Posted on: Monday, November 15, 2004

ABOUT MEN

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer

When it comes to television, there's only one thing a man really understands: Bigger is better. Or let's put it another way: A football field is 100 yards long and a real man/fan needs a wide-screen TV to watch it properly.

So when my old (6 years is like 60 in technology age), microscopic (28-inch and shrinking) set started acting weirdly just before the weekend round of games, I knew I had to move quickly.

I had to buy a bigger, better TV.

"Why don't you call and see if you can get the old one fixed first?" my wife said from the reading room, where she was actually reading.

That's just the kind of logic a football-loving husband doesn't want to hear on a game-day Saturday afternoon with the TV on the fritz. Still, in the interest of domestic bliss, I gave it the old college try.

"Hi. I've got this old TV and I know it's probably not worth fixing, but I was wondering if...."

"For store hours and location, press 1. For stereo sales, press 2. For computer sales, press 3. For ..."

When I finally pressed 8 for service problems, I was given another toll-free number to call, and by the time I pressed 4 for televisions over 25 inches, another recorded voice told me to bring the old model directly to the store for servicing.

So much for the repair option.

This explains why sometime before kickoff the next day, I was standing in front of two dozen TV screens at Circuit City trying to decipher the differences between HDTV, LCD, plasma, projection, big box, flat-screen and wide-screen technologies.

They were showing a game between a couple of also-ran teams, but all of the sets — even the cute little 8-inch ones — made the field look Super, as in the Bowl. They all looked better than my screen at home. It was going to be a tough call.

If bigger is better, it isn't necessarily cheaper. Those tiny sets that looked liked they were ripped out of the back of an airline seat started at about $600 and went up. The big, boxy sets that looked like my father's TV started about $400 and went down. If there's one thing the savvy male shopper knows, it's this: More expensive is probably better.

So I kept gravitating toward the 30-inch LCD, wide-screen, HDTV-ready (even if I'm not) set that cost about three weeks pay, even though I swear the picture looked no different from the one that cost one week's pay and, come to think of it, didn't look any different from the picture I could have had by repairing my old TV for about a day's pay.

"You know that's the one you want," my wife said for the 10th time. "Just get it." Which meant she wanted it, too. But why?

"It's really thin," she said.

There you have it: Men want wider and women want thin. In the new TV world, you can have it all.

Domestic bliss.

Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.