Bloop Bloop Bloop thirty seconds at a time

It's one of my favorite times of the year...

Fall Season Premiere week.

Old favorites are coming back to my family room...Survivor! Desperate Housewives!! Boston Legal!!

In the stone-age time of 2002, "Season Premiere Week" would involve ignoring phone calls during prime time, labeling VCR tapes and having different shows recorded on different TVs...and then collecting dust as I never watched the taped shows.

But in 2003, my life changed. I met the first man who ever made my life truly happy...

Mr. Tivo.

When I got my first Tivo, it was a fairly new gadget and most people didn't understand it. My mom certainly thought it was a waste of money. I admit, I never told her how much it actually cost. (ahem).

But it didn't take long before our family decided we couldn't possibly watch TV without a peanut-shaped remote in our hands bloop-bloop-blooping our way through commercials. Someone recently asked me if I had seen that new commercial for something-or-other. Ummm. Nope. Commercials are for the neanderthals who don't have a "fast-forward" button on their TV.

I scoff at the poor souls who actually believe their cable companies when they say "Our DVR is JUST LIKE TIVO." Yeah. And a Big Mac is JUST LIKE PRIME RIB! As someone who has experienced both Tivo and Cable's DVRs, there is no comparison. They both do the basics - record TV. But Tivo does it easier, better, and with features Cable can't fathom.

• Record every show to my computer? It's a simple push of a button. Transfer the TiVo shows to iPod? One click.
  
• Record a show in the living room and play it in my office? No problemo.
  
• How about watching home movies on the TiVo?
  
• Or better yet, send home movies to the Tivo at your friend's house in Iowa? It's pretty simple. As long as you get the real Tivo.

So...a year later, I bought a TiVo for each of the girls for Christmas. The following year, Mom got one for Christmas, too.

Yes, we're addicted. I'm even creating a spreadsheet with lists of which series gets recorded on which Tivo so that we can watch EVERYTHING! I'm totally anal about not watching a series unless I see every episode. I still have a full year's worth of "Dirty Sexy Money" saved on my office's TiVo queue because I missed one episode and haven't taken the time to watch it online. But I will. Just as soon as I get through Chuck and Heroes and Pushing Daisies and...

Hmmm.... My "To Be Recorded" list is in serious jeopardy of being renamed my "Recorded But Never To Be Watched" list.