You don't know shift...

This is my first attempt at using my new voice-recognition software, “Dragon Naturally Speaking.”  It comes with a dandy little headset and boom microphone.  The program really acts more intelligent than I thought it would.  In fact, I suspect it is more intelligent than I am.  On balance, however, that is not too difficult to achieve.

I hope, over time, to be able to use this voice recognition software to write a book, or continue my musings, or just to send dirty little notes to quite a number of grandmothers throughout the country.

Well, well, well...  I can see that this would be very handy once one learns how to dictate carefully.  So far, I have "typed" this entire document without touching the keyboard. Everything you see written here has been put there by my little “Dragon Naturally Speaking” program!  Likewise, I have created this entire document without once using more than four brain cells.  The whole process seems like an exercise in symbiosis.  (Wow!  This damn program, even knows “symbiosis.”)  Maybe if I get good enough at this, the program will actually write this drivel without my involvement at all.  Then I can just sit in the family room, scratching various parts of my body.

The real downside of all of this is that it could get very, very, very long and tedious, owing to the fact that it is much easier to exhibit verbal diarrhea than it is to expend the actual energy required to type all of this.  Hell, I don't even have to check punctuation!

Well, I'm back from doing a little computer training. So far, I have been unable to trick this Dragon speaking program; I can change that now.

“Holy ????”?

There, I told you it would throw it into confusion.  However, no program worth its salt would be unable to recognize a healthy "Shit."  (You see, I just had to train the computer to recognize that word.  I had to spell the word, pronounce the word, define the word, show the computer a dog doing it, and generally be very solicitous of its syntax.)

 That is, I was training the computer to recognize certain required words: shit shit shit.  That worked!  So now I can say shipped and it will…wait a minute.  I said shift, no shipped, no…

I also tried to train this stupid program to recognize "bullshit" which it did with amazing facility.  So why will it not recognize shipped?  No, that's shift.  Know, that's, she at...  Hold on, I am going back in!

Okay, let's give it another try: shift.  God damn it.  This talking thing will not get shift.  What I mean to say is, "this thing will not get shift" shit.  I think I need to change my pronunciation of this absolutely requisite word.  Be right back...

Okay, my friends.  Here is where the rubber meets the road.

She at.  Heavy sigh...  I will not let this program defeat me in my attempt to bring “shit” forward as an absolutely necessary part of virtually any document I compose.  I have just gone back and tried to train it again.  I can barely wait to see the results this time...

Shift shift shit, Ott it finally got it checked jet shit shit shipped shipped.  Why is she at so hard to understand?  This is a huge challenge.  I suppose I could just say "crap Ola" but it just doesn't have the same impact.

Maybe this whole thing needs a different approach.  The program itself does not seem prudish, so I suspect it does not have an aversion to scatology.  So perhaps the program itself is possessed of an anal-retentive personality disorder.  In that case, of course, the program would neither keep nor give a shift shit.  There it to a shift, but it got this the shipped.  Finally.  Past me off.  All in all, now it won't do past or shift.  That is, "piss" and "shit."

Excuse me while I go train my computer to poor pests out of a boot.  Okay, back again.  Now let's see if it has learned to poor pests out of a boot.  No, no, no: piss.  If I cannot figure out how to get swear words into the dictionary, this will significantly slow down my creative process.  Let me try this in another language.  Be right back...

Shit.  It works!  I just told it to spell shipped, but pronounced it in German: you know, shit.  Oops, that is actually spelled Scheisse.  But as we all know, shit by any other name is still Scheisse.  Hey, what's happening here?  I said Scheisse and got Scheisse, but not shift (which still comes across as shift).  Now, the goddam program speaks German better than I do as well.

Anyway, these ramblings are worth exactly what you're paying for them, assuming that you are me, because no one else is reading this Scheisse, I mean shut.  Heavy sigh!

Later...