11:11am
Aug24, 2003 |
 Big
news has hit the Abattoir... It would appear
Isis
is now expecting! Interesting, proposed December
25th 2002, married June 28th 2003, pregnant June
29th 2003!? At this rate, I guess I’ll be
retiring in about 24 months? I will call him
“Mini-Meat”. Needless to say, tread lightly
around her or you’ll get a Rocket Launcher in the
head for no apparent reason. (...I'm to understand
this is where it "gets interesting"...)
Speaking
of which... Time to sign-up for BTM40!
We’ve cleared the Sign-Up
Page and are now accepting reservations for
BTM40 “Season Finale” Edition, on September 6th,
so don’t delay or you’ll be left at home playing
with yourself (...I know that’s not much of a stretch
for some...). This BTM will bring us back
to the normal chaos we all know and love.
I was just messaged by SoDaLaS,
seems his palm plaque covered keyboard just bit
the big one... We're going to nail it to the
fence in the backyard and let it have it with air
guns, you won't want to miss it!
 So
how did everyone fare with our “State Of Emergency”
the last week? Did you keep your air conditioners
off? Did you hand wash your clothing? Skunkworks
sends in this interesting article about a buddy
of his who owns the Jordan
Hotel... Seems they received a rather
shocking electrical bill recently, check
the article out. I was presented too with
a nice little hand delivered letter from Oakville
Hydro, seems I missed a payment and before the current
bill (...get it, “current bill”, now that’s funny...)
was due they figured it would be a good idea to
tell me they’re going to cut off my electricity
if payment’s not made within five days. All
I can say, is it was a good thing Isis was home
to receive their lovely notice and not myself...
Infuriated, I fired a letter back to them sighting
my discontent with their business practice, but
of course there’s been no reply... I guess
in a government declared State Of Emergency, Oakville
Hydro felt that a person driving around hand delivering
Account Past Due notices was considered an essential
function. I can’t get over how pissed I am
about this stupid notice... I want an apology
from you, Oakville Hydro, specifically Beverlee
Wright in Customer Accounts who’s name appears at
the bottom of this insulting document. Like
that’ll happen. By the way, Oakville Hydro...
It's illegal to cut off our juice, not watching
the news down there, Beverlee? Talk to Ernie
Eves, he'll explain your job to you if you're unclear.
Next time, a simple phone call will suffice just
dandy to remind people who've missed a payment...
Don't show at my door again delivering disconnect
notices, you'll not like the reception. *Loads
Rocket Launcher*
|
the day the lights went out
08:02am
Aug15, 2003 |
 Excuse
me, who crashed the Eastern seaboard? It's not
been since 1965 that a power failure of this magnitude
has happened... Yesterday at approximately 4:10pm
the lights across Ontario flickered and died.
Although uncertain as to the exact cause of the failure,
the people in Ottawa immediately started 'blamestorming'
and at this time it's suspected a power station in
Niagara USA was hit by lightning which started the
whole cascade failure. On talk radio CFRB1010,
there were callers stating they were literally across
the road from said power station and there was not
a cloud in site, let alone any lightning strikes,
so I would imagine it'll be some time before find
out for sure what caused this. It just amazes
me how few people out there know what to do in a state
of emergency (...which has been declared in Toronto...).
On the way home while listening to the radio, it cut
off for about 30 seconds, then came back on, seconds
later Isis
calls me on the cell to tell me the power's out.
We approach the next set of lights and sure enough,
dark. By the time we made it home a few minutes
after it started, we had already learned the scope
of the outage... I started filling water bottles
through the filter, I got a few stares... "It's
only a blackout?" Then I had to explain how
huge the blackout was and asked if anyone knows what
booster pumps operate on. The Abattoir was rather
unusually well equipped as we booted up the big screen
monitor and satellite systems off UPS backups and
watched the news as it happened. By the time
evening had started to settle in we gathered at my
parents' place in Mississauga to enjoy the stars (...now
visible with the total lack of light wash from the
big city...) and chowed on BBQ chicken. The
drive home was fun as we had the pleasure of watching
moron after moron ram through dark intersections with
total disregard (...they're four way stops in a power
outage, Folks!..) Kudos go out to all the great Ontarians
who jumped up to help, many directing traffic at their
local intersections, checking up on neighbors and
handing out water, flashlights and candles to those
less prepared. I just hugged my solar panels
and dreamed yet again as I've done so often in the
past of the day I'll be "off the grid" and producing
my own, 100% green, 100% free power.
At
this writing, I'm sitting at work even though the
Premier has declared a state of emergency and asked
all non-essential personal to "stay home"...
Hey! I'm essential! Power was restored
to the Abattoir around 3:45am, but just a block down
the street, all dark. Only about 25% of power
has been restored and much, if not most of Toronto
still remains "Quiet".
 Being
the computer junkie I am, many would think I'd go
stir crazy without power, but I rather enjoy it!
I was saying last night how a scheduled monthly blackout
for 12 or 24 hours would be a great thing! We
stood on the balcony in the backyard yesterday evening
and all you could hear (...other than sirens of emergency
vehicles...) was children playing and laughing...
Isn't it funny how much adventure you can discover
outside when your Playstation's not working.
Perhaps this was our Prime Ministers way of meeting
the Kyoto Protocol early? Any way you look at
it, with temperatures in the low 30s and everyone
who does actually have power restored being asked
to forego air conditioning for fears the load will
snap the grid as they attempt to restore power, grid
by grid, it's going to be an interesting weekend!
Some advise... Bottle up some water. Gas
stations may not be able to vend as power stability
remains low, so fuel up if given the opportunity...
Carry a can of gas with you, your forethought could
save someone with less. Get cash! Bank
machine's run on electricity people, and when/if the
power's out, your debit card and Visa are pretty useless
to a merchant. Battery powered radios are always
nice to have around... Check on your family
and friends, especially the elderly. Avoid using
candles, if your house catches fire, you may find
emergency vehicles are having a little trouble getting
through gridlock traffic (...providing there's water
service when they get there...) and stay calm, it's
not the stupid Blaster Worm's fault and it's not a
terrorist attack, it's just a good 'ol fashion black
out... Enjoy it. (...I just waited 45
minutes for gas, several stations are quickly running
out... I don't even want to tell you what I
said to the lady who tried to cut in front of me at
the pumps a few moments ago!..)
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MeatMan
Says:
"If you're new to Abattoir.Net and want to get to know what
we're all about, sit back with a cup of joe or a brew and cruise
through the ramblings of the past"
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