Powerless

Not sure what happened, but fixing it seemed to involve a couple of fire trucks and an ambulance. The power went off for all the neighbourhood. Right in the middle of playing games, too. My UPS didn't even give me enough time to quit out and shut down properly, which may indicate that I need a bigger UPS. Mind you, Vista does seem to drag its feet a little to do simple tasks like turning off.

But it was of interest to me what I did next. No power means no games. Ok, I'll surf the net for a bit. Wait, no I won't. I can't do anything with my computer. Garrnh. That rules out nearly all of what I do with my spare time. No downloading TV or music, no shopping for Christmas gifts (Ok, Christmas gifts for me. Hey, I have the best taste in the world when it comes to buying gifts for me.)

Fine, no computer. I'll allow myself to resort to that old entertainment machine, the television. Oh no, it's not so old that it doesn't require electricity. Fine, no TV, even though most of TV sucks. There's only the occasional show which is good, but as a shift worker I never get to regularly watch anything anyway, so I download ones that look promising. And then the stupid networks had to keep up with the States when it comes to episodes, so now I can't download a season of a show that is just coming out here. There was a time when I would have been happy with this sort of arrangement, and may in fact have demanded it. Quietly, to myself, but there would be demands made.

Ok, no TV or computer. Food? Nah, nothing to eat really, and I don't want to go into the fridge. I still find myself eating purely out of boredom these days. I guess that isn't good.

Fine. I am defeated. No modern entertainment for me. I'll go... read a book. I'm misrepresenting myself here, as I am currently in full swing of reading through the entire Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. Look it up if you haven't heard of him or it. It's good, if you like can let yourself get into that sort of thing. If not, I won't hold it against you. So, I go to read a book and... no power means no light to read by. Off I go in search of candles. And then in search of something to sit them on whilst they burn. And in search of safe places to put them, which is restricted by the presence of not one but two psychotic cats in the house, although I'm pretty sure they won't go near the flames. By the time I get enough light from candles falling on the page of my book (currently Sourcery, which is interesting, but not as good as Mort so far I think) the ruddy power comes back on. So books down, computer's up. And thus this post.

Let's take a moment's silence to remember Thomas Edison and others, in order to show our gratitude for the miracle of electrical power.