Not My Problem

I very very rarely watch live tv (football, baseball, hockey and the Olympics being the rare exception and even then I prefer to pause it, walk away to do whatever I need to do and then watch it later). It's a disease as anyone with a Tivo can attest.


Sometimes as you're bouncing forward thirty seconds by thirty seconds, you catch just a touch of a commercial that makes you stop. Ok, and by sometimes I mean that this has happened to me once in the five years that I've had my Tivo.


In fact, my husband happened to be in the room, and I made him watch the commercial with me the second time because I was laughing so hard.


Really, you have to check it out.

I want to know where these women are for a few reasons.

First, the obvious is that watching the commercial cracks me up. I can't imagine how hard I'd be laughing if I saw someone on the street actually doing this.

And second, I'd need to conduct an interview with them.

Me: Excuse me, I noticed that you seem to have some trouble with your underwear. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?
Lady: Uhhh.
Me: Great! So I need to know, when your underwear rides up, is this something that you really have to adjust immediately while in public? Is there a reason you can't wait until you're in some sort of private space to adjust?
Lady: Well, you see....
Me: And really, does your technique work? I've never seen it before, and I just don't think that it would work for me.
Lady: Ahh...
Me: I mean, if I really have an issue, I go for the quick pull method. It's quick and very effective.
Lady: I see.
Me: And what kind of underwear do you wear? I've just never had an issue with it riding up on me constantly. Have you ever thought about going with a thong if you are that bothered by it?
Lady: I've got to go.
Me: Wait, just one more question! What's with the facial expression as you're adjusting? It just doesn't seem natural. If you kept more of a poker face, maybe people wouldn't notice as much?

Yeah, that interview probably wouldn't go over so well. But hey, it's an effective commercial by all advertising standards. I actually voluntarily watched it - more than once, mind you. I know what the product was (Hanes wedgie proof underwear -- maybe not the exact name but I could find it in a store) and where it's sold (Wal-Mart, which effectively means I'll never buy a pair). And the commercial made me giggle.

I've Got Issues

Hello. My name is Michelle, and I’m addicted to TIVO. Actually, I’m addicted to ReplayTV, but whatever. Who doesn’t call it Tivo? With the exception of football and hockey, I don’t watch live tv. In fact, I prefer to watch football games that I’ve Tivo’ed. If I don’t have something saved, then obviously there’s nothing I need to watch.

I don’t have the tv on when the wee ones are around, so I do get enough of a stockpile for the times I want the tv on. When I’m home alone working, for example, I like to have something on in the background to keep me company.

This all works out well until the day that I turn the tv and the Tivo on and realize that it isn’t recording a show it’s supposed to be recording. And then I realize that I. Can’t. Watch. TV. Through. My. Tivo. It isn’t recognizing the signal. Panic begins to set in.

Granted, I got the ReplayTV for Christmas before Mister Man was born, so it’s over five years old. And my husband has been complaining for years that it doesn’t record in high def – primarily because high def didn’t exist way back in the Stone Age when we bought it. Err, he bought it. But I refuse to pay my cable company an additional $14 (plus tax, mind you) a month for the recording service.

This can’t be happening. I need my Tivo. I can’t watch tv live. It absolutely drives me nuts. Ok, it drives me nuts unless I’m in bed trying to fall asleep to the Food Network. Details.

Being at least moderately handy, I checked all the connections. They were all good – pulling them out and replugging them in didn’t help, either. Having it reconnect to the ReplayTV service didn’t do anything. *sigh*

I put the remote down and settled into a very quiet day of work.

When my husband arrived home with the wee ones, I implored him to fix it as soon as I finished my conference calls. Nice guy that he is, he dubiously agreed to try.

He got as far as I did. See, I told you he was dubious. Apparently for good reason.

I trudged off to my yoga class, disappointed that I was going to have to do something that involved spending money I didn’t want to spend.

When I got home, I discovered that my husband had continued to investigate and determined that it still wasn’t working.

Him: Well, all that’s left is to take it upstairs and try it on a different tv to see if it’s the cable box.
Me: Ok, ummm. Why haven’t you done that yet?
Him: Oh. Well. Uhhh.

He then proceeded to unhook it and take it upstairs. Yay, it worked upstairs! Boo, that meant that the video output on the cable box was malfunctioning. Yay, that meant all my husband had to do was take the cable box up to McHenry tomorrow and exchange it for a new one – provided that they had another one in stock when he got there (don’t ask, really don’t ask). Boo, I can’t set it up upstairs in the meantime because that would involve completely unhooking the modem and resetting up our wireless network. I’m pathetic enough to ask the question though. Rest assured, he gave me the look and confirmed that I was insane for asking if that was an option.

For some unknown reason, he decided to hook it up again until he took the cable box in. Maybe he just wanted to torture me. But somehow, somehow the act of hooking it all back up made it *gasp* work again! Whoo hoo! My Tivo capabilities are back.

One small problem though. The channel guide is all gone, and unless the Replay unit recognizes what tv shows are on, it won’t record anything. Apparently, that’s an easy fix though, and my husband did the exact steps I’d done two minutes before asking him to help me get that last piece fixed and … of course it worked for him. I swear they were the exact same steps though!

So now, I once again will be able to watch tv without having to deal with commercials. And my addition is again sated. I’m beginning to think that maybe this isn’t a good thing, however!