Wider screens just right for guys

My brother-in-law just bought one of those widescreen, eye-popping, wallet-gouging, envy-enducing plasma TVs.
I saw it a week ago at my nephew's birthday party. I sat down in his family room, started watching the North Carolina-Maryland game and something occurred to me.
"My gosh," I thought. "That is one large TV."
Then, milliseconds later, something else occurred to me.
"I want one."
Now I don't want to advance any gender-specific stereotypes here, but it seems to me that the plasma TV business exists mainly because of guys. (Not men. Not boys. Guys.)
Guys are sports fans. They like big TVs. Guys are also dumb. They buy big TVs.
My brother-in-law is a guy, which explains why he didn't happen to tell his wife (my sister) that he was buying a plasma TV.
"I'm not paying for it," she said. "I'm just going to wait until they repossess it."
Do stupid things
Now, I don't want to pick sides here (except I will and my sister was right), but the incident opened my eyes to something: sports make us do stupid things.
Guys, I mean. I'm sure there are men who can sit down, watch a baseball game and say, "This is stupid. I'm watching millionaires throw a ball."
I, on the other hand, will sit next to one of those men and think, "Why do I always get stuck sitting next to idiots?"
Some may call our behavior irrational. Fine. Heck, more than fine. They're probably right.
And if they need any evidence, they can look at the hole in my couch where my cushion used to be connected to the back of the couch.
Good explanation
OK, not a hole. It's more like a tear. What they'll fail to mention is that there's a perfectly good explanation of how it happened.
(Really.)
See, it's like this. The (sadistic, hatemongering, small-dog-kicking) creators of NCAA 2004 on Playstation 2 decided to create a (ridiculously impossible) college football challenge involving the 1981 Holiday Bowl between BYU and Washington State.
After three hours of trying (and failing) to complete this challenge (which involves having to make two onside kicks, even though the game designers have made it impossible to get even one), I calmly walked over to my couch and (repeatedly) punched the cushion.
Somehow, it tore.
Temper problem
Now, some (ignorant) people may get the (absolutely false) idea that, when it comes to sports, I have a temper problem.
I don't.
Sure, I may get a little worked up at times.
Who doesn't?
And sure, there are a few instances when I may have broken a thing (or two) over the years in the heat of passion.
Who hasn't?
For instance, there was that time back in 1996 when the (cheating, bed-wetting) Pittsburgh Steelers played the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship, and one of the (game-throwing) Colts dropped a Hail-Mary pass in the end zone that would have sent the (drug-dealing, violence-committing) Steelers home for the Super Bowl.
Or in 1997, when the (wonderful, amazing) Indians lost to the (I-can't-believe-we-just-lost-to-a-team-named-after-a-fish) Florida Marlins in Game 7 and I spent the next 15 minutes punching the vinyl siding on our house. (I still have a scar. Really.)
Or the time when the (talent-less, graceless, hopeless) Duke Blue Devils beat UNLV in the NCAA tournament and I threw a (very expensive) remote control against the wall and, somehow, it shattered.
(I was 13. I hated Duke. What else do you want?)
I could go on, but you get the idea. The point is, sports make us do crazy things. Which is why I really hope my sister doesn't kill my brother-in-law.
But if she does, I do have one question.
Can I have the TV?
XJoe Scalzo is a sportswriter for The Vindicator. Write him at scalzo@vindy.com.