Weather update

In case anyone cares, or even if nobody does, it's frickin' cold today. It was also frickin' cold yesterday, the day before, and the day before the day before. I wouldn't mind so much, except that the days before that, it was a very warm -5 centigrade.

And there's no snow. Which is a moot point, I guess, because it's way too cold to cross-country ski; I'd probably be drained after a mere kilometer, all my calories going into my body's central heating system.

I take hope in the fact that January is the coldest month in Montreal, and that it can only get warmer from here. But maybe I shouldn't even think that, as nature always has some nasty surprise for us in February.

I normally wouldn't mind the cold, but I now pay the heating bills directly (they used to be part of my rent). My heaters are electric, which means it's less polluting (Montreal power mostly comes from insanely huge hydroelectric dams), but it's also more expensive per Joule presently. I think the last two months have been more expensive than the previous six months, even when taking the A/C into account. And I've been really cheap on heating, keeping ambient around 15 centigrade, five degrees below the "comfort temperature".

Bleah. And municipal taxes are going to hit me on the head soon, too. Joy.

Ah, well, that's what I get for not moving to California when I had the chance. Then again, I'm not sure I'd still be employed if I had moved down there, with the .com bubble and all. In any case, I'd have less liquid assets because property prices are insane down there. I suppose all those temperature shifts have their compensation--nobody wants to live there, so prices are still somewhat affordable.