Tommorow Is A Long Time

We finally upgraded our TV to get HD this past weekend. It was supposed to be a simple little procedure. Guy comes over and puts up new dish, hooks up new receiver, he leaves and we watch TV a mere 30 minutes or so later. But of course, it's our house, so it didn't go nearly that smooth.
To make a long, somewhat boring story short, I'll use neat-o style approximate timelineish bullets.

• Guy shows up at 11:30, after I woke up at 7:40 on a weekend because the time frame given was between 8am and 12pm.
• 11:32 : Guy starts out by inspecting the side of our house where he claims he's not allowed to put dish. Explains that it's a $70 charge for the underarm roof mount.
• 11:33-11:42 : I think about whether or not I want to pay another $70.
  
• 11:43 : Guy then says that if I cut a small piece of 2x4 to go under eave of house, that'll be fine also.
• 11:45 : I cut 2x4.
• 12:15 : New HDDVR is ready, dish is built and put on roof.
• 12:30 : First reset of HDDVR is complete and the Guy is on the phone with DirecTV to activate new setup
• 12:45 : Activation complete, however, some of the HD channels aren't showing up.
• 1:00 : Reset of HDDVR number 2.
• 1:15 : Inspection of dish installation begins.
• 1:40 : Guy replaces a connector that he claims is bad and won't work with new HDDVR.
• 1:50 : Still not working so Guy Resets HDDVR again.
• 2:15 : After going into the attic to inspect the cabling, comes down and replaces filters on back of new HDDVR
• 2:30 : Tests power of connection to back of HDDVR.
• 2:45 : After discovering that power of signal is 94% all the way to back of HDDVR, concludes that it's possibly the switch outside. (this didn't make sense to me at the time because the switch was between the dish and the HDDVR, so if the signal was strong through the cable, it can't be the switch that's cause the signal loss, but I figure, 'whatever, let him test it.')
• 3:00 : After telling me that it will be $70 for a new switch if that's the problem, he says that he'll test it first.
• 3:25 : Finishes installing new switch, and it's not the problem. (duh!)
• 3:27 : Guy concludes that it must be a bad HDDVR and he has no more in the van, well, actuall he has one more in the van but it's for a customer later that night.
• 3:30 : I show my compassion for other customer by claiming, that if the other box works, then I should be entitled to it because at this point I'm being punished for him grabbing a broken box out of the van. My logic concludes that if he'd grabbed the other box coming into my house, we wouldn't be in this mess.
• 3:35 : Guy is thoroughly confused by my simple logic.
• 3:40 : Guy begins trying to find a new box.
• 4:00 : Guy is unable to find a new box but says that his dispatcher claims that 3 other installers are having the same problem, so it's not their fault, it must be DirecTV.
• 4:15 : Guy puts us on list of people with HDDVR problems and says to give it a couple days to see if it corrects itself and leaves.
• 4:20 : We go run our errands that we wanted to do 3 hours ago

Now all this wouldn't be so much a big deal, but last night it wasn't working still, 21 channels that I'm not getting, and so I called DirecTV. The girl I talked to on the phone says that she's not aware of any satellite problems from this weekend or yesterday. "Hmmmm" I think to myself. She then walks me through a satellite setup to see how my signal is. She claims that based on the information that I'm giving her I shouldn't be able to see anything but snow on my TV. So she sets up service call figuring that it's a bad box and will have a tech bring out a new one to replace the broken one. And there will be no charge for this service.

So I'm going to be going home tonight to see if any of those channels are going yet. Hopefully they're all there and I won't have any other problems. But I have a feeling that it won't be that easy.

But on another note, we found out that Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and My Friends Tigger & Pooh are broadcast in full widescreen HD. That was something unexpected. Also, since you're all so concerned, dear readers, I'll keep you updated as to the resolution of this heinous problem.