#*@%ing keyboard

Recently, our keyboard had a stroke, as Holly put it. All of a sudden, typing became impossible. Your words would be highlighted, deleted, rearranged, programs would start up and shut down, all while you were trying to type your name.

After some careful experimentation, it appeared that some of the keys had fused with other keys. For example, pressing "a" or "home" meant that both "a" and "home" seemed to be pressed - i.e. the cursor would go to the start of the line, and an "a" would appear there. So "a" and "home" were fused, "d" and "print screen" were fused, and "f" and "caps lock" were fused. I think there were a few more, but I forget what they were.

So as long as we weren't typing anything with "a", "d", or "f", it wasn't too bad, but ... well heck, I have a soft spot for all the letters of the alphabet, and I wasn't willing to continue in this hobbled manner. Leave no alphanumerical behind, and all that. Off I went (in the rain, I might add - stupid keyboard) to Future Shop (stupid keyboard) to buy a brand new unit.

[start rant] Keyboards these days are ridiculous. All curvy and bent and extra-button-laden and rearranged for optimium STUPIDNESS and holy cow, who's designing these? Morons. All I want is my standard 101-key keyboard where the keys line up like they're supposed to, and there aren't any surprise buttons anywhere. I haven't imprinted this design on my brain in permanent marker for nothing, people! It's bad enough I couldn't find the uber-simple keyboard I wanted - it has the Windows keys and whatever the heck that stupid menu key is - but it also has those stupid media and launcher buttons on each side. Stupid. [end rant... for now]

Once we got the new keyboard plugged in, it all worked like a charm again. The only thing left to do was to dismantle the old keyboard, be amazed by all the dust and detritus lodged amongst the keys, and pop the individual keys off for use in crafts or similar. If you want a ring with a "5" on it, let me know. I'll hook you up.