Best Money Spent - 2007

Now that we’ve started working on our 2007 taxes at the Smack Of Ham household, we’ve had a chance to review some of the purchases we made last year – some better than others.

Instead of revealing some of the more off-base buys (who wants to read about my obsession with collecting sculptures of Lindsey Lohan created using the common potato as a medium?), here are the highlights of the last year:

Best Money I Spent In 2007:

Best $3 Spent – Book of 200 Sudoku puzzles – I’ve pecked away at this book for 12 months and still have about 50 left to go. The cover is so worn it looks like it was printed in 1942 and carried in a soldier’s back pocket during the Invasion of Normandy.

Best $30 Spent – There was a simple Xbox 360 game called Earth Defense Force that utilized none of the potential of this advanced system. It basically dropped giant insects from the sky and you had to run around and shoot them, old-school style. Its simplicity of game play appealed to my gaming skills which haven’t evolved since the third wave of Space Invaders.

Best $300 Spent – Replacing the gawd-awful cable company DVR with a TiVo Brand DVR after a month of aggravation. The CEO of my cable company should be imprisoned or at least ashamed of himself for pushing his inferior product on the unsuspecting public.

Best $3,000 Spent – I felt obligated to have a $3,000 entry although we didn’t spend that amount on anything this year (I'm not including Lindsey Lohan potato products)– we saved this money for…

Best $30,000 Spent – On legal fees, travel expenses, and adoption costs to bring a cherished child into our home. Better than 10,000 Sudoku books!

I’m off to a good start for 2008. My best investment so far…

Donated $.25 to Send Me Pennies, an original website I discovered this weekend. The gist of the site is that when a million pennies are collected, the web site owner is going to buy something using the million pennies as payment – some 3 tons of coins. The transaction will be recorded and made available for our entertainment pleasure. It’s a fun, friendly site and will be worth it for the eventual payoff. Give ‘em a visit!

What are your best purchases of 2007?

When in the mood to shop, visit BidFinders for hot eBay searches and easy sign-up. Get Into The Auctions!

Come Back, TiVo

My Dear TiVo:

I stand before you humbled, hat in hand, thankful to see your impish face in my home again.
It didn't mean a thing, I swear. It was just a short, meaningless fling with a cable company DVR that didn't amount to a skipped commercial. I was a 40 year old man in an experimental phase - call it a mid-season crisis.

I was trying to find myself and I lost you.

See, it really wasn't my fault. We switched from satellite to cable service - the temptation of all those HD channels was too much for a middle-aged man to resist. The cable company didn't offer your service and they told me their DVR was just as good – they even used your name. They said she recorded, paused, and fast forwarded, just like you. They said I could schedule all my favorite shows with her just like I did with you. They said she would get to know me as well as you did.

Maybe it was the lure of something new, something forbidden…maybe it was just a weak moment…but deep down I knew better.

It felt strange from the beginning. Holding her remote seemed so odd…its large square shape and right angles were so foreign in my hand…I kept thinking of the slender peanut-shaped curves of your remote…I thought of you every time I rewound, deleted, and powered down.

After spending some time with the younger model, I found she wouldn’t do the things you did, TiVo, or couldn’t do them nearly as well…she didn’t know the first thing about networking with other DVRs, was just learning about scheduling Season Passes, and wouldn’t Swivel Search if her power cord depended on it. I guess I’ve learned to appreciate experience over youth.

It’s over with her – for good. TiVo, I want you back to stay and will do whatever it take to prove it to you. I’ll keep your remote away from the baby. I’ll avoid scheduling shows I know I’ll never watch. And I’ll watch your suggestions without question. Whatever it takes to rebuild that trust that only a man and a TiVo can understand.

Exciting times lie ahead for us. “Lost” returns this month with “24” right around the corner. And baseball season, our favorite time of year, is coming faster than you think. Think of the beer commercials and pitching changes we can skip through – together.

Welcome back, TiVo.

For more on the TiVo phenomenon, visit DVR Spot .