look for the woman

All I ask of myself is that I hold together.

Happy Crothers Day

Whatever. Close enough.

Today in dumpster diving excellence.

Granted, I'd throw away a framed poster of Las Vegas as well, but the frame's in good shape.

My roommate is the worst.

This goes on night after night.

Still confused by this electricity thing.

So about a year ago, I went and made a table out of a year's worth of electricity bills and posted it here.

I'll save you the trouble of clicking on the link and quote the table. Here comes a quote:
"
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

"

And then I moved. Used to live 15 miles from the sea, now 2. Square footage is a bit different as well, so there's variables.

Here's another year's worth of numbers:

Date	KWH Read	KWH Usage	# Days	Avg. Usage.	Charges
04/24/2009	4691	147.00	30	4.9	$ 19.01
03/25/2009	4544	139.00	29	4.79	$ 17.94
02/24/2009	4405	172.00	32	5.38	$ 22.71
01/23/2009	4233	162.00	31	5.23	$ 21.46
12/23/2008	4071	193.00	32	6.03	$ 25.43
11/21/2008	3878	219.00	29	7.55	$ 28.38
10/23/2008	3659	315.00	31	10.16	$40.40
09/22/2008	3344	364.00	32	11.38	$ 47.25
08/21/2008	2980	292.00	29	10.07	$ 37.03
07/23/2008	2688	280.00	30	9.33	$ 34.91
06/23/2008	2408	165.00	32	5.16	$ 20.83
05/22/2008	2243	8.00	8	1	$ 16.18
TOTAL:	-	2456	345	7.11	$330.53

So I'm paying about less than half of what I used to pay. Still can't make heads or tails of one of my cow-orkers complaining about hundreds (nearly thousands) of dollars worth of electric bills in the summer.

Other than the move, I can't say I'm aware of any usage changes. Still run my computers quite a bit. Still leave a light on when I stay up too late. Run the air conditioner when it seems right. Go figure.

Maybe soon the bacon craze will end.

(pointed out to me by Gifa)

The media is dead to me.

I woke up to find this article in my RSS feed, posted as if it were real journalism. Here I was thinking I'd filtered out all the celebrity gossip articles, but here it was anyhow.

Highlights:

This past weekend was the Obamas’ first chance to participate in the Sidwell Friends School Dollars for Scholars benefit, and some families who remember the Clintons’ support are disappointed in the Obamas’ first showing.

Right. "Some families"...who?

According to a source with ties to the school, the only items up for bid from the Obamas included a signed copy of the Rolling Stone issue featuring the president and a signed copy of the January Vogue that featured the first lady.

A source...who?

“There were expectations that they might donate something more personal, like the Clintons did,” said another source who knew about the auction. “Lots of people were disappointed.”

Oh...right...another source.

A spokesperson for the Obamas said, “We have no comment on this.”

Oh, holy fuck. You can't even give the spokesperson's name?

Ok, ultimately, I don't give a shit about this private-school auction, scandalous or not, but I'm really pissed off that this snuck into my attention. I've been reading about how this administration is a failure since the day Obama was elected, months before the inauguration, and regardless how I voted (I'll spare you my usual diatribe of "The libertarian or the weirdest looking person in the voter information guide...which is usually the libertarian."), this just smacks of something cheaper than the usual yellow journalism.

Maybe I'd have been a little less pissed-off if the previous article in my feed(from the same source) didn't seem like bullshit either. (In short: "Really? You have a small business with an income of a half-mil and you report that on your personal income tax filing? Or are you just saying that's what your personal tax return would be if you counted your corporation's income? Or was it 'that's my personal income but as long as I say that my real income is way less people will say I'm getting taxed too much'?")


gah. off to work...

Happy Birthday, Mom.

Housing.

I've been looking at real estate listings again lately. Things are a lot better for me (someday buyer) than they used to be.

But, I'm sorry, please, take more impressive pictures.

(see also It's Lovely! I'll Take It!)

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
Do not photochop your pictures. They look like ass.