NEW 32" TV!

I got a Sharp 32” Standard-Definition Digital TV (32SC26B).

Some hyper-rich college student named Brianna was selling it because, she said, she's moving to Iowa to enroll in Law School. I found it on Craigslist, which is classifieds specific to the city you are in - if you don't use it try it out.

I say "hyper-rich" because she lived in a gated, passworded, ritzy condo complex. She was thin, blond and prissy, and had two or three girlfriends who were much the same, and one tall, skinny white guy with them.

I brought with me my daughter, Maria de Guadalupe, and my brother, Esteban.

First Test: WiiSports (Wii)
To test the TV we attached the Wii and its component cables and tried WiiSports. The women didn't want to touch it but the guy wanted to try bowling. Maria joined and the white guy was surprised he and I were not only being beaten, but trounced upon by a little girl. Esteban whispered to her in Spanish and they'd chuckle. "Who's winning? Lu-pi-ta!" emphasis on the "little girl beats grown men." She and Esteban giggled until she beat us 287 to 237 and 239, mine being the lowest score.

Second Test: Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)
The birds in the distance, just a few pixels big, look blurry on my wife's 32" Sylvania (RCA inputs), and looked clearer, but shimmered on the Wal-Mart special, the 32" ILO (IWT3206) that I had to return. But the 32SC26B supports 480p, not just 480i. The birds no longer shimmered, and the picture was much clearer. MAN! What a difference between 480i "SDTV" and 480p "EDTV".

White People Are Funny
So it came time to pay $200 (for a $369 new) TV and take it home. The white guy offered to help carry it, and I said "Sure, I'll let Esteban take my place, he's stronger."

Well the white guy tries to heft this thing and mind you, he's only about as big as me, only taller, and with GAP clothes... so it's not long before he starts to lose it. His face turns red and he starts to slip, so Esteban, perplexed, just leans into it a bit and ends up hefting most of the TV across the street to Rafael, my wife's minivan.

By the time they get there, the white guy's face was about as red as Esteban's (brilliant red) shirt, and my brother and my daughter start laughing. I go back inside with the guy to pick up the TV stand and come back, and they're still laughing about something.

"What?" I asked. They made shushing noises.

"What? What's so funny?" They shook their heads and made motions to be quiet, while they kept chuckling.

"Okay, sirs, well I'm gunna go." the white guy said and left with one of the prissy girls. Then Esteban and Maria burst out laughing.

Esteban said "He looked like he was about to pop. He came up acting so strong and I'm thinking 'What's the matter? Pffft this isn't so heavy.' so I just carry more of it myself."

Maria pointed out "His ego was stronger than him." Esteban and I got a kick out of that observation.

Internet / Gmail on the Wii
Gmail is not only easy to read, the TV cuts off less at the top and bottom of the screen, which was a bad problem on the junky IWT3206. Maria is quite happy.

Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)
The component cables I got for the Wii also has adapters for the XBOX 360 and PS2/PS3 (which appear to be the same).

Not only does the game look crystal clear (so clear, some textures shimmer, but overall I'd say the detail is more pleasing to the eye than a blurry picture with less apparent shimmer), but the TV allows you to arbitrarily set it to 16:9 format! The craptastic IWT3206 didn't - it supposedly recognized wide-aspect cable feeds and adjusted itself accordingly, but it had no idea if a videogame was using that resolution. The 32SC26B allows you to just set 16:9 anytime you want - so I can play Shadow of the Colossus in widescreen and see more area left to right if I want. I can probably do this with widescreen Wii games if there is a setting I can get to to make the game use that mode regardless of what it thinks the TV is.

Summary
I am very happy with the TV and first and foremost grateful to God. It is so frequent that he blesses us on a special day (Father's Day, a Birthday, etcetera) by giving us something that seems bad (that TV I had to return) and ends up even better (a TV better than the one I bought if it had worked for less money).

I went without a 32" TV for two nights - returned it Tuesday, got the "new" one on Thursday evening and had time to play WiiSports at home, and show Esteban Shadow of the Colossus after Maria went to bed.