Dear musical hivemind

The other day I was drinkin coffee somwheres on Mass Avewith doctor_atomic and I said (if I may compress time a bit), "When I was a kid I tried to learn music but I was too dumb to appreciate it. I bet I am smart enough to learn music now. I want to learn music. I MUST OBTAIN A KEYBOARD IMMEDIATELY." The doctor said, "OK, let's go." But the music store was closed, thankfully, so thankfully I am not saddled with any impulse-bought clunkers. I still want a keyboard, though, something I can use with my Mac.

Any recommendations for either hardware, or places to visit? I know nothing at all of music theory (beyond vague memories of trombone practice in 4th grade) and just want to plink around, and a keyboard seems like it would be the funnest instrument, especially since it offers the most obvious computer interface. Valid cross-recommendations include "I know both you and $INSTRUMENT well enough to know that you'd probably enjoy $INSTRUMENT more", and "I know you well enough to know that anything you get would be a waste of money that you'd shelve and ignore" but I retain the right to get all upset and try to prove you wrong in the latter case, probably.

(no subject)

The real price of homemade coffee is all the washing, no matter what method you use. At least this way is less messy than a French press, which is just atrocious... globs of grounds everywhere, and all those metal bits. And I'm encouraged to wash the rest my dishes while I'm at it, since they're right there and I'm holding a sponge. I am unfortunately a stereotypical bachelor in some ways, so this is a good side-effect.

---

The hunt was great fun, though I made some real-world mistakes that limited my fun. Namely, I was having so much fun solving on Saturday that I never carried out my plan to T home and come back with my car before midnight (when the T starts shutting down for the night), so when I was really ready for sleep a few hours later, I was still stuck in the classroom. So I soldiered on and was a cranky zombie through the entire next day, accomplishing nothing.

Still a personal improvement over last year, in that I accomplished anything. Of the puzzles I worked on, I solved Found in the Alley singlehandedly, and found the key and solution for A Bunch of Boxes, a Collection of Clues after someone else had worked out most of the first-level clues but given up. (That person came returned to help me with all the busy-work between the key and the solution, and when I hit the solution I laughed spontaneously. It's really good.) I also assisted in some group-solves, and shouted out the key for Rite Awaits Myth to the people actually working on it, though in retrospect it was probably a simultaneous discovery. (Is "key" the right puzzling terminology for "the insight you need to transform the information you have into something else, by applying knowledge from outside of the puzzle"?)

I was still held back in many places through inexperience, and a failure to follow through on hunches. I'm particularly upset that I failed to get the key for Parallel Universe; my intuition pointed me in the right direction, but I didn't do anything about it, and when I did mutter my idea to other solvers they shot it down. I should have chased it anyway! Oh well.