After I got back from Australia, I got cable DVR (Digital Video Recording) installed on my TV. This is simply because I’m not bright enough to operate the VCR, and I’d rather invest the extra $10 a month and save myself the grief, which would have been monumental given my must-watch list. Plus, my godmother had something like it on her TV, and I noted how she was able to watch her favorite detective shows whenever she wanted and skip the commercials as well.

I was addicted in my first week of using the DVR. It was just too easy and convenient. I found myself watching a little more TV than I used to.

You can learn a lot about a person by going through their DVR settings. I learned this watching a Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode. Vincent D’Onofrio surfs a dead man’s settings and finds out that the victim is a gambler because all the recorded shows are nothing but sports, the kind you bet on. I’m not sure what D’Onofrio would find out about me if he looked at my recording list, but the thought makes me consider what I have on that thing and what they would say about me.

So here’s my actual list under the series manager:
My Name Is Earl
The Office
The Sopranos
Big Love
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
The Colbert Report
Scrubs
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Two and a Half Men
How I Met Your Mother
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
60 Minutes
Face the Nation
Frontline/World
Boston Legal
Law & Order
Countdown with Keith Olbermann
The West Wing
Teachers
BBC World News
This Week with George Stephanopoulos
Real Time with Bill Maher
Pepper Dennis

They’re not on there now, but when the next season of Deadwood and Carnivale start up, they’re going at the top of my list. Can’t figure out why they’re taking so long!

Some of the news and political shows are on there because when H.E., the news junkie and former political activist, excitedly calls me up about another Bush scandal, I want to know enough about the story to be able to keep up with him. Others, like Keith Olbermann’s show, are just fun to watch. Still others, like BBC World News, are habits I picked up while in Australia. But altogether, mostly, I just listen to all of these news shows from the other room while I’m working.

The sitcoms and comedy shows make me happy; they’re my candy. The dramas are my other candy. Pepper Dennis is on there as a trial only—I’ve seen one episode so far; I finally had to try it out because H.E. couldn’t stop singing its praises.

I also record movies, and since I’ve had the DVR, I’ve managed to catch a lot of the movies I missed when they first came to the theaters—Monster-in-Law, Robots, Flight of the Phoenix, etc. Movies I wouldn’t buy tickets to see but am very willing to watch on cable. Movies I saw in the theater but want to see again on TV. Movies that I’ve heard of and want to see but that play at two and three in the morning. It’s awesome. I love it.

Darn. I just remembered another show I liked but haven’t seen all season because I forgot to put it in my series manager. NCIS. I watched the first few episodes of CSI and gave it up because I was disgusted with the way they made the forensic people act like detectives, interrogating the suspects while the detectives stayed silent in the background. But I liked NCIS a lot. Much better than any of the CSI shows. And I especially can’t stand David Caruso. He makes me feel hostile and violently ill, and when he speaks, he makes me want to scream, “Get off my TV!!!” A bit like nails on chalkboard. So I don’t watch his show if I can help it.

Hm. I guess what I don’t watch can be just as enlightening about me as what I do watch. I wonder what everyone else watches … or doesn’t watch.

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