IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S HDT-ME: Dear TiVo:
I don't know how to say this, so I'll just say it. You and I both know that it's just not going to work out between us.
I just can't put this off any more. It all started a few months ago when I got the wide-screen plasma TV. I was so excited to get the DirecTV HDTiVo and take our relationship to a new level. But my friends told me to take a hard look at where we were going, and I did. I found out that DirecTV is rolling out a new compression technology, MPEG-4, and that it will multiply the number of HDTV channels by a factor of three. I found out that the DirecTV HDTiVo will be obsolete by the end of the year, and that DirecTV will probably launch a buy-back plan. Worst of all, I found out that DirecTV just won't support you any more.
Don't think that this means I don't still love you. I still can't imagine a life without you. I cherish the way that your fast-forward sound has become part of my vocabulary and even something hardwired into my brain, so that if I miss something on a phone call or on the radio I hear your "badoop badoop badoop" and smile. I love the way you gently chide me with a "bomp" when I ask too much of you. I love the little gifts you leave me -- Temptation Island when I least expect it, for example. You even gave my friend Joanna an entire season of DeGrassi -- that's how close you have grown to my friends.
It would be so easy to get the obsoleting box -- it's only $700 now -- and try to savor our last few months together but that would only make it harder when the end finally comes. And I know that I could wait, should wait, until you have your stand-alone box to pair with the DirecTV receiver, but for how long? I'm weak, TiVo. I can't wait forever, and I hear the whispers from those who say that without DirecTV you might not make it. I don't think I could take it if I committed to making this work and you gave up on me. Don't hate me for leaving you before you leave me.
I won't pretend that I'll ever find someone as good for me as you. My friend Richard is with a Comcast DVR, and he's despondent. I won't tell you which parts he says she sucks, but I'm sure that he doesn't mean it in the consenting-adults kind of way.
Maybe someday it will all be better between us, but we can't pretend we're in the same place right now. If we can't have HDTV together, what's left for us? Please remember that you showed me what TV-watching could be, and in that way you changed my life. I will always remember you.
Love,
Isaac
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