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Here's a list of the movies we saw last year that we loved: The Butterfly Effect [2004] Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [2004] Concert for George [2003] Capturing the Friedmans [2003] Fahrenheit 9/11 [2004] Napoleon Dynamite [2004] Garden State [2004] I ♥ Huckabees [2004] The Incredibles [2004] The King of Comedy [1982] The Duellists [1977] (OK, Gina hasn't seen this one yet, but it's a greeny; she owes me for Gump.) And here are the films we didn't like: Once Upon a Time in the West [1968] The Passion of the Christ [2004] (Technically, this is the only movie in the entire 400+ that we reviewed but didn't see.) Lost in Space [1998] (We actually saw this when it came out, but it took a while to find it before we blasted it out of existence.) Wow! Not a bad year, considering two of the bad movies were from other years, and we didn't even have to watch Lethal Passion to know we wouldn't like it. Of course there were a lot of movies we missed on purpose, and a lot we wanted to see, too, but never got around to. I've been having fun with a bureaucracy/maintenance problem lately. I sent a nice note last week to our electric company (Pepco) and got no response, so today I upped the ante with the infamous "safety hazard" letter. Here's what I fired off to Pepco this morning (cc'd to our maintenance department, too): Dear Pepco,
Pepco electric power to our home is alarmingly intermittent, and I am concerned that this may indicate a substantial safety hazard. Power switches off every half hour or so for a fraction of a second, but on occasion for more than a minute. Power has been fluctuating in this manner for over a month, and threatens at least to damage sensitive electronic equipment, and perhaps to ignite the house and its occupants. We do not relish this thought. In late December and at my request I was visited by electricians from my cooperative's home maintenance unit (GHI) and from Pepco. GHI state that most likely the problem is in wiring outside the house and beyond the meter. They state that this wiring belongs to Pepco. GHI inspected the wiring within my house, and upgraded a few circuit breakers. They found no problems, and their changes did not affect the power fluctuations, which continue. The Pepco engineer stated that the wiring from the meter to the pole is the responsibility of GHI. My experience tells me that the fault is likely to be intermittent contact between wires bringing power into the meter from the pole. Neither GHI nor Pepco admit responsibility for this section of the wiring, and this situation is entirely unacceptable. I would be most grateful if you would resolve this situation, either by informing GHI of their responsibilities at <mgmtoffice@greenbelthomes.net> or 301-474-4161, or by fixing the problem yourself. Clearly, if neither of you accept responsibility then you are both liable to some degree for the consequences. I left my work and home numbers and email addresses at the end of the letter, and clicked "send". I have to admit, it made me giggle a little. When I got home from work Gina handed me the phone, and I had a very nice conversation with the head of maintenance at GHI, who said he would personally fix the situation, by finding out which company is responsible and making sure the problem is fixed. |
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Intermittent Power Drops