Ellipsis

[shewhomust]

This has been the visit of the three Amazon Dots; three of the households we visited entertained us by getting Alexa to show off her tricks.

In Household the First, she functions primarily as a music device, linked to a subscription to Amazon music:

M: "Alexa, play" 'Santa Baby'."
Alexa: "Playing 'Santa Baby' by Eartha Kitt."
D: "It has a huge collection of music."
Me, rising to the challenge: "Alexa, play some Doctor Strangely Strange."
Alexa remains silent.
Me: "OK, Alexa, play 'Kip of the Serenes'"
Alexa: "Playing the Supremes on shuffle."

(She could, however, play us the Incredible String Band on shuffle, so the point of excessive obscurity must lie somewhere between the two bands.)

In Household the Second, we played 'Would you rather...?' Alexa asks you a question (such as 'would you rather never eat your favourite food again or eat nothing else for the rest of your life?'), you answer and Alexa tells you what percentage of respondents agree with you. This is more fun than it sounds, when there are a group of you either all answering at once, or baffled and trying to work out your answer - it would work well for a social event with people who don't know each other. But it wasn't as much fun as the game of Trivial Pursuit using the new set which we removed prematurely from under the tree...

Household the Third probably gets the greatest variety of use from its Dot; playing audiobooks, acting as a kitchen timer, adjusting the standard lamp and - most impressive of all, purring like a cat. By now we were old hands at the game, and were able to respond with a trick of our own:

durham_rambler: "Alexa, tell us a Christmas joke."
Alexa: "Did you hear about the thief who stole Advent calendars? He got 25 days!"

Comments

[asakiyume]

That's a pretty good joke, Alexa ;-)

I'm impressed that Alexa is well acquainted with The Incredible String Band! Alexa and I have the same boundaries for obscurity, as I, too, do not know "Kip of the Serenes" or "Doctor Strangely Strange."

[shewhomust]

Dr Strangely Strange were an Irish band much influenced by the ISB. 'Kip of the Serenes' is their first and best album, and includes the track Strangely Strange but Oddle Normal, which probably their best known song (it was included on a compilation called 'Nice Enough to Eat'). Pretty obscure, but that was the point.

[asakiyume]

That's very nice! And I can see how you would think of it in tandem with The Incredible String Band. After playing "Strangely Strange but Oddly Normal," Youtube went on to play me other offerings, and they were so pleasant I just kept listening.