Video: Dystopian vision captures blogger’s worst fear
posted at 4:13 pm on April 17, 2008 by Allahpundit
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I lived it, two years ago. Six days without power. By the end, my block was on the verge of establishing the Order of the Hand.
Kind of amazing that it’s never happened for real. Yet.
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Where would we get our news?
Vizzini on April 17, 2008 at 4:16 PM
I was watching this and thinking, “My worst nightmare.”
And it’s one of those weird things, too. When I am out of the house, I can live without it just fine. When I am in the house, my laptop is permanently attached to my hip.
ScoopPC11 on April 17, 2008 at 4:19 PM
Exactly why my wife lets me keep the guns but she keeps the ammo.
Limerick on April 17, 2008 at 4:19 PM
So, true, so true….
Where’s Hot Air? I need my Hot Air. Argggh!!!!
Lance Murdock on April 17, 2008 at 4:21 PM
Makes my heart skip a beat…
Your Jewish Master on April 17, 2008 at 4:21 PM
I can live without The Internet for as long as I want to. I just don’t want to at the moment. Really. I can quit.
rbj on April 17, 2008 at 4:21 PM
How can anything be worse than global warming?
It’s turning my nation into a third-world country where we will be ruled by a pack of parasitic leftwing crooks who live off our labor and measly possessions, make us starve from not having enough affordable food, walk to and from our low-paying jobs, brainwash our children, beat us down if we question their ridiculous lies, and force us to freeze during the winter.
Yes, global warming is a terrible thing!
TexasJew on April 17, 2008 at 4:23 PM
RedLasso killed the internets! >:{
Chakra Hammer on April 17, 2008 at 4:24 PM
The end is nigh….
omnipotent on April 17, 2008 at 4:26 PM
Great, I just ditched Comcast for AT&T Uverse (Internet based TV). If the Internet’s gone, what am I gonna do now?
SPCOlympics on April 17, 2008 at 4:28 PM
I’m going away for three days without wife, dogs OR internet. I reckon I oughta grab me a book or sumpin’. Oh woes me.
robblefarian on April 17, 2008 at 4:30 PM
I’m feeling bitter. I’m to cling to my Internet.
jasnell on April 17, 2008 at 4:31 PM
Count me in that “club”….
Branch Rickey on April 17, 2008 at 4:31 PM
I enjoyed Cheney’s global warming joke (yes, spring is here, and it will get a lot hotter before it cools down again).
“Check Drudge Report!” LOL
Ironically, maybe the backward apocalyptic communes or certainly the Amish or Quakers would continue to survive through a power outage.
Should an emergency occur, those radio “tests” are never attended to by the staff, and when the staff actually do try to handle the “emergency announcement” they fumble in and out of silent air time. That’s disturbing.
maverick muse on April 17, 2008 at 4:34 PM
Am I the weird one? My ideal vacation is a week on an island with no radio, tv or internet (done it three times already, and miss it terribly). I refuse to buy a crackberry, and only carry a cell phone and laptop because it is required by the boss. Now, the mp3 player is another story……..
Think_b4_speaking on April 17, 2008 at 4:39 PM
That was me last summer. I spent 3 months helping my mom with housesitting and with her dad and lived in a cabin where there was no internet. Lucky for me the town was half and hour drive so I could use the internet for one day out of the week. For the days I did not have internet it was weird. I was crazy like they did. I NEEDED CAPTAINQUATERS!!!
BroncosRock on April 17, 2008 at 4:40 PM
I’m not worried. The internet runs, for the most part, on the telecommunications wireline network. You might have a switch go down here or there do to terrorism and such (like on 9/11), but most of the network will operate. Even if the power’s out, the internet will work. Your computer won’t work, but the internet will still be running.
jaime on April 17, 2008 at 4:41 PM
I sure am glad I know how to fish.
RedWinged Blackbird on April 17, 2008 at 4:41 PM
do = due. LOL doo-wapp, doo-wapp.
jaime on April 17, 2008 at 4:42 PM
What made that episode even better for me was just before it aired my internet went out. I think Comcast was trying to tell me something.
seanhackbarth on April 17, 2008 at 4:44 PM
I watched this last night… Did anyone see that ghost? I was SLIMED!
EdGruberman on April 17, 2008 at 4:44 PM
“Check the Drudge Report!”
amerpundit on April 17, 2008 at 4:45 PM
We had all the instance servers down while I was in Kara for 40 minutes the other day right after we had cleared all the trash up to Prince. That was pretty bad. We had a group in SSC at the time as well…we were just on a badge run, they were trying to down Lurker for the first time.
…and if you know what the Sam Scratch I’m talking about, I don’t know if I should pity or praise you. Depends on your faction, I suppose.
lol
Asher on April 17, 2008 at 4:53 PM
I guess it is time to add the ol’ string and two cans to the emergency kit.
Limerick on April 17, 2008 at 4:54 PM
Dang.
Some bloggers wait a whole lifetime simply to use ‘Dystopian’.
You lucky dog.
locomotivebreath1901 on April 17, 2008 at 4:55 PM
That was funny. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be hand cream or baby gravy. Too much, I’m glad it’s on after 10 so they can go crazy.
Geronimo on April 17, 2008 at 4:57 PM
“Order of the Hand”
LOL, awesome reference.
JimRich on April 17, 2008 at 4:58 PM
Goddammit!!!
No Internet??
Where can I watch ‘Naked News’ now??
That site was my only source of news.
Let me call Al Gore.
Indy Conservative on April 17, 2008 at 5:03 PM
Don’t worry, the superduper FAST (Fast Active queue management Scalable Transmission Control Protocol) replacement for the internet is already here. 153,000 times faster than a modem.
So, when the old, slow, phone-based internet collapses, the FAST web will catch everything.
In theory, at least.
profitsbeard on April 17, 2008 at 5:05 PM
Safe to say it was the best episode so far this season. I’ve said it before but it’s true: We’ve grown so pathetically dependent on the Internet over the past 10 years. When I’m not on I almost feel… disconnected.
Typhonsentra on April 17, 2008 at 5:17 PM
And that works with Ethanol too?
Indy Conservative on April 17, 2008 at 5:18 PM
Watched it last night.
Yeah, the whole “got slimed” sub-plot was a bit much.
But such is South Park - the good with the bad.
catmman on April 17, 2008 at 5:20 PM
The internet is down.
Egfrow on April 17, 2008 at 5:20 PM
I remember moving to my new apartment in a new city with next to no money and nobody locally to contact. I had no phone, and no internet. It was disturbing at first, but was amazing how quickly I got used to it. Then my new job gave me a cell phone on the first day, the same day I got internet access hooked up.
Now, I’m one of the masses, waiting to become an internet okie.
MadisonConservative on April 17, 2008 at 5:21 PM
Allahpundit, what was the occasion for your area being without electricity for a week?
Kralizec on April 17, 2008 at 5:29 PM
I don’t know what people used computres for prior to the internet. Did they just sit there and stare at a screensaver?
lorien1973 on April 17, 2008 at 5:33 PM
Battery shortage for the i-Phone.
Limerick on April 17, 2008 at 5:33 PM
Allah -
REDLASSO BLOWS. constant annoying buffering reminiscent of the early days of the friggin’ Real player. My sanity cannot endure the stopping and starting. Please go back to regular youtube….
wordwarp on April 17, 2008 at 5:36 PM
No one remembers this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Queens_blackout
lorien1973 on April 17, 2008 at 5:37 PM
I was in NYC back in the 70’s when they had some famous blackouts. We managed to survive w/o the intartubes or TV. I lost internet connectivitiy for about 15 minutes this morning and I was about to start Jonesing when I unplugged the router and plugged it back in. Whewww..
JimK on April 17, 2008 at 5:43 PM
I loved The Grapes of Wrath storyline of the second clip!
blink on April 17, 2008 at 6:29 PM
Too old school.
Superconductive hempseed oil, probably.
profitsbeard on April 17, 2008 at 6:40 PM
I like the Grapes of Wrath part too. I just finished reading it a week ago. I saw the episode about Pip a few seasons back two days after I finished Great Expectations.
I thought the episode about Britney was quite good to, and unfortunately all too true. That’s basically what happened to Princess Diana. They fit The Lottery in that one.
deewhybee on April 17, 2008 at 7:13 PM
Yeah that’s what I thought.
But my question is:
Do you ionize the conductive vaporized hamsters or you snail them in a slow cooker?
Indy Conservative on April 17, 2008 at 7:19 PM
For YEARS I have talked about that SNL skit without remembering the “order of the hand” part. That has to be one of the funniest things they ever did. Thanks for the extra laugh, Allah.
Southpark is the best, and the most sophisticated, satire in America today. And you gotta love the way it must truly infuriate the left. I hope Trey Parker has a body guard. Some crazed Kos Kid (or Scientologist) might try to take him out someday.
Infidoll on April 17, 2008 at 7:21 PM
Love, love, love this clip. Stone and Parker are great and hilarious guys, or as Obama will call them bitter, typical white people. THAT they are not.
jencab on April 17, 2008 at 7:33 PM
There’s a net_work episode like this from Black20 - only it was like for an hour without internet in an office before they resorted to Lord of the Flies.
Neo on April 17, 2008 at 7:33 PM
I was wondering if that was supposed to be The Grapes of Wrath. I haven’t read or watched it since high school.
Tanya on April 17, 2008 at 7:55 PM
Indy Conservative-
Hamsters!
Hah!
Kangaroo rats, strictly. They hop right in the genuine Squirrel Pop-Fryer and the resultant steam powers the first stage cracker for the CERN-issued micro-supercollider connected to your reconditioned laptop.
From there on, you either A) get bombarded with Higgs Bosons, B) a mini-black hole swallows your coffee table, or C) it’s on to the hyperspace version of the Web.
Where all is in 3-D, downloads take eyeblinks, and everything is compatible.
profitsbeard on April 17, 2008 at 8:00 PM
LOL! For the mass public, computers were just business machines. I believe it was Apple who came up with the first spreadsheet application.
Before the ‘internet’ as we know it was released to the masses ( well we did have email ) there were these things called BBS’s ( Bulletin Board Service ) where most of them were a log on only user at a time thing by dial up modem (300 baud was a big thing!) where we did what we do here.
Around the same time, there were services such as Compuserve where you “could’ get onto the internet for an extravagant price, but the networks were not connected, and everything was command line and the graphics were ANSI or ASCII characters.
Ppl and business got smarter, made things happen, and here we are!
lsutiger on April 17, 2008 at 8:11 PM
lulz
spmat on April 17, 2008 at 8:28 PM
I’ve got an old CB radio in a box in the basement.
I think I will get it out and hook it up, just in case.
EJDolbow on April 17, 2008 at 8:49 PM
We had a computer in the late 1970s and you are never going to believe this but not only was there no Internet, there was no WINDOWS. We had to do everything in DOS.
The programs were on Cassette Tapes and it took several minutes to load the most basic programs onto the computer.
We had a Bartending Program which was nothing more than recipes, a very primitive word processor, PONG or something like it. It had 32K of memory.
And we thought we were totally cool.
EJDolbow on April 17, 2008 at 8:56 PM
When Katrina came through, we had no power for two days but, even more horrific, no internet for five days. Five!
Had to read them damned books.
It was brutal, brutal I say.
How we got through it, I’ll never know (shudders).
SteveMG on April 17, 2008 at 9:25 PM
I used to play Zork (for you youngsters, that’s was a primitive, role-playing computer game)at a local arcade for hours and hours. I remember thinking that, unlike the rest of dorks wasting their time with stupid games, I was doing something important.
Infidoll on April 17, 2008 at 9:26 PM
Here we go….
WHEN I WAS YOUNG, we didn’t even have a monitor. Just a bunch of lights, and if you flipped all the switches in the correct order, over time, you could enter a command, which would cause lights to light up.
tlynch001 on April 17, 2008 at 9:30 PM
That’s kinda my point. I used to go on BBS’s and for the most part they all sucked. A discussion board on a few. Some were active, most were not. They were just repositories for little bits of porn that your average 15 year old would laugh at.
When AOL first became big. I was like WOW, look at all this stuff! Then the credit card bill came in LOL.
I remember editing config.sys files and autoexec.bat files to try and get enough RAM to run programs. What a pain in the ass that was.
I still think the Wizardry series is the best series of games ever made by man. Bards Tale is #2. :P
lorien1973 on April 17, 2008 at 10:23 PM
I can’t think of the name.. but it was the ‘first’ personal computer.. right? featured in ‘Triumph of the Nerds’..
I wanna say Albatross..
Also, the clip with everyone going to California, is that a satire on ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ or one of those other books like that that most students are supposed to read in High School..
DaveC on April 18, 2008 at 12:24 AM
Ah, those were the days … remember punch cards?
Rosmerta on April 18, 2008 at 12:25 AM
Heh heh, he said bosoms ….
Oh.
As you were. /Beavis
Rosmerta on April 18, 2008 at 12:26 AM
The greatest disaster is the present disaster.
Kralizec on April 18, 2008 at 2:29 AM
My connection was down two days ago. It was this bad. Took em 6 hours. 6 hours!!
- The Cat
P.S. I blame Swiss Cake Rolls.
MirCat on April 18, 2008 at 2:41 AM
My cable broadband was down for 36 hours last week.
Was able to ‘borrow’ a dialup connection for a couple of hours, but when you are used to 5-6 MB do you have any idea how frustrating 42K is???
I was so desperate that I went out and bought a Verizon wireless modem and account for backup….
And of course the Cable connection finally got repaired ten minutes after I got the wireless connection up and running.
Going to cost me a lot of money between the two, …I like that 6 Meg so much that even the 700K-1.4Meg of the wireless would seem slow, so I’m not going to cancel the cable as I planned.
But short of an EMP or some major disaster, I’ll be able to connect even at a decent speed, even while mobile.
I wonder if Obama or Hillary is willing to offer a bailout for those of us who signed a contract for more connectivity than we can afford??? If they can do it for housing, why not other dire necessities like the internet??
LegendHasIt on April 18, 2008 at 3:23 AM
Randy Marsh. Ectoplasm. Too funny. I’m glad to call myself a “Southpark Conservative”……The episode with Hillary Clinton “Snuke” was a riot too. Stone and Parker are the best. Someone stole my copy of Team America. Need to reorder that………….
adamsmith on April 18, 2008 at 7:40 AM
The internet is actually designed not to go down. It was designed to provide communications in case of a nuclear attack.
-Geek Throwing Cold Water On The Humor Guy
N. O'Brain on April 18, 2008 at 8:42 AM
This could become a harsh reality when the Goracle revokes our internet he invneted if we don’t buy into the other thing he invented.
Grafted on April 18, 2008 at 9:13 AM
We’re all alone…HAHAHA!
Sensei Ern on April 18, 2008 at 9:25 AM
The Internet may not go down in the event of a nuclear attack but everything that runs on electricity is going to have a problem, so your PC or MAC along with all the routers, switches, servers and peripherals that connect the internet are going to have a problem…
sabbott on April 18, 2008 at 9:28 AM
Had a power outage last week for 4 hours, it was hell, I sat in front of the dark TV and said to myself I can just check the inter…. NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! It was a long 4 hours!
HotAirExpert on April 18, 2008 at 11:16 AM
The internet’s dandy. But I still like the feel of a book in my hand. And there’s always talk radio, for a little political smashmouth. Suck it up, people.
argos on April 18, 2008 at 1:14 PM