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As Scott Wilkinson and I stood in line at Kennedy airport last week for a taxi to take us to the Hilton Hotel for Home Entertainment 2005, Scott noted that the Hilton was on the Avenue of the Americas. I told him not to tell the cabbie that; he'll think we're tourists. For a New Yorker, the Avenue of the Americas is simply 6th Avenue. They didn't rename 6th Avenue The Avenue of Home Entertainment for the show, but there's always next year.

I was born in New York and moved to Connecticut when I was 5, but I visited the city often over the next 20 years. The visits have slowed since I've lived far from the northeast US, so every time I come back, the milling throng of multicultural humanity crowding the sidewalks continues to surprise and amaze me. And on April 28, they all decided to crowd into the Hilton Hotel.

My first surprise on arrival at the Hilton Hotel on 6th Avenue in New York City for this year's Home Entertainment show (running through Sunday, May 1) was the widescreen Philips LCD flat panel television in my room. Many of the rooms at the Hilton have apparently been equipped with these sets. It was no surprise that the set was adjusted for a "full" widescreen display, thus rendering all images in "fat" mode, but the set did allow me to adjust the aspect ratio. Still, the picture was in need of further adjustment, which the display, typical of hotel sets, did not provide. Not that it mattered much; the source was standard definition. Oh well, one step at a time. Equipping a major New York hotel with flat panels is still a coup for Philips, who wasn't at the show, but in one real—and important—sense, they were.