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the end is near - October 14, 2004 � � |
blah, blah, blackout
August 16, 2003 - 1:02 pm i was going to ramble on endlessly about the blackout, and i'm glad i'm not in ontario to feel the effects. although i'll probably have to throw out everything in my fridge which sucks. so lets ramble. where was i when the b.o. hit us? driving toward hamilton on the q.e.w. when i got onto parkdale av.(i was meeting up with my friend pete) all of the traffic lights were out, so i just thought it was a local thing. so pete finished work and i waited at timmys for him. but they were closed because there was no power. so we hung out in front of it. then i proceeded to drive to my moms which is a couple of miles away.(it was a bit chaotic trying to go through the lights.(i had to drive through 7 of them) then while i was driving i heard that the scope of this was much bigger than just city-wide. it was the whole province of ontario, part of quebec, michigan, ohio and all of new york(and the rest of the seaboard) i still find that funny. the eastern seaboard. think about it. got to moms, started fishing out flashlights and setting up candles. i found this "transistor" radio that looks like a boombox and flipped it on. i'm sure there was a mad rush of people trying to buy batteries, candles, ice and whatever else they might think they needed. all some people had was the radio broadcasts. with news coming in as it was available. obvioulsly the whole continent wasn't blacked out. so, but everyone knew about it instantly. so now we know that it started in cleveland and not here because as mayor bloomberg call it "canada's fault" well fuck you bloomberg. yesterday, before our power came on we were being told to conserve energy because of rolling b.o. and not use our a.c. or washers or wash our cars, etc. meanwhile, a half hour after the power came on(in hamilton where we live) and n.y.c. what do i see? times square looking like the fucking circus carnival that it is. first off, maybe the virgin megastore should shut of it's four story bank of lights(same with mcdonalds and all the other stores). second of all, i know ontario gets a lot of it's power from new york state. so what, that's life. and yeah, we should conserve energy. we're told that every day in the summer. but you don't think that n.y.c. sucks down a lot of rower itself? turn off your fucking lights! and don't blame us for a malfunction that happened in ohio. anyway, i still don't know what happened for real, if it is us, then i'll shut my big fat mouth! it was eerie though when the sun went down thursday night. it was like up north or living in the country(same thing) and with the execption of all the bulidings around(and some trees) you could really see the stars. that was cool. i also saw mars rise up, which is now the closest it will be in two hundred more years. and the moon followed right after. so, me and ma lit some citronella torches and just sat in the front porch and chatted with the neighbours. something we don't do enough of. maybe there should be more blackouts. it probably will happen. then we can all appreciate how much we take for granted out electricty. and we do. i have since bolted down to the burgh where there wasn't any interruption of hydro. and was able to watch the news. and it was there i saw what the people of iraq are dealing with. they don't have power. they deal with rolling blackouts all the time, if they even have electricity. so it just makes you think how lucky we are. and to new york and the people who have been fawning over that city. uh, they get blackouts all the time. the last big one was in '77. so please give me a break. i never lived through one. the last one up here in ontario was the spring of '65. or so my mom tells me. and by the way can everyone stop referring to us as canada? even though it was just ontario and quebec that suffered the power outage? the rest of canada(b.c alberta sask manitoba yukon n.w.t nunavut nova scotia p.e.i. new bruns. and newfoundland) were fine! |
