Knitting |Techie Talk by Judy @ 6:18 PM

Life is such a study in contrasts, is it not?

There isn’t much knitting news from me, because there hasn’t been much knitting. I’ve managed to add about 10 rows to Sock Scarf Two over the last four days. That’s it. 10 rows.

In vaguely related news, I noticed that the new Knitty is out, and one of the patterns included is for a sock hat. I just may have to knit one of those to go with Sock Scarf Two. 😆

And why have I not been knitting, you may ask? Therein lies a techie tale…

On Friday I upgraded some of the software on #1 Son’s computer, and I had a heck of a time reading anything on his monitor. After briefly wondering if my poor, old eyes were finally going completely blind, I realized that his monitor was finally giving up the ghost.

I bought that monitor about 12 years ago, or maybe more, from a store that will remain nameless to protect the idiots. It’s a 17″ NEC, and at that time it was quite bleeding edge and very expensive. As I recall the average street price was about $750 — a large sum for a CRT monitor. I wasn’t looking for that particular monitor, as it was well out of my price range. But I needed a monitor, and I needed one rather quickly. Nameless Store had quite a good selection, and I looked at a lot of monitors that were more in my range. But they were all smaller and didn’t have as many features. Knowing that the NEC was out of reach, even though it had no price tag on it, I still asked the sales guy about it.

Oh, that one. he said. Someone brought that back. It’s the only one we have. We don’t have a box for it, although we will of course honor the full warranty. I’ve got the software and the manual right here. Don’t know what the price is. Would $300 be acceptable?

Trying very hard to keep a straight face, I allowed that $300 sounded reasonable, gave the guy my money, wrapped the thing up in a blanket and loaded it in my car. It’s been serving me faithfully ever since, and was passed down to #1 Son about 6 years ago when I bought a new computer that came with a monitor. (Note that this was several computers ago. The ones we’re using now I built.)

So I’ve definitely gotten more than my money’s worth from #1 Son’s monitor, and from mine for that matter. But I could see that the time had come to bid the old NEC a fond farewell and buy a new monitor.

For me, that is. I may be altruistic in some things, but not technology. I get the stuff that rocks. #1 Son gets the hand-me-downs (which are always more than serviceable, so don’t assume he’s getting ripped off).

Saturday, after lunch with M, I went to the local Compusa in search of a monitor. I found a lovely Viewsonic 19″ LCD with 8ms video response time. And there was a Radeon X850 video card on sale that I dithered about, but in the end went for. And there was this 7.2 MP Casio Z750 camera the size of a deck of cards that also takes MPEG4 movies…

Yeah, it was not a cheap trip. Christmas came just a little early to the PI household. But I showed restraint. Even though I thought hard about it, I did not replace my dead CD burner. I can live with one DVD burner if I have to.

Saturday evening was spent with hardware. Click here for the blow-by-blow:



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Stuff I Gotta Do

Follow The Leader shawl

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entrelac wrap

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Arabesque shawl

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Jubjub Bird Socks

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I Mog Di

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Peacock Feather Shawl

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Honeybee Stole

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Irtfa'a Faroese Shawl

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Lenore

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Fatigues henley sweater

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Jade Sapphire Scarf

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#1 Son's Blanket

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