While the Power was Out

We had some thunderstorms blow through, and the power was out at Casa de Big Stupid Tommy for just short of two hours.

However, I had no idea that it would be out for only two hours. When it went out, I peed a circle of protection around myself, and set myself in the middle of that circle, crying and praying. I gotta spend tonight figuring a way to clean urine out of my roommate's clothes, mattress and computer before he gets back from work.

The roommate and I had flashlights. I lent one of my extras to the new neighbors across the way. We spent most of the hour before he had to go to work blinding each other with the flashlights, and performing science experiments. Bill wanted to know if the light bulb would glow if you shined a flashlight into it (it doesn't). And we were both a little curious if we would be able to gauge just how much cold air would be let out of the fridge for each second or so that the door was open (we decided that we would be unable to get an accurate measurement, so we didn't even try).

I told the dirty joke that I get on my dirty joke of the day e-mail (which comes only sporadically).

He made a stupid play on words concerning "shake" and "sheik," that I found ridiculously funny, but since the power's back on, I realize that it really wasn't all that funny.

I found the Busch Series race on the radio, and then Bill got bored and started flash-bombing me with the flash on his digital camera.

Something he brought up, and I'm likewise curious about: Say the power goes out, and you're able to power up your TV through alternate means...like battery or generator. If you hook up to the cable, will you get cable signals?

We came up with the theory that if the cable company has power where they're sending the signal from, if the cable line hasn't been severed, then a signal would still transmit. Kind of like a phone line.

If there's anybody out there who can shed some light and help us out of our ignorant situation, please do so.