Well, I finally won an eBay auction today for a new monitor. It’s a flat-screen Dell UltraSharp 20 incher. Should be pretty nice. I know a bunch of people who have one and they all love them.

$770 seems like a lot to pay for a monitor, but I figure it all works out. The last monitor I bought was in 1998. It was a ViewSonic 20G that I bought from Microsoft out of Firefly’s assets, for only $75. It was a nice big monitor and it could do 1600×1200 at 65hz, though it was very curved on the edges, and huge and heavy. It worked great for a few years, then it started this problem where the guns would be intermittently misalinged on the top or bottom half of the screen. It became very annoying and finally I decided that I had to get something better. I’m now technically and philosophically opposed to CRT monitors and the ViewSonic had spoiled me on 20 inch screens which made all of my options expensive.

Ebay turned out to the be the cheapest option, sometimes. I watched the auctions for a while and found the lowest price I saw one of the Dell monitors close at, $670. Then I started bidding, trying first at $670, then about $700, and then finally $720. You sure can get some cheap deals on Ebay, but it can definitely be a lot of work. I’ve spent the last week scheduling my activities around the closing times of auctions. I found that bidding more than a hour before the auction closed was useless as the price ramped up quickly by ‘snipers’ in the last few seconds. My only choice was to try to snipe myself after I was outbid a few times by only a few dollars. I found myself dreaming of ebay as I worried about waking up in time for the closing of some of the auctions.

I thought I had one snagged at only $569 over the weekend, but it turns out the guy mislisted the monitor he was selling.

I’m anxious to get the monitor now though. Hopefully it’ll help save my eyesight. I can’t believe I’m still the only person in my family still not in need of glasses.