I received the fourth (I think) electric shock of my life today. That’s not including the static shocks that I seem to receive every time I touch those metal racks in shops. That’s probably a combination of dryish skin and rubber soles on lino turning me into a sort of living van de Graaff generator.

Today’s shock came when I was unplugging my iBook’s power supply just as I was getting ready to go home from work. As I bought my computer in Japan, it has a Japanese connector on the power supply. You can change them for different types, but the Japanese one has the advantage of folding into the housing and taking up less space in my bag. It also has the disadvantage of being completely unshrouded and making contact while half of the connector is still outside the socket. It gave me a surprise as my finger touched both pins simultaneously.

One of the other advantages, I suspect, of having quite dry skin is that it doesn’t conduct electricity very well. Either that, or I have some kind of special powers (highly unlikely) or 230V is not nearly as lethal as people would have you believe. Maybe I’m just lucky. Anyway, I’m still here, which is the difference between getting an electric shock and being electrocuted.

This is the 200th entry on my blog. That’s some kind of anniversery, isn’t it?