I hate Setellite

1-17-2008 9:00pm

Whoever thought up satellite dishes needs to be shot. First off once again a "free" perk of the military is more trouble than it is worth. Last week I received a satellite dish (in pieces), decoder and whatever else I need sans cable to get AFN, EXCEPT INSTRUCTIONS!!!!! Or at least coherent ones. I just spent 90 minutes just assembling the damn thing. The instructions look like they are from a rejected writer for Ikea. SO now I am ready to mount it but need another set of hands. So ok complaint one you know what Satellite dish means? It means when the bolt slips it will slide across the dish and shoot across the room. No instructions means every piece you put on is upside down, backwards or needed to be added after another piece. I love that there is a help phone line and email and website EXCEPT that the links on the site are impossible to find, no one tells you what band your rig is AND it is pretty damn conceivable that if I am setting up AFN, I just moved and have neither a phone nor internet oh yeah AND the tech support is stateside. That is really helpful because stateside service members do not get AFN which means if I had a phone I would be paying long distance charges to talk to them. There is also no bracket, I had to go out in a foreign country where I have no car, no language skills and find a store, the department and then the right product. Thankfully for that I had a coworker take me who has been here almost as long as I have been on the planet so that was great. BTW he also hates satellite. Did I mention that I have to have a cable running from the dish to the decoder to my TV? Yeah I am not happy about that at all. I do not know how that will work or how long it will last. I may only end up using it to hear about Typhoons and then unhooking it.

All of this for like 8 channels, one of which is the Pentagon channel so it does not count. The other channels show the same stuff over and over and over and when they aren't repeating they are showing miltary propaganda. Kids you need atleast a 2.0 to graduate a DODDS high school, don't shake your baby, Sexual harassment is wrong, make sure you have your paperwork on those war trophies and Joe lost his chair in the move Thank God for full replacement insurance. I honestly think once again that some person living on a hill thought of an idea and the concept is great but they obviously do not use the service because the execution sucks buttocks!!

I honestly would not be going through all of this if the Japanese did not have such wacky ways of doing things. Today is Friday, I started trying to get cable and internet on Monday. Phone call one they said go to the website or agent and get the contract. Tuesday go to the website and there is no contract so I fill out a request for service. Wait fo a call......... Tuesday afternoon get the call and am told I have to go to the agent. After work I do that and am told I have to wait for them to call again. Waiting........ Thursday afternoon I finally get the call. We discuss options and I tell him what I want, get the prices, we should be ready to go right? WRONG!!! setup appointment for Saturday the 26th (yes a week later) I work for a living so yeah saturday is the only option. Will I have service then?? NO! That is for me to sign the contract and for them to find out what they need to do to get me service. Then on February 2nd (my best friends wedding day) I will FINALLY get service. If I do I have a blog post just for her :) SO yeah until then it will be email from work and MASH reruns or whatever else I want to watch on DVD.

I did get the dish into the room where it will be going on the balcony finally. I set it down and Elsa (the smart one) bolted for the opposite end of the room whereas Gaven tried to turn it into a fort. Oh I love my puppies but I have to agree with Elsa, run, run, run away very fast. AFN is evil. I am to the part where I need an extra person so I may call in some friends or I may wait for the husband to return from being seasick.