Watson!

In case you missed Jeopardy the last two days (and in case you're lucky enough to read this while there's still time), they've had a computer named Watson as a contestant on Jeopardy the past two days, and will have it play a whole, continuous game today! So if you're reading this before 7:30, go tell your DVR or TiVo to record it, or go watch it on TV!

Speaking of all this, I wanted to watch it yesterday, but was foiled by my TiVo. I spent a lot of yesterday on my new TiVo.

The TiVo people had what sounded like a fabulous offer for people who have a TiVo HD (or who don't have a TiVo) to upgrade to a TiVo Premiere. It sounded like a fabulous offer, anyway.

The person I ordered it from on the phone drastically misrepresented it.

It turns out that I was not ordering continuous service, as she led me to believe, but a whole new service with a whole new contract, and the responsibility to keep on paying for service on the old box, which I quite clearly stated that I didn't intend to use.

The advertising clearly stated that I could return it within 30 days free. I was told on the phone that returning it would be free, but when I called them to return it, they said I'd have to return it at my expense.

I called them and tried to straighten all this out, but they refused to budge on any issue!

Apparently, if you're a victim of their false and misleading advertising and statements on the phone, the only recourse you have is to ask them about returning it. My advice to consumers is that if they don't live up to their end of the bargain immediately, just tell them you want to return it. Otherwise they'll politely treat you like dirt.

The result of my inquiry into sending it back was that they gave in and gave me everything i had fought for on the phone earlier with no success, which was what they had promised in the first place. Although they've always been polite on the phone, this is the first time during this fiasco that they treated me like a customer rather than as a punching bag.

At least, at this point, they say they're going to give it to me. But they've said that before and not done it. I'll believe it when I see it.

As for the fun yesterday, it took at least two and a half hours to install it. This was not because I had a problem installing it. The installation was fairly simple. I transferred the cables from the old box to the new one with no problems. I also transferred the cable card.

And, I should mention that if you're transferring a cable card from one TiVo box to another, you have to call the cable company and give a tech the cable card number plus the number of the box it's now in. Comcast techs were busy, and it took me a while to do this. Which was not their fault. Probably the first problem I've had with Comcast which wasn't their fault!

Doesn't sound all that time-consuming, does it? Well, it's not.

When started, the box said that it needed to update some programming, and that it could take up to an hour, but probably less. So, I did that, and it took a little more than a half hour. So far, so good.

Then it came up with a little sign that said that it had to install all the programming it had just downloaded, and that would take at least an hour, possibly more! And you don't have a choice at that point.

I really wanted to watch Jeopardy, but was stuck.

I finally got everything up and running just in time to see Watson bomb on the last question.

So, I'm going to stop writing now so you can go watch, but I'll write more about this soon.