Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Times Have Changed (For Me)

Sunday night my husband and I were watching "The Amazing Race" on our DVR. We record the show and watch it later so we can zip through the commercials. However, when we finished the show, I noticed the DVR said 0% full. The last I saw, it said 50% full. I chose a show to watch and got a black screen.

Hmmm. Not looking good.

I rebooted the system. It starting this countdown, something it had never done before. I almost wish I had just turned it off and then back on first, to see if that was the problem, but now it was too late. My husband suspected it was reformatting the hard drive. He was right.

We lost everything. 50 hours worth. There were series I was in the middle of watching and some series we hadn't even started yet. At least it kept track of the series we want to record, although at this point, some of them are kind of useless.

There was a time when this would have really pissed me off. Not so much now. I know why, too. It's a time waster and I don't have time to waste like I used to (you know, because of that writing thing I do). But I do enjoy watching some shows with my husband, and he still loves to watch TV.

He's in the process of seeing how many shows he can download on the internet, especially since most of the ones that were lost were his. The ones I watch without him are available to me easy enough – I just have to find the time to watch them before they go away!

Technology promises so much, but can crash and burn like everything else!

Another reason I buy actual CDs of my music – and email my manuscript to myself after every day I touch it. You just never know.


7 comments:

Jennette Marie Powell said...

Yay for your zen response to what could have been really anxiety-inducing! There's something to be said for not watching much TV. I'm a CD-buyer, too! Not only for the reason you pose, but I believe the artists also make much better royalties on CDs than through digital downloads.

The Happy Whisk said...

I still buy CDs but only a select few. Same with DVDs. Just the ones that I really want to keep.

Do you guys do NetFlix on the TV?

We love it.

Stacy McKitrick said...

Jennette - I really shocked myself when I didn't break down in tears when we lost all those shows. Like I said, there was a time I might have done just that. I was a big time TV junkie.

Whisk - We don't do NetFlix. We pretty much buy whatever DVD we wish to see or borrow the kids' (they each have impressive collections - gee I wonder where they got that from?). We have so many we haven't even watched yet (again, because of that writing thing), sort of like my TBR pile (which is over flowing).

DL Hammons said...

We have DISH and the hard drive on our unit failed last week. We lost almost 75 hours of recordings and had to be without a DVR until just tonight. It felt like we were back in the stone age again!! :)

Maria Zannini said...

I can commiserate. I just lost my computer today. I am in mourning.

Todd R Moody said...

Stacy are familiar with Dropbox? It's free and syncs with every computer you load it on. I love it!

Stacy McKitrick said...

DL - So I guess I'm lucky we only lost what was on our DVR - we didn't lose the DVR. You also gave me a reason not to switch from cable!

Maria - Losing a computer is tough. I hope it was all backed up!

Todd - Our TV isn't hooked up to a computer. I don't think we can hook up with the DVR, either. We have an external hard drive on the DVR, but when the DVR reformats, it loses all connectivity with any external device.