In celebration of getting a promotion at work, I decided to splurge and get a Tivo. We have been thinking about getting one for ages, as once we are done with work and dinner, we normally only have from like 8-10 to watch TV and if nothing's on during that time we end up watching crap that we never wanted to. If this is you, get Tivo now.

Seriously, I've only had it a week and I love it. Being able to watch movies that were on at 1am the night before whenever you want, or watch the episode of the Simpsons that was on while I was driving home etc, without even having to do much programming on it. Basically you set shows that you want it to record regularly, and you can rate shows that are on by hitting a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" button, and it is pretty smart once you tell it the shows you like - a bit like Amazon's suggestions, recording things automatically based on what I have already recorded.

At $12.95 a month, its not exactly a bargain, but it really helps you get the best value out of all that content I am already paying for via my cable bill, but normally dont get to watch 99% of it. But now I can. So there.

TiVo TCD540080 Series2 80-Hour Digital Video Recorder

TiVo TCD649080 Series2 80 Hour Dual Tuner Digital Video Recorder