Sunday, November 26, 2006 Covington: Supersized By Gary Covington Looking In
REMEMBER that word? It was in vogue -- ooh, a year ago, eighteen months ago -- what to order in a fastfood joint if you fancied a bigger portion of everything. Supersizing - partnered with obesity - became quite an issue mostly focused on USA folks tendency to feed on junkfood. A guy made a film about it, a mockumentary as they call them, sacrificing real food and his digestive system and living entirely on MacDonald's for a month.
The obesity issue is still with us - and getting bigger - but supersizing seemed to have faded away. Until last week that is. When I found myself stuck in a traffic queue staring at the back end of a bus, which was labeled Toyota Hi-ace.
Didn't the Hi-ace used to be a van? A delivery box with a wheel at each corner? Not a twenty, twenty-five seater bus? The Toyota Hi-ace has been supersized. I looked about for some more.
There's the Honda Civic. The award-winning sedan, which looked - or looks rather, there's still some stunners about - like a Nike Swoosh on wheels. A beautiful car but small. What the Yanks call a compact. Look at one now. Someone's pumped the new Civics up to regular sedan size. To what used to be Accord size. The manufacturers may prate about fuel-economic engines and folks driving halfway around the world on a bucket of gas but the fact remains; cars are getting bigger. Using more metal and taking up more roadspace and, if they're air-conditioned, using more fuel to cool down their occupants.
Here's another. You think those big black Chevy pick-ups are big? (The Yanks with good reason call then trucks) Wait until you see General Motor's new customized Chevrolet Silverados.
Straight from the showroom you can buy the Big Red Chevrolet Silverado and the Orange County Chopper Chevrolet. 6.2 liter engines, integrated brush guards, fender flares, air scoops (look, I don't know what it means either, I just copy the stuff down from the screen) and, best of all, no tailgates. That's right. Tailgate-less like bone fide off-roading farmer's trucks. Looks real cool but don't put anything in the back.
Another product getting bigger by the year (and no doubt making matching profits) is the humble television. They come with fancy names - plasma, LCD, integrated HDTVs - but they're still idiot boxes and idiot boxes so enormous I'd not get them through the sala door and if I did where would I park the things? Out with the sala set, in with the new flat screen? Sorry lola, your favorite chair has to go, gotta make room for the multimedia interface. There's a TV on display at the local mall with a screen so wide I can focus on one side or the other but not both. Watching the thing is like being at Wimbledon - left, right, left, right, left, right...
There's working demonstration models of these huge TVs with a picture so clear, so sharp, so magnificent but - if you look in one corner of the ten-foot screen you'll see, in half-inch lettering, the words "demonstration disc."
This means that the TV is playing a super-duper high-resolution disc especially prepared for demonstration purposes. Ask the man to plug in RPN. He won't. No antenna sir. It's too early sir. Do I look stupid sir? Of course, maybe where you live television reception is pin-sharp but out here in the hills of Buhangin... and can you imagine The Buzz ten foot wide and four feet deep? Or Game Ka Na Ba? Perish the thought. Supersized.
