Daniel's TV Blog

I've been out of town for over five weeks. I'm back in Seattle for a few days this week. I had some things that needed to be done before I leave again. I'll be gone for six weeks this next time. Being gone for so long requires some serious TiVo management. First thing was removing all the reality shows: Brooke Knows Best, Kendra, Daisy of Love. Also the news and talk shows I like: Daily Show, Colbert Report, Chelsea Lately. And the cartoons were dropped too: Phineas and Ferb, The League of Super Evil, and The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. That cut down of a lot of flotsam. Then I needed to balance shows out on the two different TiVos so neither got too full. So upstairs it was:

• Royal Pains
• The Soup
• Primeval
• The Listener
• Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List

Downstairs on the HD DVR:

• True Blood
• Better Off Ted
• The Goode Family
• Castle
• Hung
• Burn Notice

Some shows have ended (or only have one episode left) and other new shows have started. Kathy, Burn Notice, and The Listener were removed. Newly added this week were:

• Defying Gravity
• Warehouse 13
• Being Human
• The Real Housewives of Atlanta
• Flipping Out
  
• Web Soup
  
• Psych
• Leverage
• Mad Men

Sometimes I have to set a manual recording (specific time each week) so I don't get every show ever like RHoA and Mad Men. They often have marathons and I don't want my hard drives choked up with old content. Also while I was home I off-loaded all the episodes of Royal Pains and The Listener to my lap-top. I hope I have a chance to watch them on this next part of my summer trip.

Where have I been? I've been working on a gay guest ranch in San Luis Obispo County, California. I'll be back in Seattle permanently just before the new fall season begins. I have limited time on the Ranch to watch TV and blog about it. We don't have wireless internet so we have to use these Verizon 3G USB cards. These have limited usage so I might be able to watch one or two things each billing cycle on Hulu. I'm going to try to set up the email function on my blog so I can just email in entries from my phone. I apologize for the future lack of photos in many of the posts.

The only show I have made a huge effort not to miss is True Blood. It's my new favorite show of all time this week.

Labels: TiVo

In 2000 I got my first DVR. It immediately changed my life. More than any other technology before or since. No longer did I have to set the VCR before going to work, make sure the proper tape was in, and make sure the cable box was set to the correct channel. Boom, everything records on a hard drive. The close second for best technological shift is the iPhone. First it gave me Internet in my hand which I never had before. But also it combined three devices in one: phone, camera, and iPod. Also i never have to carry a notepad and pen around when I need to remember something. It's all there in one device. And it's also the gift that keeps on giving. The new applications created a whole new level of greatest to the iPhone. Now I have games, mortgage calculators, disco lights, and social networking devices at the touch of a finger. The iPhone still manages to be the magic phone of the future.

But friend of DtvB Ted pointed out the two need to be linked. TiVo needs an iPhone app to connect directly to your TiVo account. Not to watch stuff on your phone, but to schedule things without using Safari over Edge (or 3G). The TiVo website could use some improvements also. Ted was trying to schedule his TiVo to record Flipping Out (because he is a lot like the star Jeff Lewis) and it took him like four or five screens to accomplish this. With an app, your login would be saved and all you'd have to do is wait for the search to return. I'd pay for this one. Please make it.

Labels: iPhone, TiVo

I watch everything on TiVo. Well almost everything. Sometimes I watch random History Channel International because it is awesome. But in this day where so many people go bloop-bloop-bloop through commercials, advertisers are making the commercials which one might want to watch after seeing a blurry fastforward or a quick frame while jumping forward. This happened to me recently with a DISH network commercial. There was a woman talking about how great DISH network is. The woman, as seen in the photo, looks not unlike Jabba The Hut. I had to stop and see what this was all about. It was a very weak commercial but Jabba lady made me stop and watch the entire thing.

Labels: TiVo

Well it finally happened, there is absolutely nothing on my TiVo. I’ve watched everything that I recorded. I copied shows to DVD that I want to keep. And now the TiVo is completely blank. I’m thinking of running the “delete everything” feature and rebuild my season passes. This is the first time I’ve hit the bottom since I got the TiVo in March 2003 so I’m not expecting this to happen again for a while. Not only is the TiVo blank, the eight year old DishPlayer died a third and I think final time so I don’t have any shows on that DVR either. To compete the emptiness of content, all my NetFlix disks are either coming or going today, nothing at home. I feel weirdly empty today, like when you take a really, really big poop.

Labels: DishPlayer, TiVo