Top 11: Blackout Bingo

My shares of stock in Uninterrupted Power Source (UPS) companies is sure to sky rocket!! -- Vince

Presidential Email system is much closer to handling the load. (See NY Times article on White House email system called PERS.) -- Vince

Two days off followed by lots of overtime!! -- Vince

Might just get that grant money for my solar-powered CPU idea. -- Vince

Ability to price gouge the last cold Jolt Cola! -- Vince

Thousands of web pages are immune to hacker attacks. -- Vince

Finally I'm safe from those viruses and worms!! -- Vince

Chance to revisit analog porn collection. -- Vince

Many won't be able to claim 99.998% up time ever again!! (For 26 years, 11 months, 4 days, 3 hours, ...) -- Vince

Improved odds on scoring big on Ebay!! (Hope the Ebay Sniper lives in NYC.) -- Vince

Six Words: Dungeons and Dragons in the dark!! -- Vince

The server hardware upgrade tasklist completed! -- Mark Jass

Can confidently point at the $100,000 spent during Y2K on the UPS system as NOT being a waste of money. -- Mark Jass

Pager hasn't gone off since the first thirty minutes. -- Mark Jass

Don't have access to the Microsoft alert about the daily 'Patch of the Day' -- Michelle Lovejoy When else can you sleep on the streets and not be harassed by NYPD? -- Darcy Jojola

The Blaster worm patch needed a reboot, eh? -- Ihaab Dais

Justification for PDA's with wireless internet access so as to no lose productivity. -- Ihaab Dais

Easy way to tell which spammers live on the east cost. -- Ihaab Dais

Dinner with the family. Wait - I have a family? -- Jenifer Aydelotte

At least it will be a while until the next "Blue Screen of Death"! -- Bob Mariotti

MS Service Pack 1 for XP, 2000, or NT not required. -- Greg Bromwell

No Client Access License needed to be purchased to take advantage of this feature. -- Greg Bromwell

The chance to cold-boot an entire state! -- Carl Jones

Still shopping Ebay while no else could! -- Steve Jaworski

Perfect time to do all those cut-overs you been waiting for "approval for down-time" -- Nelson Torres

Of course you have a flashlight, now you can catch up on all your snail mail. -- Michael Davis

Gives your boss something to do besides micromanaging your operations. -- Michael Davis

Can finally justify to your boss all the money you spend backing up systems. -- Michael Davis

After walking home because the subways weren't working, finally checked "Start exercise program" off New Year's resolution list. -- Henry Rohlfs

We finally had a true test of our Y2K readiness program. -- Bruce Dubbink

You can finally clean up the Rats Nest you call a Patch Panel. -- Sean Moore

I am pleased to report that we have reduced our Help Desk calls to zero. -- Vince Chrisman

We finally get to buy that really cool UPS; it'll run the servers, switches, and the fridge. -- Gus Gelpi

IT departments everywhere were finally able to put in that much needed overtime. -- Gus Gelpi

I just like the smell of warm UPS batteries. -- Mark Nelson

Perfect opportunity to replace the faulty-for-6-months-now batteries in the UPS, and dust off your resume... -- Douglas Grosfield

Mobile Phone InOp -- Mike Touchette

Free punchcard practice for the next election as programming by candle light picks up. -- Victor Geere

Another good reason to live in Texas.. -- Theresa T.Nevitt

Clients Down.. excellent time to apply security patches to the servers! -- J.W. Breeden

Finally - you get to be the one to click "Shut Down" on the server! -- J.W. Breeden

Excellent time to straighten that wiring closet - the one you will have to unplug everyone from and rewire to get it neater... -- J.W. Breeden

You have access to the server room with the backup generators... you have power... its everyone else in the company sweating with no A/C... -- J.W. Breeden

You finally get to test those Sprint commercials in the server room... no noisy fans to distract you from the pin drop. -- Tom Obright

Nobody can see how messy your cube really is. -- Tom Obright

A year long excuse for all the ills that befall us, as in "The project is behind because of the blackout" or "The e-mail about modifications to the app? Didn't get it because of the blackout" -- Tom Obright

Black is in... really in, this season. -- Tom Obright

Great excuse to try out your new Ninja suit at the office. Tom Obright

In a sweltering office dealing with power restrictions, the server room is the only place with the A/C on. -- Tom Obright

The suits suddenly realize just how important your little IT operation is. -- Tom Obright

Chance to cycle the UPS and test the theoretical battery lifetime. -- Jack Aronson

It was about time to reboot all of the Windows machines anyhow. -- anonymous

"No, we're not worried about Blaster." Was actually true. . . for a while. -- Brian Kinsey

A chance to meet the wife/kids for the first time since 1977. -- Ihaab Dais

50 million less bids on ebay. -- Ihaab Dais

But really! The everything was down ... that's why you couldn't reach me. (For those of us perpetually "on-call". -- Bob Kokinda

Now we can work in the real environment we all joke about (...in the dark). -- Dan Kwitchen

If you don't have an ups, it gives you a few hours of peace knowing I'm (hackers) not getting into your server. -- Matthew Kemmerer

Gives the AV software a chance to get ahead of users opening viruses. -- Jim Ruble

What no Instant Messenger? How do I dial the phone again? -- Bary Novacek

With a day and a half off, only had to work 60 hours last week. -- Donald Marzke

Power surges smoked the server. UPGRADE TIME!!! Who doesn't like to buy new hardware? -- Donald Marzke

Finally got to test the emergency shutdown procedures the boss said would have to wait until the systems weren't being used! -- Calvin McLennan

You finally get to geek out and show how long your UPS will really run. -- Dan de Nike

Finally got to read through my email in box. -- Jay Petel

Needed to reboot all those NT servers anyway. -- Jay Petel

Bill Gates thinking: "finally, a wide spread outage that Microsoft won't get blamed for...." -- Mark Wehrle

No worries about violating copyright infringement by users downloading music. -- Rod Pieper

Finally achieved a high security on my MicroSoft Windows host computer. -- Joe Simpson

No Microsoft viruses being spread. -- Scott Pierce

Won't have to explain what happened and promise that it will never happen again. -- Julie Nixon

Can blame bad server downtime on blackout. (corollary: Can blame server downtime on Penny Pinching Finance guys who wouldn't pay for a facility UPS) -- BIll Ward

Laptops still had power, so only had to explain to VP why lights weren't working, not why his computer wasn't working. -- BIll Ward

Forced IT folks to actually go out in sunlight. -- BIll Ward

No better time to rewire the wiring closet. -- BIll Ward

Realize they need to go to an audiologist when they can still hear the buzz during the blackout. -- BIll Ward

All of the users get to go home, I get quiet time alone with the servers......ah -- Robert Prince

The IT Department and the end-users are finally on the same team. They can blame the utility companies for their problems. -- Jacqueline Gravell

Oh darn I can't leave the computer room right now to help you because of the elec. door locks. -- Robert Prince

Call center stats turned to gold from thousands of speedy responses to users. -- Jim Wright

Say it with me boys & girls "Nap Time" -- Robert Prince

Satisfied the August scheduled motor generator test for data center. -- Dan Hinrichs

One more day before the D.O.J. gets to file that court order demanding all of your company execs be taken into custody, for fraud and embezzlement. -- John Hoyt Jr.

We can finally see who the REAL accountants are because they have to calculate with pencil and paper. -- Ruth Burken

No need to worry about network intrusion due to Window vulnerabilities. -- DANIAL ASHMUN

Got a nice break from the environmentalist wackos...driving their electric cars around...putting TERRORIST SUPPORTER stickers on our giant SUVs. -- neal stein

The Help Desk could accurately determine the problem, quickly. -- Michael C. Lewis

Assuming you have backup power in your server room, you can have that gaming session you've been planning, and your users will be none the wiser. -- Dave Baldwin

Microsoft has NO idea of how to create a NEW monopoly before the power comes back on. -- John Lauderdale

Amazingly all "undocumented features" (memory leaks) clear up for a while... -- John Times

You can come to the office in shorts and jerseys as hardly anybody can see each other. -- Suresh Kumar

You can stay at home if you get your home UPS to power the office email server. -- Suresh Kumar