Burned Monitor - 12-hour long freak-out

I knew this day was coming sooner or later. The monitor of my laptop (a five year-old one...) finally ceased to function last night. I freaked out as I turned on the 'puter last night and thought it was just pms-ing for the month. But then no, I looked at it all night long and couldn't see anything. It was black, dark, nothingness. I freaked even more and couldn't go to sleep at all (it's my best non-human friend, the second best non-human friend is the teley). Then I turned it around and realized that the words Windows were slightly visible once the monitor is turned to a right angle. I logged in and made sure that there was no problem with other functions. Daybreak. Called up a friend to ask what shyst happened to my laptop. Simple answer - the monitor light bulbs got burned up (I seriously don't know what it's called in English...it's sort of a direct translation from Chinese). No wonder I can't see anything.

Since I still need to use my computer (badly...am addicted to playing Kingdom of Loathing at the moment) to do a few things, I went out and spent NT$7,000 to get a seperate LCD monitor (made by LG...the first time I am using a Korean brand...I normally would choose something else but it was an emergency and I had no choice) to connect to my computer. It works but great, now I have two things on the coffee table. It's kind of strange but I haven't decided what I'm going to get as the next laptop yet so I don't want to rush into buying one.