Building up for flat screen TV plunge

Duh-Hubby and I have been arguing about when to take the flat-screen, high-def TV plunge. I say that we should wait for our bloated-looking old-fashioned TV to die of natural causes because this is what Al Gore would want us to do. Hubby says that we should seize the day because all of our friends already have the new screens.

"And if all our friends drove off a cliff, would you do that, too?"

"You're talking to me like I'm a child," he said. "Hey! Let's get ice cream!"

Truth is, I want the flat screen 40-inch 1080p LCD with the dual HDMI high-def inputs and the 4000:1 contrast ratio. Badly.

But I'm afraid that hubby will begin to suffer from what my friend Lisa calls "HD ADD." It's a little-known ailment that afflicts mostly men who are unable to turn their attention away from "Sunrise Earth" long enough to get dressed and go to work in the morning. Instead, they cancel their appointments, sit in their bathrobes and watch the glorious day unfold to the sounds of rushing water all over the globe.

Whatever. I just want to see if it's true that you can tell Marlena's age by counting the lines around her neck if you watch "Days of Our Lives" on HD. Yeah, I'm that small-minded.

Later, we visited friends who had installed a plasma screen above their fireplace. They were staring at a barely moving herd of buffalo while their children cried for food in the background. I could go for a buffalo burger myself.

"Wow. It's like they're in the room with us," said hubby.

"They'd be better company," I huffed.

The third couple we visited in the name of research were transfixed by an extreme video of a moose emerging from the river and shaking the dewy droplets off his, er, moose parts.

"Their TVs are killing them," I told hubby. "They just stare for hours at these high-def pictures of animals and sea creatures and volcanoes. It's nuts."

Back at Lisa's house, I found her watching a man in a hot-air balloon hover over New Zealand. He'd been there for about 10 hours.

"Let's watch Oprah on your TiVo," I said, wondering if there were wires in her stomach now like in "The Stepford Wives."

But then, something strange happened. A waterfall came on the screen and I couldn't move. It seemed somehow familiar and then I realized that it was just like watching those pictures they have on the walls of the nation's finer Chinese restaurants where one little part of the picture is actually moving.

I am SO getting this TV. And Al Gore can kiss my pixels.

ONLINE | To read past Celia Rivenbark columns, go to her page at MyrtleBeachOnline.com.