WTB lightning rod

I had a monster storm come through my neighborhood last night. When I got home the sky was dark and threatening but nothing you would think would be apocalyptic or anything so I sat down and fired up the ol’ Gamecube. Over the weekend I decided that I wanted to finally open up the gamecube port of the Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time and give that a shot. I’ve been working through the first set of quests to collect the three spiritual stones which allow access to the Sacred Realm via the Cathedral of Time. It’s been pretty enjoyable. So, I’m on my way over to the Zora town to rescue someone who got eaten by a fish when all of a sudden *BOOM*. Power goes out, flickers several times and then comes back on again. TV comes back on, receiver comes back on, gamecube is dead. Completely inert. So, no more Zelda for me. I hear the Wii plays gamecube games so maybe that’ll be an excuse to pick one up.

So, at this point I decide to turn my attentions to the computer which is on a UPS. Lightning starts striking more frequently and is close enough that I can hear the EM interference coming out of the computer speakers. So I’m thinking how this is probably a bad thing when *BOOM*. Power goes out again and stays out for 20 – 30 sec. I start shutting down the computer because if it’s going to keep doing this at some point the UPS won’t be able to soak up one of these spikes and then that’ll be it for the computer. I get the computer turned off and I’m going around back to start unplugging everything from the wall and *KA-BOOM*. As best as I can tell, lightning struck the two story house across the street.

The power doesn’t go out but the fluorescent light in the kitchen is not shining even though the switch is on and the GFCI outlets in the kitchen are in safe mode with the little red light on. Bad times. A fleet of fire trucks show up to the house across the street about five minutes later but there doesn’t seem to be any actual fire fighting going on. This morning there was an ADT truck in front of the house so maybe they got hit and their security system called the fire department.

Anyway, after all the rain passes I plug the computer and whatnot back in and now the internet is broken. The DSL modem claims that it is connected to the DSL but that it is not connected to the LAN. The router says that it is connected to the LAN but not to the modem. I ended up calling tech support to confirm my suspicion that the ethernet port on the modem was dead. Off to Compusa to procure a new modem and finally at 11:00 in the evening the house was back to normal. I tell you what though, Gurren Lagann 17 was worth the wait. Superb.

!Addendum! The Gamecube powered back up the next evening when I got home from work!