So, at the beginning of the week I blog about Blog Mojo and by the end I’m cooking up posts like it’s no tomorrow. Bizarre…
The power went off at my place today. One minute I’m typing away on the old Mac and I observe that the battery icon is lit rather than the power one. Of course, I spend a few minutes cursing the power adapter, it’s the new one, until I realise that I’ve actually got no internet access… I get up to check the rest of the house and sure enough, the circuit breaker is tripped and while the lights are on, the power points are all out of action. No hot water (yeah, it’s dodgy and is plugged into the normal power supply), no fridge, no Internet. AAAARRRRRGH No Internet.
Good air in, Bad air out.
I go upstairs to the circuit board to untrip it.
It trips again.
Hmm… something’s screwing with my power… I call the property manager. Leave a message, but decide I can do without a sparky and go looking for the culprit.
I unplug everything but one lamp.
Trip the switch.
Back down the stairs to my place, because you know these circuit breakers are never within easy reach, they’re outside on the side of the house and would really be better managed if one had an other half to test all the appliances while I man the switch and turn it back on when necessary.
OK. the lamp’s still on. Good start. I figured I’d turn everything on one, by one until the light goes off…
Hot water on. Lamp still on… WIN.
Fridge on…
Kettle on – Lamp FAIL.
Ok. Kettle is plugged into a 4point board so I unplug the board and the kettle, observing, not for the first time that both units are a little the worse for wear to the tune of a fair amount of Kitten Chewing. Not Lulu, you understand, my well behaved princess (Ed. *snort*) but Chino her much younger and more boisterous predecessor.
So it’s clearly time to replace both the board and the kettle. Something I’ve been putting off, because, well, I’m cheap. It also seemed sensible to go get a new power board lest I have to show all my electrical arrangements to a sparky who would probably have apoplexy… I live in a small house with.. . hang on… a grand total of 4 double outlets in the kitchen/living/dining/office area and 1 single outlet in the bedroom.
To plug in the myriad of appliances I’m running I have to rock 4x6point power-boards and 1x4point boards and even then there is usually some juggling.
So I hit the store and discover that the Kettle of Choice is $75. And this is for a teeny tiny 1litre kettle. Yikes…
So I went looking for a kettle cord to replace the cord as the kettle I have, ugly though it is, is still functional, and guess what. Nobody stocks them.
A pox on our consumeristic society. So, roll on Sunday when I’ll have an extra shift’s worth of cash with which to buy the new kettle.