TomTom!

Around this time every year my mother begins to think about what to get me for my birthday. Invariably, she figures it out in a short amount of time and then can’t wait to give it to me, and I get my present from her in June. On Sunday she gave me this year’s gift: a TomTom GPS navigator for my car. Woo! I’ve been playing around with it and I was actually impressed by it last night. I had it on on the way home from work last night and it was navigating to our house in Maine, because I had put that in earlier in the day to see how it would tell me to get there. Anyway, it’s not a big deal because the way home from work and the way to Maine from work are the same, I just get off the highway in Waterbury. As soon as I got off the highway it re-calculated my route and told me how to get back on. So I turned onto a side road and set the TomTom to navigate to home. I was impressed because it took me down this side street and then up an access road that runs along the high school that I didn’t even know about, and back onto the main drag. Neat.

When I set it up, I chose the male British voice. It’s nice, but today I realized something: he sounds like creepy Raymond (Laurence Harvey) from The Manchurian Candidate. I’m not sure I want a brainwashed Communist assassin giving me directions in a strange town.

You can download other voices from their website for $5. I may have to get the sexy Scottish guy.