So I’m sitting by my computer, doing work, and I hear this faint hiss. I listen closer, and it sounds a bit like a radio, but no quite, I eventually realize it’s coming from a region near my computer and as I look over, I hear a loud pop and watch my little coffee warmer spark. I immediately unplug it of course. It was sitting next to a bottle of bourbon and piles of paper, and while I doubt it was near enough to anything to catch fire, I really don’t like what just happened. It was turned off. I did a quick post-mortem and found the most ridiculous circuit you’ve ever seen for a desktop heating element:
(Apologies for my poor MSPaint skills.)
The bottom says it conforms to UL standard 1028, which is for wiring, and the Canadian standard for hot holding apparatus, which I’m both not sure is true or applicable for this application. Utterly surprised it’s not fused at all, considering it’s supposed to hold liquid beverages in open containers and the bottom has pretty extensive venting. Then again I don’t know shit about good engineering practice, I’m sure @shaddack knows better.
My hypothesis is that when I set a cold beverage on it (again it was off and I was just looking for a convenient cup holderish area), the condensation caused it to short. It was wet on the inside. My one concern is that I live in a basement and while I don’t see anything from up on the ceiling, I’ve had one or two leaks before. The reason I’m not sure it was the cup is that while it did have condensation earlier, it was dry by the time of the incident. It could have just taken a long time, I suppose, but now I’m paranoid that there’s a leak I’m not seeing (the area right above my desk has a portion where the false ceiling isn’t in, and it’s hard to see.) It’s going to make it hard to sleep considering my computer tower is right next to where the cup holder was.
started with a really important consultation with a medical specialist it’s taken years to get hooked up with to review the results of a test I recently took. If I’m a candidate for this new surgery, it will be life changing, a day/night difference – and it’s really F!n dark right now. It turns out I am a candidate 
… but I can’t proceed with the surgery 
. Instead, I have to repeat the extremely painful test. Because insurance. Never mind that in this expert’s experience, a repeat has never produced a different result, but the results have to be repeated – because insurance.
for them… but I also happen to know (by an amazing stroke of ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter’ coincidence) lo and behold, I’m in “rebound territory” for them since apparently they just had their heart broken. This has happened before with them, more than once, well beyond “shame on me”. So I know I’ll get F!d over if I even think of entertaining it - so yea, by all means, thanks for reminding me just how lonely & broken my life is. This was the perfect day for it. Lovely.
