Scientists have failed to prove a definite link, of course. But who knows? Read with caution.
We love our sensationalism here in this country. We like our wars to be fantastical and deadly, our alligators huge and mysteriously elusive and our poor people from New Orleans.
There was a power outage here in LA yesterday. A big one. Street lights were out intermittently and there was a general sense of annoyance. Some people even had to go home from work early. With streetlights out all across the southland, in the gleaming sunlight of afternoon, people blindly stumbled about without supplemental electric illumination.
Yet another diabolical plan, fiendishly wrought on the United States by the terrorist masterminds from Al Qaeda.
Let me back up.
Some jerk-ass spoilt kid from Orange County thought it would be a larf to join the Muslim extremists in Pakistan. To add to his fun, he made a tape on behalf of Al Qaeda threatening Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia. Which was taken very seriously, as all those types of threats are.
Then the power went out yesterday afternoon.
Some of us were essentially unaffected by the outage, being white and middle class and all. Tanya did have to reset a clock this morning and I had to reboot my computer yesterday. But others were greatly bothered, losing power for at least a couple hours. And it didn’t take long for the Media to jump to the terrorist theory.
After all, it was the day after the anniversary of Sept. 11th and just a couple days after that dumbass Orange County dude made those stupid threats. So, terrorists? Of course it could be. A pretty lame plan. But okay, fine, maybe terrorists did it.
Nobody was quite convinced that it was terrorists. But the local news media had brought up some interesting points. While, almost fairly certain that it wasn’t terrorists in the classic sense, maybe somebody actually was trying to deliberately cause problems. Okay, local news folks, you’ve got my attention. Before you came along, I just thought that the power had gone out.
Well, turns out that it wasn’t terrorists after all. Just some idiots working for the Department of Water and Power who accidentally cut the wrong cable.
So, apart from the realization that some moron could essentially “unplug” the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, my fears (as small as they were) were alleviated. There was no terrorist activity in La La.
So what does the media do now? Well, they tell us about the real cause of the power failure.
And then do a story on all the hysterical people who thought that the outage was the result of a terrorist attack.
How’s that for synergy, huh? Create a panic and report on it.
I really hate the news.
Fun Fact: I work out. I go to the gym. I’ve got a basic knowledge of gagsta rap to prove it.
I’m not a little guy. 6 feet tall. 180 pounds. Guns like the cannons on a Navy destroyer. But I’m not Superman. Sure, in theory and on paper…But I know my limitations.
I’m not ashamed to admit it. I can’t lift 700 pounds for longer than a couple seconds.
So when Kevin called me yesterday to tell me that he found a baby grand piano for $400 (sure, it sounds like a great deal, but he’ll end up spending a fortune on gigantic diapers) and ask if I would come and help him move it into his Westside apartment from Glendale with nothing more than a U-Haul, himself, and my unnatural strength and good looks I laughed at him…
And said okay.
Man, I’m an idiot.
After getting the piano into the truck, we knew we’d need reinforcements to get it into his apartment.
We got one more guy. And Tanya (who was great moral support and can really move a packing blanket).
3 guys? Well, hey, problem solved.
I hope you like your new piano, Kevin. I missed the gym for that 700 pound monstrosity (200 pounds of it was rust and dust). An adult grand piano would have weighed less.
Why didn’t we think that we might need at least a furniture dolly?
My hernia’s going in for hernia surgery later this week.
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