Well, I’ve upgraded my TV. I purchased last night the ViewSonic VT2430 24-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV from Amazon and they emailed me this morning saying it shipped. I’m surprised; I chose Free Super Saver Shipping and figured it wouldn’t ship for a couple of days and then take a while to get here, but the delivery estimate is tomorrow. I doubt I’ll be home when the UPS guy comes, I never am, but I’m used to picking up packages and for a TV I don’t really mind. If I have to go pick it up, it’ll be a more worthwhile trip to me than if I have to pick up some small item that I wouldn’t have minded being left on my doorstep.

I planned on donating my 25″ RCA TruFlat SDTV (a giant CRT thing) to Goodwill, but then Mark’s mom on Facebook inquired about it. I checked the Salvation Army’s valuation guide and estimated my TV might be worth a $100 write-off, so I offered to sell it to her for that. She’s not interested, and I don’t blame her since HDTV’s are getting so cheap. Seriously, the new LCD HDTV I just bought was $258.99 and, about two years ago when I bought my current SDTV, I paid $258 for it! Anyway, she informed me that Goodwill no longer accepts TV donations but apparently the Salvation Army does, which is good to know before I went tracking down a nearby Goodwill.

In other news, I’ve been playing Fat Princess on the PS3 like a fiend; I’m currently at the rank of Ensign. Some of my best moments include:

Reign of terror

I was an upgraded Worker and had a Priest teammate following me around. We got in a highly contested Outpost and he kept me healed while I chucked bombs down at all the enemies below. We had a reign of terror that lasted for some time and garnered some serious points. We eventually got killed but I went back later with another Priest, perhaps the same one, and did it again. Anytime the Priest needed healing, he’d switch to the Dark Priest to suck life out of enemies, and I’d just jump out and run back into the Outpost to heal myself.

I just want to be a lumberjack

The game had just started and I was a Worker, chopping trees all by myself in Black Forest. Suddenly, some enemy goes running past me carrying his princess. I was like “oh shit!” and started chasing him down. Of course the Worker wasn’t upgraded because we were so poor resource-wise, so I just hacked and slashed at him with my axe. I had to chase him down into the water but eventually killed him. I grabbed the princess and started running/swimming back to our castle. My enemies were chasing me down, a few Warriors taking slashes at me, and I got down to the tiniest little heart but managed to make it to one of our Outposts. I popped in the Outpost, still carrying the prisoner princess, and then came one of our Priests, healing me up fully. I hopped out, carried the princess to our dungeon, and got 50 points. I think it was an entirely different game, but the same thing happened again. The lowly axe-carrying Worker saves the day!

Staving off defeat

I can’t remember the map but it was set up such that a little cliff was above each castle. I ran to the cliff over my enemy’s castle while I was an upgraded Worker. I just hung out up there, chucking bombs down into the castle below, right where their princess was sitting on the thrown. When archers would shoot at me, I’d back up until they couldn’t reach me and still chuck bombs. I know, I know, I’m a camper. Anyway, my teammates would run up beside me and hop down to steal the princess, but the timer was going because they also had our princess in their dungeon. Whenever the timer was almost up and my teammates weren’t around, I would hop down and grab their princess, running off with her as far as I could get. Of course they always killed me before I made it out of the castle, but it was enough to decrease the timer until a flood of my teammates could make it and steal her more soundly. We eventually lost the match but I staved off the end for a while!

Hallelujah, it’s raining royalty

I was doing my thing as either a Worker or a Mage, I can’t remember, when suddenly our princess came flying down in front of me from a fight that had happened on the cliff above me. I was all “holy shit!” then grabbed the princess and started running for our castle. I had to cross the whole map since I had been right next to the enemy castle. I made it back to our castle and dumped her on our throne, getting I think 150 points for my trouble.