i saw it out of the corner of my eye today, a new home appliance on the morning tv news show. it was a gas-fueled fireplace. just hook it up to your gas line or bottle and you can have a simulated fire on simulated logs, no chopping, no ashes, no trouble starting a good blaze from scratch. well, these things have been around for years, but what really got to me was that it was remote controlled. yes, point the little plastic remote, press a button, and the flame goes up or down, on or off. i didn't see enough of the report to see if you could make it change color, or smell.

i missed the name of the company and i really wanted to share this with someone, so i googled "remote controlled fireplace". i didn't just find the company, i found an entire industry. there were 1,450,000 hits.