Electricity is trying to tell me something today, and it’s been sending spooky messages.
My wife and I had dinner tonight at a local sushi restaurant. One with moving boats that you pick trays of sushi off of.
We’d been sitting at one corner of the bar for about 20 minutes when the lights flickered and went out. The place went quiet. Ten seconds later the power came back. There were some twitters and chuckles.
A minute later the power went out again. Someone started humming a Christmas song. More chuckling. The power came back on a few seconds later, and the chefs cheered something in Japanese.
A few minutes later the power went out a third time. More chuckling. But this time the lights stayed off, except for an emergency light over the door. One of the waiters got a flashlight. Without pumps to keep the water moving, the boats began slowing down. An occassional nudge kept them moving. The sushi chefs made a few orders by flashlight. After half an hour the emergency light failed. We paid our bill by flashlight (with exact change; the register was dead) and headed off.
Later, while catching up on email, I got a pop-up message from Dell Tech Support, suggesting that I recheck my laptop battery against their on-line recall list. I’d entered the battery’s serial number into the online checker twice over the last year, and had been told both times that the battery was good. But if they’re going to keep warning me, I’m going to keep checking. And the third time was the charm: the battery is now flagged as needing a free replacement. (I suspect Dell is quietly widening their recall as more videos of burning laptops show up on YouTube, and more Sony batteries are found to be faulty.)
In an apologetic followup email that arrived minutes later, Dell suggested (directed, really) removing the battery until the replacement arrives. No problem. I’d rather not chance having a Lithium-fueled fire on my desk.
While I was reading the email from Dell, my wife called out, asking me to come downstairs right away. On the way down I started picking up a faint “something electrical is starting to burn” smell–the smell that says “find the source and turn it off NOW.” As near as we could tell from sniffing around, the smell was from the Christmas tree lights, which are now unplugged and awaiting disposal. The “near as we can tell” part is unsettling, but the smell dissapated, and we’ve been unable to pin it down. It was definitely electrical.