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!