Program This!!!!

AARRGH!

I have just wasted the past hour and a half, trying to get the DVD player to function, then trying to get the remote for the tv set back to standard operations too.

And, this reminds me of something I had put way back in the back of my mind, forgot all about this stuff and that's that I HATE trying to program these devices!!!

This morning, the remote for the tv set was working just fine and dandy -no problems, at all.

Mandy and Maya left about 11:30 for an appointment Maya had today and I was left here with Kurtis and to my own devices with respect to other things as well.

I decided I was going to watch a DVD that my son's girl friend brought down here yesterday. This DVD is supposed to be of her family tree -pictures and all kinds of stuff and if you know anything at all about me by now, you know I'm really into family tree stuff. Mine, yours, anyones -you say family tree and yes, I am there!

So, I figured I have a cd/dvd read/write thing on my computer and with that, I should be able to pop this dvd into the computer and view what's on it. Right?

WRONG! When I did that and hit open on the DVD thing on "my computer" it was just blank. Nothing there. WTF!???

When Betty came back here last evening, I mentioned this to her and she was more than a bit surprised, but then she said "Well, maybe you have to watch it on the DVD player, not the computer." Hmmm. Didn't think of that.

(But, if my computer is a DVD player then why can't I watch it on the computer? Insert answers here, please.)

So this a.m., I decided I would try that -watching this DVD on our DVD player.

What can be difficult about that?

Trust me, EVERYTHING!

Now, what we have is a new DVD player. I don't remember the brand -probably wouldn't make a hill of beans of difference for me anyway -but my thoughts were now, how in the heck can it possibly be difficult to play a DVD in a DVD player anyway. Just open the damned thing, insert the disc and hit play. Well, those were my thoughts on this but apparently it take some kind of special mo-jo one must know in order to get a DVD to play!

And you know of course, I don't know that special Mo-Jo -or so I found out after I put the DVD in and hit the play button.

Do all of these things have to be on a specific channel in order to function? With the old dvd/vcr player we had, I think you had to have the tv channel on 3 or 4 if I'm not mistaken and then, make your selection from there. But even that bloody thing was something I never really got the hang of how to operate it so I'd always defer to Mandy or Bill -or even Katie -to set that up to play.

But, after the kids broke first the VCR player function and then, the DVD player function on the old equipment and Mandy bought two or three other DVD player things before finally getting this one that is supposed to be ultra-simple to operate, I just assumed -incorrectly apparently -that by ultra simple functioning they meant "turn on; insert disc; press play" and presto-magic, one could view the dvd that way.

Well I fiddled around and fiddled around with the remote for the dvd player and nothing worked. I think I tried every freaking button on that damned thing but all to no avail.

Then, in a real stroke of genius, I started to monkey around with the Remote to the tv set -one of those types that you can program to use with virtually any model of tv and it can also be programmed to use with the vcr/dvd too if you wish.

Before you knew it, I did manage to get audio from the dvd player unfortunately, I also got this big black box on the bottom of my tv screen -covering half of the picture, of course, and every thing just went totally down hill from there!

I lost the upper channels we are supposed to get with our cable -couldn't find the right combination on the menu thing to get them to tune back in and still, I had this damned big old black block at the bottom of my screen so I couldn't really watch anything on the DVD or the tv except the very top half of the picture.

I played around with this for by now, roughly 1 and 1/2 hours of frustration trying to figure out what combination was the right one for our tv with the cable setup we have.

Finally, I called the cable company and the poor woman on the customer service desk there tried to tell me what she knew of setting up the tv to the cable via the remote but she was operating in the dark -just as much as me -because she didn't know about these inner choices on the menu either.

Finally, I did hit something that apparently took me in the right direction and eventually, I did get the tv showing a full screen of the picture plus, I managed to "introduce" my tv and remote to all the channels we are supposed to receive. YAY! YAY, ME! Some success at last -and got it accomplished to before Mandy got home and could see what an idiot she has for a mother too!

When I bought my first vcr, I hooked it up completely by myself. After calling my brother-in-law (ex, that is) for a little clarification as to how to get the channels for our cable to be accepted -he's the one who told me these things have to be "introduced" to each other in order to play nicely together -I got the thing fully operational and yes, I was even able to program the clock on it and to have it record whatever programs I wanted to watch and then, to play them back too -with no problems!

But that was 21 years ago and technology has advanced considerably since then ya know.

All except for their stupid instructions -which basically tell you NOTHING!

So now I still have the DVD I'd like to watch but I will wait till Mandy gets back home and have her turn on the dvd player and set that up for me.

And trust me when I tell you this too, but I swear I will NEVER, EVER AGAIN, touch the "Menu" button on our remote control for the tv!

Just too many little things going on inside that which I have nary a clue as to what they do except maybe give me a big black block on the bottom of my tv screen!

I will never ever again make fun -silently, of course -of anyone who says they can't program a simple little vcr/dvd player-recorder either!

Nope! Not even a teensy-tiny little bit!