And the angels sang

So ... I'm pretty much convinced that, as wonderful as DTV is for the rest of the world, we who are nestled in the valley between the mountains will be a long time in being able to appreciate it.

I bought my converter box with my government-funded coupon (read: I'd already paid for the coupon, so why not use it) months and months ago, and despite clever Antenna Gymnastics throughout my living room that involved intricate poses with my television, antenna and digital converter box, each time I did a scan for available channels, I came up empty handed. And frustrated. And slightly out of socket where some joints were concerned. And very much out of humor.

The kind but dim-witted folks who run the dtvanswers.com site were bold enough to suggest that in addition to my $50 converter box, I might need a more powerful antenna. A "Smart Antenna," they called it. With printed Q&A page in hand, I trundled to Wal-Mart in search of a Smart Antenna, which is as existent as the Tooth Fairy, which is to say that it may exist, but I'll never see one. Frustrated all over again, I opted for the most expensive set of rabbit ears I could find, set them up and performed The Antenna Olympics, Round 2.

No dice.

Returned the antenna, swore a good bit, cursed the idea of a digital transition, and gave up.

Until this weekend.

On a whim, I did a channel scan, cynically expecting the zero at the bottom of the screen to remain unchanged ... until a "2" suddenly and magically popped up.

I have two - TWO! - channels found by my digital coverter. I swear I heard voices singing a jubilant chorus. Or maybe that was just me singing. Out loud. They're both Wyoming PBS, so I now have three PBS signals (Count: 2 from Wyoming, 1 from Colorado, all usually with different content on each) ... Woo!

Two channels.

DTV sucks, but it sucks a little bit less this week.