Well, considering it's the week of Valentines Day, which is one of those Holidays I Don't Get At All, we'll do a week of Love Videos.



Alright, I thought I'd try Harmony one more time.

I've had a hate/hate relationship with Harmony Remotes.

See, I'm picky, and Harmony Remotes always struck me as ALMOST what I wanted, but ended up failing in some fundamental way.

The first one I tried was a 670, and while it worked pretty well, I hated the hard gemstone like buttons. They were seriously uncomfortable. I really like the softer rubber buttons. I'm tender. Sensitive. And kinda sweaty. So that oen went back after a week.

Later I picked up an 880, with it's pretty color screen and Tivo like hourglass design. God I hate that one. 3 reasons. Number 1, the clicky buttons. Click click click click. I dunno what the hell it is with Logitech, but everything has to click. The mice buttons click, the Keyboards click, the remotes click. Drives me nuts. The second thing was an odd delay issue I couldn't get to go away no matter how hard I tried with my DirectTV Tivo unit. Hit 30 second skip 3 times, get it 4 times, or twice. I played with the delay settings, but never got it right. Finally, the charger cradle was crap, and getting the remote to recharge was pure luck. This is a known problem with the 880, and I know I could get logitech to replace it, but I hate the remote too much to care. I don't even use the damn thing. I would have returned it, but lost the receipt. Hell, I'd be happy to get rid of the darn thing.

But that doesn't change my need for a universal remote. I get by with an old Sony AV2100, which is actually a very trusty remote, it just isn't really good for tivo. Too big and bulky, and proper tivoing requires one had use. I was looking into URC remotes, especially the MX900, which yeah is 450 bucks but you can get it for much cheaper, but you need a dealer to handle the programming and it just seemed like a pain in the butt. I thought of the Monster Remotes, and almost went that way, but again, clicky buttons.

So I gave Harmony 1 more try, and picked up an Xbox 360 remote. I could have just gone with the 550, but in many ways the 360 serves me better with those 4 extra buttons.

Well, the Logitech software has gotten better, and it just copied over my old settings. I did some minor button remapping and...I have to say, I like it. It's not perfect. While most of the buttons are soft rubber ones, the volume, channel, and control buttons are clicky. Lord I hate that. But the tivo buttons are rubber, and I mapped two of the xbox buttons to do channels, so I really rarely have to deal the click. Hopefully I can actually get used to it or wear it down enough to get the click to go away. If they made this remote with all rubber buttons, I'd love it. As it is....well, it's winning me over. I like the green glow. I like that huge database, and the button remapping. Right now we are sitting at 85 percent happy, we'll see what I think in a week or so.

And that was my weekend. Oh, well, giant tree fell down in my yard, taking part of another one, yadda yadda. Played some DS games. That's about it. Mostly, I was all obsessive about a remote.

Being nerdy ain't easy, yo.

You go have a day.