Tivo makes me nostalgic, but I've moved on...

Dear Tivo,

What happened to us? We were inseparable. It was just you, me, and cable TV. Life was good. Really good. In fact, I couldn't imagine life without you, even when DIRECTV and Comcast starting offering their own DVRs as a standard part of their cable services.

I like to think I was Olive Oyl and you were my Popeye, and the cable companies were Bluto, always trying to force their way in-between us and undermine you with an eye toward my affection. But it didn't happen, and still doesn't, even as your peanut-shaped remote just lies there on my coffee table, lifeless.

Oh, your remote! The buttons felt so right. They responded so well to the touch, not like the others, which took a few muscled depressions before it finally responded, and then responded again and again, the signals finally catching up and me so far adrift from my target. I was afraid to use the other remotes. But never yours.

And the little TV with the antenna and legs. He gave the whole thing personality. I hated the times the machine needed to reboot, but look over there! That little guy is having so much fun sliding and swinging around!

That was my last encounter with you. Something happened. Months ago–I lost count–you overheated and conked out. It was sudden, and I mourned for you.

But I didn't do anything about it. I didn't fix you. I didn't replace you. I just carried on.

Frankly, TV WAS better with you. Unfortunately, it's no longer better enough to warrant the work needed to troubleshoot you and rescue the 70+ episodes of Dora the Explorer I so obsessively recorded for my kids. They're on to Hanna Montana, now.

And me? Well, I guess I'll watch North by Northwest some other time. Same with those other movies I collected over the years but never got around to playing.

Perhaps I'm in recovery. All the hours of TV I watched and wanted to watch and didn't know I needed to watch. You made me voracious for TV, but I could never keep up.

You enabled me. I explored Steve McQueen and wishlisted Anthony Wong. I felt confident that I wasn't missing anything, even if I never watched most of it.

I suppose the missing piece in our broken relationship is TV. I don't watch that much of it anymore. I've moved on to Hulu. It doesn't have everything, but it has enough to keep me satisfied. There's no queue, no pile-up of movies and TV episodes to dig through. I just graze and go.

Today the New York Times said that you posted another quarterly loss. It makes me sad because I loved you. I still love you. But I think for many of us, it's simply time to move on.

-joanie