Fun with Electricity! (Also Coffee and the Bust of the Year)

Heat wave + 3-day weekend = way too much hot air trying to sneak into the server room. Extra measures are being taken to ensure that the server AC can keep things cool, but I’m probably going to spend much of the weekend worrying about getting a “Server X down” SMS.

Brownout during lunchtime. I was at the Spectrum food court. All the lights flickered off and back on, and the muzak went silent for just a second. Twice. Here at work, most of the desktop machines rebooted. (Servers, of course, are on UPS.)

Coffee Crisis! Coffee maker at work shut off this morning just a few cups in. Determined that the power outlet had gone dead. Tried plugging it into another outlet, via extension cord + power strip. Power strip started buzzing, then circuit breaker tripped. Further analysis of coffee maker’s plug identified melted, cracked plastic. The company we lease it from can’t send out a replacement ’til Tuesday.

So, only 3 cups of coffee for the entire office. No gladiatorial combat, oddly enough. Though I did joke that it must be a fiendish plot by the cafe downstairs to sell more coffee.

Bust of the Century: Yesterday afternoon, got onto the 405 and immediately got stuck in traffic. Turned out to all be rubbernecking from something going on by the side of the road, where police were searching a stopped car. Lots of them. At least 5 squad cars, from at least 2 different cities, and a sheriff’s car.

Current Location: work

Oh how I hate to get up in the morning…

alenxa dubbed yesterday the Day of Mechanical Failure, though, come to think of it, it was more the day of following up on mechanical failure. The car is beginning to seriously show its age, and we’re starting to think about replacing it. Then there was my mom’s flight home from Chicago, which turned around and landed in Denver because they were losing fuel. How exactly does one “lose” fuel in mid-air? I have several ideas, and none of them are good. (She made it home yesterday.)

After going back and forth a bit, I finally decided to get up in the middle of the night and watch the lunar eclipse this morning. I took the digital camera out, set it for full zoom (ha!) and took some blurry photos that make the moon look rather like Mars seen through a telescope.

Looks like I’ll be living on coffee today, but on the plus side, for the first time ever I managed to get my toast to actually come out of the toaster at work as toast without hovering over it. On this toaster, the line between charcoal and warm bread is a very narrow one.

Current Mood: 😴sleepy
Current Music: Superstar, Nina Gordon
Current Location: work

Bookses

Finished reading The Man Who Was Thursday on Friday.

Went to see Stardust again. It holds up quite well to a second viewing. Ever since seeing it last week I’ve been desperate to reread the novel, but maldis still has my copy. Since we were near a bookstore, I decided to pick up the paperback version, though, since it’s actually a different format than the one I’ve got already. The downside is that it doesn’t have Charles Vess’ illustrations. The upside is that it’s more portable.

I ended up rereading the whole thing last night. short comparison.

We’ve been trying to be out during the hottest part of the day, since our air conditioner isn’t terribly effective. It’s not really the AC’s fault, it’s the airflow in the apartment (or lack thereof). I’m out on the balcony right now, which is really nice. Step through the giant open screen door into the living room, and it jumps up considerably. Further back, into the room with the computers? Forget it!

So I’m sitting outside, occasionally glancing out at the trees, or up at the not-quite first-quarter moon, typing on the laptop.

Current Music: You Better Leave the Stars Alone, Ego Likeness
Current Location: home

Random

Got out to Santa Monica last week to meet up with my brother and his coworkers as they returned from a conference in Taiwan via LAX. Must remember to post pictures of dinosaur topiary and sundry oddness. (Edit: I finally got around to it.)

Speaking of photos, alenxa and I managed to get some really interesting cloud & sunset pictures yesterday.

Saw Stardust w/ andrea_wot and zehntaur. It was good. Disappointed to find how few people went to see it, though. Seriously, Rush Hour 3? At least it didn’t lose to Daddy Day Camp. Anyway, Stardust is highly recommended. If you haven’t seen it, try to catch it this weekend while it’s still in theaters.

Apartments are resurfacing the parking lots this week. Tomorrow through Saturday we’ll have to park on the street. This place doesn’t have enough street parking normally, never mind when 1/4 of the spaces are unavailable.