Gazing At The Television Skies, Looking For The Big Fucking Killer

We dragged our lazy ass to the TimeWarnerCable office today to exchange the set-top box for a dual-tuner HD DVR. (Body clock does not allow us to catch morning shows, or Ellen, among other reasons.) We exchanged boxes, got the new (only to us, judging from the scratches on it) box to the bunker, reconnected the web of cabling, & plugged it in. We'll assume that you've already figured the effing thing didn't power up. As we'd been told to call & have the new box activated, we were hoping that it wasn't supposed to turn on until authorized, though we knew better. Nonetheless we called; customer service guy confirmed it should be on, & said he'd save us the trouble of getting a new box by having someone wake us sometime between 0800 & 1100 tomorrow. Nice of them to save us the trouble, but did nothing about the possibility of being w/o narrow-casting all evening. (Not a positive prospect for us, though it might have gotten us to watch some of the DVDs we've had lying around for a while.)

Here's where the cosmic coincidence comes in: The cable was installed just about a yr. ago. The day after it was put in, the installer's overseer dropped by to see how things went (Snoop-ass Nazi mofo, off the worker's backs!) noticed that the box we'd been given wasn't the best non-DVR one available, & got us a better one from his truck. When he hooked it up he used the already connected AC cable from the first box, & left the cable from the newer box. (A $5.00 charge to customers if it's not returned.) We hope you can see where this is going, because we don't want to be writing for unimaginative cretins.

Strange, though not so weird as to convince us there are supernatural forces at work. OR ARE THERE?

Obviously items will not be appearing w/ great frequency here as we examine our now functional, new-to-us toy, & attempt to defeat any & all theft of intellectual property limitations. Suggestions welcome.