I honestly can’t stand moving. Don’t get me wrong. It’s nice to move into a new place once in awhile and get a fresh start on things. You get to clean out your property (and all the junk that you might have accumulated over the months and years) and you get to upgrade certain things in life. But sometimes the bad just outweighs the good. I hate the packing, the actual move itself, the relocation of services, the unhappy discovery that things don’t quite work like they used to, and of course, the unpacking.

It’s been nearly a week and a half since we’ve moved into our new place and we’re still unpacking at this moment. Worst of all – there’s STILL no Internet here at home. Why? Well you can thank Verizon for that (sense the sarcasm?). My DSL provider is Speakeasy (which I love) but as most of you DSL users know, there’s usually several other companies involved during the installation process. My DSL order has been stuck waiting for a Verizon order to complete which is slated for March 20th. Mind you – this schedule was set back on March 7th. As a result, I’m forced to wait at least 13 days for Verizon to do their work in order for me to get DSL service via Speakeasy. It makes you wonder – if I had ordered DSL service through Verizon – would it still take so long?

During the first few days of living in our new home, I decided to try out DIRECTV satellite service. I’ve used cable for most of my adult life so switching to satellite was certainly an exciting moment for me. However, if you live in an apartment building, then you’ll know the pains in getting DIRECTV working in your home. Most apartment management companies won’t allow their tenants to install a satellite dish (the typical BS is about keeping their apartment pleasant looking). However, the new place we were moving into had a dish in place already so all I needed was a receiver from DIRECTV. Cool right?

So I headed off to Best Buy and purchased a $99 HD receiver from DIRECTV. I called into DIRECTV and after about 30 minutes of convincing them that I did NOT need permission from my apartment landlord, I was up and running with digital satellite service. However, it turns out that I had one small problem – The dish installed was a 3 LNB dish as opposed to the 5 LNB dish recommended by DIRECTV. This translates into support for all HD channels EXCEPT for local HD channels. There was an external HDTV antenna installed so I hooked up the antenna to the HD receiver’s on board ATSC tuner. This worked well for most of the network stations except for NBC and FOX. Sorry folks but that was a deal killer for me. Without Fox in HD, I can’t watch 24 nor American Idol in HD which sorry to say is horrible for me and my wife. You might be wondering why I didn’t upgrade the dish to a 5 LNB dish? Well my apartment complex wouldn’t let me perform that action.

So after a few days with DIRECTV, I decided to cancel the service and switch back to Time Warner Cable. Ironically, TWC was out to my place within 10 hours of me placing the order. Nice. Everything works well and the new DVR box from Motorola works (although it certainly would never be mistaken for TiVo). In the few days that I experienced DIRETV, there were a couple of things that I wasn’t crazy about. Channel switching takes a bit too long for my tastes. The DIRECTV guide stinks if you ask me.  I can’t stand their groupings and I’m often left wondering which network is for which grouping. Blah.

Don’t get me wrong of course. Moving isn’t necessarily all bad news for me. I did get the opportunity to upgrade some of the electronics used in my home – notably a new television set, a new A/V receiver, and a new remote control. I’ll be writing about the new hardware shortly (once my Internet connection stabilizes) but if you’re curious – we got ourselves a 46 inch 1080p LCD display from Samsung, a new Onkyo HDMI switching receiver, and a new Logitech Harmony Remote Control.

Oh.. if my Internet is down, how am I able to write? You can thank my neighbors and their unsecured wireless network(s).

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