Juliebird, a brash and brave friend of mine had a wonderful solution for the occasional too-loud and too-late partying at another apartment in his building -- he'd go down to the common area basement and flip their LR circuit breaker.

They never caught on.

I've written about these quite a bit.

1. The electric ones just don't work very well.

2. The gas ones work and do theoretically save on a per therm basis, but the front-end costs are so high that you won't see a payback unless you plan to live in the house at least 10 years, and probably more like 15.

3. The water is heated as it runs through a heating coil. The faster the water is running, the less hot it can get, so simultaneous use of hot water can be a problem.

4. They're still fairly new to most markets, so it's harder to get a quality installer.

5. You theoretically save water by not running as much water waiting for hot water, but since we're in year five of a historic drought, I catch that water in buckets for the yard anyway.

6. Modern insulated Energy-Star-rated tank water heaters are pretty efficient as it is.

7. If you're a paranoid freak like me, you find it comforting to know you have an extra 50 gallons of water in the house.

8. One big plus for the tankless heaters is that they're so small.

Cereal: My friend Jim has a very informative post up at Making Light on Traumatic Brain Injury that could save your life or a loved one's:

[link]

Ginger, I'm looking at furnace replacement, and my system is set up for forced hot water anyway. Is there any point into looking at combined units that will do both?

Two bits of news from Emily-land:

My best friend is moving to San Francisco. Yes, now. Yes, AFTER I LEFT. Total fail.

And I'm about to go for a two-hour meeting to brainstorm (no shit) how we can better use our time to help our students. I think we get no points for the obvious answer. Wish me stormy brains!

So I took yesterday off (sick, left my bed only to play Wii Tennis) and this morning I find out that three people in my department were laid off.

Today I plan to look very, very, very busy. All day.

I also really like Nutrogena's sesame oil in the water. Soooo soothing.

I go through tons of this in the winter! In baths, yes (and I have a lovely, long, deep tub from the 20's and a hot water heater apparently fired by Hell, because the water is always fiery and plentiful.) I can get my shoulders covered! My mom and dad's bath tub when I was growing up...meh. It was like sitting in a puddle.

I also make do-it-yourself salt scrub with the oil and sea salt.

Noah and Grace are TWO? You're not serious?! Really!? That's...crazy. Happy birthday to them!

Yeah, baths for me as a kid were puddle baths, so aside from hot tubs, I've never much gotten into the habit.

However, when I did try those lovely Lush bath bombs... the intense fragrance breathed in the steam gave me headaches from Hell.

No emoticon could possibly be awful enough to convey how unhappy I am about that.

I stayed in a house in England once with an enourmous claw-foor iron bathtub. It was wonderful. I could actually sit in it with water up to my shoulders and my legs fully extended, and the water stayed hot for ages. I think I spent more that trip on Lush bath bombs than on the plane ticket.

I love a hot tub. My girlfriend's and I ususually go away on some little weekend trip once a year; last time, we got a cabin in the middle of the Ozarks, very in the middle of nowhere, and there was a huge hot tub on the back deck, overlooking these gorgeous autumn hills. We spent most of the weekend in and out of that thing, running around merrily naked, clutching wine bottles and gossiping.

There was also a beautiful stone lined steam shower in that joint. There were 9 of us, so we all piled into the beds and couches and some slept on air matresses, so it was very reasonable, price-wise. Bought our own groceries, cooked big dinners, brought tons of wine...it was great.