I wanna cry

You know when technology just gets you so frustrated you want to sit down and bite your lip and sniffle a bit? Well, that's happening to me right now. It seems like a simple proposition; download some fantastic software and then watch TV shows to your heart's content. So simple. Maybe it's simpler for people with PCs, not Macs. I dunno. But easy or not, I've managed to make things way more difficult than probably necessary...and I'm stumped. No commercial-free TV for me. And the really sad thing is that I used to have a number of people to call and ask for computer advice, but those people are pretty much out of my life now and I can't call them out of the blue (even if I knew where they were) and ask them why this simple program won't work. B/c I'm SURE it's something small and silly that, if I were a big computer geek, I could fix easily.
Why are computers just as mysterious as cars and airplanes?