electronic CHAOS

Saturday in work, my Pelco video camera just decided to stop working for no apparent reason. I assumed it was a hardware, not software, problem because when you turn on the computer and the whole system boots up, the camera rotates, and it didn't. So yesterday we called clinical engineering and they sent over "Pierre". I'm not sure they have Pelco cameras in Haiti (is that cruel to say? racist? xenophobic? sorry, Pierre) but he knew about as much as what could be causing the problem as I did, which is nothing. Nevertheless, I logged him into my computer and he gamely took down as much information as he could about the video system and repaired back to his office to call the company that makes my system. You may or may not remember, but I could not do my job for weeks in July while the hospital and the company dicked around with replacing the computer part of my system. And then last month the monitor stopped working for reasons that were unclear, though clinical engineering did manage to fix that mysteriously at a time I was not here. My point being, I'm sick of things on this system just randomly failing. Well, Pierre called me back and asked if he could come take the system back to his office. Sure, no problem, I didn't have patients scheduled yesterday afternoon anyway. Cut to the chase, the company is sending us a whole new camera, but it missed the overnight deadline, so it'll come tomorrow while I'm not here. That's okay. Pierre and his cohorts will install it and I'll have video capability again by Thursday. RIGHT??!?

Meanwhile my laptop at home, which has been limping along with no display for months and months and which I've had to keep connected to the TV in my room (which kinda defeats the purpose of a laptop), has of Sunday failed to register there's a battery in it. I guess the battery's time is up. I was kinda debating about whether I should buy a new battery for it or not, whether it was worth it. Then this morning the TV it is connected to lost video. I thought it was the computer, but no. If I turn the TV to DVD mode, I still don't get any display, just sound. So the freaking TV is broken? Seriously? It's not that old.

My point being in all this, I think it's ME. I must have some kind of electromagnetic field around my body that is killing electronic devices left and right. Or else all this cheap ass Chinese-made garbage is just coincidentally failing at once. I think it's me, though.

Sigh.

xoxo