Well, the HDTV finally kicked in.

It took me a few days to figure it out, seeing as the cable box and the television need to be on the right settings, it requires new cables, new connections and when you consider that this TV has enough inputs on it that with the correct set of wires, I can use it to travel through time, it can get complicated.

Today, it was to be my job to call the cable company and threaten to call Direct TV, an action that was sure to cause the Time Warner representative to tremble in fear at the thought of a black mark on their heretofore spotless reputation for stellar customer service. Of course, they also might just decide to send me though a automated telephone menu so rigorous that it would solve nothing, waste my entire afternoon, and lead me to a level of frustration so intense that I would literally begin looking though the stationary drawer for a mailer envelope sturdy enough to safely deliver the customer service department of Time Warner what it truly deserved, a tightly coiled human turd.

So I was sitting there, with my HDTV cable box still thinking that I had a square television screen, tired of poring over owners manuals and at the edge of despair. With remote in hand, I did what all American males do when logic has failed them, and started pressing random buttons.

Once of the buttons I chose was the "source" button on my TV remote, and all of a sudden, the clouds parted, the horizontal grey bars disappeared, and High Definition television arrived. Of course, this was a bit of a mixed blessing, as the sample HD channel I was watching happened to be ABC, which was tuned to "The View."

It was startling, to say the very least.

If you aren't used to watching high definition broadcasting in the first place, having it instantly sear across your field of vision in the form of the horrible spectre of Rosie O'Donnell, Barbra Walters, Joy Behar, and that other witchy little see-you-next-Tuesday in full crisp, horrifying clarity, well- it's enough to give anyone the heebie jeebies.

"The View," indeed.

Sounds like a Japanese horror movie.

Despite the fact that I was staring directly into every detailed bulge and wrinkle of these horrifyingly orange women, I was so thrilled that my HDTV was finally working, that it provided me with enough residual, pent-up joy to help me fight through the horror of the images currently unfolding before my eyes. With a song in my heart, I shrieked like a wounded animal, bayed out a few repetitions of "THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU"and gleefully fumbled my way to the cable remote and the relative safety of the Discovery channel in HD, which by the way, also fucking rocks.

But it's nothing compared to hockey.

Hockey in High Definition is really something extraordinary.

Let me put it this way- I'm watching the Boston Bruins get the shit kicked out of them by the Pittsburgh Penguins on a replay of Sunday's NBC game on the Universal HD channel, and I gotta tell you, I am loving it.

I love the Boston Bruins, hate the Pittsburgh Penguins and I can't take my eyes of this goddamn screen.

In high definition, the Bruins are more than just a bored, disinterested, passionless hockey team, they are like bored, disinterested, passionless house guests.

It's almost indescribably awesome.

Thank God the Bruins suck.

If they were any good this year, I'd never leave the house.