TiVo pollutes the soul

The thought of having lived without TiVo for the majority of my 30 years is almost unbelievable to me now. I used to dream of having one when they came out, just one tiny 40-hour TiVo in my living room. However, the concept was totally foreign and hard to comprehend plus I didn't really have the cash at the time.

"You mean, you can freeze time and then zip through the commercials?". That was my initial understanding of TiVo's magic. I couldn't grasp what was really happening, which was simply an internal "vcr". I thought that TiVo was bending the space/time continuum and I was amazed that I could halt the actors' dialogue by a simple touch upon the ergonomically svelte remote. I was completely captivated by its power. I envisioned that by recording all my favorite shows, I would have so much time to do things outside the confines of my house. Take up more hobbies, get out and run or frolic amidst the "outdoorsy" folk.

Wrong.

Chas and I now have 3 TiVos (1 dual tuner, so that equates to basically 4, his doing primarily but it warped me no less). Little did I know that upon installation of the extra TiVos, I would become the sloth that I so abhor. The caveat with TiVo is that while it's a wonderful TV preservation tool, no matter how much you can record, no matter how much time you allow for viewing, it will suck your soul dry because its capacity supersedes your abilities. Make sense? Well, for one, it romances you into the possibility that you have time to view everything by virtue of the fast forward. However, even though I can zip through commercials, I still don't have enough freaking time to watch it all. Maybe I need to get a life (sure, I'll grant you that, I have become a bit of a homebody of late), but I was so thoroughly courted and manipulated by TiVo that it sucked me in beyond repair. The cute and cuddly TiVo mascot that bounces around on your screen when you reboot and its "come hither" antennae entices your urge to view every possible second of TV...need I continue?

It's like a dysfunctional, co-dependent relationship and man, is it crippling. Not to mention, TiVo is just plain rude at times. For example, it will cut me off if a show runs long and also decides to record things I don't particularly care for like every home and gardening show because I watched "Curb Appeal" once. Totally inconsistent unless I manually program, blah blah. I mean, sure, I am not faultless here, I know how to read the TiVo manual telling me how to avoid the "issues" but shouldn't something so advanced be a little self sufficient? I know I feed TiVo's dependency vis a vis making it wake me up each morning with the Today show and then record and monitor my shows while at work and then to subsequently manage my evening show portfolio while I sit down to dinner. But, it sometimes requires too much of my attention when I have set it to record an entire Thursday night line up and find myself having to scroll through about 8 hours of must see TV. It's a virtual catch 22.

Another LARGE problem, We still have show conflicts with multiple "T". Not to mention, we didn't consider the fact that if you record 7 one-hour shows on Monday, that means you have to watch them in increments over the course of the week and thus cutting into other viewing times. How can one possibly win?

Finally, rather than using life experience to punctuate the timeline of my life, I now remember which show I was watching at the time something happened or how I felt at one moment during my week when "such an such" a show was on. TiVo permiates my every move. "Well, I was watching CSI when I had this shooting pain in my chest causing me to end up in the ER for two days...." Now, this didn't happen, but it could. I think perhaps TiVo and I should break up or have a "break", or maybe go back to being "fuck buddies" and just see each other late at night...who knows, but one thing is for sure, I should probably start learning the Serenity Prayer.