Thursday, August 18, 2005

Electric Boogaloo

So I return from my two week vacation and my Tivo has died. My initial reaction was that it is bad news because of all the hours of TV I have missed, especially the last two episodes of Battlestar Galactica -- that really hurt. (Aside: why does the SciFi Channel rerun the crappiest stuff they have 400 times a week and the great stuff never?)

DirecTV is blaming Bellsouth for a power surge up my phone line, and the phone company is acting like Eddie Murphy caught red-handed: "It wasn't me." Anyhoo, for reasons I cannot fathom DirecTV has to mail me a new Tivo unit and I'll be lucky if it arrives before the weekend.

In the meantime, I've found that all my lost recordings are the least of my problems. I have apparently forgotten how to work a TV. In the year I have had a Tivo, I have forgotten which station is which number. What's worse, I have no idea when most of the shows I like come on. Six Feet Under, now that used to be Sunday, right? But they changed it to Monday. Or is it vice versa?

I've made some futile attempts at watching television over the past few days, but I find sitting through commercials insufferable. How do people put up with those things? And if I miss something I can't rewind it? If the phone rings I can't pause it? What kind of nightmarish Dark Ages have I wormholed to?

I think I'm getting a better understanding of what it's like to be addicted to heroin.

2 comments:

Otto Man said...

We were going to get TiVo in the shack that Malibu Stacy and I share, but it seems you've got to have a land line for it. Eh.

Mr Furious said...

Tivo has other side effects as well: I can't tell you how many times I'm in the car listening to NPR (or something talk) and I miss something—"What'd he just say?"—and for an instant i think i can just rewind...


Then again, I was away for a long weekend and came back to a "bonus" collection of four episodes of "Arrested Developement." Watched two last night. I love that show.