Charlie Hatton About This
About Me
Email Me

Bookmark
 FeedBurnerEmailTwitterFacebookAmazon
Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA



All Quotes
HomeAboutArchiveBestShopEmail

  |  

Howdy, friendly reading person!
I'm on a bit of a hiatus right now, but only to work on other projects -- one incredibly exciting example being the newly-released kids' science book series Things That Make You Go Yuck!
If you're a science and/or silliness fan, give it a gander! See you soon!

A New (Ti)Vocation

Up front — it’s not about the Braves (mostly), but it’s still a piece of mine at Bugs & Cranks:

The Replaceables: NL Edition — Who’s the overpaid stiff on your favorite National League team?

Find out that, and then find out whatever the hell follows below. Should be fun.


I don’t want to say anything bad about my TiVo. After all, TiVo has changed the way I watch television. There’s no need now for me to surf channels endlessly, or to get stuck watching Bosom Buddies rerun marathons at three in the morning any more.

“Sometimes, even TiVo can’t save me from myself. Or from Donna Dixon.”

I’m not saying I don’t do that. I’m just saying there’s no need now. Sometimes, even TiVo can’t save me from myself. Or from Donna Dixon.

At any rate, I’ve always been a big TiVo fan — even before I had one. And when my wife and I finally bought our Tivo, it was heavenly. Our favorite shows were always on. Cable movies lined up in the viewing queue. Sweet, sweet Skinemax porn was available around the clock.

(Nah, not really. We’ve only got HBO. So the closest we get to hot softcore is a three-second glimpse of somebody’s grimy wild western ass on Deadwood. And not in a good way.)

Eventually, though, that ‘regular’ TiVo broke down, skipping and sputtering its way to the trash bin. And while forty hours of TiVo is good, they say more is better. So I bought a cheap refurbished unit with a two hundred hour hard drive. And life took a turn again.

Not for the worse; not for the better. But for the different.

Now, we have literally more than a week’s worth of space for Simpsons nad South Park and Law and Order: SVU. So I told the TiVo to tape those.

Also, The Office. And Good Eats And three kinds of CSI. And one hundred and three other shows, on thirty different channels.

And it’s still not enough.

Now, the TiVo never stops taping. Turn on the television on a weekday or weekend — morning, noon, or night — and something’s being saved. And it stays on the hard drive forever. There’s so fricking much space, shows almost never get deleted. But they eventually do, and I’m obligated to watch them before they’re gone. It’s a lot of pressure.

So now my life is spent managing my show list. If I’ve seen a show — or my wife has seen it, or the dog has watched it, or any of us ever read a newspaper article about it — then we can safely nuke it. Otherwise, I have to watch it. Before it goes away. And there are seventy-three shows a night expiring now. So I’m constantly watching TiVoed shows now. It’s like an extra, unpaid, after-hours, compulsive job now. Dammit.

I used to say TiVo means ‘you don’t watch TV more, you watch TV better‘. I still believe that.

But a two hundred hour TiVo means you watch TV better — AND you watch TV more. But mostly more. At three in the morning, when you’re supposed to be sleeping. But Buffy the Vampire Slayer is getting deleted in an hour, and you can’t get any rest thinking about missing an episode of your forty-ninth favorite show, give or take a Seinfeld.

Anyway, you get the point. And I’ve got three News Radios and an According to Jim to watch before midnight. I’ll catch you kids later. Maybe during a commercial break.

For the love of god, somebody help me.

Permalink  |  1 Comment



One Response to “A New (Ti)Vocation”

  1. I bought a 750GB Weaknees upgrade when I got my TiVo series 3 and it’s turned out to be absolutely amazing. With 100 hours of HDTV capacity and 1,000 hours of SD capacity, I’ve yet to run out of space on my TiVo, although I do have movies on there from last December.

    The extra hard drive space does make me watch more TV, but it also allows me to do some neat things with my TiVo. I’ve got a Wishlist for example, that only records movies from 2005 – 2007 that are comedies. I’ve restricted it to four films to keep it from filling up, but whenever I go home there are always four recent releases ready for me if I’m in the mood.

    I’ve also set up TiVo alternate between the various late night programming. This menas that I no longer have to decide whether I’m a Letterman or Leno guy. Not only can I be both, but I can also be a Jimmy Kimmel, Colbert and John Stewart guy too.

    I don’t try to watch every program that it records, but I do start to suffer from some storage anxiety whenver my TiVo Suggestions get under 100 shows. Having so many choices is great, but it will definetely make you watch more TV.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HomeAboutArchiveBestShopEmail © 2003-15 Charlie Hatton All Rights Reserved
Highlights
Me on Film 'n' Stage:
  Drinkstorm Studios


Me on Science (silly):
  Secondhand SCIENCE


Me on Science (real):
  Meta Science News


Me on ZuG (RIP):
  Zolton's FB Pranks
  Zolton Does Amazon


Favorite Posts:
30 Facts: Alton Brown
A Commute Dreary
A Hallmark Moment
Blue's Clues Explained
Eight Your 5-Hole?
El Classo de Espanol
Good News for Goofballs
Grammar, Charlie-Style
Grammar, Revisitated
How I Feel About Hippos
How I Feel About Pinatas
How I Feel About Pirates
Life Is Like...
Life Is Also Like...
Smartass 101
Twelve Simple Rules
Unreal Reality Shows
V-Day for Dummies
Wheel of Misfortune
Zolton, Interview Demon

Me, Elsewhere

Features
Standup Comedy Clips

Selected Clips:
  09/10/05: Com. Studio
  04/30/05: Goodfellaz
  04/09/05: Com. Studio
  01/28/05: Com. Studio
  12/11/04: Emerald Isle
  09/06/04: Connection

Boston Comedy Clubs

 My 100 Things Posts

Selected Things:
  #6: My Stitches
  #7: My Name
  #11: My Spelling Bee
  #35: My Spring Break
  #36: My Skydives
  #53: My Memory
  #55: My Quote
  #78: My Pencil
  #91: My Family
  #100: My Poor Knee

More Features:

List of Lists
33 Faces of Me
Cliche-O-Matic
Punchline Fever
Simpsons Quotes
Quantum Terminology

Favorites
Banterist
...Bleeding Obvious
By Ken Levine
Defective Yeti
DeJENNerate
Divorced Dad of Two
Gallivanting Monkey
Junk Drawer
Life... Weirder
Little. Red. Boat.
Mighty Geek
Mitchieville
PCPPP
Scaryduck
Scott's Tip of the Day
Something Authorly
TGNP
Unlikely Explanations

Archives
Full Archive

Category Archives:

(Stupid) Computers
100Things
A Doofus Is Me
Articles 'n' Zines
Audience Participation
Awkward Conversations
Bits About Blogging
Bitter Old Man Rants
Blasts from My Past
Cars 'n' Drivers
Dog Drivel
Eek!Cards
Foodstuff Fluff
Fun with Words!
Googlicious!
Grooming Gaffes
Just Life
Loopy Lists
Making Fun of Jerks
Marketing Weenies
Married and a Moron
Miscellaneous Nonsense
Potty Talk / Yes, I'm a Pig
Sleep, and Lack Thereof
Standup
Tales from the Stage
Tasty Beverages
The Happy Homeowner
TV & Movies & Games, O My!
Uncategorized
Vacations 'n' Holidays
Weird for the Sake of Weird
Whither the Weather
Wicked Pissah Bahstan
Wide World o' Sports
Work, Work, Work
Zug

Heroes
Alas Smith and Jones
Berkeley Breathed
Bill Hicks
Dave Barry
Dexter's Laboratory
Douglas Adams
Evening at the Improv
Fawlty Towers
George Alec Effinger
Grover
Jake Johannsen
Married... With Children
Monty Python
Nick Bakay
Peter King
Ren and Stimpy
Rob Neyer
Sluggy Freelance
The Simpsons
The State

Plugs, Shameless
100 Best Humor Blogs | Healthy Moms Magazine

HumorSource

 

Feeds and More
Subscribe via FeedBurner

[Subscribe]

RDF
RSS 2.0
Atom
Credits
Site Hosting:
Solid Solutions

Powered by:
MovableType

Title Banner Photo:
Shirley Harshenin

Creative Commons License
  This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License

Performancing Metrics

Page copy protected against web site content infringement by Copyscape

Valid XHTML 1.0

Valid CSS!

© 2003-15 Charlie Hatton
All Rights Reserved