I mentioned earlier that my monitor was going out.  Also, Becky's mouse was a piece of crap.  She didn't even have a scroll wheel.  I ended up getting the Sony SDM-HX73/S for a new monitor.  As per usual, I managed to find an "open-box-buy" at a reduced price, so with that and the rebate...I was very happy.  Those who know me well know that as an educated consumer, I really like the open-box buy.  They also know the consequences of your friend buying a 300 pound television without a box and having to haul it up 3 flights of stairs with only the help of your friend and a pregnant woman when it's 105 degrees outside...but that's another story, which I will tell only if there's enough interest.

Anyway, the monitor is beautiful, I turned on "ClearType" and really like the extra "fake" resolution.  For those who don't know, LCD screens are composed of lots red, green, and blue "mini-pixel triplets".  Microsoft has a technology that exploits this fact and increases horizontal resolution 300%.  It really is a neat trick, and sometimes you can see color "edging" around certain fonts, but overall I like it.  Microsoft has a site that allows you to tune ClearType and make it look the best to you.

I also got a new wireless optical mouse.  It has a scroll wheel that turns vertically, as well as "tilting" from side-to-side.  I've seen lots of attempts at 2-axis scrolling, but this is the best.  I tend to write lines of code wider than my editor, especially at my now-reduced screen resolution (1280x1024 as opposed to 1600x1200 with my old monitor).  Becky inherited my old mouse, which is still pretty good and about 1000x better than her old one.