So we spent the day shopping for a TV for Ma. If you have dreams of buying a big fat chunk of glass TV for < $300, kiss those dreams good-bye. You can now buy an LCD, a plasma, or you can make shadow puppets on a blank wall. This wouldn't be so bad if they weren't all forced to 16:9 aspect ratio when 98.9% of everyone still watched standard 4:3 signals off of their cable. It's not the end of the world for someone like me. I can swap aspect ratios by second nature if I have to but most people would by confused by most of what I just said and that's means they're going to get some sub-standard setups. Maybe it will get better once all the networks are forced to HD next year but, somehow, I don't think so.

It wasn’t all for naught though. I hooked it up, automated everything I could, explained to Ma the things I couldn’t and she’s set and it looks pretty good for TV and amazing if you’re watching a DVD.