Monitor Woes

My monitor died today. But it was only a matter of time.

I have this 15" flat screen monitor I picked up at Costco a few years ago. A few years meaning 2001 (I think.... before 9/11... probably... or possibly 2000. I disremember.) Anyway, I used this monitor for both my desktop computer and occasionally as a larger monitor for my laptop. So it goes from one to the other, back and forth, ya di da. A few weeks ago during one of these switches, I noticed that the connection wouldn't go into my desktop computer. I looked and one of the prongy things (you'll find my lack of computer-geek-speak enormous) was bent over. Being an owner of a Grape iMac, I still have bent up paper clips handy, so I managed to fix the prongy thing and all went well. In fact, things went so well, I forgot that little episode ever happened. (Much like Star Wars Episode One.)

So yesterday I plugged my monitor into my laptop, did some laptop stuff (no, not that) and proceeded to replug my monitor into HAL, my desktop computer. But (apparently the Fates have decided to conspire against me) it wouldn't go in. I looked and found the little prongy thing bent over. Again. I tried to fix it. Again. And the prongy thing broke.

I discovered that you really don't need all those prongy things in your monitor cable. Each one has a role to play. The one that broke off played the roll of Red. Red, you see, died.

So all my colors were screwed up. Red became Yellow, Green became really ugly. It was nasty. I used this monitor for a day, then decided to try something else. My dad had an extra monitor at his office, so I trudged over there tonight and grabbed it, came home, plugged it in, and BEHOLD! I have red.

Of course, it couldn't be that easy. Right now I'm getting this flicker headache. Something about this monitor isn't right. (It's an HP monitor, so that's probably one of the things wrong with it.)

I think I'll relegate HAL to some other functions for the time being and just use my iMac. It may be old, but it's trusty. Trusty as long as I don't try to perform surgery on it. But that's another story.