Right now, I’m listening to a Guster song called “Diane” from the album “Keep It Together” in rich stereo. It was something that I haven’t easily been able to do, but the magic of my new TiVo HD makes it possible.

First, a thanks to Blair Smith giving me the proper motivation to make the change. I’m one of the most technically-minded people I know (heh) but even I was stuck in the past when it came to my TiVo. Being a fundamentally cheap person, I’ve held back. I bought my first TiVo, a shop-worn Series 1 that was branded by Sony from the return pile at BestBuy in the fall of 2003. The people who had it briefly bestowed it with a lifetime subscription, a coveted gift no longer available. TiVo’s product lifetime service was expensive but worth it, allowing you to use all of the features without a monthly charge. The TiVo was a fantastic companion, but when we replaced the TV this time last year with a 32″ LCD HDTV, the new screen made the old TV look bad.

Blair sent me a thank you note for help with a new phone system at his new office but that was still not enough. It wasn’t until Tammy came home one day and declared that she was sick of only recording one show at a time. Since the TiVo HD had dual tuners, we could solve several problems at once.

It’s been in operation for only four days and I’m thrilled. I’m using features (like listening to Guster from our iTunes library) that I never had. I’m installing a separate antenna to pick up local channels in HD so the TiVo can record at the higher quality. When that’s done, we’ll be able to cancel our cable subscription and buy the other shows from Amazon using their new Unbox feature.

Thanks Blair and Tammy for giving me the push in the right direction!