I dripped a bit of water on my dualshock 3 and its buttons started acting up. i left the pad for a while. when i press the ps button i get nothing and when i connect via usb the lights just flash. help please

Water on electronics is extremely problematic. In almost all cases, unless properly and promptly taken care of, the device is usually ruined. When you spilled the water on it and then pressed buttons, the electricity that is normally sent was intensified by having a conductive material present, and the internal components were probably fried. This is why the controller can't correctly interpret the buttons that you are pushing. The PS3 controller is problematic in that to turn off the controller, you actually have to press buttons. In the future, whenever you spill water on any electronic item, immediately turn it off and allow to air dry for at least 2 days before even attempting to turn it on again. Unfortunately, in this case, I think you are just out a controller.