Lately, I’ve been questioning whether or not my TiVO really knew me at all. Or maybe TIVO was trying to tell me something. Some of the suggestions it has taped for me were so off base, I began to wonder if my TIVO felt like a spurned lover. I didn’t use it as much as I used to. Days would go by where I wouldn’t even glance at it. TIVO had been shunned for other things like outings with friends, movies and books.

I believe the relationship between TIVO and I reached its nadir when I turned it on one day and found that it had taped the Toby Keith Christmas Special. “TIVO,” I said, “what have I ever watched to make you think I would want to waste hard drive space with the Toby Keith Christmas Special?” TIVO just shrugged and said it figured maybe I wanted to broaden my horizons. Yeah…no.

So, TIVO and I have been on the outs lately. That is…until last night. Flicking through my suggestions I saw that TIVO had taped something called Icarus of Pittsburgh. I’m a big documentary fan. Give me a nice two hour documentary and I am in heaven. Funny things is Icarus of Pittsburgh was only ten minutes long, but it had a more profound effect on me than some documentaries that are ten times its length.

The story is basically this: A man named Archie McNally concocted this idea in his head that he would fill a wet suit with helium and during the 1979 AFC championship game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Houston Oilers, he and his suit would fly to the heavens so that he could see his departed father. The McNally family goes back generations in the city of Pittsburgh and Archie’s father loved the Steelers. Unfortunately, Archie’s father passed before he had a chance to see the Steelers during their heyday. And it was Archie’s love of his father and his love of the Steelers that made him want to soar high above the stadium that cold January Sunday and visit his old man.

In ten minutes I found myself baffled, amused and saddened by this character. And even after the film was over I was still unsure if the story was fact or fiction. But after looking around on the web, I found that it is a true story. The fact that a man would concoct such a crazy idea and have it work for a short time is astounding and hilarious. The fact that the man is obviously mentally ill and that he and others had to suffer because of this is not so amusing.

Nonetheless, if you have ten minutes to spare, you may find his story interesting.