why cant i see smilies?

so i've been having a bit of a problem with my monitor as of late (view sonic 19" LCD display). after the monitor times out and i move the mouse to resurrect it it goes crazy possessed! the only thing so far ive found to rectumfy the situation is to change the power settings so the monitor never turns off (goes black) and to lower my screen resolutiong to the middle setting (1024 X 768). well for some reason now i cannot see any of the smilies on here???!!! they all come up as the white square with a red "X" in them........whats wrong???

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