Yeah baby

Okay, awhile ago, I mentioned that the cable network in our area was being rebuilt.
Ongoing situation: basic cable in our non-rebuilt area is a weird hodgepodge of crap and the only way to get a different list of channels is by getting digital cable. Period. We were on digital cable (basically so I could watch the Farscape episodes on rerun every day), but when I got laid off in January we switched to basic. Since then, we just haven’t been able to justify going back. (Because Farscape is only-just-barely not worth the extra 30 bucks a month. It is also not worth 25 bucks for DVDs containing only 2 episodes — sales departments take heed).
This has all changed with the rebuild. For not-much-more, we can have the channels we’re interested in; we just hadn’t gotten around to ordering it. There was some impetus added last week when the rebuild finally kicked in and we dropped down to REAL ‘basic’ service instead of the un-moderated open feed, which cost us Animal Planet and ESPN (nasty, since football season is coming up), but since Trading Spaces was still there (Jackie checked), it wasn’t that bad. According to my wife, the channels died at 24, just after MTV. Life continued.
Then a funny thing happened.
Jackie and Justin had gone off to the store on Sunday afternoon, and I was hanging out on the couch with my good buddy the sinus headache, and I did something I just… never do.
I channel surfed.
With a range from 2 to 23, minus 5 (Skinemax), 14 (Starz), 15 (HBO), and 18 (who knows?), it didn’t take long: I went from the WB’s Sunday Matinee up to Road Rules and back down again.
Then, at the bottom of the dial, I hit the down arrow, and wrapped around to channel 61… and there was something there.
What’s this?
My thumb continued to tap along as I scrolled past a cooking show, WGN, and few other forgettable bits.
50… espanol.
49…
48…
48?
There’s picture. There’s sound. There’s a familiar little saturn-shaped logo in the bottom righthand corner. Score!
The channels died out again at 47.
Somehow, I just couldn’t bring myself to care.