I Miss My TiVo

When we moved out to Colorado we decided to suspend our TiVo/Directv service while we were renting. It's been hard, but 5 months later we have come to accept that fact that we don't have a menu, don't have a buffer, can't rewind when we didn't get what was said, or speed through the commercials. We've had cable the entire time, thanks to the previous tenants. Neither one of us is a fan of Comcast at all, but it's free so we aren't complaining. Before leaving California I loaded up on a few of my favorite shows, and a boatload of Brandon's favorite shows. Since we've been here I've taped things on our ancient and very moody VCR (which likes to eat tapes, and won't rewind to the end of a tape. It leaves about 3 minutes that you have to rewind while watching the tape). But all that is about to change.

Fall is starting. We have shows we like. Someone, somewhere along the line completely screwed up TV viewing for the mountain and central time zones, and prime time starts at 7:00. 7:00!!! Seriously - who can manage to sit down at 7:00 to watch TV? 8:00 is pushing it, but 7:00???? Without TiVo, it will be a huge challenge to even watch our favorite shows. Survivor started tonight. Not a fan, but Brian is. Had I known, I would have taped it. As a TiVo user, I never had to worry about when shows started. I'd just find them on the menu, and set them to tape. The Office starts at 8:00. Brandon's usually just going to bed at that time! The nice thing is that Lost will be back on at 9:00, instead of 10:00. Still, the negatives of an earlier schedule outweigh the positives.

Besides TiVo, I miss Directv. Comcast, aside from being free, is crap. There is no longer a channel menu on the TV. That's a premium channel now. Comcast switched it sometime in late July. When there was a TV Guide channel, it was slow as molasses, and always always always had some asinine show on the top that you were forced to watch (even in mute) as the channels sloooooowwllly scrolled by. Granted, we are pretty sure we have the basic of a all basic subscription (for free, as I keep telling myself), but it is still annoying. This week a show called The Truth About Food was on Discovery Health. It looked pretty interesting. And I like Dr. Oz's totally straightforward style. But do we get Discovery Health anymore? Nooooooooo. That's a premium channel now. I miss knowing what the topics of Secrets of the Dead are going to be. I miss Decoding the Past. I miss BBC America. I have the local and cable channel listing bookmarked on the laptop, which does make things easier, but the times are screwed up, even beyond the mountain time zones. Nothing is as it's advertised on the actual TV channel. We got use to the fact that most channels on satellite TV played 2-3 hours different in California than the advertised time. When we'd had cable before, the advertised times were the actual times. Here? Of course not! The cable channel times are not usually anywhere near the advertised time. They're not east coast time. Or mountain time. They're just random. Comcast has seriously slacked on lining things up! It was a major feat for me to tape all 6 hours of the Christiane Amanpour series "God's Warriors" on CNN last month! Beside it being an effort to find a free VCR tape, I then had to search and search for the times. Advertised to come on at 8:00. Would that be 6:00 pm here? No, 7:00. Then again at 10:00.

Now you know way too much about me. This was suppose to be a *short* little blurb about how I miss my TiVo and Directv. Here I am - on the 4th paragraph - and still whining! We got TiVo in 2003 - my Christmas present to Brian. Little did I know that I would grow to love it so much. TV watching was radically altered by the presence of children. And while yes, there are other things to do, sometime I just don't want to do them. By 9:00 my brain is tired. I try to read a book and end up reading the same paragraph over and over again, finally stopping because I can't remember where I was on the page before I somehow stopped paying attention. I also strictly monitor Brandon's TV viewing (Caitlin doesn't care) in both amount of time daily and shows, and I miss the control of obtaining those shows. It took discipline to tape a few episodes of Higglytown Heroes, which he only wanted to watch after moving to Colorado. Brandon doesn't mind care if watches TiVo, a tape, or a DVD. He loves watching a show (probably a little to much) regardless of how he gets to watch them. I found a few Veggies Tales tapes at the local thrift store for a dollar. But I had to warn him that he couldn't cry if the VCR ate the tapes. I almost cried when the VCR ate 4 episodes of Higglytown Heroes and The Micky Mouse Clubhouse, but that's another story. Must. Control. Emotions!

I know, I know. I shouldn't complain. I've had cable, for free, all summer! It could have gone out at any time, but it didn't. But I do complaining so well, and I have to watch it around the kids. This is one of the few places I can vent at all! Even about something as vapid as TV. Brian is going to have Directv set up soon - right after the odor removal service and new carpeting. We're taking my 19-year old, 13 inch TV over so we can at least set up the shows we like. Sad, but true.