Tongue-Tied By TiVo

(AP)

Yeah. You tried doing that lately? USA Today has an interesting piece today on how TiVo is killing our national conversation:

We've gone from must-see TV to can't-talk TV.

As channel choices and technological options have expanded, fewer of us are watching the same shows at the same time on the same day. And it's increasingly affecting the national conversation...

So when we gather round the water cooler — or the Internet — to gab about what happened on, say, Grey's Anatomy last night, the dishing can dry up fast.

It's 2007 and time to realize that we need to start discussing television shows the same way we do movies. With movies, you don't automatically assume someone has seen "3:10 to Yuma" or "Into the Wild." You start off by asking if they have seen something, and then you discuss it. Compare that to "Can you believe [two major characters on "The Office" or "Grey's Anatomy" or whatever] made out last night?"

The USA Today article continues on to suggest a new decorum for talking about TV – wait three days after the show, then feel free to discuss it. But what fun is that, when talking about TV turns you into Vince Vaughn in "Swingers?" ("See, a lot of people wait two days. But I'm thinking three days is pretty money.")

No. Better to work with the tried-and-true movie protocol. It's a drastic conversational step, but it's getting to be a necessity. When I was being brought up, I was taught to never discuss sex, religion or politics. But now we're at the point where it's safer to discuss stem cells than "Heroes."

Yep, that's life in the technological wonder age. Things are better, right? We e-mail when we could call. We text when we could e-mail. We IM when we could text. And we don't talk about what was on TV the night before. Got all that?

At least there's always sports. It's TiVo-proof.

(And TBS did a better job with the playoffs last night, too. Note to Dick Stockton, though: the pitcher's name is Jorge Julio, not Julio Jorge.)