silverbear
Semi-Official Loose Cannon
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- 24,195
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When I first moved into my cabin way back in the woods, it was the essence of primitive... I got one TV station, the ABC affiliate out of Harrisonburg... because of the cliff immediately behind my house, I got no radio reception except for the local AM country station...
Then came the happy day that my C-band satellite dish arrived... life was GOOD, back then every channel was unscrambled, in the clear... all I had to do was point my dish at the right satellite...
Then gradually, scrambled signals became the order of the day, and in a few short years, I was paying like 600 bucks a year for a package of no more than 20 channels (maybe 15 of which I actually watched)...
Then my Mom took ill, and moved back in with me... those 20 channels were just not enough programming for the ol' gal, who rarely got out of the house, so we went and got DirecTV... this turned out to be a mixed blessing, as Mom became a junkie for the Game Show Network (who in God's name wants to watch reruns of Richard Dawson on the old Family Feud??), and the Pax Network (Touched By An Angel seemed like it was on at my house at least six times a day)...
Alas, Mom passed away before the next big technological changes arrived Chez Bear... first, they went and PAVED my road... after nearly 25 years of living back there, it was asphalt all the way to my driveway!!! Again, life was good... then, a few months later, I was FINALLY able to get off dialup, on to broadband... life got even better...
And this past weekend, I took the next step forward, as DirecTV finally got around to installing my new hi-def dish and receiver... I went from about 10 high definition channels that I could pull in, to over 70... finally I can take real advantage of that 38 inch hi-def RCA TV I bought six years ago...
So now, I've got the old C-band dish still up at one end of the yard, to the left of it on the balcony off of the front bedroom is the old DirecTV minidish, and to the right of the big dish, on a pole in the front yard, is the new DirecTV minidish... one yard, three dishes; I look like a CIA listening station, LOL...
And the rest of this season, every Cowboys game will be available in high definition for me, even though I haven't forked over for the SuperFan package... the Cowboys-Skins game will be on the DC Fox affiliate, which I get in hi-def, and all of the playoff games will be on network TV, which I get in hi-def...
In addition, it was an electronics Christmas for your friendly local Bear, as I got a new microwave (a necessity, as I killed my old one), a rechargeable cordless mouse (got tired of always replacing batteries on my old cordless mouse), and an illuminated keyboard for my PC... my old keyboard was also wireless, and this one isn't, but y'know, I always used the keyboard in the same place, so I figure that's not a big sacrifice... throw in a coupla new toner cartidges for my laser printer, and that was my Christmas, basically... but I'm really enjoying all of them...
If life gets any better, I won't be able to STAND myself...
Then came the happy day that my C-band satellite dish arrived... life was GOOD, back then every channel was unscrambled, in the clear... all I had to do was point my dish at the right satellite...
Then gradually, scrambled signals became the order of the day, and in a few short years, I was paying like 600 bucks a year for a package of no more than 20 channels (maybe 15 of which I actually watched)...
Then my Mom took ill, and moved back in with me... those 20 channels were just not enough programming for the ol' gal, who rarely got out of the house, so we went and got DirecTV... this turned out to be a mixed blessing, as Mom became a junkie for the Game Show Network (who in God's name wants to watch reruns of Richard Dawson on the old Family Feud??), and the Pax Network (Touched By An Angel seemed like it was on at my house at least six times a day)...
Alas, Mom passed away before the next big technological changes arrived Chez Bear... first, they went and PAVED my road... after nearly 25 years of living back there, it was asphalt all the way to my driveway!!! Again, life was good... then, a few months later, I was FINALLY able to get off dialup, on to broadband... life got even better...
And this past weekend, I took the next step forward, as DirecTV finally got around to installing my new hi-def dish and receiver... I went from about 10 high definition channels that I could pull in, to over 70... finally I can take real advantage of that 38 inch hi-def RCA TV I bought six years ago...
So now, I've got the old C-band dish still up at one end of the yard, to the left of it on the balcony off of the front bedroom is the old DirecTV minidish, and to the right of the big dish, on a pole in the front yard, is the new DirecTV minidish... one yard, three dishes; I look like a CIA listening station, LOL...
And the rest of this season, every Cowboys game will be available in high definition for me, even though I haven't forked over for the SuperFan package... the Cowboys-Skins game will be on the DC Fox affiliate, which I get in hi-def, and all of the playoff games will be on network TV, which I get in hi-def...
In addition, it was an electronics Christmas for your friendly local Bear, as I got a new microwave (a necessity, as I killed my old one), a rechargeable cordless mouse (got tired of always replacing batteries on my old cordless mouse), and an illuminated keyboard for my PC... my old keyboard was also wireless, and this one isn't, but y'know, I always used the keyboard in the same place, so I figure that's not a big sacrifice... throw in a coupla new toner cartidges for my laser printer, and that was my Christmas, basically... but I'm really enjoying all of them...
If life gets any better, I won't be able to STAND myself...
