LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE! I NOW GIVE YOU: APPLE TV!

And then I went to bed. This was an altogether painful experience. Now, I know I've tended to write about painful experiences recently, and I'm sorry, but here's another.

As previously mentioned, The Great Re-Wiring was brought on by the purchase of the HDTVFLATSCREENAWESOMENESS, and that just led to new and exciting problems in the household. Because if you're going to tear a bunch of holes in the wall to put in a new TV cable and electrical outlet, you might as well run that speaker wire and ethernet cable and really just go for it. So I did. No one in the house was amused.

I made one of my FANTASTICALLYWELLRECEIVED dvds lately for a family member (note, sarcasm, esp. in regards to last year's highly anticipated Year-In-Review dvd, and the much-touted Washington D.C. Adventure dvd, and the 9-months-long-delayed Camp Fox dvd) and was thanked graciously with a gift card to the Apple Store. (Yahoos all around!) Being a stalwart Mac addict, I'd been saving up for a new computer and figured this would help the cause, but somehow I talked myself into using it for something I wouldn't otherwise spend the money on: the new Mac Digital Picture iFrame, uh, I mean Apple TV. I figured it would go with the project of the moment.

So last night I found myself in the attic, sweating profusely, rolling around in the insulation and pulling wires through the studs, all the while inhaling hantavirus dust and with an intermittently working flashlight. You know that feeling when you're busting your butt on something and the whole time you just know it's not worth it? Last night I had that feeling. That, and the prickly sensation of microscopic fiberglass insulation fibers embedded in my skin that would last for the next 24 hours.

But I got it up and running around midnight to a Ho-Hum Fanfare, and well, I just took a shower and went to bed. Turns out the device took all night to download my music and photos, anyway. Destitute of spirit, I didn't blog.

I'd mentioned the AppleTV to the Mrs. a few times recently and was always met with: "This affects me how?" and "We need this why?" and a few others, which evidently I had not answered sufficiently on previous occasions. In explaining it to her, it occurred to me that it's really just another iPod, as if we needed one of those, but this iPod, you see, it's for the TV! Right. She saw it in it's Blazing Glory this morning and exhibited the amount of interest usually reserved for that springtime glance you give to the snail you just stepped on.

Oh well.

So, I went to work and then came home and fired up the barbecue and made myself a margarita and then went over to the infernal thing to light it up again to see what the big fuss was about. Pretty Cool. No, really! For the first time since we've lived in the house I was able to listen to my personal music library downstairs in the living room. (The Adult-Alternative station on our cable receiver is getting quite stale.) And then when the family photos came up on the screen in all their Mactastic Presentation, well... let me say, the whole family just came to a stop and stared. There was smiling and pointing! I was immediately stricken by how much better the pics look on the living room wall in full high-def color as opposed to the inert computer screen the modern age of digital cameras has relegated us to. Wonderful!

I went outside to flip the meat at sunset, favorite tunes sliding out of the (so far) one speaker on the patio, took a sip of my margarita in the August heat and thought: Worth it -and- What a life! -and- This year, the Year In Review party will be held at my place!

I'll try and get all those holes in the walls patched up for that one.

www.apple.com/appletv