My struggle to remember to watch TV continues. Last night, I installed MythTV on my Linux box, Baphomet. MythTV is an open source, free software solution to give Tivo-like capability to computers of all sorts. I don’t have a video capture card yet, but I went ahead and installed it anyway. Brought up the program guide and wow, there are LOTS of shows I would like to watch! Anime, Simpsons, Family Guy, SF shows I never saw before, just bunches and bunches of things.
Going to make this cable thing work for me.
I was going to make an entirely new computer for MythTV and put it in the living room. But, let’s face it. 75% of the time I am home and not doing chores, I am at my computer… the other 25% is playing Guitar Hero in the living room*. I don’t watch TV much in the living room, probably because I haven’t bought a couch yet.
Anyway, current plan should save money and match the way I live. I will add a video capture card to Baphomet so she can watch television for me automatically, and save the bits she thinks I’ll want to watch later. Baph is online all day anyway, because I often connect from work to do various things.
Phase 2 deals with poor Glyph. Glyph was to be my living room computer, that would watch TV for me, save stuff, and so on. But I just can’t justify the cost of a whole new computer if all I am going to be doing now is streaming video to it.
Wonderfully, Xbox’s can run Linux. They turn out to be perfect front-ends to MythTV as well. They have all the right connectors. I’m not exactly sure how the Xbox and Baph would connect – to be honest, I know next to nothing about it. I’m a Sony fan, so Playstation all the way here.
My problem with the Xbox is emotional. It’s such a male machine. I worry that having that man sitting in the living room all day will become a problem. Beer cans all over the place. Toilet seat left up. Loud friends over all the time.
I’ve never been able to look at an Xbox without seeing a gun. My son had one. All they did was shoot people with it.
* After unlocking and mastering all fifteen of the bonus songs on Guitar Hero‘s MEDIUM level, I decided to buckle down and go to work on HARD level. It’s, well… HARD! And there’s EXPERT after that! Reading about Nintendo’s BRAIN AGE at GDC made me wonder if my mind is getting old… I already know I cannot do the mental things I could do when I was younger…. well, I do need to keep pushing. I really enjoy GH, but the past few nights, I have been stagnating at MEDIUM. Need to keep growing.
When I went back and rewarded myself with some MEDIUM-level time after doing several HARD songs, the MEDIUM seemed so slow… and elementary… I haven’t dared look at EXPERT songs yet. I can just guess at the screen full of symbols, like DDR on the harder modes.
(this is a well-hyperlinked post!)
