Monday, February 22, 2010

channel hopping


dear readers, here you see the sad remains of our zapper. there has been a certain amount of confusion relating to the telly lately. herself, as part of the ongoing "save money so bonzo can spend it" campaign, has moved her mobile phone provider to a much cheaper one which also meant she could get a free new phone.

as the old mobile phone provider was the same company that provides our broadband this meant that she could change the broadband provider to a cheaper one too, which she did with great speed. what she had not bargained for was that the telly digital box would no longer work as the telly was coming down the broadband wire. himself was somewhat peeved about this as he has a special 'wall to wall football' channel which also ceased to work.

herself settled down to research the issue and came to the conclusion that the only way round this was to buy a new digital box which would allow the 'wall to wall football' to be accessed. however in the meantime there was no telly at all coming down the broadband wire so the peeps had to go back to what is called 'terrestrial telly'. i am not sure why it is called this as the signal comes down a different wire from the roof.

the terrestrial telly has a different zapper to the digital box. this would be fine, but for the fact that the terrestrial zapper was a little the worse for wear, as a result of young dave having tried to change the channel from wall to wall football to the dog whisperer when no-one was looking. unfortunately for the zapper, young dave had to use his teeth, which resulted in a problem with the number 3 button. the peeps were aware that young dave had been at the terrestrial zapper because of the teeth marks, but until now have only been using it to turn the volume up and down so they were unaware of the number 3 button issue.

"why does it keep trying to find channel 333?" wailed himself (terrestrial telly only has the 4 channels).

"i think it must have been when dave chewed it up," said herself, changing to channel 33 with no appreciable effect. the screen was just as blue as before, as was the air.

when himself had left the room, herself got out the toolbox and de-constructed the zapper. this allowed the number 3 button to express itself again and thus gave access to 4 channels. the only snag was that the labels for most of the buttons were on the case. herself gleefully showed himself the newly operative zapper when he re-appeared.

"the only thing is, you can't see what half the buttons are for now, but i'll keep the top bit so we can use it to work out what's what."

i just hope the new box turns up soon...

3 comments:

uphilldowndale said...

I'm 49 and have many talents, but I!don't know how to drive our telly.
Sigh. Nothing is the same since we went digital.

Shrinky said...

Ah, with a problem solver such as herself in your household, there may always be these fresh challenges to face (sympathetic smile). If you walked her enough, she wouldn't have the energy for these fancy ideas of switching providers in the first place..

Anonymous said...

Remotes can be complex! I love the Dog Whisperer!