Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Ponder.....

1. Why does Taylor Swift annoy the hell out of me?
2. Why did I just eat an entire jumbo cinnamon roll?
3. Why do I have so many bottles of nail polish and why do I keep buying more?
4. Why can't I find a tube of clump free smudge free mascara that can actually stay put in Houston's 99.9% humidity?
5. Why do I punish myself by continually looking at 6pm.com when I know I am on a self imposed shoe suspension?
6. Why do I bother looking at news websites? Since when is the winner of Dancing With The Stars important news????
7. Why is it so fucking hot and humid on the day before Thanksgiving? I am just not feeling the holiday spirit. The last thing I want to hear about is how one of my friends just finished putting up all 6 fully decorated Christmas trees in her house. I will be lucky to put up one.
8. Why am I so bitter?

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

Friday, November 12, 2010

Tivo lives on


I have always joked with family and friends about my love affair with Tivo. Seriously. I never watch live television anymore. To be honest, I don't watch that much television at all. But I do have my little "to do" list of shows that I watch religiously (commercial free of course!!) I have tried other DVRs at friends and families houses but they all annoy me. Tivo is my friend. I can operate the remote one handed and in the dark with my hand behind my back. My remote is so old that all of the writing on the keys is gone. If you don't know what the keys do...then you are just SOL. When I found out that Directv was bringing back Tivo I was ecstatic. Their current DVR system sucks big time and I refuse to purchase one. I know my ancient Tivo box has a limited life span and I have been worried about replacing it ever since it started rebooting on its own every couple of days about a month ago. Well, last night it seized up big time and for the first time ever I got the green screen of death that said "Severe Error." WTF? Severe error? That did not sound good! There was a message on the screen that said not to reboot or unplug the unit and to just leave the box on for at least 3 hours to see if the system could "repair" itself. They also included a 1-800 number to call if it did not come back to life. Of course, being my father's daughter, I did unplug and reboot the system about 4 times before I gave up and decided I was screwed. I am not ashamed to admit that I was freaking out just a little. What about America's Next Top Model? Pawn Stars? Kendra? Top Chef Just Desserts? Breathe in- Breathe out. Serenity now. I then proceeded to stay up until 1 in the morning on the computer trying to figure out what my options were. I learned that they are many, many, forums devoted to the worship of TIVO and that these people are hardcore. I basically had 4 options. First- Go without TV until next year when the new Directv Tivo launches. Not an option. Second- Buy a used system off of ebay and take my chances that it will even work. Third- Attempt to replace the hard drive in the unit with a newer shinier version. Fourth- Fork out close to $400 bucks for a reconditioned unit with a warranty from a reputable seller. All of these choices sucked. I wanted my old Tivo back!!!!!! All of my recorded shows that I had never watched were lost. I still had not gotten around to watching the first 6 episodes of Housewives of Beverly Hills. And what about Vanilla Ice? I wanted to see which room he was going to work on next. And my collection of The Antonio Project? I had been saving those for a cold rainy day. I went to bed in a daze and had horrible Tivo induced nightmares. The worst one was where I was in an operating room trying to perform a "hard drive" replacement. When I woke up in the morning I felt a little groggy and depressed. Right before I left for work I turned on the TV to write down the 1-800 just so that I could call them and verify my options before I made any rash decisions. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! The green screen of death was gone and there was an infomercial on for the Abomatic or something stupid like that. I actually screamed with joy over the amazing sight of my Tivo having healed itself. It was a miracle! If only it can just keep on going until next Spring, all will be good. I am a true nerd.