By Rachel Cericola, Dec 19, 2005

I'm not going to say which one, but I am in love with one of our local weatherman. Whenever I'm on the road, it's hard for me to take the word of someone that I'm not familiar with -- hell, it's hard enough to master the idea of having clean towels every day.

With the Slingbox, I don't have to make new news friends. This little box allows you to access your local cable and satellite programming or recordings from your digital video recorder (DVR) from anywhere you've got a Web connection. It's like a little slice of home when you're on vacation or just slacking at work.

Hook the unit up to your video setup and tap it into your home network. From there, you can view your device of choice on a PDA, laptop or other Web-enabled device. Catch up on the big game from across the country or just sneak in soaps without the shame. [$249.99]