Ready to come home

I do like Rapid City. It's a nice town, big enough but not too big and it's in a great area with lots to do and see. However, I have an extreme dislike of this weather. It's snowing already. So, I got 2 months this year without having the heater on. July and August. That's it. It's so freaking cold outside right now and nasty, wet snow is falling. I would say that it's okay because I have my new huge HD TV to distract me. BUT! But the snow is so wet and heavy that it is sticking to our dish and I have no signal. And let's talk about that stupid dish.

When we moved here we switched from Dish Network, which we'd had for years and been happy with, to DirecTV. Big mistake. We switched on a whim because when I tried to call Dish Network I apparently dialed a wrong number and ended up on the phone listening to a spiel from DirecTV. It sounded really good, especially the whole NFL Sunday Ticket idea. The guy told me we could move our dish for free from the temporary house where we were living to our new house (whenever we found one), the installation was totally free, that we would be able to get local channels, and some other crap that turned out not to be true. When we did finally get a house and try to move it over, they charged us about $50 and they charged us for other stuff that the dude signing me up told me was FREE! I should have known at the time that it sounded too good to be true. I bitched to a supervisor and was given some money off after I gave her the name and direct number of the moron that signed us up. Gee, thanks. Then, when the man came to hook up the new receiver in our new house, everything went well until I got my bill. They charged me for a DVR when I had ordered a plain Jane regular ol' receiver. I called and got the run around. They told me that I had e-mailed them and upgraded my order. I didn't even have internet access and my computer was still in storage at the time! No, I said, I did nothing of the sort. Well, let us research this and call you back. You do that. Oh, we're sorry for the miscommunication. Apparently what happened was the hookup dude only had a DVR with him and instead of going to get the other one or asking me what I preferred, he just upgraded my order for me and made it look like it was my request! I promptly told them that I WAS NOT paying the extra and that they could stick their DVR where the sun don't shine if they didn't like it. They decided to just charge me for a regular receiver. Then we find out that we don't get the local channels at all because of some kind of non-contract business. Whatever. Why did the guy tell me I would? So, we pay $50 extra per month 6 months out of the year for NFL Sunday Ticket so that we can watch our favorite teams play. What happens in January at Super Bowl time you ask? Nothing happens. We can't get the Super Bowl because one of the major networks has the rights to it, which would be a local channel. We have to go somewhere else to watch it! Isn't that peachy? Now, this will really kill ya. I bought this big-ass TV and wanted DirecTV HD so that the picture would be awesome. $200 for the new HD receiver that I don't own. It's a lease. But, the channels that are HD are incredibly clear. You can see everything and I mean everything! However, last night Vince was recording his NFL Sunday Ticket games. His team is the Redskins if you didn't know. We always let the game play for a little bit before we start watching so that we can FF through the commercials. That DVR has spoiled us beyond belief. We go to watch it and the screen is black except for a little box at the bottom that says that channel is not purchased. I call DirecTV and ask them what's up. Oh, well, in order to get our NFL Sunday Ticket games in HD, it's gonna cost us more because we will have to upgrade to the NFL Sunday Ticket SuperFan package. Are you kidding me? So, the $300 that we already pay for the games, plus the $200 HD receiver, plus the $10 a month HD service, plus the $50 a month for our regular programming isn't enough to watch football in HD?!? That was it. Vince lost it. He demanded to talk to a supervisor, but after waiting on hold for a few minutes, he hung up. As soon as our contract is up, we are dropping DirecTV so fast their heads are gonna spin. V ended up missing half of his game because he wasn't recording it on the plain Sunday Ticket channel too. Do not, I repeat, do not ever switch to DirecTV. They will scam you until your head explodes and even then I bet they have a charge for that.