Let me just say that the week has been every bit as ugly as I promised on Monday, and it’s showing no signs of letting up until, well, mid-December.

That said, I’m now announcing that after seven years as a satellite household, we’ve made the switch back to cable. The primary factors were cost and customer service.We’re saving a little money, getting better internet service (by bundling and ditching the DSL), and we no longer have to deal with Dish Network’s special “once we install it, you’re on your own” brand of customer support.

I have to admit the Dish Network DVR interface runs circles around Time Warner’s, both in appearance and customization options. But Time Warner has some plusses as well, like the “start over” feature on some channels (I don’t really know how well this works yet) and the ability to watch one show while recording another. And it’s also nice that we can pretty much connect as many TVs as we want to ghetto cable at no extra charge.

The switch might have been more traumatic if I watched TV more than I currently do. The biggest drama so far was that the installer spent almost eight hours wiring our house, and then made me jump start his truck before he’d leave. Glad I didn’t have anything to do on Tuesday. Oh wait. I did.

There it was in Food Lion tonight, reminding me that after Sunday, Opus will be no more. I’ll miss him despite the fact that he was never quite the same once Milo and Binkley deserted him almost twenty years ago, ending the best comic strip that ever was. I wish him all the herring snacks he can eat in whatever future life he may have.

Farewell, rust-based video:

Victor Co. of Japan Ltd., better known as JVC, has stopped producing VHS-format videocassette players and will end global sales when existing inventories run out. Panasonic Corp. and others no longer make the once-ubiquitous machines, so JVC’s exit rings the curtain down on major Japanese manufacturers’ presence in the VCR market.

It’s gonna be a really long, ugly week, so I’ll get these out of the way right now lest you not hear from me again for several days:

• Is it really sad that I didn’t even realize the World Series was going on until I realized the DVR hadn’t recorded The Simpsons last night? And that I still don’t care?
• Cool download via Scrubbles. This is surely one of the most bizarre albums ever recorded, featuring Hugo Montenegro (who wrote the theme from “I Dream of Jeannie” among other classics), an early Moog synthesizer, and covers of such groovy hits as “Dizzy”, “MacArthur Park”, and “Touch Me”, not to mention “My Way”. I remember it very well, as it may have been the first 8-track my parents ever owned. I think it came with one of my dad’s Buicks. For some reason, it sort of gives me visions of the cast of The Mothers-in-Law on acid.
• Via my hubby: The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. It’s a fundamentalist’s nightmare.
• New site from the creator of Charlotte Eats: Charlotte Ads.
• And don’t forget the newly remodeled Diners of the World, to which I may even be contributing soon.

Back to the grindstone…