I thought that I heard the sound of "Taps" being played. Gently.

My TV died. Yes the projector that shone brightly over the fireplace has died. I got a call from Melissa the other day at work saying that she couldn't turn the TV on. I thought it was just something that needed to be switched to get it working. But on Tuesday, when I went downstairs to turn the TV on, sure enough it was broke. The projector was flashing an angry red light at me. After searching for the manual, then searching through the manual, I was able to find out that the flashing red light meant that the lamp had burnt out in the projector. So, still being hopeful, I went online to see what a new lamp would cost me. The way the directions made it sound, it should be an easy fix. So it shouldn't be a problem, right? WRONG. $299 for the friggin' lamp. This stupid thing is like an inch by an inch in size and it costs 299 friggin' dollars. So Melissa says that since that is the price of a new TV anyways (a small one maybe), that we should just look at getting a new TV again.

So there I went back onto the internet looking at TVs. Now I am behind the times and haven't gotten an HDTV yet, although thats been my goal for a while. So after searching through the 'net for a while we settled on a Samsung 50 inch plasma that was priced at 1200 bucks. We decided to get it the next day. So early that morning (around 1 in the afternoon) I went back on the internet to write down the model number and saw that it was on sale for $997. SCORE!!

We got the TV and brought it home, along with a Playstation 3 (but no games) for the blue-ray player. Once we got the TV home was the interesting part. With the projector, it put the tv on a screen above the fireplace. We thought we could mount the tv in the same place or put it on the mantle. Of course that didn't work so we had to rearrange the family room. Strangely enough, once the room started to take shape, we realized how awesome it was going to look. The way we had the room before was a total waste of space. There was barely any room to walk and not enough room to have more than 3 people watching tv comfortably. Now its amazing. There is plenty of room to sit and watch the tv, plenty of room for Derian to play on the floor (when he gets to that point), and now the couch is closer to the fireplace (NICE). The whole room is a lot comfier and I think we'll be spending a lot more time in that room.

As for the TV, it is awesome. The picture is so clear and huge. Plus, I don't even have the HD receiver yet for the satellite so that's going to be even better.

PS - If anyone has some leftover PS3 games they wanna get rid of, send 'em my way.

-Chas