Satellite TV box fires ... and new sports channels

Heres' a public service announcement to (illegal) satellite TV users from Shanghaiist: Don't put stuff on top of your satellite receiver box.

We had gotten in the habit of placing the occasional DVD or DVD sleeve on top of our satellite box, which is covered by a bunch of small vents. Not long ago, while working at our computer (surprise, surprise) at around 1 am, we heard a popping noise coming from near the TV (which was plugged in but powered off at the time). We turned around and saw smoke and sparks coming out the top of the satellite box (which was plugged in and powered on). We raced over, unplugged everything and swept all the stuff on top of the satellite box to the floor. It was pretty scary, especially considering we normally would have been in bed by that time, and we have no idea what would have happened if we weren't in the room to put a stop to things.

So just be careful satellite users. Your illegal TV habit likely won't get you in trouble with the authorities, but it could burn your house down. (The don't-lay-stuff-on-top-of-electronic-equipment-with-vents suggestion likely holds true with legal devices, too.)

Luckily, we had a spare satellite TV box (doesn't everyone?) and when we hooked it up, while all the channels were mislabeled, we appeared to have two sports channels we previously had never seen before, and we thought we should almost burn down our landlord's home more often. But apparently it wasn't magic that made the channels appear , it was some suit in the Philippines. The channels are BEN Sports 1 and BEN Sports 2 (Chinese name 明哥体育台) and they now come standard on Dream Network satellite TV. This is very good news — they show live feeds of a variety of sports from a variety sports networks around the world. Some people have wondered about the legality of these channels because they often just show the ads from whatever network they happen to be showing (and when they don't, they play the song "Yeah" by Usher ... over and over again). Some people are also saying that there are BEN Sports 3, 4 and 5 — bring 'em on!

Right now, we are watching live coverage of the Dallas Cowboys vs. the Green Bay Packers, an NFL game that, because of the network it's being shown on, isn't viewable by quite a few people in America. Take that, bitches!

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