I have seen the future of bandages.

Last night, I scratched my left pinky on an exposed, unfiled screw hole leftover from a chair in the choir room at church. It bled, but I let one of the photocopy-of-the-hymnal sheets of music soak up the blood.

Wasn't much.

Today at lunch, I stopped in at Walgreens and bought a box of ActivFlex bandages by Band-Aid. With a foil box and clearly stated 10 bandages for $5, I figured this was not cost effective. However, I rarely break my epidermis, so I figure I could afford to splurge on this.

I'm telling you guys, this is the future of bandages. It looks, feels, moves [almost], even cuts like real skin. My only regret is that it doesn't adhere perfectly to real skin, as in the process of using my finger joints, the bandage started to come off. (This is how I know it cuts like real skin.) There's a scab forming underneath already, and I've already washed my hands twice since.

If it survives a shower tomorrow morning, I may never go back to normal bandages.

What does that have to do with a trio of Australian birds? Absolutely nothing.

But I did get a new computer component. An instant upgrade, at that.

I got my monitor only two weeks after getting the power supply: the ViewSonic VX922 LCD display. $260.55 at NewEgg.com

Gallery

Why so soon? Because, there's a $20 rebate that expires at the end of next week, and I need to determine if this monitor is a keeper before the rebate time runs out.

I remember the first time I saw a ViewSonic monitor: it was this 21" CRT at D.W. Jessen & Associates in the year 2000. Wasn't for years later did I realize those birds were the company's logo.

What irks me, though, is that not 2 hours after I place the order Monday morning, I get an email from Newegg about a 22" widescreen monitor that's on for $230, after rebate.

Eh, whatever. 19" is a more natural size.

And it's an immediate upgrade in that I can plug it in to my current computer: it came with a VGA cable AND a DVI cable (which is good, because the graphics card I'm getting has no VGA port).

Off to change monitors. I'm offline for much of the day tomorrow, attending seminars I don't need, to end a week that could've gone a lot, lot better.

If I don't get the chance to give a softball recap over the weekend, happy Mother's Day.

-KIE