TIVO OWNERS, UNITE!

My friend Other Drew (a rare blogless Drew in my personal network) has repeatedly warned me not to anger my Tivo. Tivo knows all, Tivo sees all, and when I write bad things on my blog, Tivo gets very upset. Well, O.D., you might not want to read this post, because IT’S AWWWWWWWN!

Tivo, you have done many things to anger me in the past:

• Harvesting my information to sell to marketers
  

• Crashing and dying a few months after I bought you, which allowed me to find out about how you’re…
  

• Offering abysmal customer service — and…
  

• Providing the world’s worst warranty for an electronic device in that price range;

Plus, the absolute worst:

• Neglecting to switch channels and missing my favorite shows, thereby failing to do the one task I bought you to do

But now you’ve really done it Tivo. After promising customers the ability to skip commercials, you’ve secretly struck a deal with advertisers to circumvent your own best feature. By March, every Tivo will have automatically downloaded software that causes a banner ad to appear every time the user fast-forwards. Thus, attempting to skip one ad will automatically expose you to another one.

And you know what? I couldn’t be happier about this new development. Maybe now everyone who didn’t join me on the disgruntled Tivo owners bandwagon before will finally hop on. Maybe there will be an uprising. Maybe Replay TV will offer some sweetheart rebate deal to customers who turn in their Tivos and switch over. Maybe I can finally throw off the shackles of that useless, overpriced electronic menace and be free — FREE!

I know it’s not wise to mess with Tivo, but this is WAR. So if you find my body splayed out in front of the TV tonight strangled by a cord, you’ll know who did it. It’s that stupid plastic box on top of the TV that’s wearing a smug grin and recording something other than “Lost” at 8pm this evening.