combination-DVD/VCR player

The Keed.

The new combination-DVD/VCR player (pictured), which also records in both modes, and apparently does everything except start your dinner from across-the-universe, is installed.
Unfortunately, it does not have a “reality-regenerator” button like our old VCR, which we can now retire. The old one still works, so maybe we should give it to some charity.
We never knew what that reality-regenerator button did, although we pushed it once, and strange things happened at the mighty Mezz and in Ashburnham, Mass.
Installation was fairly simple. The wiring was the same as our old VCR, a reprise of an earlier trial-run shortly after we got the new one.
It’s different than the old VCR in that all the functions are done with the remote.
Our old VCR also had case-front buttons. About all I did with its remote was set the timer and the clock.
Once wired I had to get it to play the cable. It was apparently “cable-ready” like our old VCR, so the cable hooks directly into the VCR.
The VCR then feeds a video-output to the TV; no cable-to-cablebox-to-TV.
Our TV isn’t a $7,000 plasma-baby — we hardly watch TV at all — so it’s very small: only nine inches wide. (My ‘pyooter-monitor is 13.5 inches wide; I use that much more.)
We are sitting about two feet from the TV; within fingertip range of controlling a VCR.
Except the new one has no case-buttons; everything’s on the remote.
Getting it to play the cable was a challenge; we were into an area that wasn’t in the quick-start guide. —Perhaps it was in the thick official manual, written and translated by Japanese monkeys.
But I didn’t have all day to peruse that.
So we resorted to the infamous Connor-method: pushing various buttons on the remote, and seeing what happened.
I noticed a “TV/video” button, pushed that, and got video-noise (and audio-noise).
I inadvertently pushed it again, and viola; Oprah.
I tried the same drill again, and again Oprah.
I pushed “system menu,” toggled to “timer,” and set that to record the news on a VHS-tape.
The old VCR stayed put, in case the new one wasn’t recording the news — but it did.
I then tried one of my train-tapes; which it played.
And when playing is stopped, it reverts to the cable; just like our old VCR.
Why, I’ll never know.
Watching the news later, I fast-forwarded the ads just like I did with our old VCR.
“Looks like you have the hang of it,” Linda said.

1) My brother-in-Boston brags loudly about his HD-TV; he calls it his “$7,000 plasma, baby.”
2) “Ashburnham, Mass.” is where my friend Charlie Gardiner lives. He graduated with me from Houghton College back in 1966.
3) “Connor” is my mother’s maiden-name. My Uncle-Bill (oldest brother of my mother), claimed he built the giant Philadelphia suspension-bridge, which opened back in 1926, single-handed with only a toothpick.