I have owned a "virtual fireplace" DVD for years; it tickles my sense of the absurd to play a roaring fire on my TV with absolutely no heat. It's like that box you can buy with an on-off switch on it -- you flip it "on" and a hand come out and turns it off again. Totally worthless!
However, it always bothered me that the fire in the fireplace was about a six-minute loop of a gas fireplace with ceramic logs. Nothing ever changed. It just burned and burned and always looks the same.
This year, both Comcast and Verizon have free PPV shows (an hour long) with REAL fireplace fires. Real wood. The wood slowly catches, then burns down, until by the end of the hour it's mostly charcoal. Comcast's fire is big fir splits, and Verizon's is smaller alder trunks. Comcast's has icky Xmas music. Verizon is just the sound of the wood hissing and spitting.
It takes skill to set a fire that'll burn for an hour without tending.
Ah, I love the smell of a roaring fire!
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