HI! YOU MUST BE THE 21ST CENTURY! I'M UNCLE BOB!

I love having an addiction to herbal sleeping medicine (heretofore known as "Melatonin") and sleeping peacefully each night after taking anywhere from 1 to 3 mg of the stuff.

You know what I love EVEN MORE?!?

I love going to bed at 9:30 and thinking to myself "I don't think I need any Melatonin tonight because gosh golly darn ... I'M TIRED!"

...And then waking up at 11:30 at night thinking it's 5:45 a.m. AND NOT BEING ABLE TO GET BACK TO SLEEP UNTIL FUCKING 1 A.M. AND THEN WAKING UP AT 3:30 A.M. AND NOT BEING ABLE TO GET BACK TO FUCKING SLEEP AT FUCKING ALL SO I GET UP AT 4 A.M., DOWNLOAD THE LATEST EPISODE OF "THE OFFICE" OFF I-TUNES FOR $1.99 (a steal, by the way) AND THEN I'M UP FOR THE WHOLE FREAKIN' DAY.

Until about 9 a.m. where I put my head on my desk and sleep until 4 or so.

Crap.

And I have to do the Karaoke thing tonight.

This is going to be one long stinkin' day.

Oh ... and I don't "love" not getting any sleep.

That, my dear friend, was what psychologists and skateboard enthusiasts refer to as "sarcasm".

Y'see, ever since I was a small boy, stealing spoiled meats out of garbage cans in the alleys of Berkshire, England in order to feed my crippled parents, I've wanted a TiVo.

I remember asking my father every year in my adorable Cockney accent, "Father ... do you fathom that perhaps this year may be the year in which Kris Kringle delivers a TiVo machine to our crumbling front door?"

To which my father would belch an oh-so-drunken belch and bark "Boy! What in tarnation you go' do with a TiFo machine? Y'ain't got no tellyvision no how!"

(My father, for a short period of time, spoke like a black sharecropper for reasons he never fully explained.)

Fast forward umpteen zillion years and here I am, still wantin' a TiVo.

The only problem is that I live with a woman who's a bit more financially responsible than myself who has devised a plan to get us completely out of debt by 2008.

And that plan did not include my TiVo.

She said "Find a way to buy one without severely disrupting the financial flow and you can have one."

Fine.

Yesterday, I found a way.

Y'see ... my local cable operator recently started offering Digital Video Recorders to its customers for a fee.

It ain't TiVo.

It's like ... I dunno ... a cheap knockoff version.

It still does everything TiVo does.

But it's called something like ... Moxi or something.

Anyhoo ... if you swap your digital cable box for the Moxi ... it's only $3 more a month.

That's six soft drinks out of a machine.

A Happy Meal from McDonalds.

A decent tip for a lunch at a Mexican restaurant where the cook DOESN'T spit or sweat into your food.

$1.01 more than it costs to download the latest episode from "The Office" from I-Tunes.

Tomorrow, the cable company has sworn on a stack of Bibles that the cable guy will be here between 8-10 a.m. to hook a brutha man up.

If not, then they have promised that he'll be here on Monday or Tuesday.

Wednesday at the latest.

But definitely by Thursday.

Or next Friday.

Gotta love the Cable Guy!

He's the backbone of American ingenuity!

And, with the proper bribe amount, he'll hook you up with Cinemax under the table!

So FINALLY, after decades of wanting television on MY TERMS ... I'll have it tomorrow.

Just think ... 40 hours of pro wrestling to choose from every stinkin' weekend.

Welcome to Hog Heaven. Population ... Me, motherfucker.