footnote: "except Exception" doesn't really catch all exceptions:

>>> class Foo:
...     pass
...
>>> try:
...     raise Foo
... except Exception, e:
...     print "got it"
...
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 2, in ?
__main__.Foo: <__main__.Foo instance at 0x00B35FA8>