Fully deployed

So the cable guy showed up right down the middle of my designated time window.  After we got installed and cabled, he sat with me Indian-style in my living room floor with the remote and said “OK man, you ain’t gonna believe this.”  He went over the ins and outs of the remote, DVR operation, and the like, and we oohed and aahed over the HD picture.  He was a super-nice fellow; the sort who restores your faith in humanity a bit.

So everything is in place, with 48 hours to spare on the start of football season, and four weeks to spare on the release of Halo 3.  I have my remote control all reprogrammed and everything.  God bless the Internet and the kindess of strangers (there were perfect config files for my television remote and the Xbox 360 media remote out there free for the taking).

The few disappointments, all minor:

• The optical output on my television is nearly useless.  It will only pass a digital signal from the coaxial antenna/cable connection.  It will pass only analog audio from an HDMI input.  It’s worked around now with an unplanned cable purchase or two, but it sure seems like that output ought to pass whatever is going into the television.
• The Xbox 360 is only slightly quieter than a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant.  (Hat tip to Clark W. Griswold’s Uncle Lewis.)
• Every night so far, I’ve been too tired to play Gears of War, which is definitely only playable after the boys have gone to bed.

All in all, I’m delighted.  I’m glad I finally did it.

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