I am sad to report that after 4 years of faithful service my favorite soldering iron died yesterday in a freak power-surge accident. I wasn’t even aware that a soldering iron could die, but I guess it can. There was some sort of noise in the room, I don’t know if the air conditioner shorted out or spiked or what… the PS2 kept running though… but then my soldering iron went cold! Everything else on the power strip was fine, including my beloved glue gun.

I guess it was time, the rubber handle was pretty worn through and all, but it’s still strange. If anyone knows what could have caused this I’d be curious to find out. Granted a new 15-watt iron is only $8 bucks but you gotta wonder…

In other news that people might actually care about, I’ll have a brand-new portable on the site later this week. With TRANSPARENT sides so you can see the last things my old iron ever soldered! Sigh… At least my old Atari 800 still works.