A Word About the Ever-Increasing Size of Powerbricks

Toshiba Laptop, about 4 inches

My Computer monitor, about 4 and a half inches

The New Mac Mini - A whopping 6 inches

The New TV - Yes. That's right. 8 and a half inches.

The Doubltree gets a paintjob, sides first.

DJ Choice's Backyard Party Music

Warning: This post might sound trite and I've given away everything in the title. Thankfully, there are pictures to keep your huge mind occupied. They're over there-->

Ok... I'll run through this as quickly as I can. Given the importance I give to this issue, this could take some time. Pour yourself a glass of Carlo Rossi and stay awhile.
R and I finally bought a TV. Now we won't be those people who, when you tell them about something that you saw on TV, say something along the lines of, "oh, I don't own a TV." Granted, I've never said that, but we'd been without one for long enough that I had to bite my tongue a few times.
I digress. The new TV showed up today, four days ahead of schedule, given the free shipping. When they say five to seven business days and it comes in 2, I'm a happy man. We bought it from a place called buydig.com, which I found through pricewatch.com, my favorite online pricing site. The new TV is a Sharp Aquos. We got it because of an advertisement that was played relentlessly while we were living in Spain (I never like to admit having given into advertising, but here it is). It's very nice. The design is well thought out, with panels in the back that cover all the cables and wrap them together really well so that they don't get dusty and aren't visible from the front.
I took the new TV out of the box and placed it on top of the shelf. Then I looked in the box for the chords and found the most monstrous powerbrick that I'd ever seen. Apparently, as our appliances become more compact, the powerbrick grows ever larger. I wonder what's in there! Someday I vow to bust one open. For the time being, I need all of the ones that I've got. After witnessing the massiveness of this thing, I had to measure the other powerbricks in the living room for the sake of comparison, hence exhibits 1 through 4 on the right there.
The first is the powerbrick for my laptop. It's only four inches wide and maybe half an inch high. I understand that it's supposed to be portable, so it needs to be small. What I don't understand is what that powerbrick is doing differently than, say, the next one down, the one for my computer monitor that I'm always convinced is blurry (maybe I should stop leaving my glasses at work).
When I first saw the powerbrick for this computer monitor about a year ago, I thought it was huge; and you have to admit that four and a half inches is pretty wide.
But then there's the Mini. If there's anything wrong with a Mini, it's the six inch wide and two inch high powerbrick. At least it still fits underneath the couch, but I swear it has the same volume as the computer itself. I got over the size of the mini powerbrick sometime last week while I was discovering my newfound love for the Macintosh. (I wonder if someday apple will come out with a Washington apple computer, or Golden Delicious, or Idared or any of the other ones [see this quick list from Google Sets for all the examples])
I'll have to digress again. The powerbrick for the new TV is 8.5" by 2". It's insane. I'm not complaining, though. It fits under the bookshelf; it's out of sight. What I don't get is why it needs to be so big. What's going on in there? What kind of crazy power conversion is happening?
What I do think is that whatever's happening actually needs to happen. I can't imagine that the image-conscious people over at apple wouldn't have tried to make their powerbrick smaller. Then again, maybe everyone is just trying to live up to the name "powerbrick" by making the stupid thing more brick-like.
I suppose I should address the other pictures before I end this. One is a picture of the old Washington Terrace hotel, which apparently was a Doubletree before it became the Washington Terrace and has now been purchased by Doubletree again. They're repainting the outside and started at the edges and are moving towards the center. It looks ridiculous, hence the picture.
The last picture is of a CD that I saw while at CVS this evening. It's a CD called DJ's Choice "Backyard Party Music". All DJs do is choose music, so it's good to know that we can trust them to choose songs that end up being sold on a compilation at CVS. Ridiculous. The tracks on the back that I remember are were:

Hot, Hot, Hot

Limbo Song

Tequila

Conga Line

You Should be Dancing

...and many more
That's it. That's all I've got. Remind me to buy that CD.