When the going gets tough, the tough go out and buy a 32-inch, widescreen, flat panel, LCD TV with built-in HD tuner. On credit.

I'm sorry, but you can't imagine what a weak substitute for therapy sunflowers are. I needed a little something more to adjust my attitude.

Thus I bought an ginormous TV that offers me the capability of counting Jon Stewart's nosehairs. Or determining the best toner for Katie Couric's clogged pores. Or sorting the wheat of real hair from the chaff of Hair Club for Men on Jeremy Piven's scalp. Yes, it's just that powerful a tool.

Normally, the fact that anyone bought a new TV would hardly seem blog-worthy. But this is me here. So automatically the most mundane task or dullest observation (e.g., how does your garden grow, Raplicious?) requires 10,000 or more keystrokes to express. However, this event is even more significant in the History of Blogtucky in that this is the first new TV I've purchased. Ever.

Actually, this is the first new-to-me TV I've had since I inherited my brother's hand-me-down, 19-inch, faux woodgrain-paneled Sylvania in the mid-1980s, a boob tube that was already slightly dated when I acquired it. Not complaining about that fact; I appreciated his generosity. Still, the Sylvania was so old I could watch programming from the DuMont Network on it. Wocka wocka.

Obviously, a new TV hasn't been that important to me, heretofore. Now, however, after years spent clunking around sitcoms and soaps with the K-Car of tellys, I'm high-tailing it through the premium movie channels with what feels like a stylish BMW or Mercedes. In reality, I'm probably just cruisin' with you baby through the first-tier digital package in a reliable but cool-looking Japanese import. But, hey, it's a definite and significant step-on-the-gas-up from my previous mode of tele-transportation.

It feels like I've entered some different sphere, crossed the space-time continuum, like the reverse of what happens to that guy in that new show on BBC America, Life on Mars, in which a traffic accident transports the lead character from the present day to 1973. It's a Ballroom Blitz, baby! For me, suddenly, I don't have a TV dial to contend with or a volume knob to adjust whenever I get a phone call. No more strange, annoying lines streaking across the left corner of the screen whenever I try to watch a video or DVD. No more odd skin tones of actors or having half their faces cut off in a scene.

Why I feel absoluted pixelated over all the possibilities.

Still, I will miss some features of my old set, such as being able to watch episodes of Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour on it.