tivo, at last we have found ye

John and I have taken the next big step: we have gotten Tivo. Specifically, we have gotten Direct TV with Tivo, which means that this was a fairly simple upgrade from what we already had, so I didn't have to set foot in a Best Buy. If any given technological advance involves a trip to that, the fourth circle of my personal hell, rest assured that John and I will never have it. Or that John will surreptitiously travel on his own to Best Buy (want to make your husband do errands? Refuse to enter entire stores and he'll be off to the races!) to procure a PlayStation2 that I will eye with suspicion bordering on loathing. But the nice DirectTv man with a lovely Russian accent (it felt strangely seasonally appropriate to talk to someone from a land where winters are even worse than ours) came and installed the Tivo thingy and programmed the remote and then left me with an instruction book and a giddy smile. Two hours later, I hit a road block. Tivo, for whatever reason, seems unwilling to record HBO. I will be the first to admit that I've never actually watched much HBO before, but for whatever reason this little snafu has me all annoyed. I was investigating tivo discussion boards last night, trying to figure out if this was normal or some problem that I need to have fixed, because goddammit I want to watch Reese Witherspoon in Vanity Fair for zero extra dollars! And that movie is only on at noon on a Wednesday, which is not a time when normal adults are watching television! It's amazing how quickly I went from "girl who barely notices that her tv receives HBO" to "girl who is livid that her newly-installed recording device that may or may not violate fair use copyright provisions will not record movies that are certainly copyrighted material." Perhaps I should register for copyright law after all.