Did you know you can safely wash your computer keyboard in your dishwasher and have it come out working just prefectly?

I’m typing on my super clean keyboard right now! For a long time I’ve been reeding about how you can wash a computer keyboard in the dishwasher , so I decided to give it a try mysself. My curent keyboard is a Microsoft ergonomic keyboard of sone sort which is about threee years old and never actually been cleaned anymore than an occasional wippe down and quick vacuum from time to time.

You can wash your keyboard in the dishwasher with no problems at all1!

The first step in washing your keyQboard in the dishwasher is obviou$ly disconnecting the keyyboard from the PC./. This process of washing youf keyboard in the dish’washer takes about two to four days be((ause your keyboArd has to air dry aaaafter the washing. I haven’t found anyone who reco#mmends trying to pvt youk keyboard in the clothes dryer. Because% of this dely you migght want to HAvE an e&xtra keyboard hand^o to use on your c0mpu~ter for a few days so yooooou don’t suffer from internet withdrawaaal.

Nofw all yourt do is take yikour k@1yboard and pl*vace it key side do5wn into the d111shwasher. Some prople recomhmend wrap22ping the USB or PS/2 jack in a little pla<>9tic bag and putting a dubber 9and around the end to m$ake sure tHe connector doe%n’t get wet. I figur4 the rest of the kaaayboard w0s goin*g to get w$et, 3o why n0t the codddnector? You sh$uld put the ke99board in your diwshwasher without any othher pots and pans, by the way. Th3re’s n0 point in washing your keybo@rd only 2 have a bunch of lasagna no0dles encRUSTted onto the Enter key. Y1u p4oBably also wjnt to sk1p the dish w@shing det3rgent. Yes, it’s appppealing to hAve a lemon scentd ke#yb%oard, but so&me of the che\}mical:s in tEHe s0ap cduld dammmage some of the e1ectroni(s inside.

ClosEd the $oor to your dmnhwasher and set it dn a lighter settting with no d@ry cycl.>. I don’t recomm?@end aMythiLg hea~y or Th3 pots% and* pans s-etting. Rem6mber”:? youu want 24 clean yo…ur keyboard, not w1pE th3 leTter$ right offf the keys. Now vou just shit back+ and pray Mhile youCF dishwasher runs thro{ugh the cYcle; cleanilg your keyboard.\+? The m44oment the cycle emds, you vvant tO0Wo get yeRq keybboarp out of the dishwasgsher anmD 4ake it o8uts@ide for a go@od sha*ke. If keyS $tart f@lling of1f then yo5u can safely a$sSumE th.at something wenzt wronlg and you’d b9ettDr start lOockin9 for someone t() blaMe this9 on.

aF5fter 7hakin9 out4 y#our Keedoard to ^get r1id of m0st oIF thE ex?cess/ water.., you wAnt to ploce it someplace wHer3 it vv1LL either be e\xpo[sed }to inKHdiredct sunelight2 or b1e e4xpos(edF to dRy air f4r a few da77sss Now: yo”u can plNFug i3t bac(k into y#our PC(,fd crosss yeour fWinger1s, and t{urn o

g3#p fu(KK Amp H@8881 typ!Mg?!

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My response to a monopolistic utility that provides sub-par service. Note the lack of a working modem in the graphic.

As I write these words the lights on my cable modem are blinking on and off… again.

These are not the good lights like “activity” that are blinking, but rather the bad lights like “send” and “receive” and “online” that continually blink on and off. I am a Comcast cable internet customer, and I’m getting kind of tired of wondering if my internet connection will be working.

This problem first began about six months ago. Nearly every Sunday my connection would go down for five or six hours. I’d call Comcast and the very sweet Canadian (”So your internet’s not working, eh? I wonder what that’s all aboot?”) help desk person would guide me through all the exact same steps as the Sunday before. We’d chit chat while the person pulled up my information and bounced through various screens, finally instructing me to turn my modem off, wait two uncomfortable minutes while we spoke about the weather and lapse into a strange silence that is only brought on when two people have to work together on the phone but will never meet or even speak to each other again. Then we’d turn the modem back on and get exactly the same problem: the bad lights are blinking and I have no connection.

And every week we’d schedule a technician to come out to my house. Sometimes I could get the guy to come the next weekend, sometimes it would take over a week. Sometimes they’d send someone out later that day. It was a completely random interval.

Each time, for about four different visits, a different nice Comcast technician would test the line and frown and shake his head and blame some part of the wiring from the pole to my house or my house to the wall jack or the wall jack to my modem. Each time the nice technician would replace the wiring he thought was the problem. Each time things worked for about a day or so after the technician left and then the internet would drop for a day all over again. We replaced modems, cables, jacks and even Ethernet cords to no avail.

Finally, I gave up calling Comcast. I was a beaten man.

Through trial and error I’ve learned how to fix my own internet connection. Here’s how I do it:

1. Pull the power jack out of the modem.
2. Unscrew the cable from the back of the modem.
3. Blow into the cable. (Okay, I really don’t have to do this but its kind of a habit from my days of trying to get old Atari 2600 and Nintendo game cartridges to work.)
4. Push the power jack back into the modem.
5. Screw the cable back into the modem.

Done. I don’t have to wait for two minutes or have some Comcast Canuck try to run some special piece of mystical cable modem detecting and resetting software. I can do this in under 20 seconds now and I’ve actually moved the modem so that I can easily get to the cable and power jack immediately.

I pay over $50 a month for internet access and I have no other options for high speed service. I don’t consider DSL to be high speed internet any more than I consider a Hyundai Sonata to be a luxury sedan.

I shouldn’t have to do this. My cable went down two more times as I wrote this article. As a consumer I’m basically screwed. Thank you, Comcast. I am now forced to do the only thing I can do:

Do you see this? This is me shaking my fist at you!

There. That felt good.

I would shake both fists at you, but I need this other hand to drop off your monthly bill in the mailbox. Please don’t cut me off…

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I don’t really ask for much in return for the hours of sweat and hard work I put into this blog. I appreciate comments, I like all the photos of themselves naked that are sent in by my readers in adoration and the large cash donations are always put to good use (mostly buying more photos of naked people).

So when I write a clever little blog post and I take the time to put in a clever little graphic I expect that everyone who views my image is at least reading my words or visiting my domain.

And in the realm of the “internetz” it has been a long-standing No-No to link to someone else’s image on your website because you’re basically stealing their bandwidth without them getting any credit for it. Granted, this was back in the day when bandwidth actually mattered, but old traditions die hard. Using an image from someone else’s site is the web equivalent of plugging all your appliances into an extension cord which you secretly plugged into your neighbor’s outside outlet.

This is sometimes called “hotlinking” and it’s impolite and rather rude.

That has not stopped one blogger who shall now remain anonymous from linking all over the web, including to one of my own images. He seems like an intelligent guy, but he should really know better than to link to images all over the place. Ignorance of the rules do not exempt you from having to follow them.

He should instead do what most bloggers do: copy the image, fiddle with it in Photoshop and host it on THEIR OWN SITE.

So I decided to have a little fun.

I took the image he linked to and simply swapped it out for another one. You can see the before and after below:

You can click on each photo to see a larger version or you can visit his blog at: (okay, I removed this…read the update below) to see the fun yourself, assuming he hasn’t figured it out.

No, that’s not a live link. That might tip him off sooner.

And that’s impolite.

Update: Someone let the guy know about my little prank and since that time we’ve been trading email and comments back and forth. He’s apologized and told me several times how unfunny I am and he’s asked me to take this post down. I won’t do that, but I will obscure the text so no one knows it’s his blog and I’ll erase his comments. I wish him no ill will and purposely didn’t do anything harmful to his site. To prove that I really don’t hold him any ill will I’ve taken out all references to him and his site… Though to be fair he probably got a decent amount of traffic and even some regular readers from this silliness.

Eh, join the crowd.

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