I'm a slave to my DVR

I love my DVR. I couldn't live without it. Before it was so much a pain to tape shows that I'd often just abaondon any attempt to watch a particular show while broadcast and just wait until it came out on DVD.

Then came the magic of the DVR. I'd set up to record whole series that I knew nothing about, and then eventually, I'd get around to watching the first episode. If I liked it, I'd watch the rest. If not, I'd delete them and the series recording. This way I could sample new shows at my leisure without haivng to try and catch when they were on.

The shows that I already watch were an even bigger boon. I knew I would never miss them, no matter when they were on. All new episodes would be safely recorded, again to watch at my leisure. My DVD player would sit forlorn and empty as my stack of unwatched DVDs grew higher (but at a much slower rate). It was just easier to watch on the DVR. I just plop down and start watching what I want. No fumbling for a disc or opening up a player and waiting for the EXTREMELY ANNOYING "that operation can't be performed" error message when trying to skip all the intro material.

And now I can make sure I catch the new movies that come on. Before, I'd catch a movie in the middle and then not want to watch it because I'd want to see it from the beginning. Now I can just set it up to record the next time it will be on and in a few days (usually) I'll have a fresh new movie to watch. No fumbling necessary.

And then came the curse. For you see, the DVR does not have infinite storage capacity. It eventually fills up. And once it fills up, it starts deleting things to save space. And pretty soon, you have mass hysteria as things are getting deleted left and right, willy nilly, and you lose all your shows. So in order to avoid that, you have to delete stuff. But you don't want to delete stuff you haven't watched. Thus, the net result is, you have to watch it. You have to watch it to keep up with the pace of what you are recording. So you become a slave to it, trying to keep up, to avoid falling behind. I watch some shows with my eye on the time bar to see how many minutes are left so I know how long it is before I can delete it, and I pay attention to the total length so I know how many hours will be freed. Recording a full movie in High Def is a double-edged sword. They take up a huge amount of space, but then when you watch them, for two hours of time, you get to free up a huge chunk of space. Yes, I'm strange that way - always keeping track of status and how much there is to go and what there is to do.

So I'm a slave to my DVR. The 13th Amendment won't help me.

(Yes, this is tongue-in-cheek, but true too. At least it keeps me entertained. I'm pretty good now at keeping caught up. It helps that the bedroom TV is not now half filled with Disney crap).