Dr. Zivago's lab manifests at the center of a vast, transdimensional rift to the land of Discordia, where chaos reigns in dark velvet secrets. It craddles Murphy's Law to its Nether tit, like Morgana le Fay and her brood, waiting for the opportune moment.

Well opportunity sat on my head today in spades.

Remember that Electro-Convulsive Therapy thing I'm practicing on rats? That I never wanted to do in the first place? Well, the machine...is having problems. I was merrily getting things ready to test out the machine and decided to go through the motions a few times, pressing the dark blue reset button firmly, waiting for a soft green 'ready' light to twinkle, idly fingering the candy-red *SHOCK* button.

I went through this about 5-6 times. About the 2nd and 3rd time in, I'm noticing that a light orange-yellow 'viol.' sign is lighting up with a little tone at tiny intervals. I am confused by this and try to figure out the why of it. Press candy-red button slightly, no 'viol.' sign. Press it in firmly, get 'viol.' sign.

I think my tip-off came when the back of the machine started smoking. Yes, smoking. A 5,000 USD piece of equipment was smoking after I'd pressed the shock button SIX TIMES.

Naturally I was not feeling too chipper. The 'viol.' sign suddenly displayed itself in prominent, continual glory, that shrill little tone doing likewise. I turned the machine off, then on. Same thing. Off, then on. Same thing. I waited an hour, finally switching it on. Same thing.

Now at around this point I might have gone in to Dr. Ziv and mentioned this. Today was the unofficial "finish up grades at last minute because the Scantron girl upstairs is a fucking moron" happy time day. Dr. Ziv was ornery. I wasn't about to lay that shit on him. I wasn't about to lay THAT shit on me.

Later on (after he was away), I turned on the machine. Same thing. I plugged in a Radio Shack reading device and tried to see if I was getting any shock signal while the 'viol.' sign was on. Now, see, that may sound as if I'm progressing into the territory of outright dumb--but the shock noise wasn't being made and nothing changed on the read-out.

That didn't stop the machine from smoking again. I turned it off to let it cool down. Later on still, I try to turn the thing on. And try. And try. To this very hour, I think, it sits there in the dark, fried to some degree, not able to be turned on. I guess the machine became a pot head.

I don't know much about electronics, but smoke and something not turning on do not seem like good signs. I emailed the guy we got the piece of shit from, though, asking him for some advice. I have yet to hear from him.

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In other news I got a christmas card and my GRE Psychology test score in the mail. I think I will just open the christmas card. There's really no point in knowing the score. No matter what it is I'll be disappointed to some degree--it's just the matter of degree. Right now, the thought of possibly having fucked up a 5,000 USD piece of equipment by testing the fucker out is what is occupying my mind.

Still, I'm not feeling stressed about it. It doesn't surprise me, really, compared to all the other setbacks we've smacked into on this venture into madness. Maybe the thing will run just fine on Wednesday.

Then again, maybe I won't be opening that GRE Psychology test sheet on an indefinite basis...

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One positive note, though: all of my application stuff got into Stanford and U Penn just fine. That's something to be thankful for!

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