Current mood:	Blah
Current music:	Shell - Witch Hunter Robin OST 1 (in head)

And so it begins (eventually...)
I've ordered a new monitor off Amazon. I'll give it a proper(ish) review when I get it, but until then, you can amuse yourself with the answer to this question:

( So, why are you getting a new monitor? )

I've been using `me mam's one a lot recently, and I'm finding myself squinting at my CRT. Coincidentally, I'm going to be moving soon, and don't really want to lug around my old monitor. So, I'm after a 17" LG TFT monitor. And here's why:

• The TV around here's an LG flatscreen, and it's rather good for the price.
• 17" TFTs take up no more space than your average 15" CRT.
• Further to that, it'll go up to 1280x1024.
• This one's got a tilt adjustment too---trivial, you may think, but I've found some form of height/tilt adjustment useful on the ones at Uni.
• It's moderately bright (250 cd m^{-2}) and has a decent viewing angle of 160 degrees horizontally and vertically. At least, that seems to be good, given what's currently available.

And now, let's go over why I've delayed joining the rest of the human race, and bowed to the pressure of getting a TFT monitor:

• TFTs are fixed to one resolution (in practice). A change of resolution means scaling the incoming picture to fit the screen (or having a nasty black border around the edge), and as far as I know, they don't scale down larger resolutions. In any case, the resulting picture quality can (IMO) be worse than a CRT. I think this is mostly due to screen modes such as 1024x768 being 4:3, whereas 1280x1024 is 4:3.2, and hence you need an ugly scale factor. For me, this can be a bit of a problem, since the Risc PC I use is limited to 2MB VRAM. This could be fixed by me getting an Iyonix, but even so, playing Elite in a half-size `letterbox' can be disconcerting at first.
• Viewing angle. I've yet to be convinced that you can get a decent viewing angle out of an LCD, and one which gives you a fairly uniform brightness across the screen. To get the best out of the one downstairs, your eyeline has to be higher than the monitor, otherwise you have to strain your eyes a bit on the top third. We'll see how it turns out.

Bear in mind that I sit still at a monitor for long periods of time, so the more comfortable my eyes will be, the better.

There are a good few with integrated speakers, which I first thought would be ``Great for saving space, since there won't be much in the room I'm moving into'', but on second thoughts, ``I'll pass, since I've saved enough space already having a flatscreen, I'll whack my own decent speakers behind it''.

One thing it doesn't have is a DVI input. Actually, it may yet have one, depending on whether the seller knows the difference between a model B and a model P. Probably not though. It won't mean much in any case, until I fit my PC with a DVI graphics card (or someone writes a driver for one for the Iyonix).

I'm surprised that play.com doesn't do Monitors. They do everything else... don't they?

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While I'm on a reviewing-fest, I could review the DVD recorder. Or, leave it for another day (next month?), when I've finished transferring the Ghostbusters tapes from `Beta to DVD. Maybe the Dangermouse too.

"Would you be Raymond Stantz?"
"No, not by choice".

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So, um, content? Yes, I realise there's not been much any in the last month, but um... the thing is you see... uh...

Ooh, look, breakfast!