Indeed. So the DVR was installed. Not, of course, without much frigging bumbling by Comcast. First, I had to babysit the guy installing the box for like three hours, just sort of standing behind him and smoking cigarettes and looking carefully at what he was doing, which I didn’t really understand anyway. And this annoys me, because I consider myself at least semi-good with electrical devices, after all, I did work with the damn things for a large portion of my life. Er. Anyway, after the DVR was installed, I made the guy check the signal strength, which he insisted he wasn’t supposed to do, which I insisted he was, which necessitated a call to Comcast which forced him to actually physically LOOK at the work order and acknowledge that, yes, he was supposed to check the signal. So he wandered around the back of the house for a while, doing nothing, then came in, claimed we didn’t need a signal amplifier, that it was all the result of bad and old wiring from other, evil Comcast contractors with goatees, from the alternate Comcast universe, and then he ran away from the house and left me with two remote controls.
Two minutes later the other TV upstairs went dead. Another twenty minute wait with the Comcast phone support, and we learn the tech had ordered the box sent dead, apparently because he was angry with it or something. We get it turned back on. Then I notice that he’s got everything hooked up to the video jacks, and it can’t be wired any other way (another call to Comcast), so I have to run to get a video selector switch, and run back, at which point I realize I need a damn cable to go with it, so I go run and pick up a cable and wire everything up and…okay, then it worked.
Although I really have no idea how to efficiently use it.
The two remote controls are programmed differently, and I keep picking up the wrong one. I have a general idea how to work the two tuners, but I keep hitting the wrong button, and freezing, oh, commercials I don’t want to watch frame-by-frame. I’m supposed to know how to do this sort of shit! Damn.
Okay. So I can sort of work it. And they left an instruction booklet. And if I lose that, I’m like the Greatest American Hero. Except with a DVR.
But…dammit…it’s cool.