Normally in my travels I expect to find sad, weird, poorly installed AV equipment in the hotels I stay at.

Occasionally, I end up impressed by an installation where it’s clear that the installer was a consummate professional and no expense was spared to create a hotel of the future. But more often than not, AV is not a burning priority for most hotels, so the systems in place are cludgy and awkward looking.

But this past week, you won’t believe what I found in the hotel’s exercise room:

A 46 inch CRT RPTV!

Remember those? With the wood/MDF cabinetry, and the soft focus, even after you calibrated them? This one looks like it hasn’t been calibrated since the late 1990s, if ever.

Most remarkable is the fact that the hotel’s rooms (mine anyway, so I assume all of them) have new-ish 42-inch Samsung LCD flat panels with digital cable boxes.

That makes this old RPTV with its sad little RG-59 cable trailing up into the ceiling even more of a mystery. Why didn’t they put a flat screen or two in the exercise room?

My guess is that someone in the hotel’s management has a deep sentimental attachment to this old unit.

When the CRTs on it finally croak I wonder if they’ll hold a memorial service?