Most Americans live the most impoverished social lives I have ever encountered. As a result, the only thing they think they have is technology and doo-dads and in fact, if they lost these, they would feel that they lost "everything." ....Because, in fact they would have lost "everything."... Joanna
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Ahem...hmm...how can I explain this. My monitor burned out on Sunday night---of course I had another one in the closet, just in case. But it was not the same. I felt I had lost everything, because, I had lost everything---cast adrift in the wine dark seas. I spent a sleepless night tossing and debating, the Sirens were calling to me. Should I get a nice new monitor or blow everything on a G5 with a 24" LCD---since OSX seems to have unix-like stuff... Tied to my pillow I rolled with the waves of desire.
At first light on Monday I went down to my favorite computer store run by this Chinese lady (ex-civil engineer, Beijing University, student during the cultural revolution....). Donna (Calypso) ordered me another monitor---a giant 21" Viewsonic, but it wouldn't be in until five-thirty when her son got back from his equipment run to San Jose. When I got home I was exhaused and bewildered---at a loss. What to do without my computer. I couldn't stand to look at it with its wretched IBM PS2 monitor. The entire horizon of Life had narrowed down to nothing but a nine inch screen supporting EGA!
I was so listless, tired, bored, burned out that all I could do was sleep, get up and nimble on something, stew around the place and then go back to sleep until five when I raced down to get my new monitor---fighting my way through the insane rush hour traffic (of false suitors) in Berkeley and El Cerrito.
There it was in a huge box, fifty-six pounds of raw graphic power in super fine dot-pitch----YES. Back home, I almost wet my pants when I plugged it in. The XF86Config file worked since the resolutions, vertical and horizontal frequencies were the same as the old monitor. Ah, a giant relief settled in, post-coital fatigue. I had a cigarette to enjoy the ambiance. Then I got up and ate dinner.
Odysseus had returned, order was restored, all was well.
Chuck Grimes