Crispy about the edges.

I just want to go on record for two things.

1) I am completely ready for this move to be done.

2) I would've been completely hosed if it weren't for the help and encouragement of my friends, especially the girl. Thank you all so much, even the contribution of a reassuring word has been awesome (girl: I'm so thankful, I'm considering that binturong conservatory you wanted to start.)

Hopefully I'll be mostly human again soon.

In the meantime, go watch this clip of some band I have no reason even knowing exists (No, not Tub Ring. or Retard-O-Bot.)

Drawing Like Roman 101

This was a link that I couldn't immediately find when I wanted to, but you know who you are, this is what I wanted to show you

The rest of you, you might get a kick out of it as well.

Cats dig moving.

My cat is completely on board with this whole moving angle.



I say she gets her own box.

Ongoing Dispute #3

Oh, what fun. Actually moving to new city over the next week, so maybe I can start adding photographs?

• A caller said a man on a motorcycle, described as a "Hell's Angels-style chopper," was shining his headlights into residences in the 10000-something block of A Street early Sunday morning.
  
  The caller said the suspect was wearing a white skeleton mask on his face and a motorcycle helmet so he resembled the Grim Reaper. The incident was reported at 2:56 a.m.


• A coyote was chasing people at a park, 7:15 a.m.


• A man said the general manager of a business head-butted him "for no reason," 12:55 p.m.


• A caller said two girls ages 18-20 years old were walking around with signs saying "free hugs." The caller thought the girls were soliciting for sex. A dispatcher noted the caller "sounded drunk," 4:52 p.m


• A woman saw a group of ducks get struck by a car. A mother duck was killed and the woman put four ducklings in a box to give to animal control workers, 6:22 p.m.


• An elderly woman in a gray sedan crashed into a pond in front of a store at the mall, 9:47 p.m.


• A group of youths was catching koi fish in a pond and throwing them in a pool, 2:42 a.m.


• A man wearing a full face mask and fatigues was pointing a gun at passing cars. The caller suspected the gun had an orange tip, indicating it was an Airsoft gun, but was unsure. Officers contacted the suspect, who confirmed the gun was an Airsoft gun and said he was waiting for a friend to pick him up so they could play with the pellet guns, 11:29 a.m.


• A man came to the police station and reported someone punched him after the two got into an argument at a wedding, 2:57 p.m.


• A dark-colored sedan was traveling the wrong way on B Boulevard and was being followed by both an ambulance and police officer on a motorcycle, 1:10 a.m.


• About 12 youths on bicycles were driving in front of cars and swearing at people, 2:56 p.m.


• A male transient wearing a skirt and a pink sombrero was flashing people, 3:28 p.m.


• A man was in custody after allegedly putting a homemade $20 bar code on a $450 item at a store, 4:33 p.m.


• A drunken man was passed out in a car, and a woman was trying to wake him up, 12:17 a.m.


• Juveniles on each side of the road were pretending to race into the street in front of cars, forcing drivers to slam on their brakes, 6:24 p.m.


• A woman said she noticed two pairs of shoes were hanging off power lines in two locations. The caller said, in Los Angeles, the shoes are an indicator that "it's a place for drug sales." She said she wanted the shoes taken down, 8:03 a.m.


• A woman had her pants down and was exposing herself, 4:33 p.m.


• A physical fight ensued after a road-rage incident between a man in a white van and the driver of a black Honda Civic. The van's driver was described as a "social outcast," 6:44 p.m.


• A caller reported residents of the 5000-something block of S Drive were jumping in front of parents who were speeding on their way to drop off their kids at a school nearby.
  One woman was writing down car license plates. Some drivers got out of their cars and were arguing with residents. The disturbance was reported at 8:33 a.m. on Wednesday.


• A woman told police her boyfriend punched her in the face, took her purse and threw her into a fountain, 1:24 a.m.


• A caller reported hearing a howling sound but was unsure if it was coming from a human or an animal, 9:30 p.m.

As always, names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Weather

I don't remember there being much weather in southern California in May. Well, other than "hot and sunny."

I took this picture this afternoon right before it started to rain.

Electricity

I keep hearing anecdotal tales from people concerned about their energy usage. Often more from a financial impact than concern about environmental impact, sure, but I've never figured out why the numbers I hear quoted sound so much more severe than what I notice actually paying.

So, here's a summary of my electricity bills for the last year, for reference, this is a 1 bedroom apartment on the ground floor:

Date	KWH Read	KWH Usage	# Days	Avg. Usage.	Charges
05/08/2008	99813	502.00	29	17.31	59.79
04/09/2008	99311	368.00	30	12.27	44.11
03/10/2008	98943	377.00	32	11.78	45.36
02/07/2008	98566	287.00	29	9.9	34.78
01/09/2008	98279	364.00	33	11.03	44.21
12/07/2007	97915	436.00	31	14.06	53.76
11/06/2007	97479	606.00	32	18.94	86.53
10/05/2007	96873	626.00	29	21.59	81.56
09/06/2007	96247	618.00	30	20.6	77.46
08/07/2007	95629	602.00	29	20.76	76.11
07/09/2007	95027	558.00	32	17.44	67.63
06/07/2007	94469	468.00	30	15.6	57.55
05/08/2007	94001	401.00	31	12.94	47.98
TOTAL:	-	6213.00	397	15.64	776.83

So in 13 months, I spent nearly 800 dollars on electricity. I've heard people say that last summer near hear, they spent the same in two summer months.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the most conscious about my energy usage. My fridge is old-ish, I run the A/C whenever I'm home almost year-round, I have computers that are powered up 24/7.

So I'm curious, am I "green" even with my perceived usage pattern? Is it a rash of "this is how much it feels like I'm paying" bias in estimation? Tall tales? Exaggeration?

"ZOMG, you wasteful monster, I pay so much less than you in a similar climate/economy"?

Financing the Move.

Alright, the big move (while not going as fast as I would like) is paid for.

At the end of every day, I take whatever change is in my pocket and throw it in a empty plastic slurpee cup. Then, once a year, I take it to my bank, where they've got one of those auto-counting machines (like coinstar, but without the fee. for what it's worth, you can also skip the coinstar fee (9%?!) by opting for payment as a gift card in a lot of cases, so if you already drink a lot of starbucks, it's almost as good as cash. Heck, keep an eye out for when amazon gift cards are an options. They sell nearly everything on there.)

This usually amounts to a hundred bucks or so. It's not the optimal savings method, as you aren't earning interest, but it's a system that works for me. Annual windfall, as it were.

Well, apparently either I let it slide over a year this time (I don't think I did), or my attempt to use cash more (I feel purchases more when handing over a bill rather than just sliding a card.), rendered the slurpee cup insufficient for capacity. So a second slurpee cup was added. And a couple large empty cottage cheese tubs. And then some other plastic bin. And those had to be emptied out earlier in the year (I choose a tripled grocery bag) And then they were filled again.

So I dumped them today into a second tripled grocery bag, fetched the first, and dragged them (very nearly literally) to the car.

Coin machine at first branch was out of service. Went and picked up Manya from work and drove to another branch.

Aha, change counting machine in service.

Her jaw dropped after I tossed in the first few handfuls and got up to about $30. Second bag on the floor at my feet, I positioned one bag over the little bin and tore into it. Handful of rejected coins. Picked out the arcade tokens and bits of lint, threw the rest back in the bin. Accepted this time. Repeat with second bag. Printed out the receipt and brought it to the teller. Said I wanted to deposit it into my account. She was surprised by the amount.

So while not effectively any more wealthy than when I woke up this morning (cash on hand, as it were), the untracked balance of savings of $937.30 was added to the official ledger.

Something I'd not considered about lugging around nearly $1000 in loose change? It's really, really heavy. Like back spasms all evening heavy. Ow.

But, this easily covers the costs of paying for some people to move my heavier crap for me, as well as the gas spent searching for apartments, the application fee at the new place, boxes...I guess that's it expense wise so far.

As far as the whole saving change thing goes, I've been doing it for years. Once paid rent with the proceeds. I don't think I'm alone at this, I occasionally see some guy standing by the coinstar machine with an empty water cooler bottle mostly full of change (which he had to bring in using a dolly), trying to figure out how he's going to get the change into the bin. And considering Coinstar's stock performance over the last 10 years, it seems like they're doing alright for themselves.

Mindless Link Propagation 5/22/2008

Chris Frates at Politico via The EFF via BoingBoing reminds me of the last time I remember Leader Boehner

Why I don't subscribe to my local newspaper.

Here's a good example, food reviews:

Here lies their top picks for chicken places

Number 1: National fast-food chain.
Number 2: Different national fast-food chain.
Number 3: Local tourist trap.

With the bonus "Hidden Gem" being the only local establishment they mention.

How did I find this article? I drove by the "Hidden Gem" place today and wanted to make a joke about its obscurity.

So when I went searching, I found said article, with the opening line for the section being "The saying 'As American as apple pie' also applies to chicken pie, according to Otto Hasselbarth, owner of La Palma Chicken Pie Shop."

I'm terribly sorry, but if you want me to pay for this pablum, you'll have to do better. (yes, thank you so very much for sending me junk mail over the years, calling me up on the phone, or if not sending people directly to my door, sponsoring half-assed "achievement" programs encouraging everyone and their dog to ignore the big "no soliciting" signs posted around the place to come knocking anyhow...)

Don't get me wrong, one of my pet peeves is when people have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. But on the other hand, if there's an indication of "no soliciting", perhaps I'm not going to be receptive to your special brand of bullshit, and I'm not going to be receptive to the heart-rending stories of how you're a high-school student (*cough* runaway *cough*) that's looking to sell newspaper subscriptions to earn a college scholarship.

Heartless, you say?

I am a smoker. I do not smoke inside my apartment, and I walk out to somewhere away from everyone's air conditioners and whatnot to not be "that jerk."

This means I get to see a bit more of my apartment community than the average shut-in.

And get asked, with some regularity, by the van-drivers and handlers, "Hey, have you seen some kids selling newspapers, they should've been around here by now."

In fairness to the local rag, sometimes they ask me about kids selling magazine subscriptions.

I started wanting to make a joke about how out of touch the local newspaper is...well, maybe the thinking about it revealed their distance from reality in a few different ways.

Mindless Link Propagation

Photos of TV (link: jwz)
Found-sounds Alice In Wonderland (link: kottke.org)
"Cow Something" (link: Serious Eats)
PHP Sucks (link:Coding Horror)