Letters from the Equator

I feel like I just entered a time warp into the future. Since a decade ago, I’ve been gradually ignoring pop culture to the point of now not ever watching a single episode of Heroes or Lost, not ever listening to Fly.FM or ever being in line to watch Transformers.

I’m now in an odd dilemma as I seem to think that getting a TV would be a good idea, despite all my comments about me not ever having or needing one.

The thing is, I never paid attention to the vast improvements in flatscreen TV technology, and I find myself absolutely lost walking around electronics shops lately. I have absolutely no clue whatsoever why a TV would cost RM7000 when TVs used to cost RM700, and what makes a difference between one TV and another of the same size.

Why are there plasma TVs and LCD TVs? Why does it make sense to label them as such? And all this talk about ratios and high definition is dizzying, and it gets more complicated when I need to think of whether I’m using it for terrestrial TV, hi-def TV, Astro TV, DVD, VCD, or PC… since it does seem to make a difference.

What I really want is a flat screen that’s about RM2k and is pluggable to a standard video out coming from a PC or preferably a Mac Mini and allows me to watch YouTube videos and playback my media using Front Row.

For some reason, I seem to understand LCD monitors. Not LCD TVs, mind you. An LCD monitor is like the photo at the top. It has a stand. It has an “on” button. It has some other buttons which do pretty standard stuff. And it has a plug that plugs into your standard PC video outlet.

Now, Dell has recently released a really nice one just like the one in the photo… except that it’s a little small. I know, you’re probably staring through a standard 19″ monitor reading this post right now and thinking 24″ would be absolutely gorgeous.

But that’s exactly the problem - it’s gorgeous for a workstation. I want to mount it on my living room wall.

Why they don’t make LCD monitors as large and pretty as LCD TVs, I don’t know. And I don’t know why they charge so much. I used to be able to sit down for hours reading articles on countless models of product X and Y, but now I just want not think so much.

As I begin to arrive at the big 3-0, I’m beginning to wonder if this is what life is going to be like after this point. You grow gray hair. You think less. You watch some telly. You meet some friends. Then you die at the end of it all.

It’s as if people who were left behind in the last decade were given an ultimatum to decide if they were going to play catch-up, or resign to a fate of societal numbness and aimless wandering in a sea of postmodern strangers.

Either that, or I could be ushering the end of TV decade… who knows, everyone in 2020 could all be having flatscreens plugged into mac minis watching user generated content all day.

Categorized as discoveries/i want, life