Random Friday Morning Thought

I have TiVo. I love TiVo. The “suggestions” feature, however, is the least useful thing about it. I happen to like The Simpsons and Family Guy. As a result, TiVo wants to go out and record just about every animated show supposedly not for “children” that there is. I may live within a few blocks of the home of Adult Swim, but it’s just not my thing. Maybe I’m too old.

But here’s the thing. In addition to never missing episodes of the few shows I actually do want to watch, if I decide there’s a particular movie I want to see, or for some reason I’d like to watch movies directed by Scorsese or starring Jimmy Stewart or documentaries about Alexander the Great or whatever, I tell TiVo about it, and BAM! it starts collecting them, regardless of what time they’re shown or on what channel (provided, of course, it’s on a channel I actually receive). Just the other day, it occurred to me that it’s been a long time since I’ve seen Night of the Hunter, but it wasn’t something I was just dying to see right at that moment (to the point where I needed to run to Blockbuster). So I told TiVo to get it. And now it’s there, waiting for me. Every once in a while, I scroll through the upcoming films shown on Turner Classic Movies and pick the ones that look interesting, so I have a stack of good movies available at all times. There have been times when I’m at the office and I’ll find out that some show or movie is going to be on that I’d like to see. I just get on my PC at work and tell TiVo to get it for me.

Yes, I’m not just a convert, I’m a proselytizer. Next up, the iPod.

I think my wife cringes everytime My Cousin Vinny comes on. The prospect of me being able to retrieve it at any time would surely mortify her. Oh, and I watched about 3 minutes of Jon and Kate Plus Eight once before changing the channel. It’s rare that I find a show’s characters both annoying and boring at the same time. Thank goodness there was an Ice Road Truckers marathon on as an alternative.

Kate of Jon and Kate Plus Eight is a bee-yatch. And I can’t watch it because inevitably with 8 kids under 6, one of them is always whining, crying or about to cry.

I just have the generic DVR with my FIOS service, but Joel is right about the merits of being able to deal with missing starts of games, etc. A lot of USC games tend to start at 4.30 eastern, and much as I enjoy Trojan football, it won’t pick my nursing home. Using the DVR means being able to step away from the game to go through the dinner to bed cycle with the kids, and then catch up at faster than the speed of play.

As for encouraging your wife, perhaps I am putting too much strain on Mrs DC Trojan’s forbearance, but if she puts something on the television that I don’t want to watch, I leave the room.

...on the Jon and Kate Plus 8/assorted crappy TV. The Girl loves the Jon and Kate Plus 8 and any number of other completely mind numbing shows (Rock of Love 2? Yes, I know who won…or lost depending on how you look at it), but she does love the Office and Arrested Development, so it’s not all bad. Still, the number of arguments that have started with “why don’t you come in here with meeeeeee?” immediately followed by “because I am NOT watching that” are far too many to count.

. . . and particularly the solidarity on the “Jon and Kate Plus Eight” front.

As I hope I have made clear, my opposition to TiVo is personal and I do not fault anyone who has it, although my experience with watching games at the homes of friends who have TiVo has been less than optimal enjoyment, as with the instance in which my host rewound the game to watch a play again then fastforwarded through the network replay of the play we just reviewed so we could catch up to real-time game action. Why, I wondered, didn’t we just watch the network replay?

DC Trojan makes a very valid point about the need to break away from the game to deal with parental responsibilities. This I have done on many an occasion, missing parts of games in the process, but I happily accept this as a cost of fatherhood, which (as I know DC Trojan would agree) is an experience in which the benefits far, far outweigh the burdens. (I am especially cognizant of this fact after having attended my son’s pre-K graduation ceremony on Friday evening.)

When parenting does not present a direct conflict, however, I simply arrange my schedule so that other obligations do not interfere. Missing the first few minutes of a game simply is not a problem I allow myself to encounter.

While I see NCT’s point about making movies available for later viewing, I have spent a great many years building up a fairly solid library of D.V.D.s and, before that, videotapes. If I know I’m going to want to see a movie more than once, I just buy the thing, so, anytime I want to watch it, it’s right there on the shelf, readily accessible in alphabetical order.

Those of you who are still sufficiently attuned to popular culture to watch first-run television doubtless find TiVo useful, but, after it became commonplace for me never to have heard either of the host or of the musical guest of a given week’s episode of “Saturday Night Live,” I simply accepted the reality that I was no longer going to participate in “water cooler conversations” like I did when I was following “Twin Peaks” religiously.

Now, I solicit the opinions of friends I trust and buy D.V.D. box sets of television series about which I have heard good things. I understand why not everyone chooses to do this, but, for those of us who do, TiVo is superfluous.

(Incidentally, one of the things that first turned me off to the very idea of TiVo--and, thankfully, none of you have steered into this territory—was the large number of people who told me that, because of TiVo, they no longer were “a slave to my television.” So many people used this exact phrase that I began to wonder whether, whenever a fellow purchased a D.V.R., he had a chip implanted in his brain which compelled him to recite this line in robotic fashion after joining a herd of independent minds.

(Even back when I watched first-run television, I wasn’t a slave to my T.V. I set a timer on my V.C.R., taped the shows I wanted to watch, and fastforwarded through the commercials. When “30 Rock” premiered, I was interested in watching it, but it came on at 8:00, which was bad timing for me, as that is during the period in which Thomas is being put to bed. The first few times the show was on, I wasn’t in a position to set a timer to record it, so I missed the first few episodes.

(With a TiVo, I wouldn’t have missed them, but, because I missed them, do you know what I did? I didn’t watch the show. I waited a year, until enough friends of mine told me I would like it that I went out and bought the D.V.D. box set of the first season of the show. Who is less enslaved to his television than that?)

All that aside, though, I take wesgiglio’s point to heart. No, not the point about commercials--I don’t mind commercials; they are a natural part of the ebb and flow of television viewing, I can always fastforward through the bad ones or use that time to go to the bathroom or the kitchen, and sometimes (as with the Super Bowl) commercials are what we want to see—but the point about the game recaps.

That’s an exceedingly good point, wesgiglio. Brian Cook of MGoBlog is able to do the most comprehensive postgame breakdowns anywhere outside of a Division I-A football film room because he TiVos Michigan’s games and analyzes them in minute detail.

While I would never parse the minutiae of a Georgia football game in such exacting fashion, I can see how TiVoing the Bulldogs’ games would augment the coverage offered here, and that is a very valid consideration to which I shall have to give further thought.

Kudos, wesgiglio. I’m not saying I’m sold, but, while others have presented legitimate reasons why TiVo benefited them, that may be the first argument I’ve heard why TiVo would benefit me.