Between light and delete

In January, just in time for the Super Bowl (which sucked—and not only because those no-talent hacks who call themselves the Steelers won it), A. and I broke down and got a DVR box. I find DVR to be one of those technological developments that is impossible to recover from, like evolving from dial-up internet to broadband: there is no going back. Our timing was good because my VCR has been dying a slow death for about two years now, to the point where every now and then it would make a loud snapping sound out of nowhere, despite being switched off and empty. It was the right move.

I kind of fought it for a while, because I suspected it would ruin my life. And it has a bit. As I wrote a while ago, I have a tough time dealing with our Netflix queue and knowing we have so many rentals to plow through, and now I have to deal with all the shit we record on a near-daily basis. If anything sounds even remotely interesting it's going to get recorded (for instance, it was Red Dawn a few weeks ago; I was in middle school when that came out and we all thought it was awesome, because we knew those commies were bad—even if we didn't know why; and it turns out, of course, that twenty-plus years later it is a dreadful, dreadful movie on every level). The best part is the display that tells you how much of the hard drive is full—I become obsessed with idle passions that involve getting under a certain number by the end of such-and-such weekend. These are serious goals I set for myself. (I'll lighten up every now and then, though, like when we're at sixty-nine percent. I laugh and laugh.)

We're big on the "series recording" feature too. This only adds to the pile, and drives up our damned percentage. A. and I get into little contests too, like who can get through all of his or her shows first. A typical example of this is pitting my reruns of The Twilight Zone against her frequently aired What Not to Wear. We're so cute.

I have gotten into The Twilight Zone though, for real. I watched it for the first time a few years ago, probably on a July 4 weekend because the Sci-Fi Channel always runs a marathon then (not sure why). I think it was "Back There," still one of my favorites, where Russell "And the Rest" Johnson travels back in time and tries to prevent the Lincoln assassination. Just a great story-telling show. I'd become curious about it mostly because of The Simpsons, which frequently spoofs some of the better-known episodes, though I had always written it off as for nerds only. On the contrary, I was hooked immediately. Or not contrarily, and I'm a nerd too. (This is eerily similar to my eventual embrace of the Beatles: an ill-informed opinion of what they really were—i.e., Paul McCartney's worst—followed by randomly hearing "It's All Too Much" and instantly understanding what all the hype was about.)

So thankfully I no longer need to throw an eight-hour cassette into the VCR every July 4 and be happy with whatever episodes they're running. Now I watch what I want and then hit the delete button as fast as I can. Progress!