For the first time in four years, I have a new keyboard! This is quite a big deal for me (as everyone in my office will attest, having been forced to try it out as I waltzed it around the office like my firstborn). But, really, folks…isn’t she a beauty? Like an ivory goddess!

Finally, at long last, I can ditch the old half sized keyboard that shipped with my original PowerMac G3 (along with the infamous hockey puck mouse which, to my surprise, actually serves pretty well as a hockey puck). This model has full sized arrow keys and F-keys (all sixteen!), forward delete and end keys, control and options keys on both sides of the spacebar, plus volume controls and an eject button. I’m in heaven! The only thing it lacks, sadly, is a power button, which the old keyboard did have. This will put a damper on my ability to turn my computer on from bed every morning. But it’s a small price to pay, my friends, for bliss.

As someone who spends a lot of hard work and energy pretending to be a writer, the keyboard is a very important instrument. I imagine that I feel the way about a keyboard that a painter might feel about his brush, or a chef about his favorite knife, or a bagpiper about his, well, bagpipes. And it’s not just a matter of composing words; computing for me is a largely tactile experience. I spend much of the time navigating via the keyboard, eschewing the mouse when at all possible. Even with two buttons, a scroll wheel, and an optical tracking mechanism, there’s only so much can do with the little rodent.

More than anything else, this baby makes me want to sit down and pound on its keys like it’s a Steinway. And that’s a joy which not just any keyboard can bring you!