Well, I tried out some games, and they work brilliantly. Max settings on everything. The only thing that lagged a bit was a massive Minecraft modpack. Vanilla Minecraft works perfectly with max graphics settings. The monitor is kind of shitty, but the games are still beautiful. Actually, this monitor seems really similar to the one I had on my old old laptop (6 years old, and it was cheap when I bought it). It just has that dingy sort of washed-out look. I guess I took it for granted that my laptop had an HD screen. I had forgotten that there were screens that didn't support HD (actually, I hadn't realized they still even made them). My laptop may have been shit in many ways, but it did always have a very nice screen. In any case, I'll survive with this until I can get a better one, and I probably shouldn't be rushing to return it and buy a nicer one, since I really did just spend all the money I had on the computer itself.
I have two weeks to return the monitor for a full refund, no questions asked, according to Czech law. I bought it Sunday, so I have a little time to consider my options. I definitely need to return the crummy adapter, though. It'll be fun doing that right after Christmas, when everyone is returning unwanted gifts. But worse things have happened. It was cheap, anyway. 100 kc (about $5). So if I wuss out on returning it, it's not a huge loss.
Just read back over what I wrote in my last post... Okay, I've been very stressed lately. Might be getting deported, etc. Plus, two trips to the big electronics store the day before Christmas (Czechs open presents on Christmas Eve) was a bit hard on my senses. Apologies for the melodrama. Having a subpar monitor is clearly not a nightmare. It's just an annoyance.