����Well, after nearly ten years of service, our old VCR died a few weeks ago. It wasn't the kind of quiet, dignified passing that you would expect--I'm afraid things got ugly.

����We knew it was on it's last legs, There Were Signs. It got erratic about ejecting tapes and sometimes you'd have to turn it on and off several times before it would regurgitate the cassette.

����It spent its final hours playing "The Sixth Sense" and when the movie was over, well, it refused to cough it up. Did it treasure Bruce Willis' subtle, finely nuanced performance, did it want to go over it again once we were asleep? Who knows, really, what is in the heart of a VCR. We can only speculate.

����What I can tell you is what was in Paul's heart, and that was blood rage. He had officially had enough of the VCR's shenanigans and in a fit of anger he unplugged it, performed a quick vivisection, and rescued the movie.

    Shall we all observe a moment's silence for my late VCR?

����Okay, that's enough, let's keep moving.

����Both Paul and I detest buying electronic equipment of any kind. We are terrible about keeping up with innovations and our negotiating skills are pitiful. Really, when we walk into any electronic store, we should come in with a flashing neon sign above our heads that says, "Fleece Us Now".

����So we've been dithering. And dithering. But in the meantime there have been all these movies we've wanted to see playing on our satellite dish, but they've been on at such wonderfully convenient hours as 3:45 a.m.

����Desperation drove me and my trusty car on a 45 minute journey into the nearest town with an electronics store.

����Jess is down for a visit, so as an act of mercy to her father, she went VCR shopping with me.

����So we walk into Electronic Stuff R Us, and the clerk comes up to me and immediately gets my number, despite the fact he looks all of about 15-years-old. He knows he'll be selling me something and that I will pay too much for it.

����The first VCR he shows me is a Hitachi number that has a clear, pale blue plastic case--kind of like one of those weird Apple computers. You can see all the machine guts. This is just so wrong. EVERYONE knows machine guts are meant to be heard but not seen. So I blow that machine off.

����(Mac lovers like Squibbly can send all their hatemail to [email protected]. That's m-a-r-n ...)

����So anyhow, we begin working down the line of VCR's and the salesguy's explaining all their bells and whistles. I'm nodding sagely and pretending that I understand each of these features--19 micron heads, VCR Plus, Energy Star, Hi Fi ... sheeeeyeah, right.

����And then, then we saw IT. The VCR of my dreams. I'm telling you, I almost swooned.

����You see, I was born without a VCR gene. It's true. I feel perfectly comfortable messing around with a computer, but put me in front of a VCR and it's pitiful really. All cognitive abilities leave me and I'm left only with lower brain stem function.

����So this means every time there's a power failure I have to get Paul to make the flashing light go away. Every time I want to tape something on time delay, I had to hope Paul was around because I could NEVER get our old machine to do what I wanted.

����But no longer. *Insert heavenly choir sounds of your choice here*. The Sony SLV-N60 has saved me, set me free, allows me the sort of life I've only dreamed of in the past. It is The VCR That Even Marn Can Run.

����First off, it comes with AutoClock which means set the clock and date once and that's it, ever. It will even adjust for Daylight Savings Time.

����Frankly, I would have bought it just for that. But there's more.

����It comes with A Quick Set Timer Dial. In laymen's terms, magic. You want to tape a movie on Tuesday that starts at 3:45 a.m. and ends at 5:45 a.m.? You turn that dial and a pretty screen starts running through the days of the week. Just push the dial in when it says Tuesday. Then it's smart enough to ask you when to start taping. Crank the dial until you see the starting time, push it in again when you see the magic number. Next it asks you when to stop taping. You choose a finish time, push the dial in And That Is It.

����Magic, I'm telling you, pure magic.

����I know what you're thinking. "Marn," you're thinking, "WHY ISN'T THERE A PICTURE OF THIS HUNKA HUNKA VCR WONDERFULNESS IN YOUR DIARY???"

����Well, ummm, errrrrr, ahhhh, the thing is that it's still in the box.

����See, I WILL be able to run it once it's attached to the TV, but my missing VCR gene means I gotta wait until Paul actually hooks it up to the TV. *Sigh*.

����Wait, it gets even more embarrassing.

����Yep.

����I paid full price.