journal features

new keyboard

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Tokyo, 2008.05.31

I have a fondness for the old IBM keyboards. It turns out that they're called "Model M", and while IBM hasn't built them in many years, and never built them with a USB connector*, there is a firm in Kentuky of all places that does still make 'em. So I bought one.

$70 for the keyboard, $40 for shipping. Probably cheaper than this wireless thing which is no longer entirely functioning (either as wireless or a keyboard). It's in Anchorage.

*I tried connecting my old one, purchased in Australia for $4 (after which I immediately told the guy running the sale at the community centre that they were probably worth ten times that) with a PS2-USB connector, but it kept dropping keystrokes and I got rid of it.

rand()m quote

If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be crazier than I've been on this trip. I know very few things I'd take seriously any more. I'd certainly be less hygenic... I would take more chances, I would take more trips, I would scale more mountains, I would swim more rivers, and I would watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd have many more of them, in fact I'd try not to have anything else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of my day. If I had it to do all over again, I'd travel lighter, much lighter than I have. I would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and I'd stay that way later in the fall. And I would ride more merry-go-rounds, and catch more gold rings, and greet more people and pick more flowers and dance more often. If I had it to do all over again - but you see, I don't.

—Jorge Luis Borges