Pre-def TV

The NY Times predicts that it will be a few years before most folks own a 4K, ultrahigh-def TV, but own them they will. "According to the Consumer Electronics Association, it took six years of high definition TVs being on the market — from 2003 to 2009 — before 50 percent of American households had them. Now, nearly 90 percent of households have one."

I'm in that 10 percent residual. Indeed, our TV is not just low-def, but pre-def... a full-blown old-format, cathode-ray tube Sony Trinitron that I bought off Steve at work for $200 after his kid graduated to a flat-screen about a decade ago. It's a fine machine. It fires up with a guttural electronic thud, followed by the program audio, and some seconds later the picture, which is quite good if you ignore the cropping of anything wide-format. And really, who needs to see the weatherman gesticulating from stage right when the weather map is right there in the center of the screen? X-Files and Buffy were made to be seen on a device like this, and that's good enough for me.