Sure, I know it’s a busy world out there and people and things come in and out of our lives constantly. There’s never a good time for something like this to happen, but why does that moment occur when a true friendship has been made? You know the type of friendship that’s solid, one where each side is always there for the other.

But without warning, it happened to me.

There I was, watching a movie on the couch. I was a little distracted, the phone rang or something, so I picked up my remote control to rewind the movie. Then in an instant my life was forever changed. The movie didn’t rewind, it simply froze in place. I tried changing the channel, nothing. I unplugged it, waited a few minutes, but nothing happened. I tried and tried several more times but the truth became evident. I was helpless and there was nothing I could do to save my friend.

So in a flash at 7:35pm on Thursday, September 14, 2006, my new best buddy, my TiVo was gone

And in an instant, all those moments disappeared to. The beauty and joy of flipping between two football games, rewinding one play, fast forwarding to another without missing a snap were gone. Having one show on one tuner and the other constantly on ESPN news so I could quickly rewind to get a score, zapped. My season passes? 86’ed. No more thumbs up, thumbs down. No more precision touch rewinding to the very second. And all those hours of recorded Carolina Travelers are simply no more!

I still held out hope. I got on the phone with the satellite TV company. Maybe something could be done. Maybe TiVo had a little brother or some sort of legacy that was left. But then the death knell came from the voice on the other end. “I’m sorry sir. We don’t have a deal with TiVo anymore.”

Since, I’ve been sent the company’s generic brand. Sure it works and does an okay job, I guess. But it’s just not the same. It’s not as user friendly, not as precise and there is no recording of two live channels at once. So this past Saturday when flipping between the USC/Nebraska game and the Clemson/Florida State game, I couldn’t rewind the plays. I felt like my dignity had been stripped.

For three years I had access to what I will call the greatest companion invention to the television set since TV Guide. Now they’ve taken it away from me, the ultimate tease!

I know that time heals most wounds. The agreement between TiVo and DirecTV had to end sometime. But I’m going to need a little time on this one. It’s going to be until early November at the least before I get my football remote control mastery back. So until that time I’m reminded of what Red said about missing his friend Andy Dufresne in “Shawshank Redemption.”

“Sometimes it makes me sad though. I have to remind myself some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are just too bright…and when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice…but still the place that you live in is that much more drab and empty now that they’re gone. I guess I just miss my friend.”

See you Saturdays at 7:30pm. I guess this means I’ll have to manually set my recorder this week.

Andy Benton
Carolina Traveler Sidekick