I've just bought a new phone. The one it replaces, the handset got damaged when I slammed it down so hard on a persistent nuisance caller that the plastic broke. I stuck it back together with superglue but after that, people couldn't hear me properly. Guess I damaged some microchip with the emphatic slamming. (I got rid of the persistent nuisance caller though.)

SO, today I found out that they don't sell phones with curlywurly wires attaching the handset to the base any more: they're all wireless. (They call them "hands-free" which is somewhat of a misnomer. You have to use your hands to press the buttons).

<Note: please don't tell me about phones on sale with curlywurly wires, the deed is done>

The point is, the first thing the phone (a sticking-up handset sitting in a charging base) wants me to do is TELL IT THE TIME AND DATE.

Why? Why? DearGods I've now made a list. There are now twenty-one things in my life which I have to tell the time to, before they will work and/or twenty-one devices whose time-chip must be changed at the Equinox, twice a year.

The only things which re-set all by themselves at the Equinoxes (Equinoxi?) are the Macs and the TV. Everything else has to be TOLD the bloody time before you can move on.........I don't bother, btw, with my bike's computer. I have a wrist watch! which needs resetting at the Equinox.

Grrrrrrrrrrr.......rant over. Thanks for listening.

I came up with 21 devices also. It's such a pain! Those places that never change are on to something.

Did you ever notice on a world map that Newfoundland Time is a half-hour off the bordering time zones? I wonder how those time zone lines got established. Some of them zig and zag in strange ways.

You're lucky if you can actually enter the time and date manually. Many devices require that you purchase a special service so that the time and date will be entered by same, otherwise you're SOL and your phone +/- answering machine won't respond properly.

For the record, some cheap stores should sell corded phones. The reason being, all cordless require electricity. In case of power outage, the only phones that may be working are cellular (not necessarily) and corded. US has plenty of those still.
Otherwise, IMHO, time and date may be needed for the answering machine.

Radio Shack still sells corded phones; they're not attractive, but they are wired. They don't seem to make wireless phones at a reasonable price that lie horizontally in the cradle; I don't like the ones that stand up trying to look like table sculptures.

We have older TVs that have the "Auto Clock" feature. It's supposed to pick up the signal from the local PBS station and set the clock to the correct time. But, that needs to be an analog signal which is no longer being sent.