Oh no, we caught up to real time!

Has someone ever given you a gift and you had absolutely no idea what it was but it totally changed your life forever? That happened to me in 1999 when my husband gave me my first Tivo for the holidays. At that point I was recording my TV shows on a VCR and re-using the VHS tape over and over until it stretched and the picture quality degraded. I had a system and it worked for me. Little did I know how much I needed Tivo.

My husband hacked that first Tivo right out of the box, replacing the puny hard drive with the largest one he could buy. Then he set up the Tivo in the living room for its trial run. I was dazzled by the ability to time-shift, fast-forward through commercials, replay a missed line of dialogue, and watch live TV while recording another show. I'm a control freak and now I was in control of my TV! I forgave my Tivo when it was fed incorrect scheduling information by the cable company. I missed my Tivo dearly when I was forced to watch live TV while on vacation. Eventually my husband bought his own Tivo so he could record auto racing, Junkyard Wars, and other things that conflicted with my shows or filled up my hard drive. We are now on our third Tivo. This one has two tuners, it can find shows over internet, and I can control it with my iPad.

I don't think my father will ever become comfortable with the Tivo time-shift. My husband, on the other hand, likes to start watching basketball games after they start so it will only take about 20 minutes to watch the first half. Then you can get something done during half time and still have a little time left before you have to start watching the second half. But time-shifting makes my father anxious. He's always a bit on edge when watching a sporting event with us and knowing we're behind real time. At that very moment other people around the country know what the actual score is and he doesn't and he blames Tivo. I decided not to pay too much attention to his complaints after I caught him watching an old Boston Red Sox baseball game on ESPN Classic. He thought it was live. Talk about a time-shift!

My children have never known life without Tivo. When they were little I could make sure they only watched 30 minutes of TV at a time. I would start a show for them and they would come running when it ended. Johnny learned to alphabetize when he had to find Blue's Clues in the list of shows. Nathan learned Phineas doesn't begin with an "F" by searching the list.

Tivo is now a dependable member of the household, gathering and organizing our TV shows while we're at school or work, when we're out of town and even when we're asleep. Phineas and Ferb is broadcast at 5:30 AM but the boys can sleep peacefully knowing that Tivo will have it available whenever they're ready to watch it. I do find it strange to see how much the boys like watching commercials. They tell me the commercials (like the one where Geico lizard has a flat tire) are often better than the auto racing or football they are watching with dad. My husband is grateful he has Tivo when he watches a show with the boys. The boys are usually talking and asking him questions about the show and he has to re-wind to so he can hear what he missed.

Perhaps more than anything Tivo has taught me to be open to new technology. I still prefer buying music CDs to MP3s and I continue resisting Twitter but I admit I really like my smartphone and iPad. We should keep looking forward because the transistor radio and the payphone booth aren't coming back. You may not know what the newfangled gizmo is and why you need it but it might just change your life.