I'm with Tony. Most likely held the knob "in" too long, or something similar happened to delay the "release" code.. turning the short-press into a longpress, and causing the "hate artitist" code to be issued.

I'd suggest ignoring it and enjoying XMAS instead. But if you're obsessed, then try reproducing it with a few HUNDRED attempts on the remote control. AFTER trying that, you could turn on ir_debug in config.ini (a Hijack option) and try to get it to happen again while capturing output from the serial port.

-ml