TiVo is my best friend and my worst enemy. There had been a number of commercials for it on tv for awhile, but none of them made sense to me until our friends George and Lisa bought one. Well, I guess I should say until George bought one. He's the biggest gadget n' gizmo person I know and has very little impulse control (a dangerous combination), although Lisa does the best she can to keep him in check. In fact, Lisa was NOT happy when he came home with a TiVo, but to give you an idea of it's hidden satanic powers, she was soon pleased as punch. Couldn't stop telling me about how great it was. I should have been more suspicious.

So, Felix and I are at their house, and George and Lisa give us the full demo. In five minutes, I was totally sold. Why? Well, let me first say that Felix and I probably didn't used to watch any more or less tv than the average couple, and there are some shows we never miss. Never. And there's nothing I hate more than realizing in the middle of the workday that we forgot to set our VCR or pop in a tape. Talk about panic attacks! More times than I can even count, one of us would zoom home, program the damn show, and zoom back to work. Not fun at all.

TiVo takes all of those problems away and more. Much, much more. It gives you ultimate control over your tv. Like watching ER? Tell TiVo, and it will promptly dig up every episode of ER it knows is coming on and tape them automatically for your viewing pleasure. Hate reruns? Tell TiVo, and it'll only record first-runs. Telephone rings? Hit the pause button, and live tv will come to a standstill, awaiting your return. Didn't hear what Ally McBeal said? Hit the instant replay and get your last 10 seconds back. After taking our friends' machine for a test drive, I knew that I had to have one.

The catch was the price. Ultimate power doesn't come cheap, and although I wished otherwise, Felix and I both agreed that we simply couldn't afford to get one. Sigh. Months later, our Christmas gift arrives from my family. A TiVo. I almost died from delirious joy. Then, Felix found out how to hack our TiVo's hard drive, and suddenly, we had over 130 hours of recording capability. I was in heaven.

Where is this all going?

This fall's shows are finally premiering, and for the first time ever, I have the ability to watch whatever I want whenever I want. Everything just gets recorded and is simply waiting for me to turn it on. Take yesterday for example. After dinner, I sat down with TiVo and watched Enterprise, The Practice, Frasier, Law & Order, and Oprah. That was after already watching four hours of TiVo earlier that afternoon (yes, I'm still unemployed). Felix and I have expressed horror about how much time we're now watching tv...but we can't stop. TiVo is just too good. And too clever. And now it's too late.

So let this be a warning. I gotta go, though. I haven't watched today's Oprah yet.