OK. My bad.

It turns out my wife, in order to play a VHS tape, unplugged the charger and forgot about doing it. She'd needed the socket to plug in the VCR.

It also pointed out to me that there is one big fire hazzard behind that device rack. One wall outlet feeding a long surge protector and another extention cord feeding:
TV,
SAT,
DVD,
A/V Receiver,
TIVO,
light,
laptop computer adapter,
880 charger,
rear wireless speaker transmitter,
clock, and ultimately
The electric company.

Fortunately not everything is on at once. ;-)