I love my TIVO! I have the Series II with DVD Burner that's about 5 years old and it's great. I don't use the burner as much as I used to. But it is super if I need to offload some shows that I haven't gotten to watch. I recently was close to filling up my disk space so I offloaded a slew of gardening shows to DVDs to make room for the new seasons of Desparate Housewives, Greys Anatomy, etc. etc.. I keep recording stuff, but I have trouble getting around to watching them. I also got the lifetime membership which I think had a break-even point at around 3 years. So now I am "winning" with "free" service. I don't think they offer lifetime membership anymore. not sure. At some point though, I will eventually want to get high-def, so I will need digital cable (am only analog now) and new LCD-HDTV. (32" or 36" I hope will do). THen I will have to bite the bullet and get the Tivo HD XL (nice chart dtd, thanks!) I will lose the burning capability and I will lose the lifetime membership, plus the digital HD cable will cost me more than currently. I don't need all those shows. I wish they had High-Def-basic! For recording, I suppose I could go with cable DVR at that point, but I think once you have Tivo, its hard to be without it. This is one of my favorite subjects and I almost missed it thinking we were still lamenting the demise of the good 'ole Victory Garden and the "G" in HGTV. (both of which are certainly worth lamenting!!!)

Single here so that is not much of a challenge for me when cooking on a daily basis. When entertaining or having a party I cook what I like, some may not like some of it but there is always plenty of other options to pick from. My group is picky so I try to offer a couple of options if it is a big dinner or party....but I do make things I like as I will be eating the leftovers. The few things that come to mind tonight are Oatmeal Raisin Cookies for my nephews...they love them but I can't do raisins in anything. Their DM isn't a baker so I treat them when I have time. I have a BIL that loves cornbread dressing and greens for TG. I add that to the must have sides when he is here. The dressing is okay but I'll pass on the greens...I think they are collard greens...not sure as I have to google for a recipe everytime...lol! I'm sure there might be a few other things I make for a friend or family member but I can't think what it might be at the moment. David

Haahahahaa! Karen this is SO funny. I'm bursting into laughter reading these posts again, and remembering writing and reading them at the time. Well done! And my favourite part about Martha Stewart dropping in with her dish towel parachute!!! WAY too funny!

The biggest problem many people have with understanding dogs is they simply insist on maintaining dogs have human characteristics. They actually believe dogs have some of the same atributes and skills that humans have. Dogs can learn amazing things. Now and then there arises an amazing dog---my son/DIL had one of those amazing dogs. He would sit and listen to you explain something, nodding at correct maments and wagging his tail appropriately. People swore he could understand English. Not so, he simply picked up on facial movements and body cues----what was said had not impact---I could speak gibberish and he responded the same way. Dogs react to very sublte body movements/voice inflections/posture---because their instinct tells them to do that with other dogs---that is their basic communication. Dogs simply have learned to transfer the same basic signs fom dogs to humans. I raised/trained horses for 20 years---I have heard stories of how horses could do amazing things---think like people/etc. Horses could learn---but they could not reason. I believe dogs can be changed much faster than most other domesticated animals---breed standards have changed for some in thirty years. That applies to cognative abilities as well. The average stray/loose dog today does often look both ways when crossing a street. That is not reasoning---it is selective instinct. Counrty dogs do not do that. Did you know city squirrels run across an open area differently than country squirrels? City squirrels run a more straight line---while country cousins run zig zag lines. Reason---selective breeding instincts---the squirrels in the city do not have hawks/foxes as preditors---requiring a zig zag path to evade capture. The straight runners do not get hit by cars as much. The current issue of National Geographic has an article about Darwins discoveries and the things scientists have learned about natural selection since his theory was published.