In Real Life—Power Outages

Although I'm no less guilty of it than anyone else, I have to laugh at people's dependence on technology and electricity. We lost power last night around 9:50PM, but got it back shortly afterward. Internet was a little slower in returning, though. We lost it again at 11:40, and didn't get it back until nigh on 6:50 this morning. Perfect timing, really.

When I woke up, my phone had reacted badly to the outage, and wouldn't turn on. It responded to being charged (that is, the little charging light came on and went out when I plugged it in), but it wouldn't turn on or respond otherwise. I managed to fix it by removing the battery for a few seconds, then returning it to its spot. Problem solved.

I've spent the morning doing my usual routine of sitting at the computer, occasionally writing, and generally networking socially. My computer overheated abruptly, shutting down. I let it cool off, then turned it on again. No problem. However, as soon as I turned it on, our power went out again. Frustrating. When I went downstairs, I noticed both of my parents fumbling to determine the source and solution to the problem. My mother was checking to make sure it wasn't just her computer, and my father was on his way to scurrying for the generator. The dependency is amazing, really.

It reminds me of every AI film ever made, where technology reigns and robots take over the world. You would think that, with all of the contingency plans that these films provide (not to mention the current "Green" movement going on in the world), we would learn to be a little less dependent on electronics.