Long before the days of streaming TV, Roku and Netflix…when DVRs were first gaining popularity – TiVo seemed to be a cut above the rest. And unlike a DVR which was included with your cable subscription for another $5 or some other nominal fee a month, TiVo came at a premium. So naturally, Adam had to have it.

It was 2006. We were only a few years out of college, planning for our wedding and honeymoon, and living together in our first apartment in Arlington…with two other roommates. Needless to say, we didn’t have much disposable income and TiVo was definitely not top on my priority list. So Adam’s first attempt was to try to convince me it was an “investment” in our future. That in the long run we would actually end up saving money. In fact, he even ran a full break-even analysis and sent us a joint Google calendar invite for the day TiVo would eventually pay for itself.

But then he had an epiphany that would change our lives. He realized we didn’t need to pay for TiVo after all…because he could build it for us for free! And so, FreeVo was born. It took him months of planning, programming and purchasing all sorts of random one-off things he would never have any other need or purpose for besides the programming of a free TiVo substitute system. (Turns out, building a FreeVo is actually wildly more expensive than just paying the monthly bill for TiVo itself.) Not to mention, the system he built emitted this crazy loud buzzing noise. Our living room could no longer be the relaxing hang-out space it once was – instead it was filled with a never ending obnoxious hum constantly in the background. It also generated an extreme amount of heat. So naturally we needed to keep the air conditioning on at all times – even during the winter – to prevent it from overheating. As you can imagine, our roommates were thrilled with the spike in our electric bill.

But finally the day came. One of our roommates was a HUGE Jets fan. And Adam thought the perfect opportunity to test it out would be to FreeVo the game…keep Dave occupied all afternoon while the rest of the world watched it live…and all watch it together that night (assuming we didn’t accidentally hear who won before doing so). Somehow Dave agreed to this and Adam was giddy with excitement. We all spent the afternoon at a (non sports) bar killing time until we could finally go home to watch the game we waited the whole day to see. And so the big reveal was finally upon us. Months of hard work and more money than we likely would have spent on TiVo during all those years combined. Adam turned it on and sat back to watch the game we had all been so eagerly awaiting…and there was no sound. He ordered a DVR that week. #Shmadum

P.S. Last year on one afternoon in May of 2014, I received a pop-up reminder on my calendar letting me know that TiVo would have paid for itself that day.