From the TiVoCommunity boards, this post was made yesterday by one of the TiVo staffers.

TiVoPony wrote:

Tomorrow is the last Friday in the month of March.

It’s a very, very special day around here.

Four years ago the first TiVo’s came rolling off the assembly line, were shipped to customers, and the TiVo Service, and the DVR industry, were born.

Oh, people had seen advertisements before, and demos before…from TiVo and others. But this was the very first DVR ever shipped. By anyone.

We all visited the factory, and watched the systems rolling from station to station. We wore blue labcoats. We high-fived each other. We signed the first box to come down the line (it’s sitting in a display case not far from where I’m writing this note).

It had been a grind…a ton of work. We were all exhausted. And Mike Ramsay, our CEO, told us all to go home. Take Friday off. Don’t come in, under any circumstances. He was going to padlock the doors.

Well, except for a few unlucky souls in customer service. It seems that the phones must always be manned.

And so we took a day off. And we have every year since…tomorrow makes five. The last Friday in March is always our ‘Blue Moon’ holiday, a TiVo national day of rest and relaxation.

Why Blue Moon? It so happens that in March of 1999 there were two full moons. A rare occurrence, and a great codename for our launch.

So tomorrow we won’t be here. Everyone behave. Have fun. Post nice things. Leave the poor customer support folk alone as much as you can. Get caught up on those TV shows you have stored away. Maybe throw your recorder a birthday party.

And remember that it all started in March of ‘99, by a little startup called TiVo.

I think I’ll have Blue Moon beer tonight to celebrate, while playing around on my 6 month old TiVo.