My boxy alien overlord

TiVo is on sale at Amazon for $39.04 after rebate -- and you may have to wait a while for the rebate, so the deal isn't as good as it looks. But it's still pretty damned good. Our TiVo is really old, in TiVo years, and it puts green lines across the screen, and yet I still adore it. I won it from TiVo when they still gave away one every month, to whoever wrote the best argument for getting one. The month I did it, they asked how TiVo would solve a conflict in your home -- the examples were all about husbands who wanted to watch one show and wives another, etc. I said TiVo would solve the conflict that occurred when I called Z. from the office, having forgotten to set the VCR to record a show, and he gallantly complied, carefully setting the VCR to start recording five minutes before the hour and stop five minutes after the hour, because he didn't want me to miss anything -- only he picked the same hour. I cherish this memory not only because it got me a TiVo but also because it's probably the only example of Z. being confounded by technology.