My Keyboard has gone to Peripheral Heaven

It all started on about Mondaynight/Tuedsday morning, when I was playing a game of Starcraft over Battlenet. Now you might ask, Starcraft? Isn't that a bit old? Yeah, I must admit, I haven't played it for about 2 or 3 years, some of you even longer, and I seemed content to put down a game or two with Stormcrow and Theros. So happened I still had a spare CD-key in my possession, thanks to Akuma.

Having a drink too, a bottle of Guiness, enjoying a little bit in the wee hours of the morn when suddenly my hand thwaps the bottle and it spills a quarter of its contents over this laptop.



I cursed, as any person like me would, screaming "Oh fuck!" at the first tumble of liquid through those keys. However, it did not seem to interrupt my gaming session with Stormcrow and Theros, even if my fingertips were beginning to feel a bit sticky, smelling of the familiar malt flavour. We ended in a draw, 2 versus 1, where I was the one. First time I ever encountered a draw in Starcraft. Usually one of us gets killed in nasty, nasty ways. "Kill all the women and rape all the men," as one Viking in a show said once.

Eventually, I thought I might as well take a nap, as it was also 9am in the morning, had my breakfast and went to bed, only to awake at 4pm. Fine, turned on comp, and some of the keys were sticky, and in their own right, would not rise when I would press them. It was only after finger-hammering them would they arise from their evil pits of alcoholic maltness, and there would be this odd recoil everytime you pressed them.

Of course, I panicked, a little. If this had happened to a conventional keyboard, I would not have felt as desperate as I would have been. By nature, laptop keyboards give the aura that you're not to go touchy touchy with them, lest you screw things up, much the same ways I felt with my box about a decade or so ago.

So, I took out the I and O keys. Ironic, eh? I/O. Just when they happened to be the stickiest of all, those little squares being ejaculated upon by brown bitter liquids. But eh, I took them out, which was one of the mistakes made this past few days.




There's no trouble in prying loose the teeth of an old DOS keyboard, but to do the same with a laptop keyboard? No trouble of course, the only part is putting it back. I spent twenty minutes per key, armed with a pair of tweezers trying to fit the bleeding things in.

So Viceice I see on MSN, and I tell him of my predicament, so he suggests that I go wash my keyboard.

"But how?"
"You should see two notches under the laptop, look for them."

He should have just said screws. Phillips heads. Not so hard to say now is it, considering that we all have done Kemahiran Hidup, eh? Eh? Plus there were four.

"Alright, sorry."



Viceice shows me link to remove keyboard from laptop. Nifty.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-53172




"Soak it in a tub of water for an hour, take it out to dry and use a hair dryer on it."

I do that, except that I don't have a hair dryer. Used a heater fan and more hours of drying while I retreated to watch some TV.

Came back (which was morning anyhow, considering that I never sleep at night anymore) and made sure that the keyboard was totally dry before plugging it back in. Went to bed and did not dream about surreal nightmares involving beer on top of letters. Nah, that would have been crazy, but wholly interesting.

Woke up circa seven hours later, turned on computer only to find out that the keys aren't working right. See previous post if you don't know what I mean. Keys that have the value of comma, v, t, and so on and so forth are all corrupted beyond moralistic belief. Only the great FUCK still remain untouchable, for a good reason, and seriously, I thank God for that, even though you might not. I have my reasons.

So I call up Viceice and tell him this this this and that that that. He says, "Oh, I've done it with other laptops but not IBM laptops."


KANINA!!


I never use that phrase, even in real life. So consider this a first.

Of course, I'm not too happy with the outcome of the dried keyboard. No kidding, if everything except fuck would come out as garbled rubbish, what else would you say. It was a matter of time when the off/on button would quit working, despite my pleas of curses and twiddling with the keys.

I consider Aaron's alternative, as I have some projects to hand in next week, so of course I'm a little bit more than desperate. Wouldn't you be?

The IBM Thinkpad I use has only 2 USB ports, so I go buy a USB keyboard plus a USB hub. Thats about 60 to 70 dollars there, folks.



Now you might ask, "Why not just send your laptop to the centre? They can change stuff like this in mere minutes."

I would done that, except that the only place where it can be serviced is in Sydney, while I am in the vicinity of Melbourne. To send it to be repaired would take a couple of weeks, plus they also say that the damage by liquid was not covered under warranty. I have stuff to hand up, and the laptop of mine is essential to their completion.

Yargh indeed, but they tell me instead of having service centres, that there are dealers some miles away from where I am that I may go and make a purchase of a new keyboard if I don't intend to wait. I ask how much. They say 74 dollars.


I grumble and look out for the addresses to the locations. One ten minutes by tram, and the other possibly thirty minutes by train. Took the former, of course, and went off to purchase another keyboard.

Nice place (I mean the area around), I might admit. Just by St. Kilda beach in fact. Nice weather and good smell of the sea. Pity I didn't bring along my camera back then.

So I enter the dealer's office and say this this this and that that that. Some talkings here and there, and they seem to have the keyboard. 100 bucks, please.


WHAT? BUT IBM SAID IT WAS 74!


Sure enough, IBM didn't tell me the true price, which involved GST, sending, postage and yada yada. I wonder if I got conned, but the guy agreed to reduce it to 90 dollars, since he too was not too happy with the way the main headquarters were handling things. Apparently they had another set of keyboards which were promised to reach their premises in late July, but never made it. I sigh, pay the man and go. I had about enough, plus I really didn't have the time to send the laptop for warranty anyway.


Long story short, I come back home, set it in and now I typeth the ends to this entry.



Am not going to drink beer in front of laptop again. Thats what a TV area is for. Expensive mistake I'd say.