Sunday nights at 9, I'm watching Entourage on the HBO. Everyone knows this. You do not disturb me during this 30 minutes. Any other time, and I'll talk your ear off, and you'll hang up wondering how one person can converse for such a length of time without wearing down. But from 9 to 9:30 on Sunday nights -- the ringer gets turned off. This is the best show on TV and its not even particularly close. I will not argue this.
Last night, 10 minutes in, my phone rings. It was my parents, who still live back home in Iowa, three hours away. I hadn't called home for a couple weeks, and they were probably worried about me so I felt guilty enough to pick up, knowing I would miss the rest of the show. I did let the "Final Countdown" ringtone go long enough to loop back to the start of the chorus a second time before picking up though, because I did seriously think about ignoring it.
But I don't need bad karma right now. So I picked up. And missed the show.
Now, yes this is a great argument for the TiVo. And the hell of it is, I have one. But its older, and it doesn't work on HDTV. And I was watching Entourage on the big screen downstairs, meaning when they called, I couldn't just hit pause. I've always thought it was ridiculous to pay the cable company $5 a month for a DVR. After last night, its not so ridiculous.
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So its 10:15 and I've missed the show (like I said, I can talk forever on the phone -- I'm like a gosh damn teenage girl in this respect. I once talked to a girl on the phone for 3 hours. This was not in middle school. This was like 10 months ago.) so what's a guy to do? Wait 2 hours until HBO-West shows it, that's what. Because I get 9 HBO channels, and the West feed is always three hours behind the East feed. So all I had to do was wait until midnight, and then I could watch the new one. You bet.
This is where the HBO On Demand thing is cool. I watched three episodes from earlier in the season, on demand, free of charge. Inexplicably, the episode where they meet their neighbors -- including junkie Bob Saget -- is not available on the On Demand. But I did get to watch the one at the Playboy Mansion, complete with gratuitous nudity and other cool stuff. And I got to watch the new episodes where they start promoting and filming Aquaman. And the calf implants episode -- and the Ralph Macchio cameo. Macchio, you bet. Of course, I had to put up with watching Mandy Moore as Aquagirl, which just pisses me off because I really can't stand her -- and I'd love to say why but I can't because it will get me in trouble with some people I know. Lets just leave it at that.
Wooo, crisis averted there. Anyway...long story short, I made it to midnight, and finally got to see the new episode. And next Sunday, if I haven't broke down for the DVR, I'll just have to turn the phone off completely.
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