The Electric Squirrel

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Critter causes downtown power cut

Times Colonist, Wednesday, July 12, 2006

A squirrel skirting along electricity lines caused a major power outage in downtown Victoria Tuesday.

The squirrel touched both the hydro line and transformer at Gladstone and Shakespeare streets in Victoria just after 1 p.m., causing a fire and power outage to about 2,000 customers -- including government offices, businesses and residences, said B.C. Hydro spokesman for Vancouver Island, Ted Olynyk.

At one B.C. government office alone, at 800 Johnson St., about 400 people were evacuated.

Victoria police Const. Brent Burger said the power outage caused havoc on downtown streets because several intersections were without traffic lights along Quadra Street at View, Fort and Johnson streets.

"There was a total light failure, so all of the intersections turned into four-way stops," Burger said. There were no accidents as a result, he said.

"There were just a lot of frustrated people."

The squirrel died.

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Italics mine. My office wasn't evacuated, but I did get a picture of the squirrel's gainfully employed brother-in-law:

101 Movies Meme

The 101 movies Roger Ebert thinks someone should watch to become pop-culturally literate - not the best, but the most culturally resonant, I suppose. Ones I've seen marked with an asterisk:

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49 of 101, not bad I guess.