Everything has an AC adapter these days. They generally stick out like a sore thumb looking like a brick sticking out of your wall or perhaps sitting on the floor. One fact that I’m ashamed to admit had eluded me until recently is that these items continue to draw power even when the item they’re powering is shut off.  Right off the top of my head in my home right now I’m running:

• 2 cell chargers
• Xbox 360 adapter
• Nintendo Wii adapter
• Playstation 2 adapter
• PDA charger
• Battery charger (no batteries in it but the brick is plugged in)
• Nintendo DS charger
• Powerbook charger
• electric razor charger
• Computer monitor
• Other stuff I can’t remember

So I’ve been thinking of upgrading all of my surge protectors to something like the SmartStrip. I want to reduce my electric usage over the next year and I can hardly do that unless I can precisely control what devices are using electricity.

My next step will be to swap 60w bulbs for the lower-wattage fluorescents or LEDs but my girlfriend and I hate the light they produce it’s very green-yellowish like an office building. We have probably half a dozen 60W bulbs going at any given time so a change will have to be made soon. The figure I keep thinking of is the millions of kilowatt hours that could be saved per year if every household swapped just one regular bulb for an energy saving one.

Most of the households on my street just don’t give a shit so I feel obligated to take up the slack for them.

If you go ahead and read that article I just linked to I have an update on the toy-throwing neighbors. They’re still doing it and now that it’s warmer outside the kids playing in the alley have taken to throwing the broken toys onto the roofs of surrounding garages. Wonderful.