Online Fame | A 'blog written by Chris Rhee

Yeah, right. You’ll find none of that here. Move along now and quit hogging my bandwidth.

Awesome posting of the highest caliber will continue once my girlfriend goes back to Los Angeles. She flew in for Thanksgiving and I used my excellent directional skills to pick her up from the airport.

Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effort. Why do you hate America?

Well, the post titles worked out nicely (I’m talking about the post I made before this one: Widescreen vs Full screen PSA).

I was going back and forth, wondering if I should get this monitor or a regular full screen 20″ LCD (or even a 19″ LCD). I decided to go for the 23″ widescreen LCD by HP.

Apple

I was also thinking about getting Apple’s 23″ widescreen Cinema Display, but decided against it because it only had one input for DVI (while HP has video inputs for Analog, DVI, Composite, and S-Video and the ability to chose which input to use with the press of a button). I did like the look of Apple’s LCD better, but the fact that I couldn’t use it very easily between my PC and my Mac made me choose against it. If you only need to use your monitor for one computer, I’d probably recommend Apple’s LCD over HP’s.

I’ve heard many reports that Apple’s LCDs have a pink hue to them. I went to my local CompUSA to check it out in person and I did notice the pink hue of the monitor. I’m not sure what causes this because I’ve also heard that Apple and HP use the same exact LCD panel.

Widescreen

I decided to go with this 23″ widescreen because I wanted the extra wide screen space (I’m running a 1920×1200 resolution) — big enough for me to view a full preview of a website on one side and the code for said website on another side. Or, big enough for me to view code on one side and a DVD on the other side. I haven’t tried the Picture-in-picture function yet, but I’m sure I’ll make good use of it in the future.

Also, I don’t have a widescreen television, so I hope to use this as my television as well as my computer monitor. I’ve already watched some DVDs on it and it’s great.

I’m keeping my 4:3 aspect ratio, “full screen” LCD (an 18″ Dell UltraSharp) to use along with my new monitor on my PC (dual monitors for even more screen space).

Desk clutter

Here are a few pictures, taken minutes after setting the monitor up. Since the pictures were taken, I’ve moved the monitors around on my desk and hid the wires a bit. I’ll try to add some more pictures later.

• Picture of the monitor next to my Apple Powerbook
• Picture of Counter-Strike on the monitor
• Picture of Futurama on the monitor

I was looking at reviews for the latest Frasier DVD (not that I need to be told that it’s a great show, but I just wanted to see what other people thought about it) and I came across this review:

I know the last season (or two) was filmed in HD. Now I know HD doesn’t necessarily mean widescreen, but I could have sworn Frasier season 11 was in widescreen on the HDTV channels. If that is the case, I will not be buying this. I want the ENTIRE picture.

I’ll refrain from calling this person names and just move on to say that widescreen (or whatever aspect ratio HDTV uses) IS the full picture. And to get the “full screen” (or 4:3 aspect ratio of older televisions), someone has to cut off or zoom in on certains parts of the original video.

I remember a nice little segment in the special features on the Die Hard DVD with director commentary that showed you the original shot (the “widescreen” view), which is what the director wanted the shot to look like and then showed you the altered video (the “full screen” view). Too bad that segment of the DVD isn’t available as a public service announcement of sorts for people who aren’t familiar with the differences of widescreen and full screen.

Don’t be fooled by the words, “full screen”!

(By the way, to the guy who posted that review: Come on! People who watch Frasier should know everything there is about everything. You’re definitely out of the club.)

I’m liking how under each post title, the amount of time that has passed since the post was made is listed. It lets me know how much of a slacker I am. That is all.