I don’t have any kind of snarky joke to play on you folks; let it be known that I would have a sense of humor if I had more time.

This is a very nice site for all my mid-century modern peeps out there: Meteor Lights features lamps and shades from the 50’s for the modern bohemian. (via Boing Boing)

Money. Jen and I have been in the middle of a bureaucratic nightmare with Baltimore Gas and Electric since we first opened the door to our new house. It involved the last vestigal traces of an operational doctor’s office after they hauled the desk, waiting room chairs, miniature skeleton, and filing cabinets out of the front rooms: two electrical meters bolted to the basement wall, clicking merrily away on commercial rates. The sellers graciously offered to have it converted to a single service, and footed the bill—a quiet man named Ben came and wrestled the rat’s nest of Eisenhower-era wiring into a single, beautiful panel with about fifteen empty slots, signed the work order, and disappeared into the warm October afternoon like Robert DeNiro in Brazil.

Since then, we’ve battled the faceless drones at BG&E to get two bills consolidated into one, which has involved repeated visits from representatives of the company, a three-month wait for somebody to hook up the outside service (while the HUGE main feed wire into the house hung loose at the bottom of the basement steps, promising swift death to anybody brushing up against it with a laundry basket), another wait for somebody to finish the job inside, then an inspection, then another inspection to make sure we aren’t using the house commercially to grow pot (that’s what the greenhouse is for), and then a call to a drone to actually consolidate the bills.

The sum of this lovely exercise came today: $675 in current and backdated charges for gas and electric. Kinda makes that check I just wrote for $1.43 for the water bill look that much better.