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!