Picking up black walnuts to Bring Down THE MAN!

(WARNING: This post is Not Safe For Work if you're Al Gore.)

Yay! Hooray for me! I'm done with walnuts for the year! After probably ten hours of work, I cashed in my walnuts today, and received as a reward for my work a grand total of $6.57.

That wouldn't be much, if the story stopped there, but it doesn't.

I took my walnut money and bought two of the little pull-chain light socket adapter thingies that let you turn off a light bulb without flipping the power switch.

I put them in the bathroom, so now I can burn only one bulb when I need only one bulb, which is the vast majority of the times I'm in there. The only time I really need to burn all three is when I'm shaving. With the pullchains, I can turn on the two over the mirror at the sink if I need them, and turn them back off when I'm done. Previously, with all three running off the same switch, it was all or none.

Awhile ago, I had already switched out the 60-watt incandescent bulbs for 23-watt CFLs, so now instead of running 180 watts whenever I went into the bathroom, I'm only running 23 watts, less than 13% of what I WAS using.

(Pause here while Al Gore needs a moment of "alone time.")

I may ... MAY ... switch out the one bulb for a 10-watter from the kitchen. That'd be a 94+% energy savings.

(Pause here for Al Gore again.)

If I wasn't effectively trading walnuts (which are of no real use to me) for the adapters, I don't know how long it'd take for them to pay for themselves, but I don't think an estimate of "years" is all that unreasonable. So I don't know how cost-effective this is for real-live, actual humans. But once they save enough to pay for the three bucks or so per adapter, everything else will be just gravy.

(Now someone please get Al Gore a baby wipe!)

P.S. The less electricity you use, the less money you're paying the utilities in rates, and thus the less money you're paying the government in sales taxes. Just one little way to help Starve The Beast.

(Now Ron Paul needs a baby wipe too!)

Now, just to review -- Yay! Hooray for me!

The t*tty-pink Escort's funky little manually-retractable antenna thing.

I wonder, if I leave it retracted and just listen to local stations and/or cassettes (yes, some of them still exist!), how much will it help my fuel mileage, if at all?

That'll show them.

My city council raised electric rates by 11%. In response, I've resolved to try to reduce my usage 22%.

Part of that is addressing my 9/11 Cable News Syndrome, which manifests itself in a need to know EVERYthing that's happening THE MOMENT it happens. I've resolved to refrain from turning on the TV (and the VCR, with which I change the channel) until at least 2 PM every day.

Looks like I bought it too early.

The movie 300 will be on sale for six bucks at Walmart the morning after the Festival of Gluttony.

I paid $13 for it a couple weeks ago.

Still, I may venture out on Capitalism Day morning and check what other movies are selling for six bucks.

Or two.

Maybe I can get enough that I won't have to buy any more for the next four or (shudder) eight years.

We shall overcome.

Fight The Power By Burning Newspapers.

I noticed that about half of the bulk of my trash is paper or cardboard.

So I've started burning the paper and cardboard in the backyard where I burn leaves.

As expected, it cut the amount of trash I have in half.

How does this fight the power, you ask?

Using one trash bag every two weeks instead of every week cuts the amount I spend on trash bags, and the taxes I pay on said trash bags, in half.

We shall overcome.