Those familiar with my debacle with NetGear Wireless Garbage will no doubt remember the ultimate cause of that technological fiasco and my subsequent invective of discontent: my cat, Iago. Despite his fascination with destroying all cords, all the time, I still love him, much as a parent can love a child who destroys hundreds of dollars in household goods. But I’m not blind to his terrorism of electronic components. He is, after all, the reason for wireless networking, wireless keyboards and wireless mice. If someone would invent a cheap way to rig a monitor as wireless, I’d do that too, although he has some difficulty chewing the monitor cable; it’s a bit thick for his jaws.

But in my quest for wireless perfection, I’ve noticed that wireless isn’t the same as “free to roam about the room.” True, I feel I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of my D-Link WUA-2340s. Due to an odd apartment configuration, I’ve ended up putting the router and cable modem in the bedroom, and I can get decent reception in the living room with my two desktops. But when it comes to mice and keyboards, I can’t seem get reception that’s worth a damn.

Between two different apartments and three different wireless mice and keyboards (three different brands, even), the best I can do is get the keyboard and mouse about 12 inches away. That’s only if I want word processing or Internet browsing capability. When I’m playing COD4, I have to put the wireless desktop items within three inches of the receiver or I miss out on important things, like firing my weapon and actually hitting things. And since you can’t pause COD4 in multiplayer to adjust your equipment, this is an inconvenience to say the least.

I understand that such items aren’t meant to let me sit across the room and play Crysis. But it’d be nice to put the receiver in a place where my cat can’t reach its cord. After all, that’s the whole point of having wireless in the first place, at least in my household. I’m sure I can’t be the only one who has this problem!