Anyone who knows us at all knows that there are exactly two technological advances without which we'd shrivel and die in a dank corner. The incandescent light bulb? Light is overrated. The microwave oven? Convenient, sure, but even frozen burritos taste hot if you drench 'em in enough Salsa Habañero. The wheel? Heck, we've got legs-- and they mostly work, too. No, the only two inventions we simply couldn't live without are our Macs and our TiVos. Our iPods run a close third, but we could possibly survive without them... if you can call that living. But take away our TiVos for a week so we have to watch TV shows that are actually on at that particular time and we regress to some feral wild-eyed state in which we start threading twigs through our hair. Take away our Macs for that long and we physically devolve into a puddle of primitive protein chains. Remove them both and eventually we perish of sheer technological frustration. (It's not a pretty way to go; let's just say that extensive vomiting is involved and leave it at that).

That's why we're always happy to hear talk of a possible Apple-TiVo merger, which would unite our two most vital technological addictions in strange and wonderful ways. Various pundits have raised the possibility plenty of times in the past, but we've never heard any talk that such a union was actually in the offing-- until yesterday. Faithful viewer Ryan Clark informed us that, according to Reuters, an analyst by the name of Steven Kroll Jr. of Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co. has been flat-out proclaiming that "Apple is interested in [TiVo's] business and that they are a takeout target." With TiVo's market cap only in the third-of-a-billion-clams range, Apple could easily afford the purchase and still keep over six billion stuffed in the mattress. And it'd be a quick way for the company to take one more step into the living room and extend this whole "digital hub" thing beyond just music. Movies on demand? If Steve Jobs could persuade those Luddite and paranoid record execs to let him sell their songs at 99 cents a pop, who's to say that Mr. Pixar himself couldn't get the movie moguls to climb aboard with a similar scheme?

Of course, we're not exactly letting ourselves get too excited over the prospect. For one thing, TiVo bigwigs have repeatedly said that the company isn't for sale, so Apple would have to get hostile, which wouldn't exactly win the hearts and minds of TiVo's rabidly loyal customer base. For another, not that we're captains of high finance over here, mind you, but we've never heard of this Kroll guy, so he probably doesn't usually follow the Apple stuff, and we can't vouch for his accuracy. And let's not forget Steve Jobs's legendary disdain for TV in the first place. Indeed, an analyst firm we have heard of (and which does follow Apple closely) is saying that the rumor amounts to exactly zilch: "We strongly believe Apple has no interest in buying TiVo," says Smith Barney, and based on Apple's own comments, the firm rates an Apple-TiVo merger as "highly unlikely."

So we're not holding our breath. Sure, our TiVo stock got a nice boost from the takeover rumors (you just gotta love an 18 percent increase in one day), and it's nice to fantasize about a seamless marriage of Apple design and technology with TiVo's frighteningly simple and effective approach to personal video recording, but it's not as easy as slapping some peanut butter on a chocolate bar and calling it two great tastes that taste great together. Still, we can dream, can't we?