August 22, 2007

The tivolution

I have a deep affection for my tivo. This relationship between this genius piece of machinery and I began back in the winter of 2005. I remember bringing it home, setting it up and marveling at the wonder of on-demand television. What did I ever do before this divine contraption found a place in my home (a statement that only an American could make)?


Over the course of the next few months, my like of tivo turned into my love of tivo. My only complaint was that if I recorded something in the basement, I couldn't watch it while I was cooking in the kitchen or while I was working on stuff in my office. What's a girl to do? It was at this point that we made the decision to bring two more boxes into our family. Only this time we took the cheaper route and bought them off of ebay.

Here's where we were blessed by good fortune. We purchased one of the boxes on ebay with a lifetime subscription . . . meaning that we didn't have to pay a monthly service fee for it . . . ever. The previous owner had already paid a lifetime service fee (this is an option that tivo no longer offers . . . probably because of how it cheap the service ends up being for us). Therefore we are charged the "additional box fee" of $6.95 a month for our additional two tivos. We have three tivos for very little a month.


I know that some of you are sitting there shaking your head thinking, "How could anyone possibly watch that much television?" That's the great part! With tivo we actually watch less television. When we have time to actually sit down and watch TV, we get to watch the shows we actually want to see instead of just settling for whatever happens to be on at that time. PLUS, we can fast forward through commercials. I'm pretty sure the only live television I watch all week is the news. Even then, I usually pause that a couple of times during the morning and end up still being able to fast forward through commercials. I'm not sure what we did before tivo. The bad part . . . we get addicted to certain shows because we never have to miss an episode. Also, we find ourselves covering our ears a lot as people are talking about the latest episode of a particular show that we haven't seen yet.


If you're not yet praying for the salvation of my tv-watching soul, just wait. When we were in Chicago this weekend, we walked into my sister's apartment and I saw it. It was the orange box with the little tivo man on the front. MY SISTER BOUGHT A TIVO! I assumed because it was still in the box that she must have purchased it minutes before we walked in the door. Why else would it not be set up yet? However, we came to find out it had been sitting there for seceral days. Nedless to say, Kyle helped her set it up and I gave her a "tivo lesson." I introduced her to the world of season passes, tivo suggestions, and the now playing list. I told her all about how it would change her life. I was pretty much a tivo-evangelist. However, I'm realizing that we should have received reward points for referring her . . . and I don't think she put my e-mail address in as the person who told her about it. Oh well.

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