tiwoe

so like i said, the tivo’s on the fritz as well. it was working great, but for the past couple of weeks, it hasn’t successfully made a call home to download guide data to know what’s playing when. i tried fussing around with it, thinking that it was maybe the fax interfering now that i finally got all of my landlines wired correctly, but i’m pretty sure that it’s the internal modem on the tivo that’s dead.

what are my options?

1. repair the internal modem - there’s a kit you can buy for like $15, but then it involves soldering and desoldering of parts off the tivo motherboard. which i suppose is doable, but i don’t know if i really want to fuss with it. i’m sure i could probably do it, but the fear is that if i fuck it up, it’s pretty much fucked up for good, and the lifetime subscription is tied to the box.
2. hook up the second tivo - i’ve got a series 2 sitting around somewhere not hooked up. i’d have to get around to adding another hard drive for more capacity (i guess i could cannibalize the first tivo if i had to) but i’d also have to pay for a subscription on this sucker to activate it. which is fine as i’ve already gotten over six years of free use out of the thing, but i’m loathe to sign up for a one year minimum because of…
3. buy a tivo series 3 - which i’m probably going to fork out for anyway when we get around to upgrading to an HD flatscreen. but do i really want to do that now? that’s $600 that i need to use to buy things like a dishwasher. or baby stroller. or food.

maybe it doesn’t matter so much. i rarely have time to watch tv anyway. hell, i didn’t get around to watching the season finale of lost until last night. maybe i should stick to books. or javanese shadow puppets?