"My niece, who lives in London, was visiting us ['Simpsons' writer Richard Appel and his family], and she had never heard of TiVo [a digital version of the VCR beloved for its ability to store up to 60 hours of programming, to record shows which it 'thinks' a user may like (based on previous recordings), and to race through ads at 60 times normal speed].
"All through dinner, I was extolling its virtues. She was nervous about missing the show, but I said, 'Have seconds, have dessert! You are the master of your evening!' When we went upstairs, we discovered that the recording had stopped just as Denzel Washington won [Best actor]."
The problem? "I thought that TiVo always taped an extra 30 minutes, but it turned out that TiVo had gone on to record the Cartoon Network, a favorite of my son's. Apparently, TiVo thinks I am someone who watches 'Meet the Press,' 'Oz [an ultra-realistic prison drama on HBO]' and 'Sheep in the Big City.'"
[The Academy Awards had run four hours and 23 minutes, a record.]
[Among TiVo's greatest fans? Jimmy Kimmel. "You know that shot in the Shallow Hal commercial of Gwyneth Paltrow bending over?" he once marveled. "With TiVo, you can go back and look at that over and over and over!"]
Sources
The New Yorker, April 8, 2002
