The Whole WIDE World

So I’ve decided that my new monitor officially kicks ass.
The widescreen is taking a little getting used to, though. Even though the screen is roughly the same height as the screen on my 19” CRT, the LCD seems slightly smaller somehow.
It’s mostly a matter of perception, I think.
Currently, my resolution is set at 1,680x1,050, which means that I have a higher vertical resolution than I did on my old monitor, which I kept at 1,280x1,024, and yet somehow it seems as though less is fitting on the screen vertically.
Clearly that's just my imagination, though. I'm sure once I go to work and start using the smaller LCDs set at a lower resolution there I'll notice the difference.
1,680x1,050 is the max resolution for the new monitor, which means that I lose out on 150 vertical pixels compared to my 19” CRT’s max of 1,600x1,200, but I gain 80 horizontal pixels, and when the monitor is rotated that means I gain 480 vertical pixels, while still keeping a respectable horizontal size.
And as mentioned, I usually kept the 19" at a lower resolution anyway, very seldom taking advantage of the 1,600x1,200 resolution.
In any case, the first real pace I put the monitor through was the noblest use I could think of for it: watching the high-res Sin City trailer.
It was very cool. Even though the monitor doesn't have quite the same aspect ratio as a movie screen, it's pretty close (the monitor's aspect ratio is 16:10 compared to most movie theater screens' 16:9), so there was a lot less black on top and bottom when I played it full screen.
Just over three weeks left until SC hits theaters, for those of you who, like me, are counting the days…
Apart from Tuesday’s training and cooking class, this week was pretty uneventful, even for me. I never even properly went grocery shopping, and I don’t think that I drove my car at all, beyond moving it from a crappy parking space to one in front of my building.
I did finally get around to making a dentist appointment for next week, so I accomplished that much.
I’m not looking forward to it, simply because I know my dentist is going to lecture me for not being back sooner. I have a lot of work that needs to be done, but only a very limited amount of dental coverage each year. Last year I ran out of insurance pretty early on, and I was supposed to head back to have some stuff done out of pocket, but I never managed to save up any money for that.
So I had to wait for the new year to start and reset my insurance. Once that happened it was just a matter of getting around to calling in and making an appointment, which, as you can see, took a while.
I don’t intend to let him lecture me too much, though, as I’ll point out that if he’d really wanted me to come back sooner he’d be willing to work for free.
This year I’m putting a lot of money into my flexible spending account, so I’m hoping that between that and insurance I’ll be able to get the bulk of the work I need done taken care of, leaving me free to put next year’s Flex money towards getting my eyes fixed.
Even after shelling out big bucks for my new monitor I still have some money left in my savings, with some more to come, so I may continue making incremental upgrades to my computer set up before finally biting the bullet and purchasing a new system.
The next step is likely to be a new, bigger graphics tablet.
I haven’t decided on which kind yet, though the 6x8 Graphire (which is at least a step up from my 4x5 older model Graphire) seems likely, as the Intuos3 line is just too expensive.
I would really like to have the 9x12 Intuos3, though, and of course the Cintiq 21UX would also be nice, though I don’t think that will be happening anytime, well, ever.
In any case, that’s pretty much going to wrap up this week. I hope that all of you (at least the ones who won’t be there working with me the whole time) have a good weekend.