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| I'll give you the remote, soon as you can tell the difference between Live TV and Recorded. |
I hate when a complete television novice decides they're going to be the ones in charge of the remote for the day. Not only are you embarrasing yourself, but you're ruining the afternoon for the rest of us. Fumbling to find certain buttons on the controller, a complete lack of awareness as to how long a commercial break lasts (it's a minute and half to 2 minutes, tops people), general disregard for the viewing priority of others, and 0 understanding of the Chanel line up. If this any of those describe you, don't fucking touch the remote. Offer it up to a more experienced couch potato and just enjoy the ride. It takes a big man to admit he may not be the best person suited for remote control duties, it takes an asshole to realize this and ignore it at the peril, aggravation, and outright boredom of others.
A few simple standards and rules:
1. If you don't know where the HD channels are, you're a moron. This especially true if we're talking about comcast. 95% of the time if you throw a 7 or an 8 in front of the chanel number, that'll get the job done. 4 year olds can figure this out for chrissakes. In the rarest of rare cases that this doesn't solve the problem, hit OK and it'll ask if you'd like to jump to HD, in bright high-lighted yellow. You really can't miss it. There is no excuse for making me watch a basketball game like it's 1996 and my parents just bought a state of the art 36 inch tube television.
2. If you want or need to browse the channels, fine. If you choose to do this by opening the full guide that takes up 3/4'ths of the screen, I reserve the right to bludgeon you with the remote. In fact I wouldn't mind starting a petition to remove this option from the controller all together, there is absolutely no need for this. Just hit the OK button and browse 3 channels at a time like a normal human being. If you really need to see the extra two channels of options you probably shouldn't be commandeering the remote.
3. Get your "Last" Button situation under control. If you were like most heterosexual males this past weekend you were flipping back and forth between basketball games. Get the two channels together so you can just hit last. Spare me the opening of the guide or the menu to flick to the game each time. It's quicker, it won't raise my blood pressure, and you won't risk selecting the wrong channel and subjecting us all to 30 seconds of Sex and the City, followed by 5 minutes of ridicule from every guy in the room.
4. Understand the hierarchy of importance for each show. A live march madness game trumps an inter league spring training game. I don't care if you more into baseball than basketball, that's not real baseball. That's not even a real sport. Any event where Billy Chrystal was given a roster sport should not be on the radar for television viewing. Go read a book if you're that boring of a person. Seriously.
5. If you're dealing with Direct TV, give the remote to someone that owns Direct TV. Don't try to be a hero, too much shit can go wrong. One second you're trying to find TruTV in HD, the next thing you know you've hit a combination of buttons that shuts down the satellite service and now you're stuck waiting 3 hours for the service repair man to climb up on your roof and reset it. No one that doesn't own Direct TV understands that remote. It's ok to admit this. Shit is confusing as hell and they do it on purpose. It's one of their advertising features, it stops annoying people from coming into your living room and commandeering the remote on you like they own the place.
That's it, 5 simple rules to television viewing and using the remote control. Failure to comply will result in you being asked to leave, possible physical harm, and the possible guilt knowing that you were the cause of my heart attack as my blood pressure slowly boiled over watching you bumble from one mistake to the next.
