Happy March!

Yeah, I'm a day or two late with the newest blog header but what can ya do?

I can't believe I never used the illustration I did of Tonya Kay last year as a part of the blog but, right now, I'm glad I didn't because I can finally feature her here for the month of March. Hmmm...Miss March, anyone?

The last few days really got away from me as I got a crash course in using Adobe After Effects yesterday and I spent the majority of today trying to set up my new monitor. My old monitor (a behemoth of a 19" old CRT monitor) was finally dying on me after six years. The screen started to get fuzzy and staring at it for too long would really knock me for a loop. After scanning all the pages into the computer for Exit 6 it got so bad that my left eye started twitching. At first I thought I was just getting older and that it may be time for some glasses. But I tested myself by reading the credits on movie posters from across the room and finally had Monika look at the CRT screen to make sure it wasn't just me. It turns out it wasn't so I ordered a new monitor.

It's a beauty of a monitor. It's a 23" wide screen that looks amazing when it's set up right. The problem was setting it up. You think it'd be easy to plug a new monitor into a computer. Just plug it in, select your resolution, and it should work fine. But, no. Like most things that have all sorts of software and add ons to make it all "easier and better" it just made the whole thing a pain in the ass. I got it set up really nice once and then the whole thing fritzed out on me and the screen resolution got all screwy. The monitor kept telling me to set it up a certain way. And when I did it looked like someone took a 16:9 widescreen movie and scrunched it down to fit a 4:3 TVscreen. So everything was tall and thin and pixelated and looked awful.

After trying to deinstall and reinstall the software five times I finally actually got on the phone for some tech support. But this guy was no help at all and didn't seemed too concerned about not being able to help me in any way.

Finally I took all the software off my computer, plugged the monitor in, ignored what resolution the screen told me to do, and set it up in a way that fit the screen, kept everything in proportion, and looked good. I adjusted the contrast and brightness a bit by eye until it looked good to me and left it at that.

It looks great but I have had one instance where I turned the computer back on and the monitor reset itself to an old 800x600 format. I just changed it back to what looked good and went from there. So, who knows what will happen the next time I turn it on.

You gotta love technology, folks. I did finally tell myself that it's just a tool but I sometimes get way too wrapped up in such things that the next thing I know the whole day has been blown. But it seems to be OK now and all is well. An hour long bike ride tonight helped me put life back in perspective and things are great once again.

Happy March!