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Hi, everyone...

At the risk of having my foil hat on too tight (and to tie into a notation that Quayle will have on his site soon - provided he hasn't put it up just yet):

From CP:

Toronto core suffers blackout

TORONTO (CP) - Many workers in the downtown Toronto core got an unexpected afternoon off Tuesday following a two-hour blackout as a result of an equipment failure at a hydro station.

Diana Ospina made her way to the subway along with other midday commuters, fighting gusting winds, blowing snow and darkened traffic lights. Although she had some "pretty important" work to do in the afternoon, her employer sent her and her colleagues home when the power outage hit.

Their office in the heart of the city lost power at about 11 a.m., she said, affecting "servers, telephone systems and everything. So there was nothing we could do."

Her plans for the afternoon were basic.

"First I want to make it home, that's the No. 1 thing, and then just relax."

Bad weather wasn't a factor in the outage, Hydro One spokesman Al Manchee said.

Manchee said one transmission line was already out for scheduled maintenance when the second circuit went down.

He said the blackout, which ended about 1 p.m., was the result of equipment failure at a generating station just west of Bay Street, north of Toronto city hall. The hydro went up about two hours earlier than anticipated when the equipment was restored.

The outage affected thousands of workers, shoppers and students in the downtown area including Toronto city hall, courts and the University of Toronto.

While traffic was snarled by severe weather conditions combined with traffic lights that didn't work, streetcars and subways were still functioning.