We are mere weeks away from the Ides of March, yet the only stabbing in the back that I will be anticipating is the veritable reaming I will be experienced at the hands of DirecTV's exorbitant subscription policies. I digress. Let me first say, with slight hesitation, that I am a DirecTV customer. I am a subscriber to the Premium package [whose Premium features are often clouded by lost signals, frequently failing satellite comm., and , occasionally, no response from the DirecTV HR10-250 receiver altogether.]

Alas, I am at the mercy of the DirecTV conspirators, as I will be taking on yet another subscription to satiate the needs of my girlfriend, since she cannot seem to tolerate my Tivo habits, and will require a separate cable connection to watch her favorite TV shows while, presumably, mine are being recorded.

Well, well. At first, I anticipated that this would be a relatively simple dilemma to solve, as I imagined a second line of coax could be run from the satellite and into a second receiver (which one can easily obtain with very little ingenuity, from eBay). But, my theory proves to be a pipe dream, as one not only does one require a second receiver, but a second 'access card' that must be purchased from DirecTV, and DTV has switched to a leasing model for their receivers. So one must purchase an entire second subscription to DirecTV to a tune of $500+ per year plus the cost of leasing the second receiver for a fully serviceable and independent second TiVO station.

Essentially, at the moment, I am left with simple watch and record functionality until my order for a separate receiver with activated access card arrives at the homestead.

*Sigh* and I was really looking forward to that tax refund check.

~dm

Into the Mantle is a groundbreaking, short-form podcast featuring the opinions of Darius March and Blake Carlile.

Into the Mantle, the podcast is part of the larger ITM movement, consisting of IntotheMantle.com, our blogs, our visual and aural contributions to the larger movement known as Web 2.0. First we ought to explain Into the Mantle, the concept, as it applies to our valiant efforts in making Web 2.0 a little brighter, more cohesive, more metatextual, and perhaps more scientific. We arrived at our name, Into The Mantle when we originally convened to record an experimental podcast a few months back. The metaphor is really one that communicates how we would like to approach any number of topics at hand. We have all heard the phrase digging deep as a reference to how one may delve into a subject, and we want to delve deep into a topic, get to the 'core' of the issue as it were, but not miss out on any of the scenery along the way. From this, I arrived at the reference of the 'Mantle', the part of the earth that is below the earth's crust, but not yet reaching a middle, or inner, core. Hence, Into the Mantle is a metaphor for How we would like to address the topic at hand: Delving deep into the core of the subject, but not missing any of the exciting, dangerous, or controversial details that we may encounter on the way. Now for the Why: The devil's in the details!