[opendtv] Don't supersize me / Or: Why one discerning viewer refuses to part with his small but beloved television

Don't supersize me
Or: Why one discerning viewer refuses to part with his small but 
beloved television

By Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff  |  July 23, 2006

My editor recently queried me about my TV set. Because I'm the 
Globe's TV critic, I think he expected to hear a lot of home-theater 
geek-talk involving 50-something inches of plasma, a pounding, 
hyperreal surround of sound, and cup holders on a sleek row of 
viewing chairs. And now that Panasonic has loosed a 103-inch flat 
screen upon the world and living rooms are morphing into multiplexes, 
he had the right.

But I could only answer him with my best fake-smart face, which 
involves raised eyebrows, a slight nod, and a neutral ``hmm." Because 
I had absolutely no idea how much TV I actually owned. While I do 
gawk covetously at the flashing walls of screens in department stores 
(which always seem to use eye-tickling animation to seduce), I 
haven't bought a new TV set in more than a decade. I believe I may 
have christened my current box with an episode of ``Melrose Place." 
And it was during the pre-Locklear era, so we're talking the early 
1990s. Back when VHS was relevant.

My TV is the size of a large throw pillow, and it's as fat as last 
year's Kirstie Alley. It protrudes from both the front and the back 
of its wooden table, and it refuses to blend in with the pictures on 
the walls. With a pair of chintzy, trebly stereo speakers popping 
like dormers from its plastic sides, my TV takes an equal-opportunity 
approach to the aural experience. That means it makes a Steven 
Spielberg or Ridley Scott movie sound as magical as, say, Brookline 
Access Television.

For the record, I dug out my elusive tape measure and learned that my 
TV screen is but a mere 20 inches. My only nod to TV tech has been a 
humming TiVo machine, my TV's loyal sidekick, the Robin to its 
Batman, the Randy to its Earl, which enables me to remove my TV IV on 
occasion. As John Lennon might have said, ``Life is what happens to 
you when you're busy setting your DVR."

I'm proud of my modest machine -- perversely so, some would say. I 
love it the way it is. My trusty TV has become a matter of principle 
to me, and I stubbornly resist buying all the bells and whistles, the 
mighty hardware that makes bells clang deafeningly and whistles 
pierce eardrums. I have no wish to run mistakenly for my own phone 
when the counter-terrorism unit is bustling on ``24." I just don't 
need to enter the high-tech awesomeness contest. And it's not because 
I'm nostalgic, or old-school, or cheap, or lazy, or anti-Best Buy, or 
anti-Tweeter. I'm just focused.

...

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2006/07/23/dont_supersize_me/

 
 
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