Dish Networks Rocks! (Yes, that was sarcasm)

This was a first. Somehow all three of our Satellite receivers managed to lose their marbles today, and turning them off and on was not sufficient to revive them.

I woke up this morning with the local TV news on but no sound on the TV. I checked the TV volume and it was on. So I tried switching channels. Still no sound from the TV station, but the little bloops and bleeps that Tivo makes were clearly audible. Hmmm.

So I grabbed the satellite remote, guessing it must be the receiver. I had once had all the colors turn purple, and at first thought it was the TV, but when I found the Tivo menus were all in their proper colors, turning the satellite receiver off and on fixed it. So, I turned it off, waited a few seconds, and then turned it back on. Sound came back, but it sounded like some sort of demon posession had taken hold of the news anchor. I tried switching it off and back on again, which led to no sound at all again. One more try, back to demon posession. Knowing that the remote was not completely powering the satellite receiver down, I pulled the plug, waited a few seconds, and plugged it back in. Everything back to normal. Cool. Didn't give it much more thought... until I got home from the work at the end of the day.

I switched on the TV in our living room and the satellite receiver was displaying the message that you usually only see when its raining really heavy, indicating that it couldn't find a signal. For awhile, we had a Dish DVR and it used to get in this state all the time. Our other two regular receivers would always be fine, but the DVR would always be showing this "no signal" screen. Generally, we'd have to disconnect the power to get it out of that state.

So I cut the power, waited a few seconds, and switched it back on. It went through finding all its transponders and what not, said it was downloading the program guide information, and then just as it was about to display live television, went back to the no signal screen. Grrrrr! I remembered I'd had a weird problem with the receiver in the bedroom onetime where one of the channels had disappeared from the program guide (the History Channel. Yes, the History Channel! I LOVE THE HISTORY CHANNEL!!!!). I remembered I had futzed around with the menus in the Installation section and found something that said "QAM Scan/Signal", and after letting it go through that, it added History Channel back. So I decided to try that again with the Living Room. Sure enough, after going through that (it took a few minutes) Mr. Satellite receiver was happy.

I thought it strange that two of our three receivers had gotten screwed up on the same day. Which made me think maybe I should check the third receiver, in the office. Sure enough, it was in the same hosed-up state as the one in the living room. Tried just disconnecting and reconnecting the power and it did the exact same thing as the receiver in the living room. Did the QAM Scan/Signal and was really proud of myself, until the receiver said "Your Smart Card Is Not Authorized to Receive This Channel". Doh! Fortunately, that appeared to be resolved by just waiting a couple of minutes, and then it decided, that I was indeed entitled to view the programming I pay a ridiculous fee for each month.

I don't know what kind of weird mojo occurred that managed to screw up all three of our receivers. I assume it was some kind of update from Dish, although I suppose maybe it could have been a power surge. I should mention that we're in an apartment and they have this weird setup where instead of having your own Dish, there's one "community" Dish that pulls the signal and distributes it throughout the community. Supposedly that was why we had so many problems with the DVR. I don't totally understand it, but apparently it's not as simple as just distributing the signal from the one Dish to everybody's receiver, there's some kind of special switching equipment and (buggy) software involved.

Unfortunately I don't have any good alternatives. There's no cable available in this complex (I guess because of whatever deal they have with Dish). And we don't have line of sight to put up our own dish. Good times.

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Code Monkey Goes To Concert

Last night we went to see Jonathan Coulton in concert in downtown Atlanta. It was a great show! Donna went mostly to humor me, but she ended up having a great time as well. I first heard of JoCo (as all of us "cool" people call him) a couple of years ago when we bought a CD of his for one of my nephews, for Christmas I think. At the time, I wasn't familiar with him and unfortunately didn't really investigate or listen to any of his songs. Then, I'm not sure, maybe a year or so ago I heard his song Code Monkey on a podcast. That song became my anthem and I became a devoted fanboy. After listening to a few more of his songs I bought the "box set" of pretty much all of his music.

I was really excited when I found out he was coming to Atlanta. The venue was downtown, which I generally try to avoid like the plague, particularly on a Friday, but I decided it was worth the sacrifice, and I was right. I had seen entries on his blog when he posted other tour dates that Paul and Storm usually appear with him, and would be at this show at well. I wasn't sure what a Paul and Storm was but I found out last night ... and they are awesome as well. So now I have a whole bunch of other slightly bizarre, perhaps even deranged music to start listening to.

Honestly I think it is the most fun I've had at any concert I've ever gone to. It was an intimate setting and there was a lot of energy in the crowd. And JoCo was just the nicest guy, he hung out after the show and talked with people, and as you can see, I managed to get a picture with him. I'm sort of an introverted, shy person at times and I really had to force myself to go talk to him but I really wanted to and was so glad I did. I told him I was a Code Monkey (as proclaimed by my T-Shirt) and was really glad he sang the song at the show. He asked me what languages I programmed in and for a couple of seconds I couldn't actually remember any. Did I mention I was a little excited and nervous?

I wish every Friday night could be like that. Good times ... if you are into slightly, oh, shall we say, different and highly entertaining music, you should definitely surf over to his site and check out some of his songs. You can listen to just about all his music for free right on his site, and he also sells nice, juicy DRM-free MP3's for your downloading pleasure.

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