In The Big Inning...

I'm gonna write yet again about my TiVo. If you don't like it, get your own blog to complain on, and write about how you don't like stupid other bloggers and how they only write about their TiVos. Link to me if you want. That'll teach me!

So, my TiVo is clinging to life. Last week, apparently a thunderstorm caused a power surge and knocked out the modem on my TiVo. That's my best guess. Maybe evil gnomes (the same ones that put dings in your car) snuck into my house and broke my TiVo's modem, but I'm sticking with my original theory.

Now, the only reason I knew the modem was out is because when TiVo can't make its nightly call to headquarters to get its battle plans (remember, it's really out to conquer the Earth, first by creating an incredible human dependence on it), it starts to complain and tell you that it doesn't have enough information to provide guide data for future programs. TiVo can still operate without that guide data, but then it becomes much more like a normal VCR that doesn't know when any shows are on. To give you an idea of how incapacitated the TiVo without this guide data, take yourself, an intelligent human with impeccable taste in blogs, and hit yourself in the head with a hammer forty to fifty times. Now let's see what kind of blogs you enjoy.

So, this had happened before. I fixed it by running "Guided Setup", which basically involved setting all the original preference again. The last time this happened, either the dial-in number had changed, or TiVo just forgot it (this seems unlikely - TiVo meticulously is tracking every little single piece of data it can possibly compile about me - how hard I push the buttons, what outfits I wear when I watch TV, etc. I think it actually tried to cotton swab my ear the last time I got to close, to add to its DNA database) so running the setup allowed it to get this information back together. Because the modem wasn't broken then, it had no problem communicating with the mothership and getting the updated data. Problem solved.

Being a relatively logical being, I figured that running Guided Setup would fix the problem this time. Silly me. TiVo started to dial in (I think it dials an 800 number to get the list of local numbers it should use), but the modem failed. I tried again, and it failed. At this point, I became apoplectic. I cried, I threw things, tore out my hair, and after sleeping for thirty-six hours, I settled down. I resolved to fix this problem. TiVo wasn't dead, just a little sick.

First, I called Customer Support. What a waste of time. They had no suggestions, other than to take the TiVo for service. Well, that was going to cost $150 dollars or so, and while TiVo may be more important to me than life itself, $150 dollars is a lot of money. (This is why my children will likely have health insurance, but as far as I know, you can't get health insurance for TiVos. Maybe I should look into that, though. I probably would have considered a $10 co-pay.)

I then looked online, at TiVo Community. If you think I'm nuts for my TiVo, then this people will certainly frighten the crap out of you. I really think TiVoism is some sort of religion. At any rate, these zealots soon referred me to a thread talking about using an external modem to connect. Apparently, unknown to me, TiVo has a serial port that you can connect to a modem. Of course, the port on the TiVo looks like a headphone jack, but TiVo comes with a cord that is a headphone plug on one end, and a serial port on another. Score! My only task now was to find a modem.

Finding a modem was easier said than done. I emailed my co-workers, asking if anyone had a modem, figuring that they were the most likely collection of dorks that would have an external dialup, serial port modem sitting around. Unfortunately, I wasn't specific in my email, and was inundated with internal modems, USB modems, etc. This wouldn't do. I went to CompUSA to see what they had. There was a serial to USB adapter, but it was $30. There was a serial modem for $50. That might have been worth it, but there was no guarantee that any of these solutions would work. Finally, one of my co-workers responded with an external, serial modem. I quickly brought it home and began surgery.

I looked online and found what I was supposed to do. I found my TiVo box, buried deep within my basement, and lo and behold, there was the headphone-serial adapter. I hooked the modem up to my laptop's serial port, and launched "Hyperterminal". It connected, and I was able to enter cryptic commands to set up the modem. I followed precisely what the thread said, and it seemed to receive the commands. I then plugged in the modem to the TiVo, and continued with Guided Setup. I had to enter a top secret code into the phone dialing commands, and then I told it to dial. I heard the familiar funky modem connecting sounds (shhhhhh...bwadong...bing..bing..eeeee...errr....thwang....sshsHsshhshhsh..........) (No, no, please no applause. I'm here all week.) and then it said it was downloading data! Woohoo! It was alive! Aliiiiiive!

So, I continued Guided Setup and eventually it completed. All of my shows were there. It seemed to all be fine. Boy, was I wrong.

A little later, I try to look at shows that have been recorded recently. It turns out that nothing is being recorded because now my TV tuner wasn't working. Apparently the surge, or gnome invasion, was more damaging than I originally thought, and had taken out the tuner as well. Now, I couldn't get any channels through the RF cable. The component video worked, but that doesn't allow TV to change channels.

I basically spent my afternoon reconfiguring everything. I had to go through Guided Setup again (still with the modem, which hasn't yet failed), and now TiVo is running off of my cable box, controlling it through infrared. It's amazing how as its capabilities degrade, its control of appliances in my house expands. It's kind of like a Hydra.

At any rate, TiVo's still running. Frankly, it can't be killed. But I don't want it to die. You might think it's time to just let it go gracefully into the night, and replace it with a newer model. You would be wrong. Would you replace your sickly firstborn child just by having another child, even if that child might change channels faster, or not make weird beeping noises nightly? I thought so. Heathens.