I was in a restaurant the other day, and you could see the television in the bar (hate that) from where I sat. Some basketball team was playing against—big surprise—some other basketball team, but what drew my attention was that all the players seemed to be rather squat. Chunky, in fact?
Was this some new basketball league, with maximum height regulations and minimum weight requirements? No. I soon ascertained that the morons running the bar had installed a widescreen television set, and left it set to widescreen…even though the broadcasts they were running were all in standard, squarish, television format.
After I noticed this, I started paying attention. Yes indeed: in any of the positively nauseating number of places where televisions are publicly displayed, they are all widescreen units (often the thin, expensive, plasma kind), and they are all showing narrowscreen broadcasts in widescreen format. Apparently no one knows how to push the “Normal” button on the console.
So, the citizenry of America isn’t overweight. Some idiot has the country running on “Widescreen.” If someone would just push the “Normal” button on the country, everyone would get taller and slimmer.
(Of course, the whole country would get narrower, I suppose, but I’d argue that it’s too wide as it stands. Let’s push LA and NYC a little closer together.)
Was this some new basketball league, with maximum height regulations and minimum weight requirements? No. I soon ascertained that the morons running the bar had installed a widescreen television set, and left it set to widescreen…even though the broadcasts they were running were all in standard, squarish, television format.
After I noticed this, I started paying attention. Yes indeed: in any of the positively nauseating number of places where televisions are publicly displayed, they are all widescreen units (often the thin, expensive, plasma kind), and they are all showing narrowscreen broadcasts in widescreen format. Apparently no one knows how to push the “Normal” button on the console.
So, the citizenry of America isn’t overweight. Some idiot has the country running on “Widescreen.” If someone would just push the “Normal” button on the country, everyone would get taller and slimmer.
(Of course, the whole country would get narrower, I suppose, but I’d argue that it’s too wide as it stands. Let’s push LA and NYC a little closer together.)
4 comments:
If only it really was that simple. I wouldn't be Southbeaching, and I could have the mashed potatoes I've been craving for two weeks.
The appropriate setting for watching 4:3 broadcasts on a 16:9 widescreen is the "zoom" function, which preserves the proper proportions of the footage at the expense of not showing the "edges" (which are cropped to in order fill the screen).
PROS: 1) the anorexic TV stars still look good in a bikini (since TV the camera adds 10 pounds, ya know). 2) no distracting black boxes on the outside edges of the picture.
CONS: 1) pixelation due to the digital zooming of a low quality image displayed on a high-res screen. 2) the fine print on those diet supplement commercials disappears from view during the zoom, ensuring that all the fatties watching TV will be doomed to stay that way.
LOL. Keep up the entertaining posts.
Hey, Sam--it IS that simple. You just have to find the button...
Jeremy--looks to me like you could earn some easy extra cash as a Video Display Device Optimization Consultant--ie, drop though the bars and explain how they ought to adjust their sets so the Lakers don't look like chubby munchkins. That oughta be worth a few hundred bucks, right?
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