Ominous screen after downgrading and installing recovery topic

I rooted a new aftv last night and all went smooth. Today downgrading and installing cwm very different story.
My aftv now boots to a plain screen displaying the time (incorrectly), a lock symbol and the word "charged" I'm not sure which scared me more. But I'm not bricked. I could still connect with adb and reboot recovery. AND if I hadn't panicked I would've found out sooner that pressing the context menu key on remote takes me right back to the homescreen.
I swear I followed the guides on aftvnews (well done btw!) But every time there was a "if this happens" stipulation in the guides, it happened to me. I can't say it was hard but it was tedious.
Now my issue to I've pushed the correct Rom.zip to my sd card, rebooted recovery but the install fails with this error--Assert failed !less_than_int getprop ro.build.date.utc
I might be missing critical details here to help with diagnosing. Sorry. I've got to work. That process took way longer than expected. I'm hoping it might be enough info to get some ideas. I'll try to check back here later. Thanks.