Nils Lorvick

I must be getting lazy in the blogosphere again. No new content in the last couple of weeks, so here it is. You’ve been waiting for it: I’m a Dish Network customer.

I’ve never had satellite before, this is a new experience for me. Ever since I was little I’ve always had cable TV as the method of delivery. I couldn’t say no, cable just raised the rates for expanded basic by $7 a month. I don’t get any new channels, or any better picture quality. I’ve already dumped cable as my Internet provider, it was only a matter of time before I found a better deal than cable.

The things that have kept me from getting the dish before have been; reliabilty in weather, digital picture quality, renting an apartment instead of owning a home and price.

Dish Network released new programming lineups on August 1st. They now offer 100% HD-only service. In other words, you don’t have to subscribe to the normal standard definition packs to get HD channels. They happened to offer channels in HD that we happen to watch most of the time plus our local channels in HD. We now get 40 national HD channels, plus our locals for $15 less a month than we were paying with cable, which had no national HD channels for that price. In fact, it would’ve been at least $15 more a month to get any additional HD option with cable (cable box and channel fees). So technically we’re paying over $30 a month less than cable if it had the same options; works for me.

The install was last Friday, and went very smoothly. He showed up in the middle of the time that I had selected, always a good start. I also managed to get the install scheduled less than 2 days from when I ordered the service, even better! He was in and out in about 2 hours, he was very polite and knowledgeable when I asked the obligatory nerd questions.

I’ve had it for almost a week now, haven’t had any signal strength problems, the real test is when a good sized storm rolls through to see if I get “rain fade”. I’m hopeful that I won’t even notice, if not, I’ll just have them come back out and readjust the dish, not a big deal.

I have noticed that the picture quality is a little worse on Dish than cable had. Mainly because I know they are compressing a ton of channels into a small amount of bandwidth. With newer technology that will get better. They did happen to give me an MPEG-4 receiver, which is the replacement to the current MPEG-2 capable receivers. This basically allows DirecTV and Dish Network to have better picture quality with a lot smaller bandwidth requirements. The things I’ve been reading is that MPEG-2 will be phased out in the next few years.

If anything these lower prices help push competition within the industry and is only good for us consumers.

In summary: 2 thumbs up to the service and 1 thumb up for picture quality for Dish Network.

There is a definite lack of common sense in today’s world: (from the BBC)

One of the aims of the Olympics is to raise interest in taking part in sports - but it seems some people are pushing themselves a little too hard.

A gadget helpline has been receiving calls from people wanting to know how to set their cycling and rowing machines to keep up with Olympians.

It’s nice to see people get into the spirit of the Olympic games, but that’s a little delusional.

This marks my first iPhone post. Since I’m oncall I have some spare time on my hands. I grilled some brats this evening. A quick recipe for you:

1 can of inexpensive beer (Miller lite)
Usinger brats (number used will affect how long you cook)
Sauce pan
Water

Put the beer and brats in sauce pan. Preheat your grill. Add water until brats are completely submerged. Boil on high until brats turn gray. Move the brats to the grill on high heat. I usually put my brats on for 3 minutes per side. Serve hot, and you’re done.

I love grilling season!

As serious as the situation is with the air quality in China, I just thought it would be nice to share this lovely video from The Onion.

China Celebrates Its Status As World�s Number One Air Polluter

This is more of a random post than anything. I just would like to say how nice it is to have good neighbors. I hear all sorts of things about people not liking their neighbors, having trouble, etc. There’s nothing like standing outside on a warm summer night, drinking an ice cold beer and chatting with your neighbor about random stuff, just to blow off steam.

I have to be honest, when we first moved to our townhouse in 2006, I wasn’t really all about being sociable with the neighbors at all, especially with people I don’t know; it also doesn’t help that I’m a nerd and we nerds have this ‘like to live in a basement’ mentality. Then we got a dog and that all changed; out of the 8 homes on our street, 6 of them are dog households, that seems to open the door for conversation.

It’s been more of a learning expirience for me, just realizing that since we are living in close proximity, and the home being a ‘fortress of solitude’; it makes sense to be on the best terms with everyone. You look out for their each other to make sure no funny business is going on if their out of town. You can only hope they reciprocate.

I’ve added a poll to find out how you feel about your neighbors, please be honest.

Here’s to good neighbors,  reasons to stay in a neighborhood, and not looking for a way out!