Leaving the Shadow of the Valley of Darkness

Today is the first day of the next chapter of my life. A man showed up to install digital cable with a DVR.

The next two months figure to be Comcastic.

A couple of notes-- yes, I should have DirecTV and TiVo, but my bastard of a management company (PMSI, Ann Arbor, MI) nixed us getting a dish installed. Yes, it's possible I can't actually afford this (I got my roommate on board, though, and justified things the rest of the way by saying I'd save money that'd otherwise buy booze at bars).

More importantly, it's also true that the World Cup only happens once every four years.

9 hours in, I have to say that my appreciation for television is pretty strong. When you lose a limb, or a sense, you gradually learn to make do. Blind people generate hyper-sensitive hearing; double-arm amputees learn how to pick up food with their feet. In my case, I learned how to pirate gigabyte upon gigabyte upon gigabyte of tv shows. Now I can still watch them at all hours--thanks to DVR--but can also do it on a 29 inch tv without involving my laptop, an S-video cable, wireless internet and Microsoft Windows File & Printer Sharing. That's pretty neat.

You know what's not neat? If you try to set up the equivalent of TiVo's Season Pass, and you want to search by title, you don't get an overlay of a QWERTY keyboard. Oh no. Presumably that would constitute IP theft on Comcast/Motorola's part. Instead, you get 5 spaces, and on each you have to cycle up or down, like a slot machine. Through the entire alphabet. And 10 digits. That's insane.

More details to follow.