I am on the internet

So I’m driving home from work yesterday on the QEW Highway, and I notice a couple of weird things. One, the radio just stops working. Just cuts out completely, replaced only be low static. Okay, station must be having problems — switch, switch, switch. Oh, hey, most other stations are dead too!

Still not very alarmed, I assume it must be something wrong with the radio in my awesome green 92 Dodge Shadow hatchback. Perhaps the POWERFUL ENGINE overwhelmed the radio. Or perhaps not. In any case, I continue on my way.

I get to my off-ramp, zoom down the way, and - wait, what the hell, the traffic lights are OFF. Not flashing, completely BLANK. Well this is both disturbing and also a little cool because ZOOOOM haha suckers no more stopping for me!

Home I go, taking my cue from that stupid little kid in those annoying car commercials who looks right at the camera and whispers “zoom zoom.” I get home, go to turn on the light — NOTHING. Go to turn on the TV — NOTHING. Go pick up my laptop — it WORKS. Oh wait, that’s the battery.

So I have no idea what’s going on. Power failures usually don’t happen in the middle of the day. I call my parents at the cottage, and ask what the hell is happening. They ask if I’m watching the news. I explain that watching the news is hard when there is NO GODDAMN POWER. Only I didn’t actually yell because that would be rude, but rest assured that I was YELLING IN MY HEAD. Nothing makes me angrier than power loss.

So they say that a zillion cities are without power, and that they’re saying it should be back soon. Okay, fine. I enjoy a nice dinner of a bagel, a piece of cheese and a Pepsi. And then the boredom sets in. I entertain myself by playing with the fashlights — making cool designs along the walls. I also briefly entertained the notion of wandering about the house and pretending I was not unlike that Night Watchmen from Today’s Special, but then I realized that walking kinda sucks.

John William, former roommate and New Brunswick superstar, calls me and asks if my power is off. I tell him that it is and proceed to explain how all the traffic lights in the area are down too, so I can’t even really GO anywhere. He, of course, reminds me that it doesn’t matter if all of the traffic lights stop working in rural New Brunswick — their tractors and horse-drawn buggies get by just fine. Curse New Brunswick and all it stands for. We try to figure out how the hell this is going to effect the Radiohead concert tomorrow, especially flying out. We decided it was too early to tell, and I’m sure we both cried a little before we hung up.

So I slept a bit. Read the paper by flashlight. I tried to make shadow puppets but beyond your typical shadow dog and perhaps shadow bird, I have no ability. It gets to around 10 p.m. and I STILL have no power.

So what the hell. I go to bed.

I awake at 4 a.m. to the sweet sound of power. I never turn any of the TVs off in the house because I’m weird like that, so as soon as the power came back on, all of the TVs roared to life, showing static. It kind of sounded like the ocean.

So the power was back on, but I had no cable, and no internet. Still without my lifeblood.

The radio was saying that the premier was asking that non-essential workers stay home today, but I figure hey, I’m essential as fuck, so I’m going. They should put that on my business card. Matt Elliott: Essential As Fuck. I’ll look into that. So I drive to work. Most of the stoplights are still working. The ones that aren’t are the ones you can zoooooom through. My typical morning radio station, Edge 102, has been replaced by a bizarre Christian stand-up comic who delivers a 20-minute routine about a sinner trying to suck up to God at the last minute. What the hell.

Now I’m at work. Not working, of course. I’m just happy to be online again. There’s only one other worker here, so I guess we’re the only ones who consider ourselves Essential as Fuck. The phones are down, so nobody can call me which is good because I hate people — especially ones who call me.

No idea what’s going to happen with my flight later. They said on the radio that Pearson is really backed up and things are very random. Fingers crossed. I think it’s kind of amusing how these things happen only when I actually want to do something. NOTHING happens when I’m just lazing about watching Saved by the Bell reruns.

And I fucking missed Amazing Race. Nobody tell me who won.

So how was your day?