Dancing with Tivo.

The first rule of Tivo is:

1. Always make sure "Dancing with the Stars" is first on the priority list.

Never forget that.

I actually did make sure that it first on the list, but sometime after that, I thought: "Hey, I've heard that 'Everybody Hates Chris' is a funny show, I should check it out." So I queued it up. When I did this, "Dancing with the Stars" got bumped from it's number one slot. I must have clicked "Record all episodes" instead of "Record all non-conflicting episodes."

"Everybody Hates Chris" and "Dancing with the Stars" come on at the same time.

I learned the sad reality of my mistake when Ms. Brick got home last Thursday.

Her: "You promised me you would record it!"
Me: "I'm sorry, honey."
Her: "You're a liar!"
Me: "I'm sorry, honey."
Her: "I want a divorce."

Okay, so it didn't go down exactly like that, and Ms. Brick was able to calmy accept that she wouldn't be able to see Jerry Rice and Master P make jackasses out of themselves on national TV that week. She sure has matured from her days of spazzing out like a two-year-old every time she doesn't get what she wants. If this had happened two years ago, she would have informed me, at the top of her lungs, that I would have to travel back in time and change the Tivo settings.

"Dancing with the Stars" is on again tonight. Unfortunately, I don't think Ms. Brick will get to see it again if she doesn't get home in time to watch it when it is on. You see, I don't actually have Tivo. I set up my computer to record TV shows and bought a little box that lets us watch the shows on the actual TV*. On Sunday my computer told me to go fuck myself. I was getting blue screens and random restarts, and it wouldn't boot properly every time.

Since then it has been sitting on the dining room table in various states of disassembly, with me backing shit up and deciding how I wanted to do things, as well as deciding how I wanted to back shit up.

As of Tuesday I had all of my data backed up. Wednesday I finally got the main drive partitioned and formatted how I wanted it, with a clean install of Windows XP.

But it is still far from being able to record TV shows. I might have to use the, what is it called again? The "V-C-R?" I'm not sure I remember how to use a "V-C-R."

I applaud Ms. Brick for her complete understanding in this matter, as well as her complete failure to ask me when I am going to clean the shit off the dining room table.


*In regards to the computer/Tivo thing. I didn't want to be bound by Tivo's terms and conditions, and I like doing dumb projects. I only had to spend about $200 on gear and $100 on software, as well as spend several hours installing and configuring shit on my computer to get it work. Also leaving the computer on 24/7 increases the power bill by about $10 a month. It ended up being way more expensive than Tivo. It is like buying the lifetime subscription, but choosing to pay the monthly bill anyway. Also, it doesn't work as well as Tivo and is harder to use, but I like to make things harder and less convenient and more expensive than they need to be. I'm fun like that.