This post is mostly a reminder for me to do further research and drop some hints next Christmas. Isn't it amazing how many cool tools there are out there these days.

Believe it or not, we dropped cable last year. But we still receive a fair amount of good television programming (including HD) free over the air. I was pleasantly surprised how many stations we get just with a small inside antennae. (I do miss HGTV, Discovery Channel, Fox News, History Channel and Animal Planet.)

We totally need (OK it is really only a want) an HD DVR. Because of busy schedules, we often miss our favorite shows. It certainly would be great to be able to catch them. An added bonus would be the time savings, since the shows are actually only about 20 minutes long. (I apologize to my friends who at least partially make their living based upon the ad revenues we would be bypassing.)

Another tool I think is very cool is the Slingbox. With the Slingbox, you never have to miss that big game. It will let you watch your cable broadcasts through the internet from any computer or even your cell phone. This will be especially helpful once we decide to resubscribe to cable.