Our fabulous new Dell 42" Plasma TV arrived last Friday, and was installed Saturday morning on our bedroom wall. We watched a couple of movies and I played lots of video games, but I couldn't wait for two more weeks for the satellite guy to come instal our HD receiver, so I went out and bought an off-air antenna.

First, I bought a Jensen model which was No Good. It freaked out every time we moved in the bedroom and the image on the screen would pixelate and go dark, and we'd see the error on the screen: Weak Signal.

So I took it back to Best Buy and got a different one, made by Terk (a subsidiary of Audiovox, I believe). This one works Great! We have to turn it a bit to get stable reception on some of the channels, but it pulls in everything local (UPN doesn't have a digital broadcast, so it looks about like you'd expect from cheesy old rabbit ears).

But the important thing is that we are watching the Olympics every night in HD! Oh, man! It's just fabulous! I can see veins and facial blemishes and obvious hack jobs in the makeup of various characters on the screen.

The other night, we were watching the news. I had it on in HD (Channel 5 broadcasts their news in Hd, now) and Cat had it on in the living room on the SD TV. They got to the section where "Asian reporter Trisha Takanawa" was reporting on something or other, and I noticed that she has a couple of moles near her moutn, and various minor imperfections on her cheeks under her eyes. I ran to the living room to see if I could tell any difference.

Well, let me just say that most of the Channel 5 News-watching St. Louis public has No Idea that she even has those very dark moles. Not that they're huge or even unsightly. Not at all. These aren't your gross Uncle Buck moles we're talking about here. Just...moles. They're not even as big as that growth on Cindy Crawford's face that people used to think was "sexy".

So for those of you who have yet to join HD nation, just think about this the next time you watch Olympic figure skating: There could be veins and such pulsating on the forhead or neck of that "cute" Russian figure skater.