Oh, so anyway, I turn on the ol' television and flip through the channel guide, and HBO-HD (channel 9,440 -- I kid you not) has got a message attached to it saying it's moving to another channel on the 18th and I "may" need an equipment upgrade.

So I call up Dish Network, and I swear I knew exactly how the whole conversation would go before I even dialed.

Since I have the old, old HD receiver, the model 6000, it needs to be upgraded with the 8PSK module to get any of the HD channels.

I bitched at them. I paid seven hundred stinkin' dollars for this piece of crap receiver, and now they're basically forcing me to spend $99 to make it keep working.

Oh, but they have a wonderful deal going right now. If I buy the High Definition Programming pack for $109.89, they said they'd throw in the 8PSK module for free.

Well, I did want those four extra HD channels... so I said okay.

So in six days I can start enjoying HDNet, HDNet Movies, ESPN HD, and Discovery HD, bringing my total number of HD channels to... twelve.

I already get NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX (sort of), PBS, HBO-HD (East), Showtime-HD (East), and HD-PPV.