a mutual error

i was in chicago for work, participating in a team-building activity called "planks" at the time the 2-hour house season premier aired. the activity was kind of an interesting puzzle thing, and i like puzzles, but my team didn't win or get any prizes. *and* i missed house.

i was so annoyed.

so i got home from my trip around midnight on monday this week and turned on the tv to catch up on my house-watching, only to find that direct tv had recorded the episodes but wouldn't replay them! can you believe it? what's the point of recording the show if it can't be replayed? the dvr just sat there "searching for authorized content" for 5 minutes, then asked me if i want to delete the show.

uhh ... no! i don't want to delete the show! i want to *watch* the show! seriously, people.

i answered "no", and tried again. but same thing. and again.

i was even more annoyed than plank night.

but -- what can you do?

[grumble]

so tonight, i watched house online. my first time online. kinda cool set-up: fox.com posts the full episode 8 days after initial air. means i have to wait a week -- but it's not like i have oodles of time to just sit around watching house all day anyway.

the only really annoying thing, i suppose, is that each full episode is sponsored by a single advertiser -- which means that each regularly scheduled commercial break consists of only one commercial -- but it's the *same* commercial every 15 minutes. and you can't skip or fast forward or anything.

in tonight's case, the advertiser was northwestern mutual. life insurance. blah-blah.

on the third time through this riveting juxtaposition between baseball and blah-blah, i noticed something interesting in the commercial: the company can't even spell their own legal name right.

ha ha.

well, in all fairness, their tagline is, "put our strength to work for you." they said nothing about putting their spelling skills to work for you.

okay.