The Grid

The power went out last night around 6:30pm, while I was washing down my microwaved burrito with an ice-cold Dr. Pepper.

Fortunately for me, 6:30 is close enough to my normal bedtime that I was perfectly content to just call it a day. Sure, there were unanswered emails, and probably a TV rerun worth watching...but I'm tough enough to ignore those urgencies and carry on with my business.

But lying in bed while the sun is still slicing through the slats in the blinds, I couldn't help but think that Harry Belafonte should've recorded an album of "End of the World" songs...and called it "Apocalypso." Tally those bananas, Lord Humongous.

Actually, I am reasonably prepared for power outages. I have hand-cranked flashlights, candles, and my Official Boy Scout pocketknife, and I can find them all in the dark. (My condo isn't that large; I pretty much know where everything is.) I suppose I could even continue handling email and viewing commercial entertainment programming since I now have a smartphone. But if the power was off for more than a day, I would definitely be inconvenienced.

As of today, I am still working at ITN...which has an ongoing program to develop large-scale storage batteries for the power grid. Everyone is delighted to see fields full of solar panels or the awesome majesty of a million windmills beautifying the stark Kansas plains -- but most folks don't think about the fact that once the immediate needs of the grid are met, any excess electricity generated simply goes to waste. In other words, when the wind blows at night while nobody is watching TV or cooking burritos...there's no reason to run the windmills.

It would be far more efficient if we could capture every bit of energy Nature had to offer, and then affordably store it until it was needed. Thanks to companies like ITN, that scenario is not that far off.

On the other hand, it might be kinda fun to get a red Mohawk and spend each day terrorizing the denizens of the desert on a motorcycle.

Civilization backed by a reliable power grid, or complete chaos accessorized by leather outfits and banshee screams...I could go either way.

OK, so I'll give extra bonus points to anyone who figures out the relationship that this electricity discussion has with today's quiz. If you regularly participate in our little trivia contests, you probably have a pretty good idea how my mind works--so it may not be difficult at all.

Today's challenge is to match up the appropriate Spiderman character with the corresponding representative from the Star Trek universe.

Spiderman	Star Trek
Dr. Curt Connors Norman Osborne Quentin Beck Flint Marko Peter Parker	Tholian Gorn Trelane Horta Marta

Good luck, and have a great day!