Dilemma: Resolved

Despite the arguments in favor of the remote with big orange flames painted on it, I decided to go a different direction in my choice of TiVo reward:



I do like that I can jam one on over my cast to keep my toes warm. Chaplin? Not impressed:

How do I get away from this lunatic?

A Minor Dilemma

I have a bunch of TiVo rewards points, since I'm such a TiVo-hugger that I've influenced several others to purchase TiVos. Crappily, however, these points expire after 24 months, and a bunch of mine are about to expire.

And so we come to my dilemma, what to do with my TiVo rewards points. Here are my options:

1. Drop all my points on an iPod shuffle, which I will then either sell on eBay (currently going for about $50-60) or find some random use for.

2. Use the portion of my points that are expiring on hilariously goofy TiVo branded slippers and save the rest (the rest will not expire for another 18 months, and I can put them towards things like...more TiVos).

3. Use the portion of my points that are expiring on a new remote with orange flames to match one of my guitars and save the rest.

4. Just let the points expire and stop filling my house with useless crap.

Being the horrifically indecisive person that I am, I keep waffling on which option to choose.

To put this to an end, I fling open the comment box and request your input: What useless crap shall enter my house next?

And It's SPECTACULAR

Well, it took four guys from the cable company standing around my apartment for an hour to get the two CableCards properly installed in my HD TiVo, but good lord, SPECTACULAR HD (™ Laz) is pretty fucking cool.

I'm watching the Lakers-Wizards game right now (ironic, since a) I hate basketball and b) I hate DC even more), and the picture is absolutely unreal. You can see the individual beads of sweat on Gilbert Arenas as he comes up to the free throw line.

Nate came over earlier and The Empire Strikes Back was on HBO HD, and...wow. Darth Vader's helmet was so very, very shiny. You could count the individual hairs on Chewbacca.

I moved the new-old TiVo that had been in the living room to the bedroom and disconnected the old-old TiVo. I'm in the process of trying to find a home in L.A. for the old-old one (since I'd prefer not to ship it), but if I can't, you kids will get first dibs before I put it on eBay.

I also changed my TiVo naming scheme, since the old one was a bit too practical ("living room" and "bedroom" were the old names). Fixed that problem: The new-old TiVo is now Pinky, and the HD TiVo is The Brain.

Between this and my new Netflix subscription (Snakes on a Motherfuckin' Plane arrived today) I think there's a very real danger that I'm never going to leave my apartment again.

A Vast Improvement

The streak lives! My iron stomach continued to hold its own against all comers. About partway through Thursday my appetite came back in full force, and I ended up eating my way through half the food in the kitchen at work.

The foot's also been behaving better. I was doing something that, to the naked eye, resembled walking yesterday. I'm still having a few incidences of intermittent stabbing pain, but it's better than constant stabbing pain.

And now, I'm waiting for the cable guy to get my HD TiVo recording in SPECTACULAR HD. All in all, it'll be a nice improvement over the last week.

Bad Kitty

Kitty apparently decided to sit on my cable remote just as my TiVo was trying to turn the channel to get Prison Break recording.

Because of this, TiVo recorded an hour of some weird OnDemand program about gardening and building large sculptures out of PVC pipe instead.

I believe I'll be hiding the cable remote somewhere kitty can't get to it from now on.

Twisted

TiVo recorded Twister for me, which was amusing, because it's a great example of one of my favorite genres: the Hilariously Bad Disaster Movie.

The leads, for the most part, fall to the level of the material. But look at the supporting cast, and it's really striking how many really decent actors are in it, acting like total boobs.

Nothing, however, surprised me more than the most "Duuuuuuuuuuude!"-ish of Helen Hunt's team o'dudes being played by none other than Oscar Winning Serious Goddamn Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Not even the fact that Twister is now ten years old.

Signs That Perhaps I Watch Too Much Television

I had to create a spreadsheet, with the aid of the Futon Critic's schedule, to figure out which TiVo to use to record which show for the upcoming fall season.

While doing that, I determined that, if I permanently add every show I'm trying out, I will be recording 25.5 hours of television a WEEK.

That figure is only in primetime and does not count the 4 hours a week of Daily Show and Colbert Report I always watch. Oddly, there is not one show I will be recording on either Friday or Saturday.

Thankfully, I will probably not watch entire seasons of at least some of the shows that I'm trying out, either because they get cancelled or I determine they suck.

For the curious, here's the list of new shows I'm giving at least one shot to, in the rough order of day/time they're airing:

- Heroes
- Vanished
- Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
- Friday Night Lights
- Knights of Prosperity
- Standoff
- Smith
- 20 Good Years
- 30 Rock
- Justice
- The Nine
- Ugly Betty
- Six Degrees
- Brothers and Sisters

I'm also probably going to track down Shark, but I've already assigned both TiVos when it airs, so I might have to use slightly more nefarious methods.

Having mapped all this out, I now understand why, precisely, I have no life.