My lady_curmudgeon surprised me this evening when I came home by presenting me with a belated (and entirely unexpected) birthday gift! Waiting for me, all snug in its carboard packaging and shrink wrap, was a shiny new Microsoft Natural Elite ergonomic keyboard. As those of you playing along at home may remember, about 4 months ago my old and much-abused keyboard decided to finally start failing in earnest by failing to recognize one of my most often used keys and just generally disintegrating. I've been hobbling along with it ever since, always telling myself that I'd be getting a new keyboard for myself Real Soon Now.

While not a "perfect" one-for-one replacement of my now-deceased workhorse (the old one had some function buttons that I never used, a built-in un-powered USB hub that could only ever support my mouse and a slightly different layout for the arrow keys and home/pg down/delete/etc) this keyboard still has what really matters to my wrists: the proper wrist support molded into the base and all the same sexy curves and breaks in the keyboard layout. And it's so much quieter!

I should take a picture sometime tomorrow, something so you can do a "compare and contrast" between the old keyboard and the new keyboard. The difference is, frankly, astonishing. You can see just by the discoloration what sort of punishment my old keyboard labored under.

All Hail The New Keyboard and the wonderful lady who got it for me.

And when I read it on your keyboard

Tags: broken_parts, loved, wrists
Current Location: Blue Room of Death
Current Mood: surprised
Current Music: Cherry Poppin' Daddies -- Pink Elephant