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Well, the technology is still out to get me. I've had more gadgets fail in the last six months than I had fail in the previous six years: thermocouple on the gas heater in the den, television remote, router for the Internets, water heater, washing machine, and now it's the digital cable box. The box is less than two years old, having replaced an old box that lasted about fifteen years. I think Comcast needs a new source for its equipment, though it's possible that the problem with the box was brought on by PG&E's unreliable power supply (surge upon surge) or maybe by Portia shedding hair into the box when she sleeps on it, which I often catch her doing, usually in cold weather.
Anyway, I woke up to no television today, and couldn't arrange transportation to Chico to pick up a new box in time because they close early on Saturday, and Monday is Belabor Day so the place will be closed, and the earliest I can get a new box will be Tuesday. Then once I get it I'll have to go through the whole hookup-setup thing, which is a major arse-pain.
I checked prices of digital-analog converters at K-mart and Radio Shack (the only stores in town likely to have such things) which could serve as a stopgap (such a box would fetch only unscrambled, basic cable channels, so I'd still be missing all the best stuff), but balked when I found they start at nearly fifty bucks and go up from there. If I had that kind of money on hand I could get a decent digital-ready flat screen for no more than four times the price of those simple pieces of crap, and probably save twenty or thirty bucks on electricity over the next year because it would be more energy efficient than my decrepit analog CRT. Fifty bucks for three days of basic cable doesn't seem worth it.
That means I'll probably be spending more time with the Internets for the next few days, although sitting at the computer is way harder on my back than lying on the couch watching television is, so maybe not. I guess I'll have to do a lot of reading. Too bad most of my books are trapped in boxes (a more primitive technology that nonetheless is also out to get me) in the garage.
This means I'm going to miss Englishmen murdering one another in PBS this Sunday. And I waited so long for that, too! Oh, what a trial first-world problems can be! Guess I'll eat someworms vermicelli.
Anyway, I woke up to no television today, and couldn't arrange transportation to Chico to pick up a new box in time because they close early on Saturday, and Monday is Belabor Day so the place will be closed, and the earliest I can get a new box will be Tuesday. Then once I get it I'll have to go through the whole hookup-setup thing, which is a major arse-pain.
I checked prices of digital-analog converters at K-mart and Radio Shack (the only stores in town likely to have such things) which could serve as a stopgap (such a box would fetch only unscrambled, basic cable channels, so I'd still be missing all the best stuff), but balked when I found they start at nearly fifty bucks and go up from there. If I had that kind of money on hand I could get a decent digital-ready flat screen for no more than four times the price of those simple pieces of crap, and probably save twenty or thirty bucks on electricity over the next year because it would be more energy efficient than my decrepit analog CRT. Fifty bucks for three days of basic cable doesn't seem worth it.
That means I'll probably be spending more time with the Internets for the next few days, although sitting at the computer is way harder on my back than lying on the couch watching television is, so maybe not. I guess I'll have to do a lot of reading. Too bad most of my books are trapped in boxes (a more primitive technology that nonetheless is also out to get me) in the garage.
This means I'm going to miss Englishmen murdering one another in PBS this Sunday. And I waited so long for that, too! Oh, what a trial first-world problems can be! Guess I'll eat some
