When you’re young, life is exciting and you're full of verve, or diet-verve at least. Then you get older and start noticing how crappy things really are. And so goes the TV season. Way back in early November, I penned a blog called Sly-Fi about three new shows, all of them available in high definition, that fell, albeit broadly, into the realm of science fiction. The fact that I originally trashed the shows is no reason to assume I'd stop watching them. Here's the late season prognosis.

Central hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center was littered in brilliantly colored posters intended to pound product name recognition into even the most casual observer’s psyche.

Viiv.

Rhymes with Five. I don’t know how I knew that, other to admit, their marketing campaign must have been a success.

Christmas is a special time when madness invades the homestead and the urge to give and give and give and, well, you get the picture. But what are these gifts with which we hold these truths to be self evident? One year, a very long time ago, it was a special little baby I found in a cabbage patch. At least, that’s what is said on the label. When the blue light went on – and yes, there really was a blue light - I, along with all the other shoppers in that alphabet-mart, went careening through the aisles like so many pinballs driven in reverse until we converged at the same single spot. A towering monument of pastel packaged Cabbage Patch dolls had just been unwrapped. We, one man and host of hostile woman, were the chosen ones. We each grabbed. I got one. Studying her, my little rainbow coalition brown Jolene, asleep with her eyes open, waiting for the moment when her child would hold her and bring her to life.

After hearing he was leaving the public radio waves for pay-per-swear satellite service for the umpteenth time, the day has finally come and, halleluiah, he’s gone. It’s a little too late though. After all, he already, almost single-handedly, ruined radio.

Looking for home theater on the cheap? The 1280x720 InFocus ScreenPlay 5000 LCD projector can be had at Costco for $999. Follow the directions glued to the box and they’ll mail you a 72” screen as well. Not that the guy in front of me in the checkout line was going to bother with a screen. Last year he bought his first projector and just painted his basement wall white. This second InFocus projector was for his kid (click here to download adoption papers).

The black bezel gives the picture the appearance of more contrast. Not that it needs it. V-Inc claims 10,000:1. The picture on the 50” VIZIO P50HDM Plasma Monitor stood out in the chorus line of plasma and LCD sets on display at Costco.

Here’s how girls know if you’re checking them out. They yawn while looking away. Then five seconds later, they turn around and look at you. If you’re yawning, dude, you’re busted.