T-3 to the Christmas party folks. If you are coming, respond on the web invite or let us know otherwise. We’re trying to forecast just how many monkeys on rollerskates we need to get, and it’s darn near impossible without a headcount.

Besides the frantic party preparations keeping us running at full tilt ’til the wee hours of the night every day this week, panting and sweating and worrying and obsessing, things have been pretty quiet.

My geek-lust has settled down a bit since I picked up a PVR from Rogers on the weekend and have been having some fun playing with it. If you don’t know what a PVR is, it’s like a geeky VCR, only no tapes. It has an 80GB hard drive that is uses for storage. It does lots of neat things, the scheduling of recordings is simply awesome, integrated right into the on-screen channel guide. Another simply must-have thing, which is so simple at first, is the ability to pause live TV. Run to the bathroom, get snacks, let the dog out, spank a child and get back to your show without missing a second. Rewind it if you think you missed something anyway. Then once you have paused a show for a few minutes, there’s always the added benefit of fast forwarding the commercials. It’s brilliant. It’s incredibly addictive to be able to skip past those suckers. It makes you want to pause every show for a few minutes at the very beginning just to build up a buffer, even if you aren’t spanking any children at the moment.

Anyway, it’s way cool and I highly recommend it. I have long held that I hate TV, and I still do. I think the programming sucks, but this device at least helps you to watch the very few shows that are any good, without any effort, without commercials, and without tapes. So now I can soak up 50 hours of Spongebob Squarepants effortlessly, and squeeze the Sponge-ey goodness out of every spare moment. Mmmm, absorbent technology.