Archive for April, 2007

90′s Nostalga

If you are under the age of 13 you should not read this

Just because you were born in ’97 doesn’t mean you’re a 90′s kid.

It’s not like you could remember the original Simpsons. I am sorry but three conscious years of the 90′s just wont cut it.

You’re a 90′s kid if:

You can finish this [ice ice _ _ _ _ ]

You remember watching:
-Doug
-Ren & Stimpy
-Pinky and the Brain
-Alvin and the Chimpunks

You’ve ever ended a sentence with the word “PSYCHE!”

You just cant resist finishing this . . . “Iiiiiiin west philidelphia born and raised . . .” *sings*

You remember:
-Sister Sister
-Kenan and Kel
-Sabrina the teenage witch.

You remember when it was actually worth getting up early
On a Saturday to watch cartoons.

Supermarket sweep.

You remember reading “Goosebumps”.

You took plastic cartoon lunch boxes to school. :)

You still get the urge to say “NOT” after (almost) every sentence. NOT.

When everything was settled by:
-rock paper scissors.
-turn around, touch the ground…
-ip dip doo the cats got the flu…

When playing ‘run outs’ was a daily activity.

When we played Hide and go seek until our legs grew numb.

You used to listen to the radio all day long just to record your FAVORITE song of ALL time.

Sega games…. Sonic!

You knew that Kimberly, the pink ranger, and Tommy, the green ranger, were meant to be together. <3

When daytime t.v was all learning stuff for kids, that your parents made you watch if you stayed off school.

You remember when Super Nintendos and Sega Genisis became popular.

You always wanted to send in a tape to Britain’s Funniest Home Videos . . . But never taped anything funny.

You remember watching Home Alone 1, 2 , and 3 . . . And tried to pull the pranks on “intruders”

You remember watching:
-The Magic roundabout
-kipper the dog
-button moon<<
You remember when Yo-Yos were cool.

You remember those Where’s Wally books.

You remember eating thoses biscuit rings with icing on top. [[Party Rings?<3]]

You remember watching:
-the 1st Batman
-Aladdin
-Ninja Turtles
-3 Ninjas movies.

When starburst were called opalfruits.

If you remember when every thing was “DA BOMB!”

When they made the new lunchables so that you could make pizza AND tacos.

…and even the boys loved steps and spice girls.

You remember boom boxes vs. Cd players.

Making those little paper fortune cookie things, and then predicting your life with them.

You played and/or collected “Pogs”.

Collecting stickers for sticker books.

You had at least one Tamagotchi, GigaPet, or Nano and brought it everywhere.

Furbies.

You haven’t always had a computer, and it was cool to have the Internet.

And Windows 95 was the best.<<
You watched the original cartoons of Rugrats, Power Rangers, and Ninja Turtles.

Michael Jordan was a king.

When wrestling was good. WWF!<<
YIKES pencils and erasers were the stuff!

You remember when the new Beanie Babies and Talking Elmo were always sold out.

You collected those Beanie Babies.

Carebears.

Gap was the coolest stuff invented.

The old, old £20.

Oasis was the ‘new’ thing.

You collected all the Troll dolls.

You know what an original Walkman is.

You remember wanting to sit on the orange Nickelodeon couch.

You’ve gotten creeped out by “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”

You know the Macarena by heart.

“Talk to the hand” . . . Enough said

You always said, “Then why don’t you marry it!”

You went to McDonald’s to play in the playplace.

You remember playing on merry go rounds at the playground.

Before the MySpace frenzy . . .

Before the Internet & text messaging . . .

Before creatives & iPods . . .

Before emos and chavs. . .

Before PlayStation2 or X-BOX . . .

Before Spongebob . . .

When light up trainers were cool.

When everyone wore visors.

When you rented VHS tapes, not DVDs.

Caller ID was a new thing.

When everyone had at least one of those little gooey aliens in a pod.

When no-one knew how to get them ‘pregnant’.

When we recorded stuff on VCRs.

When we called the radio station to request songs to hear off of our walkman.

When checking out drawing books and that one book about the rainbow fish from the library was THE cool thing to do.

You had slap braclets!

When Pokemon was popular.

Way back.

Before we realized all this would eventually disappear.

Who would have thought you’d miss the 90′s so much!!!!!

(ok so I stole it from a myspace bulletin, but it just filled me with so much nostalga, I don’t agree with everything on the list but even so, I couldn’t resist reposting it!)

Smart Electricity Meters, a useful tool to help cut energy usage?

smart meter

I was quickly browsing the BBC News website when this article got my attention. It was regarding the advent of a new device for the home, a home electricity monitor. And its counterpart, the advanced electricity meter. Both of which show you how much electricity you use in real time, and offer a view of your electricity use in the past. The only difference seems to be that the meter will be able to offer a more precice reading and will be able to automatically update the electricity company with the information of your power consumption.

The general idea of these new meters is to show you what your power consumption is on a regular basis without refering to kwh (kilowatt hours), the standard measure of power consumption for your electricity supplier. Which both your current meter reads in and also your bill will be based on. From the first article I got linked to a second article which contained a pop up window with the following image:

alternate forms of measuring energy consumption

It clearly shows at the bottom of the easy to read display a more understandable and easier to imagine form of measuring energy consumption. The screen shows a current Watts reading of 2,856 Watts (a.k.a. 2.8 kW). But also it shows that figure in other ways. Here in this image it shows “Slices of toast you could have made 986” and “Toasters you could power right now 3.5“.

I can’t deny this will be easier for people to understand the amount of energy they consume just going about their daily lives, and it will probably help people to use less energy once they understand how much energy they use. There is only one thing that I cannot help but think about, how much electricity does it take these meters to function? and will that be displayed on the screen as part of your usage?

I notice that the images on the BBC website all have a colour flat screen monitor with a bright backlight displaying the information about your consumption. So how much energy will these monitors / meters actually use up all over the country? and will they actually be worth it by encouraging people to cut their electricity intake enough to power these monitors / meters and leave them using less electricity than before?

Anyone who knows anything about this or wants to contribute to this please feel free to leave a comment below. I’m really quite curious about this.