The other night I'm talking to Christy and I keep hearing a voice in the background. "Who is that?" I ask. "Oh, that's Jane," she tells me. Her car's GPS unit.

As someone who drives about once a year I'm completely out of the loop with new car technologies, and I'm fascinated by this talking direction giver.

"There's other voices too. Jane is just the British woman." She tells me there's an American guy, who has a name like Gary or something, and then there are also other languages, like the Spanish speaking woman named Marta. The thought of all these different voices is absolutely superfluous and I love it.

I begin to think about an article I read a year or two ago, discussing how civilization has pretty much invented everything it needs (farming advances, indoor plumbing, the automobile), and now we're stuck inventing things that we might enjoy, but aren't really necessary (TiVo, clocks that project the time onto the ceiling, flavored straws).

If nothing else, I'm glad that they've taken the time to give names to the GPS voices, and they seem to be as stereotypical as possible. I say, "I bet for the French voice they gave the guy a name like Jacques." Then, this morning, I looked up this (scroll to the bottom of the page).

God bless you and and your stereotypical naming, TomTom GPS.