And people just love offering us credit:

It’s a pity Diane’s last name isn’t “Goldberg” and her middle initial isn’t “L”.

I may have found a way to get a better price on my TiVo without having to go through the hassle of returning it — Good Guys claims to match local dealer prices, and the current issue of Consumer’s Checkbook BARGAINS, which arrived today, shows the TiVo available from a nearby store for only a few bucks more than the goodguys.com price. So I should be able to walk in with the magazine and get a price match — at least that’s the theory. We’ll see.

I’m looking forward to the Bay Area Weblogger User Group meeting in a couple of weeks; it should be interesting, and possibly even fun. Join us if you can.

We just finished watching the second episode of Enterprise; it was still pretty good, but I didn’t think it was up to the level of the first episode. I hope next week’s episode is at least as good as this week’s; I’d hate to see the slide in quality continue for very long.

I’ve never watched an entire episode of The West Wing — only the end of one show, while in a hotel gym — but I decided I’d like to see tonight’s. So I’ve got the TiVo capturing it now and I’ll watch it some other time; setting that up caused some confusion at the end of Enterprise, since the TiVo popped up a screen telling us it wanted to switch channels. If I’d started watching Enterprise from the “Now Playing” screen instead of from “Live TV”, I don’t think TiVo would have hassled me about the change. Probably.

The TiVo has been busy for the last couple of days, with TNN’s Star Trek: Next Generation marathon; I didn’t even know there was one, but TiVo noticed that we watched other Star Trek shows and took the initiative to record some episodes. I don’t know what basis it uses to pick particular episodes, but it found at least two that Jeffrey wants to see. Not a bad gadget!

I do wish I’d spent more time researching the box, though; I bought it at a local Good Guys for what I thought was a pretty good price (well, the standard price). But yesterday, I discovered that goodguys.com (same people, different corporate structure) sells the box for quite a bit less. I’m trying to decide if the hassle of ordering a TiVo online, setting it up, then cancelling the subscription for this one and taking it back to the store is worthwhile or not — I almost wish I hadn’t found out in time to contemplate the exchange. Sadly, Good Guys doesn’t match their own online prices, or I’d have an easy way out of the dilemma.

But if that’s my biggest problem of the night, I can’t really complain.

I took our car in for regular service today, and was amused to note the date on the repair order: “Tuesday, October 1, 1901”. Hey, if it doesn’t bother the repair shop, it doesn’t bother me!

Now that I have a TiVo, I’m amazed how much good stuff there is on TV — it’s just that most of it is on at 3am or similar hours. I’m confident I’ll never be able to keep up with what it captures for me, but at least I have a chance to see some good programs.

Enterprise definitely qualified as a good program — we all watched it raptly, and I’m looking forward to the next episode. I love the way the characters portray a sense of wonder about what’s happening — it’s not just another day at the office for them. This is a far cry from my reaction to Voyager — I watched the first episode, then taped the second one but never actually got around to watching it because the first one had left me so flat. Voyager eventually improved, of course, but I don’t feel compelled to track down the episodes I missed.