Touchscreen Monitor

I am no technophobe but I am also no technosavvy technomaniac… yet, at the same time, I am crazy for the future technologies to get here for the common public (to use privately). I speak specifically, here, of the touch-screen monitor. Granted, it has been in the public domain by being part of automatic cash vending machines, casino slots, exercise equipment, and information kiosks (in hospitals, for example)—but the touchscreen monitor has yet to be a reality in my household, on my pcs, and for my private and professional pleasure and utility…and I am champing at the bit, waiting.

I first became enamored with the touchscreen monitor when I watched SLIVER, with Sharon Stone and that unbelievably gorgeous Billy Baldwin. Baldwin’s character, Zeke Hawkins, is filthy rich. He owns and lives in the secreted away section of a towering apartment complex. And with nothing but time on his hands and loads of cash in his bank accounts, he creates a “position” for himself…other than that of landlord: he sets up super high-tech video equipment—spy cams in every room in every apartment, stacks of TV monitors in his suite, and an impressive three- or four-foot touchscreen monitor that he can point and touch to zoom in on any event or circumstance. He witnesses the atrocities of incest and adultery, peeps in on bathers and fornicators, and spies on everything from phone calls to family arguments.

The movie is not super engrossing or high art or anything, but every time it comes on television I have to watch it to get a covetous few glimpses of that touchscreen monitor. Then I go online and find all kinds of touchscreen information—on the three types (resistive, capacitive, and surface acoustic wave), on the usability (one produces the best clarity, another is vulnerable to puncture damage, etc.), on sizes (from 30 inches to several feet!), and on pricing…for businesses.

So I could quit dreaming and alternately griping and invest in a touchscreen monitor for my little one-woman writing service, here, but can’t seem to justify the price yet. I could turn myself into a B-movie character and seek out the dangerous company of Zeke, just to get my hands on that touchscreen monitor…. Or, I could patiently wait until the prices drop to an affordable rate…which they always do. In the meantime, I will loiter about the hospitals and malls or stretch my fantasy/satisfaction threshold to be content with the touchpad mouse on this hand-me-down pc. Sigh.