My DVR

Back in the early days of Sean's Ramblings, I wrote several posts complaining about good television shows or sporting events featuring Pittsburgh teams airing at the same time. Each time I wrote one of these posts, I received comments that I should get a DVR. They were right. Besides electricity, the DVR may be the greatest invention of all time. These days, with the exception of sports, it's rare that I ever watch live television. Unfortunately, I'm way behind in my DVR-viewing, and it shows that the DVR is only 14% free. I need to remedy this quickly, although the pending arrival of a new child will make this difficult. Challenge accepted! Let's take a look at what's filling up my DVR.

- Season 2 (12 episodes) of Homeland

I recorded this during a free preview of Showtime. I haven't seen season 1 yet, so these episodes just sit on the DVR until I get Netflix or hope that there's another Showtime preview that airs the entire first season of Homeland.

- 24 episodes of The Middle

I saved all these episodes since this is a show that my wife and I used to watch together. She is no longer interested in watching this show. I'm so far behind, that a recent episode I watched showed commercials for future ABC shows Zero Hour and How to Live With Your Parents for the Rest of Your Life. Both of these shows have been cancelled for nearly a year!

- 8 episodes of Modern Family
- 5 episodes of Archer

- Season 1 of Game of Thrones

I had a recent conversation with a friend where he said that he watched the first season thanks to a free preview of HBO. I replied that I missed out on recording the shows. Guess what? I didn't miss out. I just completely forgot they were there.

- Nancy & Tonya

I wonder if in this version of the retelling of the figure skating drama, Nancy Kerrigan arranges to have someone attack Tonya Harding.

- The Bro Mitzvah episode of How I Met Your Mother and a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode with Bill Buckner. Two excellent episodes that I didn't want to delete.

- A Jeopardy! episode featuring a good friend of mine. I should probably delete this, but how often do I get to see Alex Trebek giving my friend a nickname?

- Multiple episodes of Little Einsteins, Thomas & Friends and Dinosaur Train.

Best used during snow days. Plus, I'm so happy that there are now shows other than Little Einsteins that my son will watch.

During every free preview of HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, etc., I record movies. For example, I recorded the Academy Award-winning The King's Speech...in January 2012! Maybe it's time to watch it.

Other movies on the to-see list include:

Zero Dark Thirty
Looper
Wreck-It Ralph
Life of Pi

I've got work to do!

My Monday

Yesterday morning, I woke up expecting to have a typical Monday. Well, as typical as a Monday could be with the Pirates participating in a playoff game. After shaving and eating Honey Nut Cheerios, we discovered that my son, who made a significant amount of noise Sunday night/Monday morning but didn't actually wake up or at least call for us, had a temperature of 101.7. Typical Monday over. The bad news was that my son was miserable and couldn't attend preschool, but the silver lining was that I would have to stay home meaning that I could watch the 3:00 Pirates game.

I took my son to the doctor's office and learned that besides the fever he also had an ear infection. Apparently, it was such a textbook ear infection that the doctor wanted the visiting doctor/student doctor person to take a look. The resident doctor looked and confirmed that there was an ear infection. Um, thanks. Actually, she didn't really say anything. She just looked at his ear. I have no idea if she confirmed that there was an ear infection or if she just wanted to test the equipment.

We were given a prescription for an antibiotic, but since the pharmacy wasn't open yet, we went home. This began the day of Little Einsteins. If you're not familiar with this animated television show, I'm going to go on a quick tangent/vent here. Little Einsteins is my son's favorite show and one of the few shows we let him watch. Originally, I liked the show since it follows the adventures of four kids and their rocket ship as they travel the globe and is designed to teach classical music from artists like Mozart and Beethoven and shows art from Monet and Van Gough among others. Basically, there's a cultural and educational element to it. As I've now watched the show dozens if not hundreds of times, I have some concerns. Where are the kids' parents? How can Leo and Annie's parents let Leo fly a rocket ship? Shouldn't the kids have passports as they travel across borders? You think the military of various countries are okay with a rocket flying into their airspace? Why do Leo, June & Quincy praise Annie for all of her songs? She's no Lennon, McCartney or even Jewel. Finally, why doesn't Big Jet ever use its missiles? Seems like that could be effective.

After two episodes, we went to Wegmans to pick up the antibiotic. Since the prescription wasn't ready, we wondered around the store to pick up a few groceries and to see the trains by the milk section. While walking around a woman with a kid slightly older than my son stopped me and called me by name. I had no idea who this woman was but she clearly knew me. After she asked if I knew who she was, I went through my mental rolodex with a blank look on my face. Finally, I realized that this was someone I knew from high school in Pittsburgh that I hadn't seen in 20 years. Apparently, despite wearing glasses instead of contacts and having messed up hair due to not showering (and significantly less hair than high school), she recognized me since I was wearing a Pirates shirt. If you're going to see someone for the first time in 20 years, you'd like to look your best, or at least better than I did yesterday!

We didn't leave the house the rest of the day. My son fell asleep on me twice and barely ate anything. He was cuddly, but fairly pathetic. Pretty much like the Pirates offense against the Cardinals! Fortunately, the fever went down from 102 at the doctor's office to under 100 before bed time. He slowly returned to his normal happy self as the day went on as I hope the Pirates do in game five on Wednesday.

In case you were wondering, Ziggy was of no help yesterday. After his breakfast, he slept the entire day until it was time for him to have dinner.

Finally, my son is mostly back to normal today. The fever is gone and he's running, talking and singing, three things he did not do yesterday. He still doesn't seem to want any food, but he is so much happier than Monday.