I went to the Sunnyvale Fry's and asked the reps if they had any S3s in stock - two of them individually pointed me to the stack of S2s at the end of one isle and said that's all they had. Before abandoning the search, we walked past the isle that has all the DVD recorder boxes and there was a stack of 5 S3s. The boxes were dusty - so they've been sitting somewhere for a while. No one in the store knew they were there, so don't give up after a rep tells you they don't have them.
We then drove down to Best Buy in Sunnyvale and got a similar story - until we asked a rep to check stock. He did and found they had two in stock - he uttered "Oh my God!" when he found that. He went searching for them and they were still shrink-wrapped in the loading bay. I bought one and got the 4 year replacement warranty for $29.99 which is undoubtedly incorrect, but a great deal until their systems are updated.
A quick trip to the Comcast Cupertino office to get cable cards was not that successful. All three women working there ended up assisting with the order. They had a hard time understanding what it was and how to charge for it. In the end, they set-up an appointment for a tech to come and install the cards, claiming they didn't have them at that office. They are charging $15.99 for the tech to come out and they claim the first cable card is free, but I have to pay $6.95/mo for the second one - as a second outlet fee. I decided to live with that since they will remove that charge (and a couple of others) once I get the Tivo set-up and return their (junky) DVR.
