I don't recommend playing online poker during a thunderstorm.
Explanation: Last night, for the first time in an eternity, I popped online to play some poker. No real money was at stake, just pride. As my sit and go ran on, I started to see lightning out my window, accompanied by the ominous sounds of howling wind and thunder. When it was down to heads-up play, the storm caught up with me, or so I thought. The lights all flickered and there was suddenly nothing on my computer screen. Luckily, everything held on - it was only my monitor that had been briefly affected by the weather.
I told my opponent, "We have a thunderstorm here. You just almost won the easy way." It turns out those were the last words he heard from me. The power then completely disappeared for just long enough to take both of my computers with it.
And I was winning, too! Oh well. At least there wasn't real money on the line... and it's still safer than golfing in a thunderstorm.
Showing posts with label Weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Weather. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
The Tortoise vs. the Bolt of Lightning
It's electric. Boogie woogie woogie.
Source: The Electric Slide. Of course, this wording is also appropriate in the middle of a major thunderstorm...
Explanation: At the time I wrote this status, we were in the middle of an impressive thunderstorm. Where I live, the storms usually come across Philadelphia first, and all morning I was listening to the radio DJs talk about how scary this thunderstorm was. Sure enough, at around 8:15am, it started to get dark outside.
As it became more and more clear that we were going to be pounded by the storm, I decided to shut down my home desktop machine so I could unplug it. I've heard too many examples of machines getting fried during lightning storms and this was clearly going to be a biggie. So, I shut down my machine.
I should mention that I bought my machine in summer of 2005, which means it's about 4 years old. That makes it a senior citizen as far as computers go, and it shows, especially during startup and shutdown. Where the machine used to take a minute, it now takes five, or sometimes ten.
When I say "I shut down my machine" what I mean is that I clicked "Shut Down" in Windows. From there, picture the scene in Office Space where Peter is trying to get out of the office before Lumberg asks him to come in on the weekend... only instead of 30 seconds, it took 10 minutes. Every time I thought the machine was almost ready to shut down, another dialog popped up telling me that it was unable to close an application. Meanwhile, the weather radar looked like this:
Lightning is flashing every five seconds or so, Auntie Em is already in the storm cellar, and my freakin' computer won't finish shutting down.
Eventually I got the machine turned off and unplugged, but by that point it was sunny outside and the neighbors were all out surveying the damage. In the future I think I'll have to consult the local weather and shut it down the night before... or I can replace my desktop with a laptop. I'll have to think about that.
Source: The Electric Slide. Of course, this wording is also appropriate in the middle of a major thunderstorm...
Explanation: At the time I wrote this status, we were in the middle of an impressive thunderstorm. Where I live, the storms usually come across Philadelphia first, and all morning I was listening to the radio DJs talk about how scary this thunderstorm was. Sure enough, at around 8:15am, it started to get dark outside.
As it became more and more clear that we were going to be pounded by the storm, I decided to shut down my home desktop machine so I could unplug it. I've heard too many examples of machines getting fried during lightning storms and this was clearly going to be a biggie. So, I shut down my machine.
I should mention that I bought my machine in summer of 2005, which means it's about 4 years old. That makes it a senior citizen as far as computers go, and it shows, especially during startup and shutdown. Where the machine used to take a minute, it now takes five, or sometimes ten.
When I say "I shut down my machine" what I mean is that I clicked "Shut Down" in Windows. From there, picture the scene in Office Space where Peter is trying to get out of the office before Lumberg asks him to come in on the weekend... only instead of 30 seconds, it took 10 minutes. Every time I thought the machine was almost ready to shut down, another dialog popped up telling me that it was unable to close an application. Meanwhile, the weather radar looked like this:
Lightning is flashing every five seconds or so, Auntie Em is already in the storm cellar, and my freakin' computer won't finish shutting down.
Eventually I got the machine turned off and unplugged, but by that point it was sunny outside and the neighbors were all out surveying the damage. In the future I think I'll have to consult the local weather and shut it down the night before... or I can replace my desktop with a laptop. I'll have to think about that.
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