... no, not at that.
I'm talking about what is perhaps one of the most underrated, functional tools in existence. It is ubiquitous; it affects our lives daily, either through our own action or someone else's. It has given us access to knowledge undreamed of in previous ages. It has provided us with entertainment, and literature and film of such profound merit and crass mediocrity that it boggles the mind. It is the tool of government, and business, and communication.
I'm talking about your keyboard.
I'm packing a Japanese qwerty on my Toshiba laptop I bought from Sofmap in Osaka, Japan. It's got a roman alphabet plus a variety of Japanese characters in apparently random positions. The quotation mark, apostrophe, @ symbol, and asterix are all in very different places.
But it's mine.
I have a little sticker of Homer Simpson making a "D'oh!" face affixed on top of the backspace key. There's a tiny little keypad on the right hand side that I'm forever accidentally hitting when I go for the diminutive Enter key.
It has been with me through Ferelden. We crossed Cyrodil together. We conquered the New World and beat the Wasteland through cooperation and cunning. We even have shared moments of intense privacy that I hope my wife doesn't know about (thank God for privacy mode!) ... or perhaps she does, and simply accepts that the other love in my life is a set of plastic keys set into an aging, obsolete machine.
Eventually, I will bid farewell to my keyboard.
And I ask you all to raise a glass to your friend. Your companion. Your confidante. Your message stick, and your whip. Hail the keyboard. Glory to the keyboard, one of the greatest inventions since fire, the wheel, agriculture, and the printing press.
Where is yours from? Where has it been? Where has it taken you? And, when the time comes, do you not feel a sense of the bittersweet? I hate throwing away a keyboard ... no matter how many times I have to hit the enter key twice because I spilt wine in it during a particularly heated forum debate.
I'm talking about what is perhaps one of the most underrated, functional tools in existence. It is ubiquitous; it affects our lives daily, either through our own action or someone else's. It has given us access to knowledge undreamed of in previous ages. It has provided us with entertainment, and literature and film of such profound merit and crass mediocrity that it boggles the mind. It is the tool of government, and business, and communication.
I'm talking about your keyboard.
I'm packing a Japanese qwerty on my Toshiba laptop I bought from Sofmap in Osaka, Japan. It's got a roman alphabet plus a variety of Japanese characters in apparently random positions. The quotation mark, apostrophe, @ symbol, and asterix are all in very different places.
But it's mine.
I have a little sticker of Homer Simpson making a "D'oh!" face affixed on top of the backspace key. There's a tiny little keypad on the right hand side that I'm forever accidentally hitting when I go for the diminutive Enter key.
It has been with me through Ferelden. We crossed Cyrodil together. We conquered the New World and beat the Wasteland through cooperation and cunning. We even have shared moments of intense privacy that I hope my wife doesn't know about (thank God for privacy mode!) ... or perhaps she does, and simply accepts that the other love in my life is a set of plastic keys set into an aging, obsolete machine.
Eventually, I will bid farewell to my keyboard.
And I ask you all to raise a glass to your friend. Your companion. Your confidante. Your message stick, and your whip. Hail the keyboard. Glory to the keyboard, one of the greatest inventions since fire, the wheel, agriculture, and the printing press.
Where is yours from? Where has it been? Where has it taken you? And, when the time comes, do you not feel a sense of the bittersweet? I hate throwing away a keyboard ... no matter how many times I have to hit the enter key twice because I spilt wine in it during a particularly heated forum debate.