January 7th, 2009
#672 – Short
A co-worker of mine spilled a cup of coffee into her keyboard one morning. Luckily it was early in the morning before most people had arrived. We dried it off best we could and then swapped it with the keyboard from a vacant cubicle that still had a computer in it. I never did go back to check and see if it worked again. If not, the new owner could probably smell why.
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January 7th, 2009 at 12:34 am
I think I was vote 18 for you. Good luck with that.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:52 am
long time read,first time poster
Hope to see more of Biff.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:54 am
There seems to be a lack of support of that telescope… the building is far too small to support it, and looks like a silo from Dune 2000… are you sure it didn’t just turn into a mechanical worm?
January 7th, 2009 at 2:03 am
It reminds me of Majora’s Mask…
January 7th, 2009 at 5:19 am
Ever open up a keyboard? I’m not sure when they implemented it, but most keyboards have a plastic coating over the circuitry; it’s essentially what makes that tiny little resistance you feel when you type. Also, the keys themselves are sort of separated from this plastic piece and the circuitry; if you’ve ever found dirt/dust/etc. inbetween the keys of your keyboard, you can’t open up the keyboard in order to clean it, as I found out.
Anyway, because of this, unless you submerge your keyboard, I think they can survive getting splashed. I once spilled a full glass of water on the keyboard I’m using to type this comment up; and when I say full glass I mean almost 2 full metric cups of water got into this thing. It took me a while, and I did open it up to make sure I got every last drop dried off, but it still works just fine, and it’s a damn lot cleaner to boot!
January 7th, 2009 at 6:33 am
I was voter 191! good luck!
Though xkcd has about 4500 more votes…
January 7th, 2009 at 6:52 am
I spilled water on my aunts keyboard one day, and the yhad to get a new one. Love the comic.
January 7th, 2009 at 7:02 am
Man…. that a lot of money down the drain……..
January 7th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Gee, I hope Garfield Minus Garfield isn’t in second place by fact of name recognotion alone. Look what that got us from the Bush legacy.
BTW, Love the look of that telescope almost as much as the tiny Biff in the background. Reminds me of Dr. Whovee, if you don’t mind my saying.
January 7th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Kilroy comes to mind as well. Of course, the real beauty of Biff in this one is the way he tells the story of what happened, even without the caption. The version of Kilroy’s story I heard was that it was an assurance that the ship had been inspected for quality by Kilroy himself. That context would work well here. With Kilroy being only a memory, of course.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/kilroy_was_here/
January 7th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Given how Biff’s world works, I just imagine him sipping his tasty beverage when out of nowhere comes a sickening grinding squeal of metal, and then the telescope just falls off on its own. Biff looks over at the gaping hole, looks down at his drink, looks back to the hole. And he sighs.
January 7th, 2009 at 9:31 am
This is one of the reasons why I loved being a reactor operator for the Nav; Coffee on the job, all you could drink, and the equipment was spill-proof. It’s amazing, when you went to scrub the Reactor Plant Control Panel, just how light the “Equipment Grey” paint is, once cleaned – And amazing how brown with coffee (and in my day, cigarette smoke) stains your cleaning rag has become.
Seemingly, expensive equimpent in BiffWorld should have some kind of ‘Biff Proximity Safety Interlock’ (BPSI) to prevent Biff from messing with it.
@Jackson;
*Excellent* mental image, that!
January 7th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
@DracoZereul: What…is a…metric cup?
Integrating inchworm DNA with a telescope turned out to be scarier than expected.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
I spilled about a liter of sweet tea on my keyboard. Cat knocked it over on his way to the monitor (he slept up there).
I had just gotten a new computer and liked the old computer’s keyboard more, so I had a spare (read: the new computer’s keyboard).
However, months later I use the old keyboard and it works fine.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
It’s his super pure water that did it…
January 7th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
O MY GOD it’s alien observation week isnt it.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Psymon – nice to know I wasn’t the only one thinking the telescope appeared to be crawling away…
January 7th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Oh man, I’ve spent 2 days reading all the Biff comics… O_o I’ve got crumbs and Crap in my keybored… and I should blow out my computer while I’m at it…
January 7th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Now we know exactly where Biff works!
January 7th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
my keyboard is water resistant
January 7th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
I frequently spill water in my keyboard through my own haplessness. It’s a wireless, so I shut down my comp, pull the wireless plug for it and swap out to a new one until my wireless is dry. It’s probably had at least two gallons of water through it.
January 7th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Gee Biff, spying on the neighbors and got “distracted” huh? This galactic peeping tom thing isn’t working well for you…
January 7th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
@ speearr
Not if he just got fired for taking down a telescope worth a few million bucks.
January 8th, 2009 at 2:20 am
Back in the bad old days of using a terminal to interface with an appliance-sized computer, my brother encountered a well designed keyboard for a terminal. Underneath the keycaps was a plasticmembrane that sloped down to a trough which emptied through a hole in the bottom. After spilling your coffee on it, with a bit of bad luck, the terminal drained the offending liquid onto your lap