My 18″-viewable CRT (NEC Accusync 90) is about to give up the ghost. In order for it to be bright enough for movie viewing or game play (not that I do much of either) I have to crank the contrast and brightness all the way up. In that mode, though, the display of large white areas (like a document editing screen, for instance) starts to fuzz out badly. That, and the screen just doesn’t seem as sharp as it did three years ago when I got it.

I’ve been looking at possible replacements. For around $400 I can get a digital flat-panel that’s about the same size, but that has less actual screen real-estate to offer. I’d love to have a full 1600 pixels (or more!) of width, because that would allow me to do my coloring at 25% zoom (a comfortably non-distorted factor of two) without having to scroll left or right. But that’s a convenience I’d be paying an extra $400 for.

The FIRST $400 was over budget. The second one, well… let’s just say that the cartoonist doesn’t get to splurge so wantonly as the product manager (may he rest in peace for effing-ever, please) did.

I’m not asking for donations. I’m just musing aloud on my computer needs. If any of you out there have experience with large TFT/DVI displays, feel free to post your horror stories. I could use a big bushel o’ them sour grapes right now.

–Howard

The melatonin seemed to work last night. Either that or I was just ready to go to bed when I went to bed.

A sleeping drug whose effects I’m unable to distinguish from natural sleep is probably a good thing.

–Howard

I’m out at dictionary.com looking up the word redolent, which I know means “smelly,” but it never hurts to know the finer points of usage.

In the right column were some Google ads. I like Google ads, because 95% of the time I see something either innocuous, interesting, or humorously juxtaposed.
I also like Google ads because they’re paying my grocery bill, and maybe my rent this month.

The top ad in that column began with the headline “embarrassing vaginal odor.”

Well, yeah. I guess that would be redolent, and I suppose if it were embarrassing, vaginal, and redolent, and in my house, I’d want to know about products that solve the problem.

Do the folks selling those products pay money to Google for placement alongside the word “redolent?” Dare I look up the words “stench” or “putrefaction?”

–Howard

p.s. I’m not going to tell you what word I looked up in the dictionary to pop a Google ad that promised me a product that would, and I quote “Deodorize Poop Itself!”

Sandra and I watched a few episodes of CSI that had been Tivo’d by my Father-in-law. Naturally, they had the requisite amount of commercial material inserted in the appropriate places.

How do you people who watch television put up with this? We fast-forwarded through most of the commercials, but even then the banality, the sheer commercial pedestrianism was painfully obvious. PAINFULLY. I felt physically ill. I felt I.Q. points being stripped away in the odiferous wind of 30-second spots. I had to close my eyes.

The last time I remember feeling this way was on my first visit to Las Vegas, when I stood transfixed, watching a withered crone pump quarter after quarter into an airport slot machine. I was depressed by that sight, and felt physically ill. And yes, TV commercials this evening made me feel the same way.

11 years ago Sandra and I decided that we couldn’t afford cable TV, and that an antenna was too much trouble for the three channels we’d get. So we started to do without. Today I look back at that decision and wonder how different our lives would be had we given something else up in order to afford cable. And then I shudder involuntarily.

Turn off your television before it’s too late. There is nothing out there worth sitting through commercials for. NOTHING.

–Howard