A few years back, when I was working short-term contracts to do computer deployments, me and another guy were setting up new Dell computers with 19" LCD monitors in a chain of pharmacies. I had just taken a monitor out of its box, set it up, turned it on, and moved on to the next one when the other guy gave a shout and pointed over my shoulder. I turned around to see the monitor I had just set up with a thick curl of smoke coming out of the top edge of the casing. It was making an interesting fizzing noise, too. I jumped at it and pulled the power cord loose.
Luckily, we had a spare monitor to finish the deployment.
Heh...at least it was an *interesting* way for a monitor to fail, rather than merely aggravating....