Consuming Reports: Notes on Purchasing An HDTV For The First Time
Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 1:34PM | by Otter 
I have come to feel that the television is actually watching me. I think it's judging me. I can't imagine people who network their four high definition televisions. This is like inviting four disdainful European supermodels into your home to stare at you disapprovingly while discussing you in some Germanic tongue. And we all know what THAT'S like.The children and my wife want a high definition television for Christmas.
This is a kind of exquisite torture.
I am The Man, and I'm supposed to be, above all, eager to get an enormous television.
But I'm just not. I'm pretty okay with the small box we've had for thirteen years. Football scores get cut off in the upper left corner. In the version of Star Wars reformatted for high definition, as viewed on our television, Han Solo's closeup misses a bit of his right shoulder, which (I remember from the video casette) kind of adds to his emoting, but not so much that I miss it.
But those who feel strongly about this have saved diligently, and I am told, Now Is The Time. Not because it's a sensible purchase but because It Just Is Time.
Today, because I am The Man, I went to go look at televisions.
Hundreds of televisions.
All of them playing a documentary on the making of The Office.
I stared at them knowingly. I walked from side to side to see if their color faded when viewed at an angle.
I scrutinized their pixels like an inspector general hot on the trail of malfeasance. I spoke confidently with a salesman about refresh rates, inputs, HDMI, and networking capabilities.
Note the right shoulder contributing to the performance. Is life worth living without this?
My wife diligently took notes.
But I'm a fairly aggressive introvert, unused to camping out at Best Buy. It drains you of the will to live. And after about ten minutes of this I began to notice more and more how little I wanted an HDTV in my home.
For one thing, I mainly noticed how bad the picture looked on everything not specifically made for high definition. There's something to be said for a small ancient Zenith with a screen just a little bigger than your laptop's. It doesn't conspicuously show that somebody's shoulder is (if the shoulder is allowed to remain on screen) composed of a series of squares. It doesn't put jagged edges on a sensuous eyelash.
You notice less on our television. There's less detail there to notice, and that's not necessarily a bad thing in art. The hyper-reality of our entertainment sometimes leaves the imagination a little impoverished, I think.
That's a lot of money to spend so you can be less satisfied with your picture.
Still, it's high def, so it must be examined. Like all gods, It Just Is What It Is.
[Digression: I do not like the phrase "It is what it is." I want to say instead, "It isn't what it would be if it weren't what it is."]
After a while, the $2,000 Samsung that (early research revealed) looked a lot like the $400 LG. I was earnestly informed that the LED screen I was looking at was far, far better than the LCD screen I had just turned away from.
I looked at one.
I looked at the other.
Okay, yes, I guess... no, wait... Is it?
American consumerism is a little like religion in some ways. There are orthodoxies, there is a certain amount of doing what you're told, believing what you're supposed to against the evidence of your eyes. "This one is better. Really. Trust us. You'll be happier if you just... believe."
Sold.
Or not.
I felt a little like I sometimes do standing in men's rooms, where they position the condom dispenser over the urinal so you have to stare at the ads. There, pissing into the stainless steel trough or whatever, you are given to believe that your happiness for this life is staring back at you. It's judging you. It's not so much asking you to believe in it as it is demanding that you believe in it. Hell and judgment await you. A lonely unsatisfied night. A shoulderless Han Solo, barely a shadow of his former swashbuckling self. Football scores unavailable in case you let your attention wander and lost count of the touchdowns.
We'll end up with a new t.v.
That's okay.
There for a few minutes, I thought it mattered a little bit that it had wireless networking. Now I'm sort of amused that I thought it mattered.
These little household gods all come to resemble each other in the end, when we look at them and they seem so familiar, so small, so unsatisfactory, and we judge them with a frown, and give them to Goodwill, and go in search of something that might in the end undo a little of the pain we've wrought for ourselves..
at the price of two quarters, squeezed together
like uncomfortable lovers in the slot.
I find two stray quarters, and apologize to them:
but I have to do this, just once.
They do not go into the slot easily.
I have to persuade them, force them
with my thumb pressing down on them.
But you cannot turn the dial until you have read
the choices, like a cereal box
or the label on the back of the Kleenex
when you find you have gone into the
bathroom without a book, like a hiker who
has forgotten the matches that light the
Coleman stove.
There is a picture of a bronzed girl
in a vivid yellow unitard looking at me
with orgasmic interest,
Growl and purr combined in her dark eyes.
She promises that the studded extra large Trojan
will bring passion to a new mountaintop.
She will be mine forever, if I choose the
studded extra large.
The one with the edible lubricant in
strawberry flavors looks at me like
a little girl, her finger in her mouth,
pouting in her ivory skin and auburn
innocence. She will be happy. She will.
An African screamer, thrashing about
(one can tell) against a crimson background
lobbies for the Animal, which is ribbed
with a fillip, whatever that is.
Whatever it is, though it is not in the picture,
the very thought of it ruins her
for anyone but me.
Someone has scratched in the metal
the number where blow-jobs can be had.
Another visitor to the men's room
has promised that his cock is long and hard.
These prayers crammed into the cracks of
this Wailing Wall.
I stare at all this gleaming hope,
and with great care pry my quarters loose,
kiss them, not thinking of what diseases
might inhabit a machine that dispenses such dreams,
and leave without washing my hands.
Copyright 2010 by The Otter
Reader Comments (3)
you're livin' large my friend
I have an idea, Otter: let's swap domestic duties.: I'll pick out your family's HDTV and you can do the seven remaining loads of my family's laundry this afternoon. Now, I don't promise to spend more time on your project than it takes to type "HDTV" into the electronics search engine at amazon.com and give them your credit card number, but even though the laundry will take you longer, it's not hard labor and I think you'll find it considerably less riddled with angst.
Very Zen, Sooz! Your offer has been forwarded to our Contracts and Negotiations division.