Sometimes My Impatience Pays

When Susan discovered that upgrading to a TiVo HD DVR would be worthless since the thing ridiculously doesn’t work with satellite service, we decided to go with DirecTV’s equivalent, and since it seemed just a matter of swapping out the DTV HD Receiver for the new one I selected the self-install option rather than schedule a service call.

So the new box arrives Thursday night and being eager to get the HD DVR party started I install it only to encounter a roadblock and then find out during a call to customer service that there needs to be two cables going from the multiswitch between the dish to the box — which was a showstopper because the HD receiver only had one and the self-install page of the DTV website made no mention of that little additional cable being required.

So all I could do was schedule an install visit and of course the earliest available was Monday, which I set up — and was going to cost me $49, dammit! To string a freakin’ cable. So all day yesterday that festered and thus on the way home last night I stopped at a Target, bought myself a 100 feet of coaxial cable for $21, and this morning ran it from the multiswitch down the side of the house and underneath it,  then up through the livingroom floor and into the back of the HD DVR receiver.

The next thing my badassness did after admiring my self-install success was save myself the $49 (or at least the $49 minus the $21 I spent on the cable) — not to mention the time off work  spent waiting for the guy to show up and complete the job Monday — by calling and canceling that service visit because I’m Capt. DIY!

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Will

Will Campbell arrived in town via the maternity ward at Good Sam Hospital way back in OneNineSixFour and has never stopped calling Los Angeles home. Presently he lives in Silver Lake with his wife Susan, their cat Rocky, dogs Terra and Hazel, and a red-eared slider turtle named Mater. Blogging since 2001, Will's web endeavors extend back to 1995 with laonstage.com, a comprehensive theater site that was well received but ever-short on capital (or a business model). The pinnacle of his online success (which speaks volumes) arrived in 1997, when much to his surprise, a hobby site he'd built called VisuaL.A. was named "best website" in Los Angeles magazine's annual "Best of L.A." issue. He enjoys experiencing (and writing about) pretty much anything creative, explorational and/or adventurous, loves his ebike, is a better tennis player than he is horr golfer, and a lover of all creatures great and small -- emphasis on "all."