MY TIVO IS POSSESSED

I’m not a person that easily gets into the latest fads. (Just check my wardrobe) When it comes to electronics, my first computer was in 1991, and only after I was introduced to it at my company’s request. Nor am I the first to have a blog, my son stating that he couldn’t believe that I had a blog before he did. (He can’t believe that I’m still alive, either.) One of the reasons I don’t get excited about these things is that it comes with instructions, and I have to follow them. I then have to hook-up the contraption, usually intergrading it with my existing system of electronic paraphernalia. It seems that this gets the little woman all excited. She usually likes to do these kinds of things. I like to read the newspaper. The little woman even likes the trips to Radio Shack, so she can talk to the electronic marvels that are barely out of diapers, leaving me to wonder, “Where the hell did he learn that?” She usually comes home with a yellow ruled notepaper, on it a crude drawing of how to hook up the damn thing. Once she rouses me out of the fetal position, and plies my thumb out of my mouth, I begin the process that usually takes a few hours, a rest, and then a few hours more. Sometimes these things go on for a couple of weekends. This usually has an additional trip to Radio Shack or two.

Now last year, she decided we needed TIVO. Why? Because we had already hooked up a: cable box, a DVD, a VCR, and a router. We obviously needed something else. Well off to the store to buy TIVO. Our first TIVO, which will bring us all closer together as a family, with a better understanding of the world and all that is in it. But we now realize in the store, by way of conversation with Achmed the Pakistani terrorist salesman, that we should have it wireless. Wireless is code for “Boy is that SOB of a husband of yours going to get confused” TIVO comes with a CD to install, and now I need a new router from my computer, AND a contraption that hangs out of the TIVO box, and one from my younger son’s pc, plus a CD to install for the new router. Then of course there are wires. Wires for the wireless. Two sets of instructions. Which set do we use???

OK, we have overcome the madness of installation. All is running, all the wires are accounted for. Now, lets’ program TIVO for all its features, after all, that’s why we got it. OK, we program for the “Drake and Josh” show. Now my son Anthony has written a few episodes, and has even appeared in it, so Mom wants to capture it, and I feel we should start thinking about programming for the academy award shows, just in case. We put on the TV, we are watching merrily when all of a sudden-“TIVO wants to change the channel at 9:00 to start recording Drake and Josh” “Please select…” then it gives us the options. But we must decide quickly. We want to stay where we are, to see who the killer is and start to frantically look for the TIVO remote, which lies in a pile of remotes for the DVD, Optimum, the TV, The VCR, the all-in-one remote, the cable box and the wireless telephone, (which by the way does not change channels.) Ah, success at last, we found the remote!!! Now if we can just figure out how it works, where is the select button??

Have you ever seen the intro to Drake and Josh?