PVR

Last night Greys was a repeat (for those who don't know I am a huge Greys Anatomy fan and it is the only show I follow on TV).  I was really tired though so I was happy to go to bed early and read the delightful Jan Karon book I currently have on the go.

However

IF we had had a PVR (I think this stands for Personal Video Recorder but I am guessing) apparently I could have recorded something from the night before and then watched it instead as my many FB friends were suggesting though even one of those was lamenting that she would enjoy reading too.  Several people have told me a PVR will change my life..... I believe them.

When we had our first apartment in Canada we had no TV. We listened to CBC radio every night.  We like to say everything we know about Canada we learned from Peter Gzowski.  We loved his gentle voice in the evening and the ecclectic offerings of "As it Happens" with Michael Enright (who was a lot less pompous then than he is now- in my opinion) and Barbara Budd.

Over dinner with friends one night we let it slip that we didn't have a TV. They were aghast..... this was crazy they felt. We assured them we felt no loss at all and even though we could afford to get one we weren't going to, not yet anyway. We came home a few nights later and there was a vintage small portable TV on our doorstep.  Turns out our friends had it in their storage unit and wanted us to have it.  So in it came and slowly but surely over many months our radio listening declined in proportion to our TV watching.  And then, of course, this small, black and white screen with the jumpy picture (did rabbit ears ever really work?) and having to get up to turn the dial to change the channel wasn't good enough and we bought a real TV.

For years we had a relatively small screened TV that weighed a ton and we moved with it several times. Even when the kids came we didn't upgrade the TV. 

And then we got a Wii, which meant we needed a bigger TV. I fought that - I didn't want a TV dominating our family room.....but I lost the battle. And it was a nice change to be able to see the tennis ball on the Wii game - Ha ha!!

We have been talking about a PVR for almost a year - we could have had one a year ago but we dance around the topic and never get to actually ordering it.  We feel ripped off by our cable company already and paying them more money is not appealing. But on the many nights that the Canucks are not playing there is often nothing to watch at a time we are available to watch it and to be perfectly honest I don't know how many more episodes of Mythbusters and Daily Planet I can cope with. (Currently boycotting TLC until they take the Sarah Palin Infomercial  and the Gosselins off)

So a PVR makes perfect sense..... I don't think its what we will gain by getting it that worries us, but rather, what we will lose.