Screen Test

The computer is a wonderful tool. It allows us to maintain records that would otherwise give us writer's cramp if we had to use pencil and paper. We can sort and catalog incredible amounts of useful and (more likely) unuseful information. And not just words. Pictures, too. Throw in a scanner and almost anything can be saved. Except that moth eaten sweater which provides such comfort on a cold winter evening. Eventually, they'll find a way to do that.

Lately, my desktop computer screen has been acting up. Well, I should describe it as "misbehaving". The normal routine is to push the monitor button then the computer button and then things begin to flash upon the screen. Instead, of late, I get a blinking green light on the monitor button which sometimes continues for 5 minutes. The computer comes up, I suppose. It makes all the proper sounds anyway. But the screen remains blank. A black abyss staring at me from my desk. And, then, just as I have almost resigned myself to head for the computer store to purchase a new monitor *poof* the image appears.

The monitor has been playing cat and mouse with me for about 6 weeks now. I noticed that electronic equipment, like humans, get more cantankerous and unreliable with age. We have, apparently, been successful in creating these machines in our own image. One day, it will die. Quietly. In my sleep. I will wake up and it will not.

I will then have to make the Journey of Compromise. I have been looking at other monitors since this began. No, to be honest, I have been unfaithful in my heart to that monitor for a couple of years now. Anytime I am in a store which sells these lovely electronic gadgets, I look at the monitors. I am enthralled by the colors they emit, the subtle illusion of depth they can provide, the size of their pixels. And lately, by the feel of them. Oh yes, true touch screens are here. And they are magical.

Alas, I cannot afford one. They cost twice as much (plus) as the machine I would attach them to. Nothing brings me back to reality than those price tags. I will drool over the beautiful and alluring big sister but I will take the less flashy, but cute, little sister to the prom.

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