Marcel Winatschek

Then It Turned Black

It was a quiet Monday morning. A rerun of The King of Queens played in the background while I sat at my desk, reflecting once again on the design of my front page and the topics I wanted to share. Then, without warning, it happened.

In hindsight, there had been signs. For weeks, the monitor had shown intermittent crackling and occasional color distortions. This time, however, it failed completely. The screen went black, my desktop vanished, and, to my dismay, it made no attempt to display the familiar Windows XP startup screen.

That was likely the end of my aging—if somewhat unattractive—Dell CRT monitor. To be fair, it had served me reliably for nearly a decade, so its failure was hardly unexpected. Still, there is a certain upside to the situation: it finally clears the way for an upgrade to a modern flat-panel display.

A brief note on Friday night at the Nachtcafé: the train ride there was enjoyable, and sitting outside on the street from 2 a.m. onward had its charm. Unfortunately, the hours in between were rather uneventful. It might be worth returning on a Wednesday instead, when they host the one-euro parties. At the very least, Mille seemed to have a good time.