My computer monitor is rapidly breaking down.

It’s a huge iF281D something or other, and it overheats, badly. In warm weather, when I’m playing a graphics intensive game, or when I’ve just had it on for too long, the screen goes black briefly. Since my sound is running through the built-in speakers, that shuts off, too. Then, anywhere from half a second to thirty seconds later, it pops back on. Then, a few seconds later, off again. Back in the fall, it was a minor problem that only happened once or twice a week, and I could stop it with Ctrl+Alt+Del. (Dunno why, changing to the menu screen it brought up immediately stopped the process. I didn’t have to do anything else, I’d just get back to what I was doing.) Now, it’s a daily occurrence. I recently had to spend nearly four hours watching a movie, because I had to turn the monitor off to cool down every ten to fifteen minutes. (It was a hot day, to be fair.) Plus, the monitor turning off and on unexpectedly is really, really jarring to the eyes. They are not adapted to that. This is obviously extremely frustrating, but it is not without unexpected advantages.

First off: I’m getting better at videogames. At first, whenever it would go black, I’d pause automatically. Then, if it was just doing brief flickers, I’d just keep playing. I’ve actually seeming to have been developing proprioception for my mouse cursor- I can shut off my computer while my monitor is completely black, open a program, do basic functions in many games, etc. All I need to know is the starting position of my mouse, or I just need to move it while the screen is black until it would definitely be in one corner. In-game, I’ve noticed that I’ve been figuring out patterns much more quickly, probably out of necessity.

Though gaming is one of the more drastic ways I’ve noticed the changes, I’m also becoming a better typist. I would stop typing when my screen went out at first, but now that it’s a regular occurrence, I’ve stopped worrying about that, and just kept typing. I’ve become faster and more confident, and my spelling, which has badly atrophied, thanks to spell-check, is improving rapidly again. I recently wrote several hundred words while the screen was black, with only one or two mistakes. My typing speed has gone up from around 58 WPM to around 67 WPM. Pretty handy, huh?

Basically, I’ve found an awesome new tool for improving your computer skills, and I’m willing to reluctantly part with it to someone who has been unsatisfied with themselves in any of the above categories. I’d be more than willing to, say, trade it for your boring, non-instructive monitor. Won’t the minor frustration be worth the sense of self-improvement? Anyone?

Damn.

Well, it was worth a shot.