Opinion

Love story and hangover mood: from the stereo system to the egg pan

3.12.2020

Translation: machine translated

What is your favourite piece of tech? And which device would you most like to throw out of the window immediately? We found a few surprising answers to these questions - from others, but also from ourselves. And no: "My mobile" is not among them (neither on one side nor on the other)

Technology is everywhere. It accompanies us through life, making our everyday lives faster, more beautiful, easier or more exciting. But sometimes technology also drives us crazy. When it doesn't want to work the way we want it to, or we just can't get it to work. A brief look at two absolute emotional states of emergency.

Tech favourite "My good old Technics system"

I rarely use it anymore. My Technics SU-V470 amplifier and the SL-PG340A CD player that goes with it sit seemingly unnoticed on a shelf in my living room, surrounded by illustrated books, travel guides, folders, drawers and boxes. But even if I only pop in a CD or connect my smartphone every few months - usually when friends are visiting - they don't go that unnoticed.

Every now and then, as I walk past, my gaze falls on the two black, shiny matt blocks with their few round buttons. And that warm, familiar feeling comes back to me. It comes from a time when I was about 15 years old. It must have been in the early 1990s. In the only electrical shop in our small, forgotten town, I looked at the Technics hi-fi tower from all sides for the first time, while my father talked to the salesman about all sorts of technical terms that I didn't understand. All I felt at the time was that this was a special moment, a milestone on the road to adulthood: my first own system.

From that day on, I spent many happy, sometimes very noisy hours and days with her. It has survived numerous moves and has travelled with me through half of Germany, even as far as Vienna. I had only arrived when my system was in a new home. And even if all that remains of it today is the foundations, even if the double cassette deck and stereo receiver have long since been discarded and I only switch on the CD player and amplifier from time to time, it is still important to me that they exist, that they have a place somewhere in the centre of my life, that they are still there, these two faithful companions. They will remain, for a long time to come, perhaps for the rest of my life.

Appliance disaster: "That stupid egg pan!"

I'm going to take a very broad definition of technology because my last major tech horror was just a few weeks ago. I discovered a special pan on the internet late one evening. It had four small circular indentations in which you could easily prepare wonderfully uniform fried eggs that were crispy on both sides. At least that was the sales promise! In photos, whole stacks of appetising-looking eggs were presented on a breakfast table. I was probably tired, or maybe just hungry, but at that moment something inside me really wanted to own that pan. Well, thought, ordered!

A few days later, when I stood at the cooker with the new pan full of expectation, the eggs wouldn't turn at all. Despite using oil (later optionally frying fat), they stuck to the bottom of the pan. They lay in their little hollows and were in no way ready to move out of there again. They even preferred to burn slowly. Stupid eggs, stupid pan!

The pan was allowed back into the kitchen from the attic for this photo.

The first load would have been for the dog - if I had a dog. As it was, it was for the bin. On a second attempt at a much lower temperature, the eggs suddenly started to "pop". Yes, really: they cracked! Slowly they lifted themselves out of the cavities and in the next moment the air that had apparently collected under the eggs escaped with a loud roar. Our nine-year-old, who came rushing over, said with a laugh: "Dad, I'm not eating the eggs. They'll explode in my stomach later!"

Even with further attempts, the results were neither circular nor did anything even approach "playful". That evening we had sandwiches. To this day, our fried eggs are still not circular, but rather frayed and misshapen - but crispy and not burnt. The pan is in the far corner of the attic. I don't want to see it any more. If dogs ate pans, I would have given the old thing to the dog. Oh no, we don't even have a dog!

What is your technology favourite that you wouldn't want to go through life without? What was the last device you hated? Tell me in the comments. <p

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Daniel Ramm

Autor

ottdansen@gmail.com

I've been a journalist for 20 years and have been editor of a knowledge magazine, head of copy at a news magazine and editor-in-chief of a youth magazine, among other things. For me, topics and texts can't be varied and colorful enough. Preferably something different, new and exciting every day. But the people around me - the people who share my table, bed and bathroom - would like to stay the same for the rest of my life.

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