My Personal Abraham Lincoln

Growing up I never really watched very much TV. This is not because I was to cool for school or anything like that. It was because my parents decided that they wanted to live in what may or may not be considered a third-world country. Cable TV was not an option for me because the cable company conveniently decided to stop its network approximately 1 mile from our house. Therefore, I watched whatever was available on the channels picked up by the gigantic antenae my father bolted to the roof of our house. My options were limited to PBS, Fox, CBS, and if somebody climbed up to the roof and adjusted the antennae every few minutes I was able to watch a fuzzy ABC. As you can imagine, I didn't watch that much TV.

When I went away to college I was exposed to a whole new universe. The universe of cable TV. A universe dominated by Dawson's Creek, Felicity, Smallville, Real World vs Road Rules, and of course The World Wide Leader. But even though I now had access to such a variety of programming, my viewing was still constrained by scheduling and time. It was impossible for me to be home every Wednesday at 8 PM to watch the latest episode of Smallville. I tried recording the episodes on VHS and watching at a later time with a group of friends but something always seemed to go wrong and an episode was missed. I specifically decided to not watch 24 and Lost when they originally aired on TV because I knew that there would be no way I could keep up.

And then I got Tivo and my life instantly changed. My viewing consumption easily quadrupled. I can watch more TV in less time. I am no longer a slave to scheduled air times. If I see a show that might be interesting, I can just click a button and watch it whenever I have the time. TV molds to my life instead of forcing me to mold my life to TV. Tivo is my Abraham Lincoln. And the greatest feature next to the dual tuner which allows me to record two shows that air at the same time is the season pass. With a simple click of the remote I can schedule every episode in a series to record and I never have to worry about missing a thing. Here is a list of what is currently on my season pass:

• Lost


• 24


• Heroes


• Prison Break


• How I Met Your Mother


• The Office


• My Name is Earl


• Scrubs


• Thirty Rock


• Syndicated Seinfeld


• Syndicated Scrubs


• UFC Ultimate Fight Night