This is weird, though - first time in my life I've experienced an electrical "brown out" - these are one of the most feared electrical faults by us geeks - all the lights are half powered, very dim... upon ringing city power, they weren't aware, and gave us the big warning spiel about half power being way more dangerous to electrical components than surges etc.
So here I sit, on a laptop with only a few gadgets that I can afford to replace powered up - situation expected to change in an hour or two - news to follow.