Best Buy (electronics, tv’s computers, etc…) I said “sure” and asked “why?” He told me about Slingbox and said that he wanted one.

OK. Really? All he watches are investigative mysteries about actual crimes—oh, and westerns—and he needed to make sure he could see them when he leaves home? Clue #2.

In the store we were presented with two versions of Slingbox—one for a buck fifty and the other for three bills. He told the clerk he wanted the more expensive one. I had to ask…

“Lar,” I interjected, “before you buy that one, let me get something straight. The only difference in these two machines, besides the price, is that the more expensive one can use wi-fi and the other one is hardwired. You know that; right?”

Xmas 2012

“I know,” he replied.

“And you still want to pay more?”

“Yes.”

“Lar, do you have wi-fi at home?”

“No.”

“…and you still want it?”

“Yes.”

“…because it costs more it’ll work better?”

“Yes.” And he bought it.

Two weeks later on Christmas morning my granddaughter handed me a fairly large present. “Is this from you?” I asked.  “Just open it,” she replied, and I did. (OK OK I admit I aine no Sherlock Holmes. Maybe I should watch more of those how-they-done-it crime shows that Lar watches all the time.)

Thanks to my brother’s generosity, my son-in-law’s diligence, and Slingbox’s electronic magic, I know exactly where I’ll be on Monday 4 February at 12:30 a.m. (local time)—right in my living room at Amstel 155 Amsterdam, Netherlands watching the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XLVII by way of my daughter’s living room television in Raleigh, North Carolina!

…oh wait, I thought of it…perfect. Slingbox is absolutely, positively, too perfect to be true!