http://tinyurl.com/25hanh

You’ll notice this bit:

Canadian residents will be given special instructions to follow when activating service. Please look for the link “Instructions for Canadian residents,” under Step 2 during the activation process at tivo.com.

• Enter your actual Canadian street address in Field 1 of the Street Address
• Enter your actual Canadian Postal Code in Field 2 of the Street Address
• Enter Leo, WY 82327 in the City, State, and ZIP Code fields

As Jen noticed, even though Leo is where the initial setup goes (and who knows why it’s there of all places), the TiVo does eventually use a local (604) number to retrieve the program guide. If you have Shaw’s Internet as well (which I’d recommend), then I’d recommend you use that (with a router) to connect your TiVo to the Internet. It will mean that it doesn’t have to dial out in order to get the program listings. I don’t know about NFL Sunday Ticket, but if it’s available on Shaw, it should be recordable by your TiVo.

There are a few limitations about using your TiVo in Canada: Some of the fancy new stuff that TiVo has added (Amazon Unbox, which lets you order movies with your TiVo) and a few others like their Showcases for programming on premium channels don’t work in Canada. Actually, I think the Amazon Unbox may work, but only with the American Amazon store (not Amazon.ca), so if you already have an account with that store, see if you can keep it, although this is one of the few times where it will be useful to you.

I’m thinking that we won’t have enough time to watch everything that we record, so some (much?) of it will eventually get erased as newer material takes it’s place (you can control how something is deleted — even setting it to never delete, but then you fill up the hard drive). There’s room for about 80 hours though, so we’ve got a while to go before we reach that point.

I just moved an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus to my iPod, and despite some washed out colour, it’s perfect!

As for a recipe for Banh Xeo, I think I saw one at:
http://tinyurl.com/2n7gez as well as http://tinyurl.com/33g5lx
They are a treat.

Hi Jen (and I’m thrilled that there is another TiVo user in Vancouver — I think I remember when you got yours and was pretty envious), this Series 2 box actually automatically downloaded the service upgrade after I activated it, and I hooked up the wireless before there was any dialing going on. I assumed with Leo, WY in the address fields that it would dial their local number, but it sounds like an even more bizarre setup. I haven’t a clue how they managed to have them dial a 604 number (the instructions were actually on the screen to put Leo, WY in the city and state fields, but put the Canadian info in the address fields — Ok…), but I’ll stick with the network connection to avoid the also inexpensive but definitely annoying situation of having a telephone cord draped across the living room.