Direct TV Dish

Sure, out here on the West Coast we have these great, cheeky commercials that poke fun at competing technologies, those ads that point to the techno-wars between satellite dish and cable companies, including ComCast cable and the Direct TV dish, for example. One commercial, for instance, features a husband and wife: the wife is coming home from work, sees a huge hole in the tree, big enough for the satellite dish to send signals through, while the husband sits in the living room watching his TV and drinking from a container he rests n the tree cut-out table he has fashioned. Another commercial features a couple who are implicitly husband and wife or live-in boyfriend and girlfriend. In tandem they speak, as if to an interviewer (the television-viewing audience), and say things such as, “When it rained…the cable went out.” “When the wind blew…the cable went out.” [Or maybe it was the dish; I can’t recall exactly.]

While I didn’t do so intentionally or all that consciously, I found the opportunity to test both technologies. First, when I was living in an in-law, cottage type of unit, since the whole house was already wired for it, I subscribed to cable. I ended up spending a lot of money, as the way the company is set up—ahem—you have to buy the basic/standard package. Then, if you want to get any paid movie channels, you have to buy the superstar whatever package. But in order to get the superstar package you have to have the basic, first. I had fallen in love with a fantastic HBO show called “Six Feet Under”—for its writing, casting, acting, and ongoing unique and intriguing drama. So I had to get the enhanced package.

I don’t know if I was paranoid or overreacting, but the cable would go out on Sundays, the one night the show was on. Or it would go out late Monday night and take terrifying hours to come back. This happened a lot and it happened when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

I moved in with a family, next, waiting for my ideal living situation to come up. They had a Direct TV dish—in a town where the wires are all above ground and the trees are still more in population than the wires or the Direct TV dishes, and where the weather is typically violent…windy, rainy, etc.. In other words, when it rained, the Direct TV dish went out, then would adjust itself by reloading, if you will, by reconnecting…in a matter of minutes. When the wind blew, the Direct TV dish went out. And when nothing was inclement or disastrous, sometimes, yes, the dish went out.

My point, I guess, is that we have super services that make themselves accessible and available, that spoil us with possibilities—hundreds of channels, friendly (usually) troubleshooters, and high definition and other appealing features. But we also have an overpopulation of humans and gadgets, unpredictable flora and fauna (that falls in predictable but harsh weather conditions), and a margin for error or failure that is inevitable enough to fallible humans creating, offering, running, and maintaining the technology we crave/depend on…enough, that is, to drive us nuts when we settle in to watch a 50-dollar-a-week show that is “sorry…temporarily unavailable.”