Why did I ever doubt my TiVo? I spent an enjoyable 20 minutes or so on the phone with some extremely friendly customer service reps from TiVo explaining my situation. Just by giving them my name, they were able to pull up that I lived in Kirksville, MO and that I didn’t have any local dial-up numbers. I explained my problem with dialing 1-800 numbers using the university phone system. Their solution was as simple as giving me the secret 1-800 number and having me put it in as a dial prefix without the leading 1. And bam! I’m in TiVo land! (check out the webcam shot of me jumping up and down excitedly when the phone connected).

I’m really very happy with how friendly and helpful they were. They’re definitely going to be getting a thankyou email from me and a lot of positive personal referrals to my friends about their service (which I sure is part of the reasoning behind the contest).