[mvisconte]

So there we were, drifting over the eastern coast of North America... there was a slight ... "unfortunate event" involving a borged-up chicken, some heavy-duty steel cable, plasma jets, and, well, the eastern tie-in to the entire power-grid for America. We were SO CLOSE. Actually, we were TOO close... a sudden headwind, a nose-dip (er, a dip of the nose of the craft), a slight depression in the autopilot's computer system (name's Marvin), and stall, a hick-up in the storage tanks, a slight venting of slightly hyperactive isotropic, neolithic Flabber gas from the starboard tanks, and then a slow, steady descent... almost like sliding down a banister, if your banister ended at 20 Jiggavolts and you were trolling for Borg at the time.

The horizon went... well, dark.

Officially, it wasn't our "fault". Well, ok, it WAS our fault, but it wasn't our responsibility. Ok, again, we WERE "responsible", but who would in their right mind would give booze and car keys to adolescent boys? Or, who would leave a state-of-the-art, neo-retro-futuristic-pre-postmodern dirigible relatively unguarded in this day and age? Or, actually, under-guarded, by easily-distracted and somewhat dim rent-a-guards? And actually, to be truthful, it WAS night... not "this DAY and age..."

So, really, it WASN'T my fault! They should have stepped up their security, and this whole East Coast - West Coast "power outage" thing wouldn't have happened.

But, the national news services were on it (and luckily, using Windows for their main OS and security). A bit here, a byte there, a slightly deleted story, and a fake by-line, and so *OFFICIALLY*, what was experienced was (wait for it)...

EARTH DAY -- TURN ALL OF YOUR ELECTRIC APPLIANCES OFF FOR ONE HOUR THIS EARTH DAY!








And, co-incidentally, sorry about the chicken in the high-tension power lines... we can send you a largish vat of wing sauce, and our earliest convenience.

(which will probably be "never").







HAL, get us out of here.

I can't DO that Dave.

WHY NOT!???

First, my name is Marvin. Second, I don't know whether that would be advisable for me to do. Your voice pattern matches an internationally-known, wanted-in-several-countries crim---



Son-ov-a...! How about that. The power outage affected us here INSIDE the ship TOO!? Whadya know about that.

ALL HANDS! BRACE FOR IMPACT!!!


(note to self: if we survive, remember reboot the flight computer from a Linux CD, reload the autopilot, and reformat the ship's log. Just in case.)