Of Watching

I got rid of my cable TV after the series finale of Everwood earlier this month. I feel ashamed to admit this, but I miss it.

When I got rid of it, I never tried to lie to myself and tell myself that now I'll start writing stories or practicing drawing or (HA) exercising. I knew that when I got rid of the cable that, instead of watching the stuff I'd record with the DVR feature, I'd be watching one of my DVDs. It's just the way I am. If I could filter feed, I'd plant myself down and never move again.

Anyway, I still have my good, old DVD player (It's six years old now.), but I lost the remote when I moved from Cowcity to Cowtown, so it's really only good for watching movies or TV shows that have a "play all" feature. It's not so good for watching the special features, on anything, or TV shows that make you select the episode name and then select "play episode." (All the Star Trek discs are like that. Sure, the menus look really great, but... DAMNIT, I want to watch more episodes on the discs!) This problem was solved not by me buying a "universal" control and hoping it'd work with my old machine, but by my mother giving me a DVD recorder that my grandpa had given to my parents.

This was right after I had gotten cable. I thought it was cool; I'd be able to record shows while I was at work (I hadn't upgraded to the DVR capability yet and didn't have a VCR. (I still don't have a VCR. That means no Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead for me.)) and drown myself in reruns of Buffy. The first day I tried it, though, there was a marathon of the first half of the second season of Battlestar Galactica. The disc told me that I could capture 8 hours worth of TV. Almost the whole first half of the marathon, awesome. So, I set the recorder up and I set the cable box to flick over to the correct channel the night before. The next morning, all seemed well, so I left for work. When I got back, the thing was still trying to record. The numbers on the recorder said four hours and some minutes and seconds. Counting my slow walking speed two and from work, I had been out of my apartment for over nine hours. And the recording was supposed to have happened about 90 minutes before I woke up.

I thought that maybe the thing was stuck, but it had probably recorded the first four hours, that'd be cool. I tried to stop it. It wouldn't stop. I hit the power button. It wouldn't power down. I tried to eject the disc. No luck. I knelt down at power strip to pull the plug and briefly wondered what I'd do if the thing stayed powered up. If it didn't power down, I figured as long as it hadn't grown sharp teeth or claws, it was going to be tossed out the door onto the driveway, hopefully shattering it into a million pieces. I pulled the plug and the numbers faded away. I let it cool off for a bit before plugging it back in and letting it read the disc. It said there was no data on the disc.

The next day, I tried again, same problem. So, it was either the wrong type of writable disc being put in, or the machine was broken. According to the book, it should have been able to use the disc. It was broken.

However, it read and played my regular DVDs just fine. And it had a control, so I could select the special features and watch all the episodes on those discs without a "play all." I unplugged my old DVD player from the back of the TV and plugged in the recorder.

I've been using it as my primary DVD player ever since. Before this month, though, I haven't used it too much. When you have cable, there's always something worth watching on TV. (It may be crap, but if you're willing to leave it on, it must be worth watching.) Especially with all movie channels. I think over 50% of my view time was due to movie channels. I know that over half of my movie viewing was done on TCM. Who needs to watch the movies they've collected when there are so many great, and not-so-great, movies out there to watch on cable. So, the DVD recorder was used maybe once a week for a couple of hours.

Now that the only TV I can watch is what's carefully shelved, the little DVD recorder is on much more than it used to be. Probably a couple of hours a day, more on the weekend. Yesterday, as I was watching Popular, the screen started twitching. At first I though maybe it was me. Maybe I could get the DTs even though I don't drink. I stood and walked around and sat down again. The screen twitched again. I took off my glasses, rubbed my eyes, put my glasses back on, and looked again.

Twitch, went the picture.

Twitch, went my eyelid.

Off, went the TV.

This morning, same problem.

I guess I'll be plugging in my old reliable player. Maybe I should try a "universal" remote. Anyone have one, that you got for a reasonable price, that you like?