Some weird things are happening around here. The other night I was sitting here (actually coding, surprise surprise, rather than playing GW) with the A/C set to overdrive when all of a sudden the lights went out, the A/C went off, and the computer died. (Both comps, actually). I figured it was no big deal, just a power bump, until I noticed something strange; my porch light, my TV and DVD player, and my refrigerator (among other things, most likely) still had juice. Odd.
I checked the breaker box; none were tripped. It was already almost 11 PM, and I had to get to bed for my 5 hours of sleep, so I ran an extension cord from a working outlet to power my alarm clock and fan. By this point, the fan was an absolute necessity; with the A/C dead, it was rapidly approaching about 90 degrees in the house. I tossed and turned until around 2 AM, when suddenly all the lights that I forgot to turn off (since they were already 'off') abruptly came back on.
...
I had power to the dead circuits once more; however, there was a caveat. The power output was greatly reduced; I couldn't even boot my comp off the usual outlet. I moved it to a non-weird outlet and it booted just fine. I get irregular and infrequent power fluctuations that cause the lights to dim and brighten.
I've pulled and reset every breaker in the box, tightened every screw and wire, cleaned out any number of strange insect nests. I suspect, however, that something is fishy with some of the breakers; I'm getting low voltage readings (~107) off a couple of them, so tomorrow I'll hit the Home Depot and spend a few bucks to see if swapping out the breakers helps any. By the looks of things, that box hasn't been touched much in over 20 years; I always hate fiddling around in breaker boxes that are almost as old as I am. Strange things can happen. If I do not post again soon, you can probably safely assume that a 20 year old collection of spider webs, dirt, and leaf bits has reacted strangely with dodgy circuit breakers, old wiring, and mains voltage to somehow create a one-way transdimensional rift to a place full of zombies.
In the mean time, there isn't enough juice to power the A/C. It's just slightly over 90 degrees in the house right now, and I am pouring sweat from pretty much every orifice and crevice. It's nasty.
