Goodbye, My Good and Faithful Tivo

Everything has been breaking lately.  There was the accident Tuesday.  A couple weeks ago I had phone and Internet issues that required a day off to wait for Verizon (do not like the foreign customer support or the fact it is a whole day time frame).  Then we had a bad storm a week ago Thursday that knocked out the power for a few hours.  Power came back, cable did not.  After a week of phone calls (to Americans who speak understandable English, thank God) they finally realized it was my box and not a general outage on this past Thursday.  Tech was to come today between 10:30 and 1:30 (love a small window).  Of course he ended up late, but as the accident Comcast offered me a $20 credit for the annoyance.  But that is not the point of this post.

Worrying that my old power strip might have contributed to the death of cable, I replaced it last night.  My beloved Tivo failed to restart.

I loved my Tivo for six years and eight months.  It only showed the channels I wanted on its beautiful 12 day guide.  It recorded things for me it thought I'd enjoy (okay, I've been using that feature less with all having streaming video on-line).  It didn't always communicate properly with my cable box and could only do record one show at a time, but it was a good and faithful friend for many a year and shall be missed.

Lacking the funds for a new Tivo, I called Comcast and asked for a DVR.  They couldn't guarantee I'd get one today, but I lucked out and the tech had one on his truck.  Being newer than my Tivo, I can record two things at once, but it will be quite an adjustment to get used to Comcast's inferior program guide.

Here comes the amazing part.  I waited until after Comcast came to call and cancel my Tivo service.  They offered to replace my box with a newer model for free.  I was gobsmacked since my Tivo clearly was obsolete.  It wasn't even Tivo brand but a Toshiba Tivo server/DVD combo.  They have made a lot of money from me over the years since I had a monthly plan and not a flat rate (I certainly had not expected it to last almost seven years), but I still thought it was a lovely gesture.  Once I'm out of debt, I will definitely consider Tivo again.