My grandma read my Dancing With the Stars blog entries from last week and left me a voice mail at home. She suggested that possibly I was noticing the fake tans and the sparkles and the wardrobe issues because I recently entered the new world of high-def television.

She and my grandpa recently upgraded at their house, too, and she said they were taken aback by how much more over-the-top the dancers seemed to be looking, and it finally dawned on them that they might be seeing a little more detail that last season.

My first HD reality experience was an episode of Big Brother 8 a few weeks back, and at the time I just thought that host Julie Chen had accidentally bathed in sparkle powder. She probably usually looks like that, and I'd just never noticed before.

Have any other high-def users noticed similar issues?

Certainly, fast food commercials look even more vile that up-close.