It’s pretty amazing how things seem different when you’ve been away awhile. What with a website blow-up, I was up late computing and no television. Last night, the tube. Dave, same. Commercials, what?

It sits across from the couch, in the natural order of things. The television is monster-sized: it would draw a crowd at a sports bar. It is just slightly wider than it is tall – and that should tell you something.

By technology standards, it is a dinosaur. Brontosaurus, I suppose, given its size.

We all know now that the proper television is much, much wider than it is tall. Wide-screen. Technicolor. High-Def.

Surely, the one in the living room isn’t the last of its kind, the last surviving beast of a TV, opening its big eye each evening to search for a mate.

The ad agency responsible for the Arkansas Tourism commercial must believe there are no surviving Low-Defs out there. The beautifully shot commercial is filled with brilliant colors (even at Bronto-Def), but the graphics are positioned at the lower left.

It gives plenty of room to look at the geography of the Natural State, but – unfortunately – on the living room monster, the AR is cut off. All that is visible is:

KANSAS.

I’m sure officials in that state appreciate the free advertising, even if it may be difficult to find those particular tourist stops. I’m tempted to drive up there, just to look.

I may find another Bronto out there somewhere on the Kansas plains, a big-eyed, lonely Low-Def – and who knows?

Maybe later, the pitter-patter of channel changers and the High-Resolution squeals of happy – and complete – screen viewing.