The Machinery of Night

Foto Friday: Lickity-Split

Boats on Sugar Beach, North Kihei
Feb 2009

And that's how this week's FF was posted, lickity-split! (No, of course it is terribly late.)

(By the way, Mr. Boat Owner, the Google consensus is that the spelling is lickety-split.)

(You might need to click the picture to enlarge it and find out what all this lickity-split business is about.)

The lateness of the FF (as if any of my imaginary readers cares) is due partly to the untimely death of my old friend, the 19" Samsung monitor. I came home one day to find it cold and dark. I performed the flashlight test, in which you shine a flashlight in its face and see if anyone's still home, and it passed that. That is, its only problem was that its backlight was out.

This was Niles's monitor, which he was generously loaning me. He knew a guy in Houston who could fix it for $90, and it was probably worth fixing, because it was a good monitor. So when he went back to Houston after Thanksgiving he took it with him.

The original box wouldn't fit into his suitcase, so we spent a lot of time pulling boxes out of the closet, trying to find one that would fit. Then he carefully packed it to cushion it for the flight.

And then the TSA ruined it.

When he got home he found a giant scratch in the screen, probably from when they opened the box. His repair guy says it's not worth fixing now. I told him that he ought to file a claim for at least the difference between the repair and the cost of a replacement. But it sounds like he thinks it's not worth it. (I'd do it, on principle.)

That monitor cost Niles $850 in 2004. Today I bought a 24" Samsung for $250. Progress!

Tomorrow I begin the grim task of editing xorg.conf to accommodate the new monitor. Pray for me.

Labels: Feb 2009, Foto Friday, Hawaii