By giving us so many options, carmakers have made it confusing

When I couldn't turn off the radio, the truth was clear: It's easier to pilot a spaceship around the moon than to drive Mrs. Brad's electric car.

The dashboard is filled with buttons. Screens. Arrows. More buttons. Symbols I don't understand. 

I know how to start the vehicle and put it in gear (a knob!), but beyond that? It's like automakers want to create vehicles that can do a million things – give us directions, brew coffee, warm our seats, tell us when someone is approaching the car, critique our clothing, teach us new languages, open the tailgate whether we want it or not – but as a test: We can do those things only if we can figure out how.

Last summer, Mrs. Brad and I bought an all-electric car, knowing we'd have to hear people inform us that it takes other forms of energy to create electricity (really? Who knew?).

She loves the idea, while I fret about not having a long enough extension cord to reach our destination. She spends time watching YouTube videos to navigate the dashboard, while I complain that you shouldn't need to watch video to learn how to turn on the windshield wipers.

I don't know which of us is right (not true: I'm right), but it's indisputable that while driving cars has gotten simpler (press a button, put it in drive and steer), anything beyond that is much more complicated.

Take the radio. I was driving and just wanted to listen to a baseball game for a few minutes, so I looked around the steering wheel, dashboard and wall of buttons. Finally, I saw a button on the steering wheel that looked sort of like sounds coming from something (or was it an odor? Who knows?). I pushed that button and the radio came on. Fantastic!

But how to change stations? I hit another button and the radio changed to FM, then to "atmosphere sounds," where it played the sounds of birds singing. Finally, I found a way to change the radio station and kept hitting it until it got to KNBR. I listened to the game for a bit. Then I wanted to turn off the radio. Simple, right?

No, the button that turned it on didn't turn it off. Another switch changed the volume, but didn't turn it off. I tried a bunch of buttons, then looked at the screen in the center of the dashboard, which showed where I was driving, but had about 15 other options, all indicated by confusing symbols.

I discovered the outside temperature, the energy use rate and tracked a Russian submarine in the Atlantic Ocean. But the radio didn't turn off, so I finally parked the car, turned off the engine (the battery?) and checked. The radio was off! I'd found the off switch, which was the same as the car's off switch (although I'm sure there's some other trick).

I'm old school. I don't like that you open and close the hatchback by hitting buttons (or by standing behind the car, which inexplicably opens the trunk when you're having a conversation with a neighbor). I know there are plenty of great options with this and other new cars (because they keep telling us how great they are), but allow me to offer automakers some simple, game-changing advice: Simplify!

I don't mind all the options, but it should be easy to find the most-used options They should be obvious in the same way the simplest options on our TVs (volume, channel, input) are obvious.

Carmakers should make the wipers, radio, air conditioning/heater/defroster, horn, Bluetooth and lights have their own, obvious buttons or switches. Those options shouldn't be on level five of a screen, but should be clearly marked (with symbols and words).

Then allow us to discover the other symbols and options (is the symbol of the coffee cup necessary? I know when I'm tired) by using that screen and all the other buttons.

I don't want to go back to the days of push-starting my car and having only an AM radio, no intermittent wipers and having to tap a button on the floor to control your high beams. I just . . . no, wait a minute.

That's exactly what I want.

Alas, it's too late now.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

The complicated love story between me and "The Bachelor" franchise

As America's leading watcher/skeptic/fan/mocker of "The Bachelor," I was devastated when ABC cancelled the dating series' season in March after the release of a video showing the upcoming season's Bachelorette assaulting her boyfriend while her young child watched.

Devastated! Or grateful. Or unsurprised. Or disappointed.

My relationship with "The Bachelor" franchise is complicated – a weird cauldron of amusement, disgust and wanting to watch something with Mrs. Brad to make up for her watching thousands of hours of sports with me.

A quick explanation of this season's problems. Bachelorette Taylor Frankie Paul (whose name sounds like a YouTube MMA fighter) is apparently the star of "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives," on Hulu (which I've never watched and would never want to watch). She was a controversial selection to be the Bachelorette (I guess it should be capitalized?), but ABC wanted to cash in on her fame by casting her.

They shot the whole season, presumably had a "winner," (quotation marks for sarcasm) and then the damning video was released. ABC apparently know about the domestic violence – it was from 2023 –but like the NFL, they assumed it wasn't as bad as domestic violence always is.

Now, back to the complicated relationship, one that I can freely discuss now that we won't have a "Bachelor" or "Bachelorette" or "Golden Bachelor" or "Golden Bachelorette" for a while. If ever.

If you've somehow missed the past quarter-century of the show, congratulations. The format is basic: One person (the Bachelor or Bachelorette) simultaneously dates 25 people of the opposite gender and narrows down the field, eliminating several or one person each week until the finale, when they pick between the final two and get engaged.

They almost never marry, but they get engaged on the finale.

There's always drama in "the house," which is where the contestants live. The star always seems to be falling in love with multiple people. The star always says, "I didn't think it would be this hard." The star always cries. There's usually at least one time that an ambulance takes someone away (always previewed as if it's dramatic, but often it's the person having a bloody nose).

There's always a villain on the show: A woman or man who is mean and scheming and goes way farther than they should (educated guess: The producers pick at least one person each week to survive). The host, ex-quarterback Jesse Palmer (who succeeded Chris Harrison after Harrison made some racially insensitive comments) sympathizes with the star and speaks very softly as if that will make it better.

The words "journey" and "being here for the right reason" and "chemistry" get thrown around a lot. In the finale, the producers always try to make you think the star will somehow pick the person who finishes second. It ends in a marriage proposal and an "after the final rose" show where they reunite for the first time since the show ended. That comes a couple of weeks after a "Men (or Women) Tell All" show, where the eliminated contestants share their stories and inevitably gang up on one person.

My complicated relationship with it might be obvious: I know how the show works. I watch it every season. I get a rooting interest.

The complicating part is that I'm  cynical about how the show works (always predicting that the villain will stay alive). I frequently make snarky comments about the staged romance (my core premise: "Yes. That 28-year-old model and influencer has absolutely no chance to find love except on this show. I'm sure she'll never go on another date."). My rooting interest is often for the person no one else wants to win.

All of these things irritate Mrs. Brad. She has told me in multiple seasons to stop critiquing the show and contestants (while she does it).

But the worst part of all is the disdain I have for men who watch the show.

When they have the "After the Final Rose" show, I know the men in the audience are there reluctantly or because they're trying to impress someone who they just started dating. No regular man would want to go to a show like that, where the audience applauds when someone gives a cheesy inspirational speech to the person who was heartbroken. I call those men pathetic.

Then I realize: Are they more pathetic than me? I sit at home, watching the show because I want Mrs. Brad to like me. I don't know if I'm there for the right reason.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Getting your two Bucks worth – the 10 greatest play-by-play announcers

It's a question that keeps me up at night, mostly because I'm weird: Who is the greatest sports play-by-play announcer in history?

The candidates are play-by-play announcers, not analysts. That means John Madden, Howard Cosell, Tony Kubek, Charles Barkley, Dick Vitale and others are ineligible.

Who's the best? Really, there's only one person who knows: Me.

My criteria is simple: These are the best announcers of the modern era (by which I mean since TV became the way most Americans consume sports, so I don't include iconic figures like Mel Allen). This is based on national impact, so local announcers don't qualify unless they're also on a network (Vin Scully was brilliant, but he's most famous for Dodgers broadcasts). Longevity matters. Doing multiple sports matters.

I know you want to get to the list to see if I actually picked Joe Buck, so let's go. The top 10:

10. Brent Musburger. Most famous as the host of NFL Today on CBS, Musburger was the play-by-play voice of the NBA and the Final Four, as well as baseball. Fired by CBS in 1990, he announced college football on ABC and ESPN for 27 more years, along with a variety of other assignments. He ended his career as a gambling tout in Las Vegas.

9. Dick Enberg. The poor man's Vin Scully, Enberg was NBC's lead NFL announcer for most of his 25 years with the network, calling eight Super Bowls. He was also the network's voice of college basketball, paired with Al McGuire and Billy Packer, while also broadcasting baseball and tennis on the network. Later, he worked at CBS and ESPN, where he focused on tennis but did other sports, too.

8. Pat Sumerall. An NFL star who worked his way into being an NFL play-by-play announcer, most famously as the droll sidekick to John Madden on CBS and Fox. Summerall broadcast a record 16 Super Bowls (plus 10 more on radio), but he was also CBS's lead tennis announcer (21 U.S. Opens) and a key contributor on the network's golf coverage (calling 26 Masters). He and Frank Gifford are the greatest former athletes to become play-by-play announcers.

7. Keith Jackson. Late in his career, he was most famous for his college football broadcasts and charming phrases "The big uglies are really puttin' it on 'em today!", but he was the voice of the NBA on ABC for two years, was part of the initial Monday Night Football team, broadcast baseball for 10 years and was a key member of the "Wide World of Sports" team. Whether it was a mid-November college football showdown, the Dodgers-Phillies playoff games of the 1970s or cliff divers in Acapulco, Jackson always delivered.

6. Curt Gowdy. He was one of the voices of all sports during my childhood, along with Chris Schenkel. Gowdy was from Wyoming and had a dry, nasally voice, but he could announce football (both the AFL and NFL), baseball (he was a play-by-play announcer for the Boston Red Sox for 15 years and the lead announcer for 13 World Series and 16 All-Star Games) and even basketball. Gowdy announced eight Olympics and hosted "The American Sportsman," a show about hunting, fishing and other stuff (I never watched it because I was busy flipping over to watch some sort of competition, even if it were "The Superstars" or "The World's Strongest Man Competition.").

5. Jim Nantz. He's easy to forget because he's just a pleasant voice, but he's been the lead NFL announcer on CBS the past 21 years, he's synonymous with the Masters since 1989 and he was the lead announcer on the Final Four from Musburger's departure in 1990 until 2021. His friendly style ("hello, friends!") evokes Ned Flanders, but he's an elite announcer.

4. Kevin Harlan. A controversial choice in my household, as I love him while Mrs. Brad mocks him. Harlan is the Ryan Seacrest of sportscasting – a guy with more jobs than you can track: NFL games on TV, Monday Night Football radio on Westwood One, NBA on Amazon, college basketball on CBS. And it's not one game a week – during the fall and winter you can hear Harlan broadcast two or three games a week, all in different cities. He's dramatic, he's funny, he's always interesting (although to Mrs. Brad, he's too dramatic).

3. Jack Buck/Joe Buck. I'm combining the father/son duo because their careers are similar (with the caveat that Jack emerged when radio was still king, so he is more famous for that work). Joe is a polarizing figure (Giants and 49ers fans are strangely convinced he hates their teams) but has been a lead NFL voice for 24 years, was Fox's top baseball announcer for 25 years and also broadcast golf. Jack was famous as the St. Louis Cardinals baseball announcer when that really mattered, then worked for the networks broadcasting baseball and football (including a brilliant 16-year run doing "Monday Night Football" on radio with Hank Stram). You get two Bucks in one pick.

2. Bob Costas. He started his play-by-play work with the ABA's Spirits of St. Louis as a 22-year-old and was a network TV star within six years. Most known for his baseball work on NBC, Costas was both a host and play-by-play announcer for the NBA and NFL on NBC and was the host of every Olympics from 1988 through 2016. He occasionally does baseball games on the MLB Network and is a sought-after guest on any documentary on sports for the past 50 years. He's part of the greatest generation of announcers.

1. Al Michaels. When I was in middle school, I wanted to be Al Michaels – he was the radio voice of the Giants and that was my life goal. He was the greatest sportscaster ever then and it's still true: Michaels is a brilliant communicator who clearly identifies what's happening, rises to the level of the event and works well with others. He is best known as the voice of Monday Night Football (and later, Sunday Night Football and now Amazon football), but was ABC's lead baseball announcer in the 1980s, the voice of the NBA, called the "Miracle on Ice" hockey game ("Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"), broadcast ice skating, horse racing, golf, auto racing and boxing and was a longtime contributor to Wide World of Sports. He's been the lead voice of American sports for nearly 50 years. Little did I know at age 13 that I was listening to the greatest sportscaster ever on radio broadcasts of some terrible Giants teams.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.