Killing a few watts

I finally ordered one of these today.  It’s called a Kill-A-Watt and it will tell me how much electricity each item that I plug into it eats up. For the most part, I have a pretty good idea what most everything draws, but there are a few items that have no labels on them anywhere that say what their wattage (or amps and volts) are. One more very useful tool in helping pare electricity use down. Of course, the most useful tool is a pair of hands pulling plugs out of the outlets. I did that with the downstairs television and DVR last week. (The DVR/cable box drove me nuts because it was ALWAYS on and blinking at me.) So far, there have been no pangs of regret. By the time the new autumn television line-up begins, I might not even care.

If my electric utility would get on the ball, they’d offer residential customers this gadget like another Massachusetts utility (NStar) does. For a whole $29.95. Purchasing it retail costs $139.95. The PowerCost Monitors read electricity use in real time and I’d just love the idea of dashing around yanking plugs out of the wall to see what it would make the monitor do, while I held it in my hot little hands.

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I thought this was an interesting photo gallery from Time. It’s called “What the World Eats” and it’s a series of photographs showing families from various countries with a week’s worth of groceries/food artfully arranged. You can draw your own conclusions. Mine was...boy, we eat a lot of crap. Mainly, I think we just eat too much and then end up with a huge pile of discarded packaging. There are notable exceptions.

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I also want to point out that Sunday morning drivers in Massachusetts need to chill. This morning, taking the lad to work, I met more than a couple of people who were in an awful hurry and mad at the world. Maybe it was unspent aggression built up over a long work week. But man were people crabby this morning. I was glad to come home and be off the roads.