So … last week I told you about my DVD-recorder woes with the (censored) Samsung I have in my bedroom. The one that’s caused me nothing but trouble with the clock all along, but whose tray now doesn’t open at all. It’s a brick that just keeps making noise, so now it’s unplugged and just sitting there, holding up my television.

I’m just really thankful that, if it was going to happen, that it didn’t happen with a DVD inside … like one of my Chuck DVDs! (The horror!)

Well, my woes continue because, now, the DVD-recorder in the family room won’t burn any DVDs. Or at least, I got an error message for each of the last 6 blank DVDs I put in there. It plays fine, it records onto its hard-drive fine. (Yes, this is one of those so-2005 units that has a hard-drive and a DVD-burner, but which is NOT a true DVR like Tivo.)

This means that the only functioning DVD-recorders in the house are (1) the one in my computer, which isn’t particularly helpful for television, and (2) the VCR/DVD combo unit I bought recently to convert our old VHS tapes.

THAT unit is working fine (knock wood), but since it doesn’t have a tuner, its timer is less than helpful, and until/unless I go climbing back there again to reroute cables for a third time, it still doesn’t help me get my shows off the harddrive of the one unit onto a DVD.

Sigh.

See, people? THIS is why we still have VCRs in this house. The quality of the recordings may not be as good, and they may be bulkier, but … they’re not so high-tech.

The only solution I can really see at this point? Other than spending another $200 or so on a DVD-recorder that HAS a tuner that I can put in my bedroom? (And they are getting harder to find, too.) Finally caving and paying for a cable box from Cablevision so that I can use IT here in my bedroom to record the channels it’s tuned to. But, can we really afford another $10 a month just for cable television? No, not really.

Here’s my complaint about technology. I LOVE technology. If I had all the money to spend in the world, I would have all the newest, latest, coolest stuff because it’s fun, and I LIKE the new, cool, latest stuff. But, I don’t have thousands of extra dollars to spend, and so I’m trying to make do with with I’ve got, or what I truly need. Hence the cellphone that mostly just does phone calls (much as I’d love to be able to Twitter and check my email and websites on my cellphone). Hence why I can’t print anything out from my laptop because the printers in the house don’t “do” wi-fi. (And, believe me, not having a printer is challenging for a writer!) Hence the fact that I still just have basic cable in my bedroom. Hence the fact that we don’t have a single DVR unit in the house.

Yet, the manufacturers seem to believe that everybody out there (here) IS keeping up with the latest technological developments. Why would we need a tuner in our DVD-recorder? Everybody has a cable box, right? Why would we need a harddrive in the recorder, when everybody has Tivo or a DVR from their cable/satellite service? Why would we need a VCR when we can record to DVD or to a unit’s harddrive?

Not to mention that more and more “basic” cable channels are disappearing because, in their efforts to provide us all with wonderful, free, high-definition television viewing, they’re turning all their stations “digital.” And not the “digital” switch that the government has been talking about for months. Oh, no. But just so they can provide “better” service. Except that, to get the better service, you need to PAY for a cable box … but, gosh, everybody has one of those already, right? And, doesn’t everyone have an HDTV-compatible television?

If not, why not?

Um, manufacturers, can I just remind you that we’re in a recession and people really just don’t have the money to willy-nilly go out and buy new televisions and new services that they don’t need? You can’t assume we’re all keeping up with the latest innovations. Some of us can’t afford to. And, believe me, I know a lot of people at work who have never watched a television show on their computers, don’t own a DVR, and, heck, don’t even own computers. (I know, I don’t understand that one, either.)

So, here I am, stuck with no way to record anything to DVD in my bedroom–so, no recording shows that Mom doesn’t like to catch them later in my room. That is, not unless I use my 10-year-old-VCR because it’s the only thing left that works. And I certainly can’t burn any of those Chuck episodes to DVD to lend to my friends to try to get them hooked on my favorite show because, well, that DVD-burner isn’t working any more, either.

As it is, I’m the only one in the house who understands how all the cables behind the television, VCR, DVD-player, new VCR/DVD unit, and the cable box interact. If anybody else wants to do anything other than simply watch television, I’m the only one who knows what buttons to push and which remotes to use. If I need to try redirecting a whole, ‘nother line from the current DVD-recorder to the new unit just so I can try to burn some of the things in the harddrive to DVD also? That’s starting to get confusing for me, too!

Okay–in other news, per one of my favorite science-fiction authors, today is Science Fiction and Fantasy Author Day.

This/These are genres that I’ve loved for, well, forever. Ever since Mom read me fairy tales and took me to see Disney cartoons with magicians and glass slippers when I was little. My favorite book when I was 8 was the Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews, and all through high school, I think I pretty much read nothing BUT science fiction and fantasy.

I’m forever grateful to all of them for stretching my mind with all the wonderful possibilities that weren’t really possible.

Just to name a few? Anne McCaffrey. David Eddings. Susan Dexter. Robin McKinley. Jack Finney. JRR Tolkein. Katherine Kurtz. Sharon Shinn. Diana Wynne Jones. Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. Sean Russell. Roger Zelazny. Marion Zimmer Bradley.

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