12:30 PM -- File under: Likely excuses.

According to a report on ZDNet Australia (who knew?), rodents "crippled" telecom services in New Zealand for up to four hours.

The rats chewed through a cable in a steel duct, officials said. To compound problems, the power company then knocked out a cable while digging holes.

"Telephone, mobile, Internet and... services affecting about 100,000 customers were lost on Monday and the nation's stock exchange closed for most of the trading day because of the outage," reports ZDNet.

— R. Scott Raynovich, US Editor, Light Reading