...I fully admit it, I don't want a support group nor am making a 'plea for help'. Just give me my remote control and my stitching and I'll be a quiet happy camper sitting on the couch at night.

Notice, at night. I stitch at night after the kids are in bed, and that's when I watch television (for the most part). I don't like being annoyed while watching television because that generally means I'm annoyed while I'm stitching, and that usually leads to mistakes and frustration.

Right now, however, I'm frustrated for an entirely different reason. I'm frustrated because my DVR is dying a slow death. Actually it's losing it's mind. Yes, the DVR that I just got for Christmas from DH. The hard drive is dying (thus the losing it's mind comment), and there's no explanation for it. It has made television watching rather challenging, I must say. The first sign that something was wrong was that it didn't record 'Days of Our Lives' for me. Yes, I know I said I usually only watch good television, but they brought back two of my favorite characters, and I have to watch that storyline and find out what the heck happened 16 years ago when they left the show. That's my guilty crap television pleasure (yes, DH, I know you think most television is crap, but you're not writing this blog). Thankfully, the Soap Opera Network is on my DishNetwork channel lineup and I'm able to catch the episode later in the day. But then it became a regular occurance that it wouldn't record. Or I would catch the DVR on when it should be recording something, but there was no little happy red recording light. That's when I'd turn on the television and find a blue screen. Yes, I'm getting a blue screen of death without the evil little windows words that state the system has had a failure. Then I have to reset the system and it might record, it might not. The other frustrating sign was that maybe something would partially record. It's really annoying to turn something on and find out that it recorded 9 minutes out of the middle of a one hour show and that's all you got.

And so I called DishNetwork to complain. And the nice young man on the phone said that it would only cost me $14.95 for shipping for a replacement. I told him to put a note on the account and that I would call back. And so I did, a few days later and the nice man who's computer died while I was talking to him waived the shipping fee. And so, last night another DishNetwork PVR508 arrived on my doorstep. Never mind the fact that I'm going to lose about 30 hours of Good Eats episodes that I've recorded over the last year because there's no way to transfer them off the current hard drive. I *could* transfer them to a VCR tape, but my VCR has this penchant for not wanting to let go of tapes when it's done with them until it's good and ready to let go. That's ok - I've already started searching and recording Good Eats episodes that I want to watch/keep again with the new DVR. Ah, but I digress...

Queuing up another unit didn't solve my problem, because I think my current unit heard that it was being replaced and really got pissed off. On Wednesday night my DVR did something really unusual - it decided that it didn't want to show me anything on the program guide past 11am on Friday morning (when it usually shows me a week's worth of programming) and that I didn't want to see the network channels that I pay for (all 10 of them). It said that I had lost satellite signal.

And so I reset the unit for what had to be the 100th time in the last week, and then it gave me my network channels back. But then it decided that it didn't want to show me the other 150 channels that I pay for. Ugh. Reset the unit again. And it would flip back and forth. So I called the nice DishNetwork people again, and this time the girl that I got said I'm screwed, the hard drive is dying, it can't remember anything, you'll just have to wait.

Wait? Me wait? For something that I pay for? I think not. So I hung up and I called back a few minutes later and got some wonderful advice from someone smarter than the girl. The advice? Let the unit sit until it *does* acquire the signal - which may take up to a half hour because it's being slow and trying to die - and then do not turn the unit off. For any reason. The timers will probably record as a result, I won't lose any programming, and I will be able to update my program guide. Hooray! So my DVR has been on for the last 24 hours and so far hasn't lost any programming or neglected any timers. I'll be sad that I'm losing all those Good Eats episodes, but I can always record them again. Or buy them on DVD since I know they're out there. I waited a couple of hours, and then I plugged in the new DVR, went through the setup, ran all the tests and called Dish Network to activate my receiver. I know I've lost a couple days worth of Days of Our Lives, but I can probably live without them... well... maybe not.

See? Totally love the television that I refuse to be without it while DH is camping even though I'll have more DVDs to watch than I know what to do with (yes, I'll be taking the kids to the park too). I want my DVR to be working, but it's not just because I'm a television junkie - it's because I pay for the service and I expect my equipment to run perfectly (or at least to my standards, whichever works best for me). Of course, there is a new television season starting soon too and I don't want to miss any of that either....

...and my DVR isn't going to be the thing that stops me from it.