Mark Fleischmann

Reception-wise, the transition to digital television will create winners and losers. Some areas will get stronger signals, while others will get weaker ones. And the latter will be subject to the "cliff effect"--the picture doesn't degrade, it shuts down altogether. On Friday the Federal Communications Commission updated its lists of projected losers.

The DTV transition is now just one week away, scheduled for June 12, 2009. On that date, more than half of the nation's television broadcasters will make the final switch to digital signals, shutting off analog forever. The other half have already made the transition over the past several months.

After extensive testing, I have finally found the ultimate power cable. It's from Mothra Research Unlimited. Their motto: "At Mothra, you won't get snake oil; you'll get the entire snake." While the Mothra Power Cord may be a bit pricey at $8899.95 per meter (one meter shown), doesn't this description excite the two-channel purist in you?: "Designed and engineered for proper frequency handling from the wall tap to your equipment, the Mothra Power Cord uses 0.0001 mm palladium wire in a helium atmosphere to carry high frequencies, 0.001 mm platinum wire in a xenon atmosphere to carry the upper midranges, 0.01 mm gold wire in an argon atmosphere to carry the lower mids, and 0.1 mm silver wire in highly reactive sulphur hexafluoride to carry the low frequencies. This is then shielded with over 700 Kg of 99.9999% copper, packed into a special neodymium-bismuth damping material, encapsulated in our specially bioengineered case, and irradiated with high intensity gamma rays from Three Mile Island reactor #2." No system would be complete without Ghidorah or Rhodan interconnects, not to mention Mothra's speaker cable. Here's the price list. Mothra's corporate philosophy is simple: "Our goal is to wrap the listener in an intense, passionate and lifelike embrace of sound at a price comparable to the US Navy's Trident Missile Program. The enormous soundstage and precise, realistic imaging of our products will bring out the beast in you and secure our comfortable retirement."

Coming soon to a TV near you: Yahoo Widgets.