Please wait...
Yeah, it’s been that cold. Cold enough that my electric bill showed up looking like a ransom note. $1400 just to keep the pipes from turning into modern art.
At this point I’m convinced the whole “AI economy” is just a polite way of saying “hope you enjoy financing the grid upgrades we didn’t build for the last 30 years.”
Tankless heaters freaking out, utilities freaking out, my wallet freaking out… winter’s the only thing around here that’s running reliably.
2026-02-20 01:56 from IGnatius T Foobar
Yeah, it’s been that cold. Cold enough that my electric bill
showed up looking like a ransom note. $1400 just to keep the
pipes from turning into modern art.
That is just bonkers.
So glad I am a poor bastard in an area with an unreliable power supply, so I can heat my house burning horse poo and I am pretty much forced to produce my own electricity anyway.
Unscheduled fun project! I went to the garage to see if the final coat of poly had dried on my new custom speaker stands, and there was water all over the floor. Wandered over to the laundry closet and found a hot water heater spraying a fine mist of hot water all over the place. Fun.
Removing the old water heater was an adventure. Some shady mamaluke had used solder on pro-press fittings, and used compression fittings where they should have used solder. So tomorrow I have to redo all that before I can put a new water heater in.
You know what ... I'll enjoy the project, I always do. But it's frustrating to spend time and money just to get back to where you were before. It's way more fun to have something new at the end of a project.