Tune In, Psych Out, Diaper Up

August 4, 2012

A few days ago, I described my saga of replacing my TiVo box. It was a bit of an ordeal. I just wanted you to know — everything’s fine now. I’m okay.

At least, I was okay.

Once the box worked properly, I took some time to register my thumbs ups, my very disapproving thumbs downs, and scheduled recordings of the many dozens of animated Romanian lumberjack dramas that I can’t get enough of.

“I nearly suffered a thumb sprain keying in the Transylvania Wood marathon.”

It was quite an undertaking. I took a couple of days off work, gave up sleeping for a while. I nearly suffered a thumb sprain keying in the Transylvania Wood marathon. But finally, I got this new TiVo into the same approximate shape as the old one. Only with shinier new menus, and a slimmed-down svelte TiVo mascot guy. So everything was peachy.

At least, everything was peachy.

(Yes, I know it’s the same sentence. It’s the emphasis that makes the difference. Subtlety is practically my middle name.)

The point is, just when things seem nice and settled, there’s always a twist. In my case, the twist is this — when I set up my shows, this newfangled magic miracle machine found them on all the available channels. Including a couple I didn’t know about. And that includes something called “Ion Television”.

Now, I don’t know the first thing about this Ion channel. I’ve never seen it before, and I’m not particularly endorsing it. Here are the only salient facts:

1. They have a Psych marathon running tonight, which is — so far, since I’ve been watching — six-and-a-half episodes in.

2. I put Psych high on my list of shows to tape, so the TiVo’s been tuned in all evening. And late-night. And hurtling toward the wee hours of the morning.

3. Ion, apparently, doesn’t show commercials. Or at least, only one quick thirty-second number between episodes, and nothing between scenes. Nothing. No ads. Nada.

What does this mean? Taped or not, I can’t leave in the middle of a good show I like. And there are no transitions in this broadcast — i’s all middle. Even the movie channels run five minutes of crap previews between features, but not the Ion people. When one episode ends, there’s another in your face, immediately — BAM!

So? So I drank a big glass of water during the first episode. I’ve had to pee for six freaking hours. Thirty seconds isn’t enough time for that. Not any more, that’s for damn sure. I don’t even need a commercial break any more; I need the local news to break in with, like, some kind of prolonged car chase or something. This is torture.

At least, it was torture.

Finally, about ten minutes ago, I remembered the other important TiVo feature I don’t usually have to use: pause. I waited for what would have been a convenient break in the action, hit the pause button, and squirmed my way to the bathroom. Where I promptly let loose fourteen commercials’ worth of pee. And now I’m back on the couch, finishing up that episode. And sitting more comfortably, thank you very much.

So the new TiVo is a lot like the old TiVo. But still, I’m learning to watch TV all over again. Also, I’m still kind of a dork, apparently. Which is disappointing. I was kind of hoping to fast forward through that bit.