TV Nation…bigger is better

Once again I feel compelled to comment on American’s love of tv especially flat screen, plasma tv’s or whatever the heck they are called. I was just reading the Chicago Tribune online (gotta read my hometown paper) and was struck by how the day after Christmas many bargain hunters are looking for good prices on tv’s.

Damn, do folks not have televisions? Can I ask a stupid question, but what is the allure of one of these things? Look, when I do have my occasional tv veg-out moment, I am generally doing it in front of my 13 inch tv in my bedroom. Yes, its 13 inches, no bells or whistles, I do have a DVD player hooked up to it, and I have basic digital cable which I still debate whether or not we should get rid of at least once a week. After all the $60 a month I pay could be better used but my son is adamant that we must have cable and I admit at least once every few weeks now, I love a good Sunday evening of channel surfing.

However while I like an occasional veg out session, I really don’t get the attraction of a big tv. I am a movie buff, but I actually like the theatre experience especially that of old art house theatres which are a dying breed. I don’t know but I just can’t wrap my brain around why folks seems to lust after big tv’s….can someone help me figure it out.

I don’t know but it seems Americans in general have a love for all things big….seriously up until gas prices went crazy, most folks were driving around in big ass SUV’s, even folks living in large cities like Chicago. Now I will admit there is a time and place for a big vehicle, sometimes the spousal unit and I wish we had one for hauling shit. Problem is when I lived in Chicago, folks weren’t hauling shit but their asses through a drive thru in their big ass vehicles.

No, we like big meals too hence the super size it craze. When I have my rare taste for fast food, I often marvel at how they try to up-sell me to a jumbo soda and fry…no, I don’t care that is only an extra few cents. I neither need or want to drink 24 ounces of soda.

Look a good large meal is fine occasionally preferably on large holidays when splurging is ok, problem is most of us do it all the time and it shows. However I see the effects of too much tv on folks as well, folks rarely read, can’t point out shit on a map yet they can tell you who won Survivor. Our kids and us are all walking around in a collective daze while America disintegrates before our eyes, yet for many of us as long as we have the ole Plasma and 24 ounces of soda, we don’t care.

No bigger is not better most of the time.