DirecTV has fixed my TV. The problem is that it wasn't broken.

In an effort to really piss me off, DirecTV succeeded in fixing something that wasn't broken and I'm left with no TV tonight.

Starting around 3:00 am this morning, the receivers in my living room and kitchen started trying to download "new software" and all it seemed to do was erase what software was resident on the receivers and then cut them off. After hitting the reset button every hour for 4 hours, I called DirecTV and had my first "fight" with their automated system that wanted me to talk to a machine. No matter how much I talk to those things, it cannot understand the words coming out of my mouth.

After really getting frustrated, I proceeded to hit "0" on my phone and guess what? I got a real person. Not only did I get a real person, but I got one whose first language was English and he was in Indiana. I was almost speechless as I let in to him with both barrels, which I sincerely apologized about later on, when I got to thinking that this guy could be working from a jail cell somewhere. But hey, at least I could understand the words that were coming out of his mouth.

To make a long story short (I know, too late), he believes that my dish is misaligned (something I have been telling them about since Hurricane Wilma's eye blew over my house in 2005) and may be the reason why I loose reception with just one drop of rain and why neither TV is getting the update.

We'll see. They are due sometime between sunrise and sunset tomorrow. The computer voice, when it called me about an hour ago to confirm the appointment, asked if some other time would be better, I almost started to look for the moonrise and moonset times and then just thought I'd better leave that one alone.