I am showing my age here. I destroyed a CRT monitor once when I used the wrong incantation for xorg.
Whoa, what? I'd be curious to hear more about that... How could some software config harm a display? Incorrect sync rates or something? ...and yeah, I am old enough to have used CRT displays for many years of my life, just never seen one get damaged like that! :)
Used to be, you configured X for your monitor and video card by editing a config file that specified the assorted timings and so forth. Yes, you could make your monitor very unhappy with the wrong settings.
This is probably the most useful thing ESR ever wrote: http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/XFree86-Video-Timings-HOWTO/
My sympathies. I remember the feeling in my gut I got when I had to manipulate XFree86 (what distros shipped with when I had to do this the last time) and worrying that I'd lose my one and only monitor, but it never happened to me.
I assume I am not the only one who destroyed at least some amount of his personal data doing computer magic [1]. This would be analogous to a spell going wrong, burning the witches' hand or something similar.
[1] Be it an incorrect incantation of rm, or just a poorly aimed flick with the pixie pointer.