Would that be considered a hardware or a software problem?

A friend e-mailed me…

[My Wife’s] crt stopped working so I took a look around making sure everything was still plugged in, etc., Then I took a look on top where the cat likes to sit on the cooling vents to keep warm and found a pile of cat barf. After removing the monitor I found liquid had traveled from the top to the bottom, shorting out the crt.

I would have sent a picture of the problem but the dogs ate the barf.