I just revised this entry to include more photos…

The new monitor arrived yesterday afternoon, and it’s been consuming almost all of my time ever since. I had to disconnect my system, clean everything, attach the VESA desk mount, adjust that, mount the monitor, rewire everything, clean some more, etc. Oh, and play a few games.
Video games on a 30″ screen — viewed from about 2 feet back — are pretty crazy. I played a little Unreal Tournament 2004 and it’s almost nauseating to have your entire field of view dominated by high-speed 3D graphics. Just as fun — in a completely absurd way — is playing emulated games, like from the Commodore 64 emulator. (For comparison, the black monitor is an 18″.)

The most fun, though, was pivoting the monitor 90 degrees and booting up MAME, the old arcade game emulator. With the monitor rotated to match the aspect ratio of many of the old arcade games, games like Ms. Pac Man were now an insane 25″ tall, certainly larger than the original arcade displays. The problem was that the top of the monitor was about 30″ above the base of my desk, so I was craning my neck at a pretty severe angle to see the entire display. Not practical, but fun, and funny.

The monitor is really supposed to be used for practical things, like writing. To give a small indication of what it can handle, here is a picture with nearly three full-size 8.5×11 pages on the screen at once.

While I’m posting pictures, here’s a picture from Saturday’s recording session at the University of Kansas. During a short break, John Lynch, the group’s conductor, came to the booth (along with several players) to check out a little of the playback. John is seated, with headphones, and the recording producer, Matthew McInturf, is standing over his shoulder.

I’m off to vacuum under the desk again, and then mix the pizza dough for dinner. I sure am loving having (nearly) a week off…