Near Miss and Monitor
Wednesday, May. 14, 2003

My little remindery thingy says �Eye Monitor Fence Near Miss Circus Windshield.� So, lets see what I end up writing about today.

If I want to go chronological, I�d do Near Miss first.

Near Miss

On Friday, rather than taking the normal way home, I decided to head over Green Mountain with the top down. It was a really nice day. Normally, I don�t speed. Well, that�s not so true now. Last year, I could count the times I went over the speed limit on two hands and maybe a foot, but this year, now that I have the Miata, I tend to go five miles an hour over the speed limit.

It�s just that for some reason, everyone hates me when I�m in the Miata. Where the Saturn could poke along at the horrifically oppressive speed limits (well, there are only two on my way to work), with the Miata, people just don�t accept that.

The speed limits on the way to work actually aren�t that bad. 70 mph is fine on 565 and the 45 of Slaughter is what I�d call the �natural speed� of the road. The 55 on Madison Blvd is a bit on the pokey side though. And the Parkway, 50 is just wrong. It�s controlled access, for Pete�s sake.

Well, I�m zipping across the top of Green Mountain and obscured by a large bush, possible a forsythia, is a sedan backing out of it�s driveway. Now, the top of Green Mountain isn�t a residential area by any means, so I felt free to drive whatever speed I felt, since the speed limit is only posted near the Nature Trail and at that stop sign you can turn right without stopping at (and I always turn right). So this car backs out on me, and I take it to the other lane, and almost into the dirt.

I haven�t almost been hit in a while. My adrenaline kicked in and I got that sick to my stomach feel, which was lame, since I was pleasure driving.

Monitor

Our old monitor for the computer upstairs has been acting up in the last month. At first, the first time it sparked visibly and made a ionized gas smell, Velvet was sitting on it and I just assumed that one of her long sissy-cat hairs had gotten in the electronics of the thing. Heck, it might have been that which killed it. But in any case, it would spark and flash with her gone sometimes. Rather scary.

It would also do what I called, The Red Line Thing. What that would be is that the electron gun, rather than having the electromagnet distribute the electrons all over the screen, as it�s supposed to, it would make a very bright red line from the center of the screen to the top. This was accompanies by a sizzling sound. Not good. And sometimes it would work find, but crackle a little.

And of course, a good 80% of the time it was totally fine too. However, when not in use, I�d unplug the thing since I�d rather not have my house burn down. Heck, that�s where I keep my stuff, and the cats know nothing about putting out fires.

So, when it gave me a good flash last Friday and did it�s crazy show, I told Aisai that we needed to replace it. Aisai had just gotten a new computer at work. It�s a Dell. And, despite my dislike of the �Dude, you�re gonna get a Dell� doobie boy ads, I went to the Dell site.

Aisai was keen on spending $300 on a 13� flat screen LCD monitor. Heck, that�s too small. I found a nice 19� for $154, with free shipping.

It showed up yesterday and is massive. It does fit on the computer desk though.

It just occurred to me that both my computer tables here (work) and at home are made of white melamine. This one is a drafting table which I�ve got laying horizontal. The one at home is a simple deskish type thing.

The problem with getting a new huge monitor is that there is really no way to play with the thing. I surfed the web some and watched the first minute of The Second Renaissance Part II again, but then just went to bed.

So, that leaves �Eye Fence Circus Windshield.�