Thursday, May 18, 2006

Me and my TV

For a look at the next season of TV, check out Gig Matrix. (More will be coming once the CW and Fox announce their lineups.)

In the meantime, my TiVo and I are still working out the kinks of our relationship. It's still taping a lot of things I don't want. The first thing I asked it to tape was "Robot Chicken" -- a show on the Cartoon Network -- so it immediately started taping every animated show it could get its grubby little digital hands on. For a while, I had all the Sponge Bob Squarepants and Dora the Explorer I could handle.

Clearly, I needed to nip this in the bud.

Me: TiVo, we need to talk.
TiVo: (silence)
Me: You need to stop taping all the cartoons that are shown in a given day. I don't want to watch that many cartoons. Stop treating me like a child.
TiVo: (silence)
Me: Look, I appreciate the gesture. Really, I do. I just think things are moving a little fast. That's all. I mean, we're still getting to know each other. I'm sure it will get better, but I'd just like some space.
TiVo: (silence)
Me: You know, a response of some kind would be nice.
TiVo: (silence)
Me: (getting angry) Fine. Be that way. I was just trying to communicate.
TiVo: (silence)
Me: You just need to back off, TiVo. Don't be getting all in my face with your "suggestions." You don't know me. So don't act like you do.
(I storm off)

Several minutes later, the phone rings.

It's TiVo:
"What's your favorite scary movie?"

2 comments:

Autumn said...

You know you can set it so it doesn't attempt to figure out what you like, right? :-)

BriGuy said...

Sure, I could do that, but you never know -- I might miss out on something great. There might be a lot of shows out there that I'm not interested in, but if I only focus on the ones I think I like, I might miss out on a great show that I wouldn't have expected to enjoy. Plus, it has connected me with some shows from my past (e.g. "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends"). And while I don't plan on keeping in regular contact with those shows, it was nice to catch up.
Point is, you gotta keep your eyes open, because you never know when you might stumble across an unexpected gem.