On Mon, 8 Oct 2012, David Griffith wrote:
  A friend of mine described a time when he found a
cable tech in the
 basement of a new building using what was essentially a shotgun to run
 cable through ducts.  I think it was a blank firing straight into the duct
 with the cable coming in through a wye. 
I have used a crossbow,
and a couple of times, I had my dog pull wire.  He did OK, but nowhere
near as well as a dachshund trained for "earthdog"