Hi, my name is Vieve, and I'm a Tivo-aholic.

As many a people know, there is a writer’s strike going on. For some, this doesn’t affect you at all. For others, such as myself, it has definitely shaken things up. To give a picture of how it has, I will paint a picture of what my TV habits used to be. I watched upwards of 20 shows each week. This doesn’t count my Ellen talk show, my Daily Show’s, or my Colbert Reports. I had a bunch of stuff to watch each night. This was good, because I watched TV during my workout time, to take my mind off the fact that I’m running my way through many miles. Thank goodness my treadmill is in front of my TV; else I would never get anything done. But now, with this strike, I find myself as a hungry beggar, searching for scraps of TV as one might look for food. Sure, I have my mid-season replacements, my few shows that have a few straggler episodes, but they don’t feed me nearly as much as I used to be fed. In the TV world, I was obese, now I’m beginning to feel like Nicole Richie, pre-pregnancy. I’m not getting nearly as much nutrients as I’m used to, and you can see all my bones starting to jut out.
But I am surviving. And to help you survive, even though you probably aren’t as dependent on TV as I was, I’ll give you some of my helpful tips to see you through this. Don’t worry, there is light at the end of the tunnel. This too shall pass. And hopefully you have Tivo, (or something akin to it) because a lot of my tips will be through there. I’ll also do tips for those of you who don’t have this wonderful machine.
One thing to do, is set your Tivo for episodes of stuff you haven’t seen in years. Remember Friends? They have it in syndication, set a timer for it and enjoy the deliciousness of the late 90’s. Want something from your childhood? I’m sure you can find some Full House or even better, get some Saved by the Bell. Relive those awkward adolescent years. Look through your channels for movies. Never saw that A Walk to Remember like you wanted to? Now here’s your chance. Set it for stuff you wouldn’t want to waste the rental money on, for free! Or, for the non-Tivoians (I’m patenting that word) set your VCR’s for these movies. Read the TV Guide, see what you can find that’ll be on. Revisit your own DVD collection. I’m sure you have a movie in there that you haven’t seen in a while, or one you’ve been thinking of watching. Or, if your supplies are limited (and surely, you don’t have every DVD you want to watch), set up some sort of swapping with your friends. You can borrow some of theirs, they can borrow some of yours, and its free! Much better than visiting the video store.
If you have to hit up some sort of rental thing (and don’t be ashamed, I use Netflix like it’s going out of style. Again, using a phrase I don’t really understand) then by all means, do so. I’m seeing stuff I didn’t have a chance to catch in theaters, only now for much cheaper. Use your rental place to get TV on DVD’s. Didn’t catch the whole season of Psych? Now’s your chance to get it all, and you can watch it much faster than it aired on TV. (And I recommend Psych, for anyone to watch. I don’t think there’s a funnier TV show.) So don’t fret, friends, over not having anything to watch. There are plenty of options of things to do. And, if you’re taking these moments of no-TV to get away from TV all together, that’s a noble goal, and I wish you the best with it. Read more, or visit with loved ones. Or, if you were really far behind, start finishing that Heroes you’ve had stuck in your Tivo since last year. Do what you gotta do to sustain yourself through these times. And, hopefully, like me, you’ll gain a bigger respect for the writers who aren’t getting what they want. Clearly they hold more power than any of us had anticipated.