Wednesday, January 30, 2008

What's saved on the DVR at the Beck household?


















I know. It's sad. Very very sad.

The "man police" should kick my door down and smack me over the head with the remote.

I remember being so excited the day we got our first DVR a few years back. It was the perfect invention. Pausing live TV. Fast forwarding through commercials. Timeshifting. And, of course, never - ever - having to watch TLC's What Not To Wear again.

The DVR was one of those rare devices that profoundly impacted the way we lived our lives. And we found it hard to imagine how we ever lived without it. I loved my DVR. And it loved me.

How then, did the perfect man-gadget get reduced to the timeshifting equivalent of "What to expect when you're expecting?" (Guys, sorry, that's the 1,000 page book that takes you week by glorious week through the different stages of your wife's pregnancy. She will love this book. And she will want you to love it too. Love the book! Diet, medication, flu shots, cat ownership, false labor, vitamin supplements, cramps, poopy diapers, ultrasound, breastfeeding...it's all in there. And it's completely unavoidable.)

Anyway, over the years I had become an expert at monitoring "the list." I never let it fall below the 75% threshold of man-appropriate shows. Sure, every now and again a few episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” (or "Grey's" as we sometimes call it) would start to stack up....but I would quickly recalibrate (delete) as necessary. And if Rhea ever asked, "What happened to last Thursday's episode of Grey's Anatomy?" I would simply look confused and say, "Honey, I'm pretty sure you watched that one the other night. You remember, the doctors were wearing scrubs..... and Dr. McDreamy looked cute.... and then he did some stuff that upset Meredith....and then she started to whine about her life.... Remember sweetie? You must have deleted it. "

The point is, that, by and large, there were significantly more shows about motorcycles, surviving in the wilderness, and sports than there were about weddings, makeovers, or babies. And it was good.

But somewhere along the way I took my eye off the ball. Maybe it was the purple haze of pending fatherhood bearing down on me. Or perhaps it was the Irish Car Bombs with the guys after work. I don't know. But before I knew it, our entire list was made up of shows about baby showers, birthing centers, and pre-natal yoga. And the worst part about it is that I didn't even know this was happening. And now I'm worried that my wife is spiraling out of control. She's addicted. She's binging on baby shows. And I'm not sure how to stop it...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Last belly check was December 5, 2007. WTF? Please don't keep bump's fans waiting. It's just not fair.

Scot Beck said...

quinn, good point. It's not fair. And it has been way too long since the last belly check. I posted a few photos I took this week. Thanks fo your comments and we'll try to keep this portion of the blog updated regularly. scot