If ever there was a nickname for me, it’s EMP.  It’s absolutely unreal the luck I’ve had with electronics in the last two days. 

The first tale of the diode donkey is actually really funny.  I’ve been unintentionally killing my cell phone little by little.  I started going super geek and wearing it on a belt clip (which only aides in the visual of the retardedness to come).  Since I started wearing it on the nerd clip, I’ve been dropping it all over the place — a few times dropping it, stepping on it, kicking it, etc. while trying to pick it up in a three stooges styled dance.  The big fall was a few weeks ago when I bumped into the stairs with my hip and the phone went darting down the steps, breaking the antenna out of it’s little carriage.  I tempted fate and decided to make a mission out of keeping it alive, super gluing the antenna back in, which worked really well.  So, Saturday, I’m errr, sitting on the toilet taking care of some business.  When I stand up and pick up my pants and turn around to flush the toilet (remember: this is PRE FLUSH), the belt had come out of the first loop, which made the nerd clip a super rocket, shooting the phone straight into the toilet.  Good times.  Once I cursed and reflected on the slow death my phone had taken, it was funny as hell and I got a good laugh at it, before realizing I had to fish it out.  Shudder.

So, this morning, I come into work and setup the laptop on the little stand I use and the external keyboard is busted.  Boo.  The q and w keys won’t work.  Thinking I’m some bad ass, I take it apart and get it working.  However, screwing it all back together makes it not work anymore.  I rule.  So, I take a deep sigh and just use the laptop as a laptop.  Plug in the USB junk (mouse and vonage phone) and the USB ports decide they hate me.  One works, the other doesn’t.  I still somehow think I am a wise fella and remove all the USB config from device manager, and reboot.  It comes up, starts doing it’s thing recognizing new hardware and I think I’m a hero.  Yeah, it doesn’t work.  Electronics 2, Eric 0.  I sigh and give up the vonage phone (mouse pads suck and the vonage stuff gets forwarded to my celly (Not the poo phone, but the new one I bought yesterday)).

Finally, I decide it’s ok and to calm down, I’ll get out the ipod and listen to some music.  The ipod is dead.  Not out of juice, but dead.  Zero response to anything.  Electronics 3, Eric 0. 

A few weeks ago in DC, Thomas went on a rant about how much he hates diodes and wants to destroy them all.  Big T, I’m with you.  But, they are kicking my ass.