How To Know You're Addicted To The Computer

My monitor was bought 2 years ago at the flea market, along with 2 speakers and a subwoofer, at a really good price. The monitor was a Microtek, a brand I had never heard of, but it was a flat screen, and I liked it...much better than the huge bulky one that I had bought in 1996 on sale at Sears. About 6 months ago the screen had a really funky color to it...instead of having the colors like you were supposed to, the bottom third was a pinkish color, the middle third was bluish, and the top third was normal. I went ahead and pulled up the menu on the computer, then on the monitor itself to see if somehow, someway, the colors got screwed up, but no, that wasn't the case. I called up the local PC repair and described the way it looked at I was told that the monitor was going, I should get about another month out of it. The kids and I got used to it being those colors. Then a month later, it started flickering on and off, and then it stopped...I attributed that to humidity and the windows being open for so long and then they were closed, so that's what it was. The flickering stopped, but the color situation stayed. Then came 2 weeks ago...was checking my email and the weather, everything was fine...got off the computer to watch some TV with Amber and the screensaver came on. An hour later I noticed a small "pfft" sound and Amber and I thought it was the sound effects on the TV, but when I got up, the monitor was black. Yep, it was gone. Then we found out just how addicted to the computer we had become...Amber and I, that is. I found out there was a snow storm coming, and without the computer to follow the models and go into the weather forums and find out the latest, I was lost. I ended up reading 6, 300+ page, books in 3 days, started a 7th, finally got the dusting done, crocheted 1/2 a blanket for a single bed, and learned that movies I claimed Danny watched were stupid wasn't really the case, because there's worse out there! I got so upset because I couldn't see what was going on with the storm that I started unplugging and replugging in cords, which gave me an additional 30 hours of screen time, but here's where the REAL addiction comes into play. Amber would turn the lights in the living room on and angle the monitor as soon as Danny and I were gone. Now I did it for 30 minutes, hoping to find the latest info, but Amber was on for awhile. She also wanted to see if there was a way we could get her laptop, that doesn't work, to be hooked up to my computer and see it on her monitor...desperate if you ask me! I think a week, maybe, is all she can handle. Danny ended up buying me a 18.5" widescreen HD Dell and I'm amazed at the images of the models and maps that are in the right colors instead of muted pink, blue, and clear!