anyway, a long time ago i told virago not to bring her crappy monitor when she moved here, and offered to give her my monitor, which i would replace by buying myself a new, bigger plasma screen. this was a compromise i made with myself when i built my new machine last winter: i wanted a new monitor, but my 5-year-old 15" CRT worked perfectly well...and i was already paying $1100-$1200 for the other hardware and printer. so i put off getting the new monitor until i could pass the "old" one on to virago.
well, she gets into town tomorrow, so tonight i went to fry's and bought myself a new 19" plasma screen: the samsung syncmaster 930B. it's a pretty black that matches my lovely coolermaster case, and it's so thin & light that the box had a handle and i could easily carry it as though it were a briefcase. plus, i really like this picture that i nicked from the samsung site: it takes typically phallic forms and creates an image that's distinctly vaginal. (or maybe i've just seen too much upskirt pr0n in my day.)i picked up this bad boy at fry's for $399 - $40 mail-in rebate. they had several 19" plasma screens in the $350 range (some after mail-in rebate, some with no rebates). i ended up picking this one because it was black, the image quality looked pretty good, and it didn't have built-in speakers. most of them actually had the speakers built-in, but i didn't want that because i already have a stereo setup the way i like it, and if i decide to replace that, i would at least want something with a subwoofer.
unfortunately they didn't have any of the 930Bs on the floor, so i waited around for someone to help me and finally had to track someone down. he turned out to be a trainee, so he needed the manager for various things and getting my monitor from the back room etc took even longer than normal. i don't blame the trainee, though. it's not his fault, and it's not like i expected great service at a big box store like fry's. i wound my way through the checkout corral, the receipt-checker at the door complimented me on my samurai champloo dvds that i was also getting.
i hooked this baby up and i'm still wowed at its enormity. the display one at fry's didn't look that huge because it was surrounded by a good 10 or more other 19" plasma screens, with 17"ers beyond that. but now that it's on my desk where my old monitor used to be, it looks massive. especially since my tv is next to it, and that's only 13"! yikes.
the native resolution for this baby is 1280x1024. i think i've already adjusted to that, but it'll be a shock to go back to work and use 800x600 on a 13" monitor again... though i'm supposed to get a new machine at work eventually.
anyway, time for bed. virago gets here in the morning (actually around lunchtime) and we'll be all over the place, moving boxes, shopping for beds, etc. then friday is my birthday; we'll probably be fairly busy then too. saturday i turn in my collages for the show at big car (there's a big tour of the "cultural districts" that night & jim wants to get the art set up before that), then we're off to muncie for an elite party at bobby vomit's house. we'll be rocking out in his basement & there should be live streaming audio fromthe party, so stay tuned for the url for that.
time for beddy-bye.¶
