Halloween has serious potential to be a cliché holiday. Girls will always wear a dangerously short plaid skirts and call themselves sexy teachers, librarians or schoolgirls, while there is usually at least one “gynecologist” at each party. Costumes are horrifyingly overdone, but Temple snuck something horrifyingly real on us last Wednesday. 
The TECH Center, which I am sure uses enough energy to fuel several small nations, endured a blackout. The impact was not as intense as the California electricity crisis, yet many documents still have not been recovered. The cries of students as they lost their work to the darkness could never compare to the childish screams heard at a haunted house. Thank the stars for cell phones with Internet access because how else could anyone tweet during a blackout? Twitter wasn’t able to help restore power, but it held our hands in our time of need.
@laurencorreiaaa: the great tech center blackout of 2k9 happens the day i have to print an email to get registered for my capstone. OF COURSE.
Maybe this was the TECH Center’s way of telling us all to stop procrastinating. Though, why would anyone print that e-mail in advance? It’s the golden ticket; it gets you in places just as it got Charlie into the Chocolate Factory. No point in risking losing that e-mail if you printed it before-hand. Plus, if it isn’t straight from printer to adviser there is a lot of potential for the edges to get strangely soft and wrinkly. Mangled paper does not say, “I’m ready to graduate.”
@fancyxpaants: ..sooo temple university’s tech center is the largest computer lab in the country..nd tha power jus went out..nd my work went bye bye
I was thinking how great it would be if every program cared about us as much as Gmail with it’s auto-save feature. I’m not sure about other programs, but Microsoft Word automatically saves so not all of your work goes “bye bye.” Most computers at the TECH Center are set by default to auto save every 10 minutes, but if you are paranoid, feel free to change it to one minute in Word’s preferences. It would always help to save your document in your MyBackpack or on a jump drive before you even start to work. The temp folder has wronged me before – an external hard drive is your best bet for a blackout survival.
@violaola: did NEPA just take light in the TECH center??
Unless this is some sort of inside joke that I am not a part of, I am considering making this tweet a favorite. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, required federal agencies to factor in environmental values into their decision making process by considering environmental impacts of their actions. I wouldn’t be surprised if the TECH Center was on NEPA’s bad side. The entire complex is buzzing with electricity, that’s why it is always so warm in there.
A rare TECH Center blackout so close to Halloween is a bit eerie, but I don’t think it was on purpose. Who can be sure though? Those fire alarms going off in the dorms during registration week are quite suspicious. Either way, it is best to be prepared. Halloween comes and goes, but the TECH Center never leaves us. Remember to always have your external hard drive, blankets for when your computer no longer keeps you warm and, of course, your Web-enabled cell phone handy so you can tweet to the outside world.
Samantha Krotzer can be reached at samantha.krotzer@temple.edu.
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