Okay, okay, so I broke down and bought a TiVo Wireless G USB Network Adapter for Series2 DVR from Amazon the other day. Yes, it was a moment of weakness. Let’s move on. To placate my “I must do something constructive tonight” push—and really, driving in from Chattanooga and only being 20 minutes late to a meeting I wasn’t expected to be in at all was productive, I promise—I decided to hook it up before I would allow myself to watch Gilmore Girls. [Lana Bob!, please whack Misty before she can say anything.] The process was something like the following:

1. Unboxing. Swearing at TiVo for choosing shoplifter-proof plastic.
2. Plugging in.
3. Seeing TiVo say, “Hey, new network adapter! Let’s set that bad boy up!” and giving a quick smile.
4. Smile turns into a frown when I see that the adapter only supports WEP, while I’ve been using WPA. [Note: now that I've just done my dutiful Wikipedia linkage, I see that WPA superseded WEP in 2003. Dear TiVo: To quote one of my friends from college, "The fuck, sir?" You're usually up on these things, and ... well, this is a new product.]
5. Attempt to set up WEP on router.
6. Forced to reboot router for unknown reasons.
7. Set up WEP with passphrase, but … can’t get the iBook to take it. Note: Ain’t usin’ no system that won’t let my iBook on, y’dig? I mean, I checked it 10 times if I checked it once. Fwah.
8. Give up, decide to use an ACL. Wait for Jeff and Rick and Jonathan to howl in horror.

That was way harder than it had to be.