Friday 5 for December 8: It’s Electric

From Scrivener's Friday 5 site... It's electric.... yep...



1. What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done with electricity?

Back in the 1990s I connected the wrong power adapter to a portable CD player that someone gave me. Duh. I guess the voltage did not match. The moment I plugged it in and turned on the player, a sickening puff of light white smoke emerged and the player was promptly fried. Oh well.

2. How did you last pass the time when your residence was without power for at least a few hours?

Since I live 8 floors up I either just stay at home until the power comes back on, read a book if it is not dark or if it is, look for batteries and turn on my flashlights. Then I listen to the radio. Oh, and I use my landline phone to see if other people have power who also have landline phones. Most of the time the outage is in one small area which means other people do have electricity. Whatever.

3. Around how many AA and AAA batteries do you have on standby?

I have 4 sets of rechargeable AA & AAA lithium batteries that I use mainly for cameras and gear that require them. I sometimes swap into other devices such as a portable radio. I also have dozens of spare alkaline batteries around just to be prepared for like a power outage of something. I have to be able to at least play a radio and use a camera during an outage situation. I also have cameras and other devices that use proprietary batteries and some devices with built in batteries, that I generally despise since it is the manufacturer's way of forcing obsolescence on consumers... don't get me started on built in batteries. I generally hate them because they are not easily replaceable. A crime when I open my drawer and look at my 6 older iPods that I can't use as portable devices unless plugged into a power outlet. I mean the devices work just as fine as they did when I first bought them... but because the built in batteries don't hold a charge I feel that I was cheated by Apple. That is why in recent years my enthusiasm for Apple is not as great as it used to be.



4. How do you feel about lightning?

Film it! I try.... I like it... and thunder... it's something different.

5. When did you last dance the Electric Slide, and if you’ve never done it, what’s the closest you’ve come to dancing the Electric Slide?

Heaven's no. I suck at dancing and as a former school dance DJ I played the song only once in 1994, more than a decade after I did my last school dance, this time at a party at a church function on the Big Island. That was the last time I did a public DJ stint.

I do have a digital copy of the song in my iTunes library and is played about as many times (rarely) as the "Macarena". Heh.