So I fire up my computer this evening, to look up crepe recipes and turn on Jon Stewart for some dinner time company (william is working from 8 am to 10 pm today...) and discovered that I couldn't type the letter L. Or, after a little investigation, O, 9, or the comma. So that was bit of a pain, but "googe" will fortunately autocorrect jn Stewart to Jon Stewart, so very thing was fine.
The crepes were okay, too.
The problem didn't really start until I decided it was definitely time to write up a cover letter and stare despondently at my resume some more (this is a semi regular ritual of mine). It seemed highly probable that I would want to use a l, o, or comma somewhere in that cover letter. So I figured, since fiddling with the physical keys had done nothing, it was probably just having the binary equivalent of a brain fart. Clearly this called for a good ole restart.
Which seemed like a great plan until I went to log in to my rebooted computer and realized two things:
1. Alas, 'twas not a brain fart. Rather, my keyboard is mechanically damaged somewhere beneath the surface
2. And, oh, yeah, I NEED ONE OF THOSE LETTERS TO TYPE MY PASSWORD!!!!!
I went from having a computer with an obnoxious limitation (but not, as my successful Jon-Stewart-watching proves, a completely disabling limitation) to having a COMPLETELY useless hunk of plastic that is only capable of saying "wrong password"
Soooo... Do I spend thirty bucks on a cheapo USB or wireless keyboard? Spend 70 bucks on the official Mac version, which would be investing in my hypothetical future computer? Or take a deep breath and start mucking around in my computers' innards? (the internet says something about a very significant "ribbon cable" that might be disconnected)
I dunno. But boy do I wish I had thought about that password before I hit restart...
Typing on a smartphone is a royal pain in the thumbs. Other updates: NY finally got warm. We found a waterfall. We silk haven't swum in the lake.
I relearned CPR and first aid. The instructor had lots of terrifying farm equipment stories.
Existential despair and insects are my current nemeses.
Those, and cover letters. Boy, do I err hate writing cover letters.
Wish I had seen this early, because you've probably already figure out what you're gonna do now, but if all else fails, you can always use an on-screen keyboard, if using a PC (using the ease of access button on the login screen). If using a mac, you can still do this, but you'll probably need to reset your password first so that you can even get in (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adDiGnIDXLQ) and from there you can set up an on-screen keyboard that you can use (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsoRJuzRy8I). Probably not useful for you anymore, but if something like this happens in the future, at least you'll have a temporary solution. Good luck.
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