About 3:30 in the afternoon my computer lost power. I looked around and saw that everything electronic in my room went dark. Went through the rest of the house and confirmed that the entire house was without power. Not having a data plan on my smart phone I couldn’t check the web for news, or Twitter or Facebook for tweets and updates. Got a call from my friend in Chula Vista, twenty-five miles south of here, asking if our power was out, too. She started following SDG&E on Twitter and, after I also called my brother in New Mexico and another friend in Texas to find out any info, we soon found out that all of San Diego (up to Orange County) and Imperial Counties all the way out to Yuma, Arizona were without power which meant almost 5 million customers. First time in SDG&E history that all 1.4 million of its customers lost power. After a walk down the street with my mom and and a rare neighbor-talk in the street, I ended up going to bed around 7:45 when it got dark enough to fake nighttime. Finally at 1:00am our power came back on.

Map of blackout area

SDG&E power outage map

When stoplights go dark

Back of our house

Across the street

Cars and TV towers giving only light

This is directly from Wikipedia:

The world’s funniest joke is a term used by Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire in 2002 to summarize one of the results of his research. For his experiment, named LaughLab, he created a website where people could rate and submit jokes. Purposes of the research included discovering the joke that had the widest appeal and understanding among different cultures, demographics and countries.

The winning joke, which was later found to be based on a 1950 Goon Show sketch by Spike Milligan, was submitted by Gurpal Gosall of Manchester:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, “My friend is dead! What can I do?”. The operator says “Calm down. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a gun shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says “OK, now what?”

The second place finisher and early leader was this joke, submitted by Geoff Anandappa of Blackpool:

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson were going camping. They pitched their tent under the stars and went to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night Holmes woke Watson up and said: “Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you see.” Watson replied: “I see millions and millions of stars.” Holmes said: “And what do you deduce from that?” Watson replied: “Well, if there are millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it’s quite likely there are some planets like Earth out there. And if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life.” And Holmes said: “Watson, you idiot, it means that somebody stole our tent.”

While this was the top joke in the UK:

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: “That’s the ugliest baby that I’ve ever seen. Ugh!” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “The driver just insulted me!” The man says: “You go right up there and tell him off – go ahead, I’ll hold your monkey for you.”

Came across this video from a Google+ post. Crazy bizarre.

going to the store. from dlew on Vimeo.