TV is my life

Well, it apparently kind of is my life, in that we watch a lot of it. That's kind of how Rich and I spend time together in the evenings, sitting in the living room, him usually casually browsing on his laptop and me knitting, watching TV at the same time. Yes, I know, it's mindless and vacuous, and has no doubt rotted our brains and dulled our faculties. And, yes, I know that you, yourself, don't even own a TV. That's true of all the better people with finer minds. Still, that's how we roll.

For about 15 years, we've had Replay TV. It's a Tivo-type thing, but a different brand, and it was pretty cool in its day. It was the cause of a lawsuit over "commercial skipping" software: all three of our Replay machines have this handy setting that allows them to jump from black screen to black screen in a recorded program, thereby (usually) jumping over all the commercials in a break. Handy. But, alas, the Replays' time is past. It's only SD and is no longer supported. The machines themselves are starting to wear out. The Replay in the living room, for example, periodically resets itself whenever we try to scroll the program guide up (it's okay with down).

The programming that comes into the Replay boxes comes from DirecTV. We have phone service and FIOS Internet from Verizon. So our choices were pretty much going to be DirecTV DVR service or Verizon FIOS TV. I started comparing.

I read all of DirecTV and Verizon's online info. I made phone call after phone call after phone call. I got salespeople to look at our accounts and give me the actual, exact, specific price we would see on our monthly bill.

(One interesting side note, for what it's worth: in doing all this, I discovered DirecTV had been making a small billing mistake for years. Well, actually, they discovered it. At the same time, I questioned Verizon about a small charge for a feature that appeared to be—and, in fact, was—included in our package. They acknowledged that it should have been included in the package price. DirecTV credited our account with the $220 they had overcharged. Verizon agreed to stop overcharging us in the future.)

Anyway, I did endless research, comparing features and finding out what equipment and service we'd have to get from each one of them to replace what we have now. I talked to countless Verizon and DirecTV employees, some of them knowledgeable, some completely clueless. I made charts comparing features and prices. I talked to Rich and came away with new questions, triggering another few rounds of phone calls. After two months of this, it boiled down to this:

• We both like DirecTV better.
• Verizon would cost $3800 less over the next three years.

Thirty. eight. hundred. less. Staggering, no? It's such a dramatic difference because adding TV to our existing Verizon service, with all the deals we'd get, only added about $35 to their bill. Going with DirecTV service, itself reasonably priced, meant we'd also still be paying the separate Verizon bill. So there you go. Decision made. Service installed. Happy ending. Except the Verizon DVRs don't do what Verizon said they'd do.

I only thought I was done.

Today I'll be talking to Verizon to see if there's a way we can get it to work. And talking to DirecTV, begging them to reduce their price so we can consider them again. Mostly, I'll be trying to take care of a household matter that I've been working on for TWO FREAKIN' MONTHS! I keep thinking I'm done with it, and it bounces right back.

TV is my life.