LG L246WP: Sweet monitor, ghetto stand

I picked up a new LG L246WP 24" Widescreen LCD this weekend... Here's a quick look at my current desk setup:
Pretty sweet, right? Well... take a closer look at that stand holding up the monitor:
Hm... So the quick story is that I went to Best Buy to pick up one of these after I decided on the model following some (fairly detailed & in-depth) research on the available 24" models. (I'll get into the specifics on what to look for in an LCD monitor in a future post.)

Well, the store I was at had two available: one new, one open box. The sticker on the open box said "missing stand" and the price was very significantly marked down - about 1/3 off! So, I ask to open it up and check it out - everything looked good & I even had the so-called "Geek Squad" hook it up to a PC so that I could check for any dead pixels. There were none! It would appear that the previous buyer opened the box, saw that there was no base, and immediately returned it to the store.

Since everything looked good, I decided that there was no reason not to take the huge discount & I picked up the open box deal. Next stop: Home Depot.

My favorite store, Home Depot
I'm constantly finding cool stuff I need I think that I need for my home at The Depot, not to mention the fact that you can pick up tons of cool lighting gear there. Today, however, I needed something specific: a new base for this monitor stand to replace the missing one!

You ain't a beauty, but hey, you're all right
I ended up with a metal L bracket and used MDF board and some nuts & bolts I had around the house to come up with this slice of engineering majesty:
It's not much to look at but it works! The connector for the stand base is two protruding metal pieces with slight bends at the end (to catch in a slot, presumably) and a third metal piece that is recessed a bit with a screw hole. My plan was pretty simple: bolt a metal bracket to the board that'll catch the protruding pieces & fill the gap in front with a note pad.

Long term this may have issues
Now, clearly I never intended to keep it like this. First of all, I need to use that note pad. Second...? Well, it looks kind of ridiculous and I'm not all too certain as to how long it will remain stable! (Though I am pretty impressed so far.) I spoke with LG on the phone this morning and was able to have a replacement stand base sent out.

It'll arrive in about a week. If my ghetto rig lasts that long I'll consider this to be one of life's small victories!