This digital TV conversion was frustrating, expensive

[Jkid]

An interesting opinion piece about the DTV transition experience.
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I am a TV person, so when the notice about the switch to digital TV was posted on the national bulletin board, I not only read it - I took it very seriously. When I was told to get a converter box for each TV in my house, I went straight to the web site where the government was giving out coupons for a $40 discount on each converter box and I sent in for the two coupons I was entitled to. I had my converter boxes well before the original February starting date, so I was ready for the changeover from analog to digital TV. I connected one box to the rather small, very old TV in what I like to call the craft room - the very room my cats like to call the litter box room. Then the launch of digital TV was postponed until June.

I left the craft/litter box room TV hooked up because it was a lot of work getting it into that hooked up state. The TV sits on the craft table, the only outlet is behind the craft table, and the space under the craft table is taken up by a lot of boxes. That meant a lot of box moving and even more crawling around under the table to hook the converter box to the VCR to the TV and back to the converter box and then make sure everybody was plugged into that one and only electrical outlet which was behind the boxes under the craft table. I am not even going to mention the necessity of making sure there was a continuing supply of electricity to the pencil sharpener and the electric broom’s battery charger because I’m pretty sure it is illegal to have that many things plugged into a single outlet!
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Source: http://millelacscountytimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2221&Itemid=34

I'll not spoil the ending, but it involves satellite. Hopefully he got the cheapest no-promo price and hopefully he was not upsold.