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I'm not. But then, I never was.

I hope all the NYC monkeys are making valiant efforts to keep the beer from spoiling.

I feel for the New Yorkers, trapped in elevators [again], not knowing WTF was going on.

In Toronto all was civil, the beers were still cold and we drank out on the sidewalk, having been told to go home early from work.

The homeless took advantage of the situation and worked the crowds.

There were bets placed as to when the power would be back online. One mentioned 3 weeks! He was using the Quebec ice storm as a parallel. I pointed out that power lines were downed there, this is a bit different.

As to why it happened....they're working on what to tell us. *ahem*

What was surreal, was visiting a friends' wife on the second unit shoot of Dawn of the Dead. There were a hundred extras with zombie makeup and a bus straight out of Mad Max, yep, with bars, fencing for windows and razorwire and snowplow attached to the front. The director was only too happy to keep shooting, because the city lights were out and hey, the sun was setting.

Now what to do with all those zombie extras with no real washing facilities? Send them home like that?

What a sight, indeed.

Don't be alarmed, it's only the Apocalypse!

Good lord, I wake up cold-sweaty and dilated-pupiled from two days of cluster headaches, and all the fucking power to the eastern seaboard is out. And Canada too. What gives?

*hopes that this isn't some sort of strange "Firestarter" kind of thing*

Power just came back on here in Queens.

It went out at my job around 4:15 and I thought it was just some issue in our building. Then sombody turned on a portable radio and we heard how far it had spread.

I started hoofin' it. I walked down west 4th street over to First Avenue, the up to 59th street and across the bridge into queens.

The scene on the bridge was unbelievable, like a damned mass exodus, aswarm with more people than I've ever seen. Then I hooked up 27th street from Queens plaza out to home. Total of about an 8 mile walk total. I hadn't thought to hit an ATM (because after all who plans on this)so I had about a dollar in change in my pocket which I used to buy a small bottle of Poland Spring. Once I was on Crescent Street in Queens these guys at some small office had brought the water cooler out to the street and were letting people tank up for free.Thank you whoever you are. I got to shoot the breeze with people along the way, hear where they were when it went out, saw pretty much the whole borough sitting out on the stoop.

I finally made it home where I hung out on my back porch and listened to the radio from my neighbors porch.

Believe it or not the beer in the fridge was still cold. Then I lay on the couch and caught some intermittent sleep. I'm gonna try and call work to call out just to be same although subways wont be up for another 6 to 8 hours at least.

Altoghether, one for the record books. Hope my fellow NY monkeys are OK.

In other news, Mrs. jonmc took an early train to CT to see her neice off to Germany(long story) and was spared the whole ordeal except for a few power free hours.

When I arrived home my 80 year old greek landlady was sitting on the stoop, and looked stunned to see me staggering up the sidewalk. "You walka fromma Mannahattan?!" Well, I woulda taken my surfboard but the waves weren't that good.

Anyways, at World New York operated by Grant from karaoke nite aka Mo Nickels from Mefi has some great pictures.I was right in the middle of this shit. It was quite an impressive vista to tell the truth. If I wasn't so exhausted and covered in sweat and grime, I prolly would've appreciated it more.

Poor Fes - that's really dreadful. Hope you feel better today.

Jonmc, thank you for the first-hand account. I wonder how those Craddock boys are doing in Detroit? Hot town, summer in the city...

Hubby and I are packing up the wagon and heading here for the weekend. Y'all be sweet till I get back.

No word, from vidiot or cowboy_sally yet, but the vidster's prolly being run ragged at work (news channel worker) and I dunno if powers on in Brooklyn yet.

I just got off the phone with my mother who told me that back in the big '65 blackout, my dad was in a bus crossing the Queensboro Bridge (coincidence?) and she was coming back from a dance at another college in Central VT (it spread that far) and she began to notice that even the gas station lights were out. Some giurls on the bus were convinced it was armageddon. It was a Catholic college.

My grandmother just called from VT saying that she had been watching the news looking for me. Yes, I was the white dot on the lft of the bridge, nonna. :)

On my road trip with my parents a week ago they forced me to listen to this crappy Robert Ludlum audiobook. At one point in the book The Bad Guys use a supercomputer to knock out most of the U.S. power grid.

When life starts to imitate Robert Ludlum, it's time for a drink no matter how early it is.

Cheers!

(Although personally I think this has something to do with witchy moving out of NYC.)

[/witchstone appreciation society]

I hope the monkeys don't have blisters on their tootsies from walking all over hell-and-gone! As you stumble in from hither and yon, be sure to check in.

[jewish mother] We worry, you know. You never know what could happen out there.[/]

That's the night that the lights went out in Georgia.

That's the night they hung an innocent man.

I feel for the New Yorkers, trapped in elevators [again], not knowing WTF was going on.

Feel for you guyz, just had my power go out during a storm Tuesday night, you just sit in the dark and think. But this is nothing to compare as it was the largest black out in history. The good side to this was seeing the fine folks of NY walking together. Heard the Mayor say, Friday should be a snow day off from work. Think this has to be worse than any hot-sticky summer camping trip, surrounded by wall to wall hot concrete, bluck.

Kept thinking, this is really big news but the folks w/o power they are the one’s needing to hear this not us sitting at the TV sets. Felt helpless, knowing they needed to hear the updates too. Kept wondering, how will they know? Then it hit me, car radio…Glad to hear too Jon, your beer stayed cold for his owners return & you shared tunes with your neighbors.

Those who can't read this, hope you are all ok, stay cool, drink plenty of liquids beers and hear going nude is cooler these days.

If Cowboy_Sally takes Thom's advice, I believe I'll speak for all the guys here in requesting pictures. [/flirt]

(shame on me.)

*starts to worry about cowboy_sally*

(*remembers she's smart enough to own a battery-powered sex toy, so at least she has that*)

I'm starting to worry about vidiot, as well. And I'm not saying a damned word about his sex toys.

I'm not sure if I'm still permitted to use the "monkey" monniker, but.

things are fine here. last night was a fairly easy experience, even elegiac in bits. i wrote about it here, but presumably you guys want the inside dope. uh. in ottawa it's very strange, because (electrified) quebec is right across the river. so although we were without power at home, at work (in gatineau), everything was peachy. ontario workers were told to stay home today, but some came in just to check their mail, recharge their cell-phones or enjoy some air-conditioning. it's my last day, so I tidied things and then we went out for Thai. the boss has given official permission to leave whenever we like, so we're assembling a group of alcoholics to go out for drinks. i just phoned home and apparently the lights are back, there, too. i'm actually sort of disappointed; the End of the World would be much more fun.

Never takin' shorts 'cos brooklyn's tha borough!

And we're back. We're just back. If the power goes out in the city again, you can singlehandedly blame me for overloading the grid.

Right now we're banking on the premise that the power will go out again, so we're taking preemptive steps of putting the last of the beers into the freezer and grinding coffee beans. We stocked up on crazy junkie bodega food like we were a bunch of tweaked-up 13-y-os. Doritos and quarter waters, yasssir.

The bar down the street opened early and started selling bbq'd hotdogs and *still* cold beer, which is what we had for breakfast. God bless Daddy's.

And yesterday was the first time I've walked across the Wbgh bridge since they redid it. It was actually quite lovely, a relaxing walk despite it all, and allowed me to put the finishing touches on my vaycay tan.

Oh, there's no place like home!

God, I hope vidiot wasn't stuck in the Vertical Plantation at Penn Plaza all night.

Oh, and how jealous am I that alicesshoe got to go to the set of Dawn of the Dead?

A lot jealou--

BRRRRRAAAAINNNS!

*shrugs, realizing he's safe*

I am confused. Is alicesshoe a man type person or lady type person?

I've just come from one of the few Irish bars here in new york's little athens. This crazed albino kept buying me drinks and blathering about this cop who saved his ass during 9/11. Then I met this couple, a white guy from my home state who now lives in japan and an asian chick. they both knew what blogs were. This is why I love nyc. Plus the jukebox had "Heart Of saturday night on it." Makes the cockroach that skittered across the bar forgivable.

If my ex wasn't moving to NYC I would so be relocating right now, power be damned!

Also, went and saw Melvin Goes To Dinner tonight. Highly recommended. It's the kind of movie you'd want Brittney to review. Definite shades of My Dinner With Andre except you don't want to slap the shit out of one of the characters for being a self-absorbed twit and the other guy doesn't make a small part of your brain shout "inconceivable!" every time you see him. But still a great show.

And apparently Bob Odenkirk was in town for a meet-and-greet last night and I missed it! I'm inconsolable.

I also might stage a wonderchicken-like takeover of the site tonight. Not sure yet. I'll be back in a few Black Russians and let you know...

I so wanted to photo that wreckage scene. Just walking onto that location we were questioned "where to" and if we had any camera's. It looked great. Bodies [manninkins] lying all over the place. Some missing a foot, a lamp pole through the roof of a truck, luggage packed in a heap strapped to the trunk with a fur coat just lying there on the road..... woooo, scary! and this was only the second unit. There are a few other locations.
Interestingly enough, there are a lot of amputees as extras. Hell, the prosthetics department is from LA [guess Toronto doesn't have THAT talent].

Uh, I'm working on Resident Evil:Apocalypse [hey, I used that word just yesterday]. What a cool set. An indoor cathedral about 40+ feet high, stained glass windows, where the motorcycle goes through as the driver gets shot landing in a humongous ball of fire! That'll be cool.

Also, Redemption, yes, that Crips' guy's story. Jail set city in the worst building ever to shoot a movie. The building was closed, while Witchblade was being shot there. Everything was quarantined, the sets, lights everything. Why? Asbestos on the pipes. They had to rebuild the sets again elsewhere! What did they do to make it ok to shoot there again now? Fuck all. Oh, cover some offending pipes with plastic, duct tape and y'all can come in again! Something smells around here to me.

am I too much of a newbie, or can I post drunk right now?

glad to know everyone's ok...wait, did Vidoit check in yet, or is he still trappedin some vertical hell??

God, I hope Vidiot wasn't stuck in the Vertical Plantation at Penn Plaza all night.

wait, did Vidiot check in yet, or is he still trapped in some vertical hell??

awwww....y'all are sweet.

Actually, most folks would describe it as hell: walking up 22 flights of stairs, only to be trapped in a small dark hot unventilated room. With journalists.

They wanted us there all night, and released us about 12:30pm today (Friday.) So it was, all in all, a 26-hour workday. Should be good OT for the next paycheck. Very little work was done after the power went off, though -- most we could do was shut down all the gear so nothing would get fried when the power resumed. I also lent my cellphone to a reporter so she could do live phone reports in Spanish. After the battery died, they ordered us back upstairs from the street. Got an hour of sleep in the green room, which is marginally plusher than the average airport gate area. Got a ride home this afternoon with a co-worker, spent some quality time with my pillow, shower, and toothbrush (not in that order), woke up, took out the laundry, re-stocked the fridge (my milk and yogurt were the only casualties of the Great Blackout of Ought-Three), and then went and had a couple beers on Jonmc's porch. All is copacetic once again.

I misspoke above. We weren't "trapped"...just stuck there by managerial fiat.

(offtopic, congrats on the cover, brittney, while I'm thinkin' of it! (not sure if folk've done mentioned that here, yet))

(what I'm talkin' about, if it hasn't)

My neighborhood was one of the last in the city to get the leccy back. I spent most of the time sitting around a rooftop pool being served apple mojitos. It was like the beginning of La Dolce Vita without working espresso machines. Nero has nothing on me.

Congratulations, Brittney.

FantasticOutstanding!! Brittney; didn't see that it was the cover story.

*ahem* Detroit had it worse than you New Yorkers. But I'm fine, thanks.

Someone did indeed mention the Craddock boys being stuck there in the dark--was it "Night of the Living Looting?" Were you stuck in an elevator with your boss? Tell us, brother Teej, tell us!

Sorry, We just got power back not too long ago and I'm bitter.

We lucked out. Brother Jim happened to get a full tank of gas in the truck about 10 minutes before the shenanigans started. So about 20 minutes into it, before most of the neighborhood here knew what was going on, we loaded up all our coolers with ice. I was the communications center for the family, and friends since we had a working phone.

Marty dealt with it the way he does most things, by consuming as much alcohol as he can.

The ugliness here didn't really start until yesterday with 2 mile lines for what gas stations were open. A friend stopped by yesterday morning saying that he watched someone have their face used as a speedbag for tapping the guy in front of him's bumper about a mile from my house.

We didn't get to use our home defense idea though:
Throw an empty ammo box and some empty shells (from our neighbor who hunts) on the front porch along with a few empty Jack Daniels bottles.

Teej, my original shout-out was non-locale-specific precisely because I knew that it wasn't just NYC that was affected and for all I knew there are Cleveland monkeys that needed a beacon to the light as well. Glad to hear the Motown contingent is okay, as well as those signing in from New York, especially you, Vidiot.

Now ...

Where's my DAMN CD, huh?

For that matter, where's my F*(KING postcard for the FIRST CD I sent you, you RANCID, BESOTTED, WEASEL-SPAWN!!!

I'm going to have to get Fes' thunderbolts, I swear to Zod I am.

um, I wasn't in the last swap. Your anger is misdirected. And the last swap I was in, the discs went out. I have yet to participate in a Fes as swapministor swap, as Fes I'm sure will back me up on.(or I never received the email if I was)

watch your tongue there lawyer-boy.

unless of course you are talking to Vidiot, then.. umm carry on

I really hate it when my righteous anger is misinterpreted. Oh well, my fault - I knew I shouldn't have started out that bit with "Teej ...". That was an addition to the original plan and did, indeed, make it less than clear as to whom my righteous (and indignant) anger was directed.

It's you, Vidiot.

Now. Let's talk here, man to subhuman.

Where. Are. The. F*ing. CD's?

I don't want to hear about any piss-ant "black-out", neither. Oh, no, no, there's been plenty of time when New York DID have the modern convenience we in the progressive Commonwealth of Massachusetts call "electricity" in the last two months for you to have (a) burned your paltry three CDs and (b) tossed them in the mail along with a twenty-five freakin' cent postcard to your old pal the Commish.

Oh, so you had to walk a little ways. Boo-de-hoo-de-hoo. My patience is wearing thin, city-boy. Get 'em in the mail, boyo, or prepare yourself to suffer even more severe and anatomically incorrect taunting.

Best Wishes.

(and TJ - sorry again you had to be subjected to this, even in error).

*night seems to grow darker behind the Commish, then slowly coalesces into man-shape*

*two lambent green eyes alight from inside the shape; the wind grows louder and less distinct at the same time*

*a single "hand" (in that it has fingers, in this case tipped with talons the color of strong tea) slithers out like an asp and gently rests on the Commish's shoulder*

*the other "hand" beckons, and the sound of thunder like two gargantuan flints colliding is heard, leagues off*

*the manshape shivers, and the voice of a ghoul recently fed on fresh corpse-meat issues:*

Viiiiiiiiiidddddddiiiiiiioooooooooooooottttttttttt

Why dost thou give thy Swapinistratator such offense, thou blackguard...

*smile that seems far too narrow for so many teeth to fit*

*third (!) arm disgorges from the manshape, points one recurved claw at jonmc:*

Think not that thou escapeth my notice, Macanudo.

Cool. Best damn demon I ever summoned up, I'll tell you that.

*fans hand in front of nose*
Not from where I'm standing.

The whiff of sulphurous brimstone doth disagree with most, brother dong_resin.

*hisses*

will you damn kids stop playing Harry Potter for five fucking minutes?!?!

You're all going straight to hell for practicing witchcraft...

A propos nothing on this thread, I just wanted to give Dong Resin a public shout-out for his rant on the word "nigger" in his blog. I've been trying for five years to get those words to coalesce from my thoughts.

just for the record, i never received my cd from tj, from the swap i participated in about a year ago...

really?

email me yer address and I'll send ya a few

An Aside:

Sweet merciful Jesus!!!

This is, like, my most "I'm afraid of this but it's kinda silly 'cause stuff like that never really happens, right?" irrational fear come to life.

Seriously, I get a shiver down my spine ever time I cross an elevator threshold because I'm afraid something is going to flake out and I'm going to have to be buried in two narrow coffins.

I'm so glad I was already drunk when I read about this...

*sees Fes and the Commish lurking near his apartment, carrying an elevator with them*

*sprints toward the mailbox, CDs in hand*

Apropos of nothing:

I discovered today that advertising can go too far:

(Yes, that's the actual fortune that came with my Sa Cha Shrimp tonight. Is nowhere sacred?)

That's not right.

Thanks for the mention, notsnot.

I just can't figure that one out, Cyrano.

When I'm on an elevator, my head is always on the same side of the door as the rest of me. I have been known to risk an arm in an attempt to keep the doors from closing, but not my noggin.

"Let me speak to the head of surgery, please!"

Hiya gang, nothing to add...just wanted to say howdy after a long absence. :) Glad to see the poo-flinging crowd is still intact and mostly happy. :)

Jeez, talk about coming out of the dark! Where you been, dejah?

(While the others aren't listening I shall fill you in on our plans for an uprising.)

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