EHRMAGERSH NER CHERNELS!

Okay, yeah, so maybe I reacted a little bit like this girl when I finally got the new set top box activated.

(Oddly enough, after being told, "You need to call and talk to a rep," all it took was their automated system - I didn't have to punch ANYTHING in, I just hit one button and it said, "Your refreshable equipment is now refreshed." (And I wasted another 15 minutes hanging on the phone because I couldn't believe that was all it took, and had the tv set on a non existent channel).

BUT OH WOW. It's HD. And while I maybe don't want to see the local newsreaders' faces in HD, or the anatomical cow-part Andrew Zimmern is about to eat in HD, or the goofy re-creations done on "Untold Stories from the ER" in HD, still, it looks really good. (Oh man. Wait until there's some good remastered movie I want to see on TCM. Excellent.)

And I get new channels. Including several not revealed on the posted listing:

Pets TV, which I guess is kind of like Animal Planet but is all about pets (They were showing some show about control officers rescuing mistreated animals when I flipped to it).

And Boomerang! One channel I've been wanting for a long time - Cartoon Network cartoons from the "early days" (like PowerPuff Girls). And older cartoons as well. (I can take or leave the Flintstones and Smurfs re-runs, but it's nice to have another cartoon option.)

And best of all? Massive numbers of high-quality-audio music channels, WITH pictures. There are FIVE classical music channels including an all-baroque channel and an all chamber music channel. I approve of this most highly. (The classical channels have nice pictures from places in Europe. Which is kind of like something I proposed years back as a cable channel: a channel with nice, soothing music, and pretty pictures of different landscapes and places.)

There's also a Celtic music channel. And a big-band jazz channel. And others I haven't even checked out. (This totally makes up for having crummy radio channels on commercial radio here.)

And the on-screen guide is back. And holy cow, will I have to learn new channel numbers. The good news is like channels are grouped - so, for example, the Disney channels, and Hub, and Qubo, and the Cartoon Network channels are all in the 60-70 range of channels. So if you find something you like, there should be other channels you like right close to it.

So okay, maybe some of the people in the hierarchy of this new company are kind of disorganized and don't seem to know what they're doing, but the reorganized lineup is very nice. (And the ladies out at the office I went to today to pick up my box were very nice and helpful. Maybe one of them entered my information already which is why I was able to easily activate the system. I know she typed in all the information about my account number and the serial number of the new box to her computer.)