By:
The Dude on the Right
First, because you may not read this, nor my review in time (it should be posted
tomorrow), if you are a fan of "Office
Space" and the over-the-top satirization of life that Mike Judge seems to be
able to portray, see, or at this point probably wait to rent/buy "Idiocracy."
Simply put it’s a movie set 500 years from now, when, in simplest terms,
white-trash and a sports drink have taken over. Anyway…
If you
listened to my podcast yesterday, and you know me, you know that right now I am
obsessed with the dilemma of getting a new TiVo in preparation for my fall
television viewing. Too many shows I like, too little time, and too many
times they are up against one-another. Last year was tricky, and I was
able to pull off most of TV viewing, except for missing way too many episodes of
"Smallville." My best solution, at times, was to watch one show on my TV,
have my TiVo recording another show, and then, in the age of antiquities, have a
VCR recording the third show. This was okay in the days of old, but not
with today’s technology. The show I was watching live wasn’t being
recorded, so I couldn’t rewind or pause if I wanted to, and if there was some
great audio for a podcast, or a dress that malfunctioned, I wouldn’t be able to
watch or listen to it over and over again. At least I had one program
recording on the TiVo for easy watching, and although an antique method of
recording, the VCR was still working, although not as smooth on the skimming
through commercials. I am being faced with another television season of
pain and frustration, especially if I was going to be gone for an evening and I
had three shows to record, since I only had two recording devices.
And then
came my kids needing some new supplies for the upcoming school year.
My kids,
Steve, Ashley, New1, New2, and New3 (the newbies still need some names, but I’m
thinking right now one will be named Bam, the other either Spidey or Paul, and
New3, well, it’s either ‘drew or Don. I’m sorry, I digress), well, they
needed some new supplies, namely some food, some testing kits, and some
filtering. Yup, my fish needed some stuff, and I headed to my local
PetSmart to get it. Sadly, but maybe it was fate, the PetSmart didn’t have
the essential thing I was looking for, so I headed to my local PETCO, and PETCO
had it all. But a couple of stores down from PETCO was a CompUSA, and I
saw on their windows was a notice that they were closing, and everything in the
store was 20% to 40% off. My kid’s supplies safely stowed in the
dude-mobile, I figured what the hell, let’s hit the computer store to see if
there was anything I couldn’t live without. First I headed for the iPod
accessory area and decided I really didn’t need anything for my iPod. Next
stop was if there was any chance they had last year’s Power Mac G5 at some
obscenely low price (no luck). I scanned through the software but nothing
struck my fancy, and CompUSA never had the greatest variety of Hi-Def TV’s, so
nothing there caught my eye. But then I said to myself "Self, CompUSA
normally sells TiVo’s. I wonder if they have any of those new, dual-tuner
TiVo’s here?"
Low and behold, at an endcap, there was a stack of them, on
sale, and I started to do the computations in my head. After the rebate
offer that was still in force, the net cost for the TiVo would be a little over
fifty bucks. Then I also knew that since I was a TiVo subscriber, and I
was adding a new TiVo and not replacing one, I would get a discount on the
monthly service fee (I do miss the "Lifetime" upfront fee because mine has
already paid for itself on my first TiVo), but in any case, my television
viewing/recording dilemma for this fall season is over. I now have three
TiVo recording sources, and in a worst case can add the antique VCR to the mix
and watch a fifth show live without recording it. My fear now: Six
shows to watch at one time. You can never have too many recording options,
although, wait a minute, I think my latest computer purchase had a TV tuner card
installed? Scratch that, my fear now: Seven shows to watch at one
time. Too much TV, too little time.
Since this blog is already too long,
I’ll leave my bitching about the American Family Association and CBS’ problems
with airing their "9/11" documentary for a blog or podcast on Sunday if I can
put one together tomorrow. Right now I’ve got to get my new TiVo set up!
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!