Nah, not really. In fact, work, retail and Christmas in general aren't really the subject of this post at all. With the exception to Christmas, which will only be mentioned in this and the next paragraph, the others aren't mentioned at all past this point.

Moving along, with Christmas now upon us and my brothers and I all being in our early to late twenties and, no longer taking it as anything more than an excuse to buy each other something once a year, I got to find out what I was getting for Christmas in advance: A new keyboard.

Because I've taken such a fascination to Battlefield 3, and because the only thing that was never replaced with my computer besides my desk was my keyboard, my eldest brother thought it necessary to acquire me one he said would be perfect for both gaming and programming (so much for the laptop). And he even let me have a little go on it before he wrapped it, just so I could tell if I approved or not.

This post is about keyboards. My mouse is the Razer Naga Epic MMOG Wireless Gaming Mouse, if I have already blogged about it, go read up, if I haven't, request me to tell you what I think. <-- You'll probably need to know this at some stage or another.

The keyboard of subject is this one. The Leopold FC500R Mechanical Keyboard (Cherry Red). I only got a brief moment to play with it, but now I must say: I'm an enlightened man. I've rewritten where I'm trying to take this paragraph three times trying to get the description just right, and I can't do it. It's a good keyboard at an affordable price, c'mon.

Have I said it's comfortable? Yes. But it looks like that was in a deleted paragraph. Brilliant! Yes, the keyboard is extremely comfortable. One sentence is generally all it takes for me to decide if a keyboard is worth the time of day. And comparing it to my current Gigabyte GK-K6150 is now just offensive to it. Don't get me wrong, I love Gigabyte. I buy them whenever I don't know any better (IE: Everything 'cept RAM and Mice). 'Cause to date, none of their stuff has ever given me a serious headache or just randomly stopped working. Including this keyboard, which considering it's age, price and where it was bought from, should have died a horrible death many years ago. But I digress.

Comfortable it is. Apparently, 'cause the switches are cherry red, I only need to press the key half way down for it to register the press. Comparing it to what I have now (and the G19 and IBM Model M), that sounds like a dream come true. So we can check off comfort. I can already tell you that programming at a reasonably fast typing speed would be more than possible on this keyboard. I'm willing to bet my WPM will increase just because of it.

My guess is it'll be just as good for gaming. For two reasons, the first of which is explained in the next paragraph, the other being that I really only play First Person Shooters, and even then, only Battlefield 3. ... Okay, so I only play Battlefield 3. And it's not that complicated you know. The Naga has more than enough buttons at my thumbs disposal to accompany any Online FPS that I'd be interested in.

I think what I like most is the simplicity though. I mean, I don't use rapid access crap. Ever. I have absolutely no need for it. I have a powerful computer and Object Desktop, which pretty much allows me to have a separate start-bar wherever I desire. I'm willing to bet 100% of the time, one of my hands will be on the mouse when I want to open Firefox, Thunderbird or Winamp. So yeah, they're completely unnecessary for me (and I honestly don't care if you reader have found a use for them and demand my opinion be altered to suit your needs (<-- See this line here? This is what I've come to refer to as the "Money Line", a play on the term "Money Shot". This line will be the dominating subject in the comments section (provided there is any). Or if not this line, an argument about whether Gigabyte is worth it or not will break out. This always happens to me. The keyboard will be ignored, and people will talk about a random one liner I intend as a joke. You monsters! Ignore the damn joke and talk about the keyboard! (<-- New money line (<-- New money line [Infinite Loop Detected]

That about sums it up for me. I was initially going to end the post at the end of the last paragraph. But I figured I'd at least say G'bye. I'll probably write my next post Christmas day on my new keyboard, so stay tuned for that if you're interested. And here is the end of this paragraph.