Zap!



So this happened.



Several weeks ago I was dozing in front of my computer, my beloved 11-year-old Apple G5 tower, when I heard a loud POP! come from inside the case, whereupon the computer went dead as a doornail. A subsequent autopsy of the power supply revealed that a chip controlling the voltage had exploded, probably due to an electrical surge.



Well, fuck.



It seemed like an easy fix so I ordered a new part, which took a couple of weeks to arrive from China, and got back to business on my back-up G5. (As a self-employed artiste I'm prepared for anything... except retirement.)



The new part finally arrived this past Tuesday and on Wednesday I soldered the new chip in place, buttoned everything up, and hit the power button.



POW!



When my eyes quit watering the repaired power supply was ominously smoking and my back-up computer had faded to black! The surge from the repair had managed to slash through two surge-protected power strips and killed my back-up computer.



FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK -FUCK!



(Note: It was a simple repair so it's pretty clear that some other element of the power supply wasn't ready to go another ten rounds. I should have suspected as much. Oh, well.)



So I go to the closet and drag out the back-up-back-up computer, a semi-new Mac Pro, one I've been cautious about bringing online as there would inevitably be a plethora of software issues to deal with. I plug in all the assorted cables and the last one, as fate might have it, is the printer USB cable.



ZAP!



The back-up, back-up computer has now gone dead, and I instantly realize that the initial power surge blew my printer's brains out to the extent that it began shooting live current down the USB cable, which explains why it actually threw off sparks when I tried to connect it to the Mac Pro.



FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK- FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK- FUCK- FUCKLEDY-FUCK-FUCKLING-FUCK-FUCKLES!



I proceeded to sit in the corner and weep disconsolately for a while then I went to the closet one more time and pulled out a crappy little Lenovo netbook with a broken screen that my nephew threatened to trash before I rescued it. I hooked it up to a spare monitor and got on Craigslist, very slowly, and almost immediately found Frankie, a most groovy, progressive gent living just down the road from me. He gave me a sweet deal on the G5 I'm now typing this on. If you live in Dallas and you ever require the services of a good DJ, look him up. He's so peachy I may adopt him.



For the record, I lost two computers, a printer, a scanner, two power strips, plus an Apple keyboard and mouse. All because I'm too smart dumb for my own good. The good news, such as it is, is that I can scavenge a power supply from one of the brain-dead G5s and transplant into my original G5. Meanwhile, I'm on the hunt for another bargain Mac Pro. I'll join the 21st century some day if it kills me. Considering my electrical skills, it just might.



=Lefty=

