Amanda was flipping through our Now Playing list on our TiVo and in a sarcastic voice said, “‘Yo Gabba Gabba’. ‘The Dave Ramsey Show’. ‘Purple Rain’. What does your TiVo say about you?”

It was a funny quip, but the truth is that my TiVo says more about me than just that I am a father with a young child that enjoy’s watching a bald guy talk about money and a quirky Brit cook leeks. My TiVo says:

I’m frugal. I hate the idea of spending money for something new. Yes this year the old tivster is going to be seven. That’s like fourty-nine in electronic-component-dog years. But even though the hard drive space isn’t so spacious and some internal moving part has developed a high pitched whine (yeah, Pete, I know you can hear it) I hope it lasts another seven.

I <3 good design. From the remote control to the onscreen menus, the TiVo engineers just plain got it right. Feeling your way around the system is a water slide compared to other DVR’s that feel like you’re a chromed ball on the business end of a pinball machine. I’ve watched other people use their DVR’s and I am overcome with a temporary paralysis as I watch them muddle through counter-intuitive menus designed by communist engineers, using remote controls with more buttons than a sewing store. People: It doesn’t have to be that complicated. Less is more.

I root for the underdog. The sad truth is that TiVo probably won’t be around long in it’s original (or now Series 3) form. The DirecTV TiVo that we currently use is no longer manufactured as DirecTV wised up to the revenue leeched from it’s coffers by this little dynamo. Since DTV wouldn’t stand for such a travesty they quickly dropped TiVo for their own branded DVR which resulted in a feature and usability vortex that was like going from HD TV to a ViewMaster. And since all major cable companies have their own in-house DVR offerings, TiVo will increasingly be on the outside looking in.