Me. Me. And...me.

Every now and again it's nice to write about something other than baseball. This post, however, is for McCovey Chronicles die-hards only. It's long and rarely entertaining. The short story, which is where most of you will want to leave it, is that I caught a foul ball last May, and while FSN didn't show me catching it, Mike Krukow spent a little time laughing about me. That video can be found here on this wacky website the kids are using these days.

The curious and bored should click on "Read More" to get the rest of the story.

The McCovey Chronicles Guide to Transferring a Baseball Game from Your TiVo to Your Computer, Editing It, and Uploading It to Your Website:

1. In order to transfer the game, you'll need to connect your TiVo to your computer. For this you'll need a USB Cable. Even though it will be more expensive, make sure you buy a long cable, able to go from your living room to your bedroom.
2. You'll need to gouge a hole in the drywall of both rooms. Tie the cable to a telescoping antenna, and thread it through the gap in the wall.
3. After you've moved your 16-ton entertainment center to get to the cable in the living room, you'll notice you have the wrong USB cable, as the inputs for both your computer and TiVo are "male A" inputs.
4. Go to Radio Shack, and stare at the USB cable section for 30 minutes.
5. When asked if you need help, decline.
6. After another 20 minutes, ask for help. At this point, the Radio Shack guy will stare at the USB cable section with you, muttering, "We have to...this isn't right...it should be right here....this just can't be...." for 10 minutes.
7. The Radio Shack guy will get in an argument with another Radio Shack guy about the existence of a "Male A to Male A" USB cable. It will get testy. You should leave without the cable at this point.
8. A "Male A to Male A" cable does exist, you will find out, but it is primarily for transferring data between computers, and requires special software to be installed. You can't really install software on a TiVo, you should start to seek another way at this point.
9. Buy an ethernet cable, and make sure it is long enough to run from your TiVo to your computer.
10. Repeat the steps in #2, making sure the drywall hole is a little bit larger for the ethernet cable.
11. After you've moved your 16-ton entertainment center away from the wall, grab the ethernet cable, and access the back of the TiVo. At this point, you'll notice there isn't a jack for an ethernet cable in the back of the TiVo.
12. Now you'll want to whip yourself in the face with the ethernet cable for being so stupid. It's okay. Run with that feeling.
13. Go on TiVo.com four months later, and see what they recommend. There's a ethernet-to-USB adaptor! Do a little dance, and cough up the $40.
14. Wait a week for the adaptor to arrive.
15. When the adaptor arrives, plug it into the TiVo. Plug the other end into your network router.
16. Download some stupid TiVo program from TiVo.com.
17. By now, you'll notice nothing has happened. Your stupid TiVo program can't read what's on your TiVo.
18. Apparently, TiVo will need a service pack update for the adapter you purchased from TiVo's own website. The update is transmitted over a phone line, and will take about 800 hours.
19. Once the update is complete, reboot your computer and start up the stupid TiVo program. Success! Find the baseball game you want on your computer, and start the transfer.
20. This takes about 15 hours.
21. Yep, even with an ethernet cable.
22. Now you have the game on your computer! However, it's an 11 GB file, which isn't appropriate to upload onto your website. You'll need to edit that down.
23. Bring the letter to the old lady near Death Mountain. She will now sell you either red medicine or blue medicine, which will certainly help you with Ganon later on.
24. Use your magical Googling powers to find a shareware video editor. It won't work. Download seven more. They won't recognize the TiVo file either.
25. Now you'll notice the file transferred to your computer is a proprietary file, with the extension .tivo. That's just fucking great.
26. Use more magical Googling powers to find a way around the proprietary encryption.
27. Success! There are several nerds who posted instructions on their blog when the stupid TiVo program was released a year ago.
28. You'll need to download several programs, like the Moonlight Epsilon Demuxer, or some crap. There's also some weird GraphFile program that was written to capture FM radio content on your computer. You'll need that too.
29. Follow the nerdstructions until you reach the part about inserting a new Graph Filter. Paying close attention to the meticulous screenshots on the blog, notice your menu options don't match what are on the screenshots.
30. Smoke 'em if you've got 'em at this point, though I'm partial to a few belts of scotch. I had neither, and drank warm Old Crow until I sobbed like a little girl.
31. Spend four more hours screwing around with the program, and sifting through nerd forum after nerd forum after nerd forum looking for an answer.
32. The Moonbean Absolum Multiplexer, or some crap, is a new version, released after the helpful instructions on the nerd blogs were posted. That's why the screenshots didn't really help.
33. After digging around the files of the program for an hour, you'll notice some weird .ax files with the same name as what were on the screenshots.
34. More Googling. After two hours, you'll find you need to download something called "RegDump", and drag the .ax file over it. Duh. Now your new version of Moonshine Vid-o-Rama, or some crap, is as capable as the old version.
35. You can now kinda sorta follow the original screenshots, and start the process of turning your .tivo file into an .avi, .wmv, or .mpg file. You'll still screw it up the first four times you try, but soon you'll get it. The process takes a little less than an hour.
37. Now open one of the seven freeware video editors you downloaded. They are buggy pieces of freeware crap, and only one of them can even handle a file over a GB.
38. Using this editor, select the 50 seconds you want to keep, and hit "run".
39. Nothing will happen. Go to sleep.
40. In the morning, you'll notice a new file where you were expecting one. It might be the clip! It isn't. But it could be, right? No. When you open it up, it crashes your computer.
41. More Googling. Finally, download a program called Nero. It's only a trial version, but it edits the clip in about one minute. It comes out in Mpeg4 format.
42. If that format doesn't work on your computer? You can suck it, pal.
43. Total elapsed time: 6,304 hours. Dollars spent: $80, not including security deposit withheld for drywall repairs.
44. It so wasn't worth it. And, yes, most of these problems were a function of my own idiocy.
45. Enjoy the clip. I'm surprised you can even see the side of the future Mrs. McCovey Chronicles' head, as she pushed over infants and toddlers for three sections to get out of the way.