Well, THAT was a new experience...

[offramp]

It's absolutely true! Cables carry smoke between devices. That's why "oxygen free" copper is so important. You don't want to dilute the smoke.

 

 

:lol::lol:

[CME]

Ok here goes. I work at my parents motorcycle shop. A couple of Christmas's ago we were selling some little 4 wheelers like crazy. Pretty much all we did the week or so up to Christmas was prep these things. Well a lady came in and wanted 2 of them, but needed a loan. So she had gone to a banker and they needed the VIN's for the loan. So we gave them the numbers of two that were prepped and ready to go.

 

When she comes in she notices the tires on one of the 4 wheelers was a little dirty, or something like that, and wants this other one. Which of course was not prepped. She was pretty unrelenting, and although it was a bit of a hassle, we tried to please her. My dad rolled it to the back and started getting it ready. The last thing to do was fill it up with gas. He had chosen to prep this bike right next to a kerosene heater we were using. At almost the exact moment he noticed this and said, "I probably shouldn't be doing this here." Yep, the gas tank overflowed onto the ground and towards the heater. Instant bonfire. Luckily we also kept a fire extinguisher right to where he was. Seems the lady decided the dirt on the tires wasn't near as bad as the smoked plastic and foam from the extinguisher.

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

That's a good lesson in "not being too picky".

 

Come on guys - I'm sure at least one of you guys has a good amp dying story or similar...

 

Here's one. I was playing at rehersal for a church service, and had a two amp rig - a Fender Super Six (basically a Twin Reverb in a 6X10" cabinet) and a nearly new (at that time - it was about 6 months old IIRC, and this was right after they came out) Mesa Boogie Studio 22, with the Studio 22 perched atop of the Fender. You can see where this is going, right? The bass player walks past my rig, trips on the wrong (as opposed to "right"? ) cable, and lands against the amp stack, and down goes the Boogie. Yes, the smoke leaked out.

 

The guy was very cool about it and offered to pay to get it fixed. I sent it back to Mesa for repairs, but as far too often seems to be the case with amps after they break and get fixed, it never sounded quite the same again. I guess there must be mojo mixed in with the smoke, and that must have leaked out too...

[Lucky #9]

Not music-related, but:

 

Concerning Smoke --- We had an old Panasonic VCR smoke itself to death in our living room. Torched itself right up.

 

Concerning Coffee --- While in Hawaii with my sister and her girlfriend years ago, Kona coffee was always being perked in our apartment. However, on this particular day, the perking went on so long the coffee evaported and the plastic handle melted off the perculator!

[alphajerk]

my old EICO tube oscilliscope started smoking and almost caught fire before i pulled the plug. the transformer started burning up.... thought about repairing it but too lazy and never got around to it.

 

one show in a small club that as too packed in mid-summer on a cranked rocknroll show the amps were hot enough to cook a turkey with, the monitor amp shut down and never came back on, the main PA speakers lit up with the beat... sure i could have turned it down but i wanted to see if i could make them catch fire. would have made a good ending to the show if i could. sadly they didnt.

[jwlussow]

We were doing an outdoor gig at a college downstate. The college ran power out to where we were performing and we went about setting sound and lights. When the guitarist finally got his amp plugged in we noticed that we didn't have any power on that circuit. The guitarist and sound guy went to where the power was coming from and noticed the extention wasn't plugged in. As the college rep plugged it in there was a huge explosion and light like a bolt of lightning and the power was dead. We went to the stage, which happened to be the source of the explosion and found the guitarists DI blow and burnt to a crisp. It was sitting on his amp and fused itself to a screw on the top of the amp. Upon closer look, apparently the college crew setting up power used a good 12/3 but had cut the ground off of the extention to get it to fit into a non grounded outlet. We had enough of the sound system left to do an "unplugged" type show only micing vocals. We now look a lot closer at what is being supplied to us.

[seclusion]

Wifey's hair dryer. She used it in the am, we all left for the day doing whatever, kids and all. We came back about 6 hours later. Just getting undressed and her hair dryer turns on by itself. She had in under a bunch of papers, a plastic bag. We looked at each other and wondered how it turned on, we were right there! So I go to shut it off, it doesn't, the switch is screwed. Left on full on the hottest setting, hmmm chalk that one up for on of the 9 lives of the cats for sure!

Later

[Picker]

More work related, but humorous non-the-less.

 

Ya know those guys that call and offer computer services? I was working for a mortgage broker and one of them calls up trying to offer any computer stuff we might need... As it turns out there was something I needed...

 

"Sure", I said. "Do you have a CGA video card you could send me?".

 

"Um.... A what? .... No... Um... Why would you need one?"

 

For those who do no know - CGA video cards went out in the early 1980's. It just so happened that we had a relic of a phone system that routed everything through this ancient computer - complete with CGA card which then routed to the proper extention. That's all it did, the computer wasn't used for anything else, but the original card died after almost 20 years of service, and I couldn't update the phone extentions without it.

 

Anyway, I was fairly certain he wouldn't have one on hand, but I had a hell of a lot of fun asking if he could supply it for me...