June, 18, 2001 archives

somehow my power usage was about fifteen percent lower for this period (mid-april to mid-june) than the same period last year. i think it is a sign that the heating/cooling system in my apartment is brutally ineffecient. my daily average cost for energy is $1.42, according to my bill. (which ignores natural gas usage, of course. that would add another $0.24/day.)

my jury duty resumed today. we recessed today in the middle of closing argument. we're in the home stretch!

for signing up with online bill payment with at&t (actually automatic debit with online bill presentment), i got a $25 amazon.com gift certificate, plus a $1 credit towards long distance a month for the next twelve months. pretty cool deal. now i just have to find something that will cost approximately $25 from amazon.com, since i want to maximize that gift certificate without actually paying them any money. (they're still being patent bullies, so the boycott continues, more or less.)

those wacky brits have developed fizzy fruit (not to be confused with the fuzzy fruit sometimes found lurking in my fridge). i really want to see the exploding bananas.

so, the phantom menace is finally going to come out on dvd. right around my birthday, as it happens. but i don't want it! i'd rather have this movie. (i still haven't even seen phantom menace, but i'll probably put it in my netflix queue when it is released.)

speaking of movies, i watched se7en several times over the last few days (for the first time, and then to listen to a couple of the commentary tracks). i like david fincher's work, and the film is pretty good. but i knew a little too much about the ending going in (but not who played the killer, which was a cool surprise), and i don't think all of the killings fit into the pattern very well. (a slight non-sequitor: a group of bears is known as a sloth, and a group of apes is a shrewdness.)

one more movie-related tidbit. i watched all the president's men last night (catching up on another movie classic thanks to netflix), and it was very odd to see the dad from seventh heaven in the movie as the former treasurer of nixon's reelection campaign.