Yup. I'm An Idiot

So, on Tuesday, Liz's computer was broken by the cleaning faeries. Liz was pretty upset about it, but had been planning on getting a new computer reasonably soon, so within a couple hours, she'd already placed her order with Apple for a shiny new iBook.

The next morning, I was downstairs, giving Penny her bottle. She finished with the bottle, and as I reached out to set it on the table by my side of the couch, she casually tipped my computer off the arm of the couch.

CRASH!

I put her down, and quickly noticed that my computer was having the same problem Liz's was -- the computer didn't detect that it was plugged into AC power, and was therefore running off its battery. I checked the connection to the computer, wiggled it around, no good.

I cursed. A lot. I threw some nonbreakable things. How STUPID was it to put my computer balanced on the arm of the couch like that where Penny could tip it over? 100% my fault, too, since she's just over a year old. Stupid, stupid me.

I rebooted. No good. I reset the Power Management Unit. Nope. I zapped the PRAM. Nope. I cursed some more.

So, I shut down the computer and quietly and not so quietly sulked about it. I didn't want to get a new computer. A new PowerBook was going to have the same amount of RAM as I've got in my current computer (512 MB), as upgrading to a GB of RAM is goofy expensive. I've already got the largest notebook hard drive I can get (80 GB). And most everything I do I do over the Internet, which means the main bottleneck is the modem, so I'd only have a mild performance boost from the new processor.

I spent Wednesday night trying to secure the Windows box enough that we could use it. Which meant downloading updates, installing them, rebooting, downloading more updates, installing them, rebooting, etc. I did that about three times and went to bed for the night.

Last night was more of the same. Download updates. Download firewall. Try to run incredibly outdated antivirus package. Give up.

Liz had already gone to bed, so I went downstairs with the intent of watching some SportsCenter, having a glass of milk, sulking a while, and going to bed. At night, I sometimes just use the touch-lamp by my side of the couch so it's not so bright. I tapped it. Nothing happened. I tapped it again. Nothing doing. Taptaptaptaptap.

And then I started to put the pieces together in my head.

Turned on the overhead light. Leaned down next to the couch. Yup. Surge supressor's light is out. Surge supressor that the lamp and my PowerBook's AC adapter is plugged into. Turned the surge supressor back on. The battery lights on the PowerBook flash on to indicate that they're now charging.

::sigh:: Yeah, that's probably a good sign.

Opened the computer. Turned it on. It happily displayed the icon that means, yes, it is connected to AC power and is charging up my slightly depleted battery.

So, the good news is that I don't have to buy a new computer, or even pay to have this one repaired. The bad news is, of course, that I'm an idiot.

Posted by Matt at August 27, 2004 08:05 AM