This evening the power went out.  I think it went out on a date, but I couldn’t tell.  I just new it was gone, but my four year old did not like the night-light not working and proceded to panic like I had sicked a pack of rabid centipedes on her.  After I finally sedated her with several gallons of maple syrup and the last of our melting ice cream Jessica and I headed downstairs to sit in the dark.  Some of you might think of this as a perfect opportunity to make out or something else like setup the tent in the basement and pretend we’re camping and light several small wooden pieces of furniture on fire and roast marshmallows.  Instead I pulled out my laptop and offered to spend time with Jessica doing something she likes to do.  Apparently watching movies is something that people do on non-comuter-like devices.  I suspect that is why I paid so much money for my television with the huge 24 inch screen.  Alas the television does not come with its own power backup.
My MacBook Pro does come with such a backup and Jessica and I sat in the near darkness of the candle light in our basement and watched part of some movie I can’t remember [just kidding, it was “50 First Dates” – that was a memory joke].  The electricity being off means that some of the background noise I’m used to from electrical devices was missing and the quietness of the laptop speakers in their normal environment didn’t show up.  The screen, which was set to be as dull as possible to preserve the limited battery power worked great in the darkness of the room.  And Jessica was wonderful to cuddle with.  She insisted, after the power came back on, that we not stop watching until after the scene where Drew Berrymore beats the snot out of Rob Schneider with an aluminum baseball bat (which is completely rediculous because in real life a single shot with that bat would take most people out, but Drew gets him over and over and he still ends up running off).

OK, so I probably didnt’ end up a super-hero, but I did get some good time alone with Jessica, and that’s powerful stuff.