Yesterday our Tivo-like device died, a death made even more painful considering the backlog of new scripted shows from this past season that I've been watching in careful rations during the WGA strike that was lost with it. While it is to late for me, it's worth pointing out that I've now had two shoddily-designed knockoff Tivo-like devices behave in the same manner when the hard drive starts getting full. Despite the fact that there is a clear system in place for automatically deleting older material when disk space gets short, both times this has happened to me I've had similarly bizarre results.

The first time, with my Dish Network knockoff DVR, about 50 hours of random programming spontaneously disappeared when the 100-hour disk got down to 20 hours or so. There was no rhyme or reason to what disappeared: old shows, new shows, shows marked "keep", shows not marked, a random assortment of all were banished to the realm of wind and ghosts.

Yesterday, with my Time Warner knockoff DVR, all shows recorded in the past 3 weeks spontaneously disappeared when the woefully-small 40-hour disk got down to about 5-10 hours. Again, shows marked "keep" were not kept, and I had the added bonus that the list of recorded shows magically reverted back to one from 3 weeks ago. If I tried to watch one of the listed shows that magically reappeared after being deleted last month, I would get a "this show could not be found" error, since the data didn't actually exist.

This strikes me as extremely poor for a number of reasons. These are consumer-level electronics that should not need massaging or assistance by a career programmer. My microwave also contains a computer, but when my Hot Pocket is almost done cooking the timer never spontaneously resets itself. Plus, thanks to pointless attempts at copy-protection, I am unable to back up the data on the DVR like I can on my computer in the event something bad happens. I am stuck relying on the programmers of whatever OS is running in there to be able to properly handle auto-deletion without corrupting all of my data.

The good news out of this was that Time Warner's customer service was much better than I was expecting. I called last night and was on hold for maybe 30 seconds, the service representative was polite, and they were able to come out and replace our DVR this morning (and the maintenance person actually came at the time we were promised). Let this be a lesson to all manufacturers of substandard products: good customer service masks shoddy production.

BUF at CLE: The best game of the day, and I can't say I'm sold on either team. Neither has a particularly good defense, and Buffalo's offense is also spotty. Whichever team makes the playoffs will be easy pickin's for the Steelers in the first round. CLE

TEN at KC: We're about due for a random KC home win over a mediocre team. KC

GB at STL: Remember when the Rams were unbeatable at home? We may have another Brock Berlin sighting this weekend. GB

BAL at MIA: I'm sticking witht he Dolphins here. This is it guys, your last best chance. MIA

NYJ at NE: Unfortunately it looks like snow this weekend, I was hoping for a big blowout this week. As much as I felt uncomfortable about running up the score in other Pats games, in this one I want to rip out the Jets' heart and stomp on it, providing no one gets hurt. NE

AZ at NO: Even in the NFC, advertising this game as "playoff-environment" is false advertising. AZ

JAX at PIT: The Steelers have taken over the mantle of "worst field in the league" from the Pats, and they'll be more used to playing on that slop than the Jags will. PIT

ATL at TB: Remember when the Falcons were Bill Simmons' sleeper playoff team? TB

SEA at CAR: Only the Patriots are good enough to pass on every down. Upset special. CAR

IND at OAK: The Colts make a surprise appearance in my GIDCAOTW, the Raiders are bad enough to drag the whole game down. IND

PHI at DAL: If this game were in Philly, I could see an upset, but not in Dallas. DAL

DET at SD: If this game were in Detroit, i could see an upset, but not in San Diego. SD

WAS at NYG: I don't know what to think about either of these teams. They both have decent defenses and streaky QBs, and neither will do a thing in the playoffs if they somehow make it there. NYG

CHI at MIN: Two Adrian Petersons? Which one will rush for 3 yards this week? MIN