In connection with getting an $80 power bill, I went around and measured all the electrical items in my office with a Kill-a-Watt, and it was most instructive.

In watts:

• printer (idle): 4
• Bass Pod Pro: 12
• Yamaha keyboard: 6
• Power amp: 24
• laptop: 20 (12 when screen off)
• NAS box: 48
• LCD: 48 (0 when off)
• Computer: 72 (5 when off)
• Behringer Truth B2031 speakers: 32 (32 also when “auto-off”)
• Linksys AP: 5
• Desk lamp: 40
• DSL modem and ethernet hub: 10

The big surprises for me were that the Bass Pod drew so much, as well as that the speakers drew the same power, even when “off”! I’ve been pretty lax about just leaving stuff on all the time, but it adds up.

According to my math, at $0.10/KwH, each watt costs ~7 cents a month. If I saved 100 watts, I’d save $7 a month, or $84 a year. Not bad. We also have a number of servers lurking around the house, and this shows how much those machines are affecting the power bill, too.

Jen, myself, and some friends went to see Smashing Pumpkins last night. Very good concert! Afterwards back at the car, we were approached by some other fans who has bought an actual PUMPKIN to SMASH at the SMASHING PUMPKINS concert!

Genius!!!

It smashed nicely. Alas no pics.

Other bands deserving the purchase of produce or other food item:
Cherry Poppin’ Daddies
Phish
Depeche (a la) Mode
The Cranberries
Fiona Apple
Morphine
The Orb (any melon or round fruit)
Pink Martini
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Spoon
Tonic

I just accepted a position with Oracle, in their Linux group! I’m very excited. I’ll get to work from home on Linux, can’t beat that! I’m officially starting October 1.

For those of you who are last.fm users, check out http://lastgraph.aeracode.org

It takes a while to generate your graph once requested, but mine is done, from sept 2006 to sept 2007:

http://lastgraph.aeracode.org/graph/8238

Jen and I are currently taking turns leapfrogging each other’s progress in Zelda: Twilight Princess. She got to the wolf part first, but I am currently in the lead 🙂

Good things about the wii:

1. quiet and small
2. the controllers are cool
3. gamecube compatibility
4. guitar hero 3 is coming soon
5. it got Jen into games, so it definitely has a broader appeal

Bad things about the wii:

1. It has internet connectivity, but doesn’t seem to do a lot with it
2. guitar hero 3 isn’t out yet
3. You can’t run Linux on it 🙂
4. Won’t run in hires when we get an HDTV

BTW if anyone has any old Gamecube games they wanted to go to a good home… or even advice on which GC or Wii games are supposed to be good. We have Mario party 8 and Zelda so far, that’s it.

I just resigned from Lightfleet. They were not making payroll, and I was not happy with how management was handling the (admittedly difficult) situation. I’ll miss the people and the work, but certainly not the commute…

So, my resume is updated and I’m back on the job hunt! Woooo!