Life without Tivo

My Tivo died this week. I think the hard drive went out. I now have to go back to watching TV without Tivo.

It's a weird feeling. Did I really used to schedule my time around when TV shows were on TV? If a show started at 8, did I make sure I was in front of the TV by 8? Did I have to depend on what the networks wanted me to watch at a specific time instead of what I had saved up over several days?

And recording with a VCR? Forget about it. I haven't even plugged in my VCR since I moved 2 years ago, and I'm not about to go back to the days of having to set a date and time and channel, only to realize I was off by an hour or was using the wrong channel.

It's a weird feeling. I may have watched more TV when I had Tivo, but at least it was TV I wanted to watch and when I wanted to watch it.

I missed The Office tonight. But that's ok, it's on On Demand so I can still see it. But what happens when Lost starts up next week? Do I go back to scheduling my time around a TV show?

I want to fix my Tivo, but I'm not sure what to do. Tivo will charge me $150 to swap it out for one that works. I can buy a used Tivo for $50, but then I lose my lifetime subscription and have to go to a monthly subscription. I can try to install my own hard drive, but that's probably $100 unless I find a great deal somewhere. Or I can try to figure out if I can fix my existing Tivo drive somehow. Or I could plop down the $800 for the brand new Tivo Series 3, but I bet I save $200 if I wait a few months for the first price drop...

I miss my "blip blip!" during the commercial breaks...