Hamster Wisdom

Roger Hislop

I really want a big screen TV. A big flat one. One of those new ones that have a bazillion to one dynamic contrast ratio, and sixty trillion ANSI lumens, with four HDMI ports and the ability to play video directly from a USB drive.

Right now I have a really crap TV. It’s big and bulky, with a tiny screen. The controls on the front don’t work, I had to pull the thing apart to disconnect them after an unfortunate incident involving Cape Town winter dampness and a weeping salt crystal lamp.

This is an old, tired, small, crap TV. I want a new, big, slim-line, awesome TV.

And I plan to continue to want this big screen TV for a long time to come.

It’s healthy to really want a cool new TV. It shows you’re a real guy. It’s not healthy to actually buy a cool new TV. Because once you’ve been to Game and selected your hi-def goodness, and got it home, and mounted the bracket on the wall, and hung it up, and connected all the cables, and played with the remote, what then?

You watch a couple of episodes of Dexter. You browse your media player (because you can finally read the file-names from across the room).

What then?

Then you start to think, “Hmm. The speakers sound a little thin and boomy. Maybe I should look at a new set.” You start to think, “A media tank that lets me pull torrents down via WiFi from the comfort of my couch. That would rock.”

It’s a hamster wheel. Every step you take takes you a step closer to the next step. You will never get there, because the only way to get there is to get off this hamster wheel to nowhere.

So I will not buy that big screen TV. But I will continue to want to. That’s healthy.

• 2009/12/15
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