Wednesday, February 25, 2009

By Best Friend’s Back!

Kim Reis

Yes - that’s right.  (insert love music here)  After months of longing and tears.  Stresses and fears.  My best friend is back.  My beloved TiVo has a guide again.  Well - at least it HAD a guide when I left the house this morning.  Who knows if it will still be there when I get home tonight?  After hours and hours of those dreaded tech support calls between TiVo and Cox, we were able to get the guide to work again.  Lots of rebooting, restarting, recalling and retuning.  I no longer live in the same town (according to TiVo’s user-guide setup).  I guess TiVo didn’t really like my home town’s Cox signal, so I now live elsewhere (even though I didn’t move).  In setup, we changed the zip code and did all sorts of setup changes.  Seemed to work.  At least for now.

So now I can concentrate on March 1st.  CELEBRITY APPRENTICE!!!  YOWZA!  Can’t wait.  What a cast of characters.  And they all have some sort of unusual behavior.  Should be interesting.  And, one of the contestants (Claudia Jordan) is from Rhode Island!  Click here for information about Claudia.  At this point, Claudia will be my favorite contestant because I’m loyal to those who represent our tiny little state.  But we’ll see if that remains once I start to see their coniving ways.  Sometimes I root for the best coniver.  Sometimes for the best person.  Depends on how the show strikes me.

So - tell your friends (especially your TiVo).  Celebrity Apprentice starts on Sunday night at 9pm!!! 

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Digital Conversion Equals TiVo Frustrations!

Kim Reis

I am FIT TO BE TIED!!  Sidebar: My mother used to say that when I was growing up…FIT TO BE TIED!  What exactly does FIT TO BE TIED mean anyway?  I keep thinking about the words and I still don’t get it.  But, I remember my mother would say it in a very angry tone, so I’m guessing that it means PO’ed.

Anyhow - to put it bluntly - I’m angry!  Ever since January, my TiVo has been a mess.  I have the TiVo with the dual cable cards and my cable provider is Cox.  They have been to my house about 5 times now and can’t seem to get the darn thing fixed.  I’m being told that Cox is moving channels all over the place and they have different “frequencies”.  LOOK!  I don’t really care about the frequencies, megahertz, megabytes or trillamagnolias!!!  All I care about is that my guide works, my TiVo records the shows I want to watch and I don’t fall asleep with anxieties over it.  I know, I know.  In this economy, how can my TiVo be my point of this kind of anxiety??  Well - in this economy, my TV is my escape.  And, since we don’t have extra money to spend on luxuries like movies and dinner out, this is our source of entertainment and my way to chill out from a busy day.

It all started back in January - when I tried to record Gone Country (which airs on CMT) - it would record VH1 Classic.  The guide says that the channel should be CMT, but when I select that channel, it is VH1 Classic.  When I click on the guide that says VH1 Classic, it comes back with “this channel not available”.  Cox has changed cable cards and run all kinds of tests.  No fix.  One guy says it’s our TiVo.  NOT!  Another guy said, “Oh yea!  Those two channels moved as part of a switch back in December.“  After coming to our house several times, they put a bandaid on it and asked us to record Gone Country on Channel 196, which is the HD version.  OK, at least that worked and I felt a little better. 

Then, February 17th happened.  TV went digital.  Calls started coming into NBC10 with aggravated viewers who didn’t know how to use their converter boxes, didn’t know how to set up their UHF antennas and didn’t know how to run the scan feature on their TV’s.  I helped to answer the calls and had a sense of calmness because I knew I had cable and a TiVo box.  I didn’t have to worry about this conversion…Right?  NOT RIGHT!!!  I got home that evening to find that my guide was empty.  From channels 24-96 it says TO BE ANNOUNCED.  No program information.  So, when I put in the keyword of “Real Housewives of New York City”, I get an error back because that channel says TO BE ANNOUNCED.  When I put in “Sober Living” - BUZZ ERROR!  When I put in “Gone Country” - BUZZ ERROR!

Last night we felt like the guy out west who took an automatic weapon and blew up his television.  We were so aggravated.  We called TiVo and they gave my husband some instructions to hopefully fix the problem.  Basically he had to reset the machine.  It took a few hours to complete, so we started it at 11pm before we went to bed.  At 2am, he was curious if it worked.  He turned on the TV to find that our entire Season Pass Manager was empty.  All of my shows - gone!  WHAT???  AND THE GUIDE IS STILL SAYING TO BE ANNOUNCED!!

I’m so aggravated!!  And now my husband had a crappy night’s sleep.  This AM I put in the big shows (like Biggest Loser, American Idol, etc) - but I still can’t record anything on channels 24-96.  Calgon - take me away!!!  Or COX - CALL ME BACK!!!

Friday, February 20, 2009

The TiVo is Full - Belly’s Empty

Kim Reis

As I wait for the hubby to return from picking up our Chinese food takeout, I quickly scanned through my TiVo.  Can you say “overwhelming?“  I have Gone Country, True Beauty, The Bachelor, Sober House, Intervention.  Not to mention that I also have Grey’s Anatomy, about 7 episodes of All My Children, 30 Rock and Medium.  And, Celebrity Apprentice is starting soon.  CAN’T WAIT!

Needless to say, my daughter busted her ankle yesterday (can you say bubble wrap?), so I had a few hours to fold clothes and catch up on some shows today.  I watched 2 episodes of The Biggest Loser Couples (4 hours worth) and I watched the elimination episode of American Idol from Wednesday night.  FINALLY!

So, here are my thoughts—

Dislike the Green Team (former models??  NOT!)
Yellow Team whine too much (sisters)
Purple Team is definitely persistent (mother/daughter)
Pink Team is flying under the radar (mother/daughter)
Blue Team - booooring (cousins)
Brown Team - I feel bad for the son because he’s totally carrying the father who claims he can’t do anything because of a bum knee.  Then why is he here???
Only one member of the black team left - Dane will go far.

I can’t seem to pick my favorite.  I think Tara will win it all (green team).  But I don’t really like her too much.  I think purple and pink will do well. 

Now—on to Idol. 

Favored to win = Danny Gokey.  Can’t dispute that guy.  And I cry every time they talk about his wife who died days before he tried out for Idol.  But - he was only in the first group of 12.  There are 24 more contestants still waiting to show America what they can do.  Although Danny is likable and “the dawg can sing” - it’s a little early to judge before seeing the other contestants perform in front of a live TV audience.  THANK GOODNESS Tatiana Nicole Del Toro did not make it through (insert annoying giggle here).  What a DRama queen (with a capital “DR”!)  So annoying.  I couldn’t believe how BAD some of the performances were!!!  Worse than bad karaoke.  Seriously.  They were B-A-D.  Alexis Grace (pink highlights in her hair) is definitely unique with a great sound.  I wonder how she’ll handle some of those weird theme weeks (like disco week)?  HA!  And then Steven Carver - again, down-to-earth, hard working guy.  Nice sound in his voice.  I think the best three did go through. 

Next week will be tough to decide. 

We have the following contestants next week.  I have put a star next to the three contestants that I think will go through:

Adam Lambert * (as long he doesn’t go way over the top with his Broadway sound)
Allison Iraheta
Jasmine Murray
Jeanine Vailes
Jesse Langseth
Kai Kalama
Kris Allen
Matt Breitzke * (likable, hard working guy, America will love him)
Matt Giraud
Megan Joy Corkrey
Mishavonna Henson
Nick Mitchell * (this guy is hysterical!  I don’t know whether to expect Nick or his alter-ego “Norman” to show up!)

Can’t wait!  Don’t forget that Idol is on Weds/Thurs next week instead of the normal Tues/Weds.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Hell’s Kitchen!  Another Flaming Hot Season!

Kim Reis

Well - the new season of Hell’s Kitchen just started and I already hate one of the whiney **%$$*&.  I meant to say - one of the whiney young ladies.  Lacey!  OMG!  Shut UP already!!!  I mean, their first day in the darn kitchen and she’s already quitting.  She storms out of the kitchen to go hang out in the dorm room while the rest of team worked their butts off.  She ate food, smoked cigarettes and sat with her feet up.  Then she returned to the kitchen just as Chef Ramsey walks in (cussing like a sailor, I might add).  Unfortunately, Coi (one of the other red team members) was going off on POOR WHITTLE LACEY and Ramsey only saw that part.  That’s like my life.  I am usually the one who is in the wrong place at the wrong time.  What did this girl think she signed up for?

Any hoot - the season has only just begun and I already despise one of the players.  I mean - I really dislike her A LOT.  A whole lot!!  She is like salt in my fruit loops?  She is like an oreo cookie and you just found out someone drank the last bit of milk.  She is like a fake fingernail that pops off when you grab the door handle on your car and your fingers slip off (come on ladies - you know what I mean).  She is like a power outage during the season finale of Biggest Loser.  She is like…. {insert your own statement here by using the comment field below}.

This season is sure to be a DOOOOZY!!  WOW!!  Welcome to Hell’s Kitchen!  “Miss Manners” should be interesting as well.  She reminds me of Bre Vanderkamp from Desperate Housewives.  She’s so proper and there’s Ramsey calling her a BLEEPING BLEEPING BLEEP.  She looked mortified.  HA!!  She doesn’t know what to make of this situation.  And, yet again - I ask—what did she think she was coming into?  Hasn’t she seen the damn show.

‘Til next time bloggers!