Give me TiVo or give me death!

There are certain pieces of technology that, once we have experienced, we seem to ask ourselves how we ever managed to survive without. Things like microwave ovens, air conditioning and multi-function remote controls top the list. I have recently become thoroughly hooked on an invention called TiVo. Our cable company offers this little gizmo within our cable box, and named it the DVR (ominous voice over), and it is the cable equivalent of digital crack. Marketed as a way to never miss your favorite TV shows, I thought it would be a cool way to not have to carve hours out of my day so I could watch a show when it was more convenient. It has now become the bane of my existence. I used to watch maybe 6-8 hours of TV per week, but now I find myself recording the most ridiculous shows because they sound remotely interesting and this is above and beyond the twenty plus series we record. I purposely record outdoor living shows so I can at least get the simulation of sunlight. To make matters worse, I have this highly addictive slave box craftily connected to an image producer that makes me feel almost a part of the image that has been produced. They call this (ominous voice over)…HDTV. I liken to this to adding black tar heroin to the crack that I just smoked. Might as well take some methadone, no wait…that’s coming through the surround sound!What this really boils down to is that, to paraphrase Karl Marx, entertainment is the pharmacological opiate of the masses (I think I saw that on Discovery HD). I’m pretty sure we will all be huddled in a tiny room in a back alley of our local Best Buy, watching repetitive images of flowers and wildlife, or Elton John concerts (the beads of sweat are so clear!) flicker by. Next thing you know they’ll make video games with the same jaw dropping clarity and where will our society be headed then? Who knows…but I bet the History Channel HD will have a special show on it that I can record!