Household utility costs

Having worked out this morning I plan to take a shower and got to wondering how much they cost. Off-hand I don't know what we pay for natural gas but it's probably around £10 per week on average; my daily showers must be at least part of that. I can get a gym membership at work for comfortably under £4 per week and use their hot water instead. If I lived in England thus had to pay for my water usage too I wonder if that would be enough to move me to exercising at work.

Touchpads on laptop computers

Given how heavily we use our laptop computers I budget to replace them every three years or so, a point that we have now reached. With some luck they last longer: fortunately I am happy with my ASUS ZenBook except for it having taken the popular input approach of a touchpad that is one flat surface that has the mouse buttons underneath. It's often unreliable: the edges can somehow stick down a bit to make the buttons press when they oughtn't and sometimes a click distinctly on the right half of the touchpad is interpreted as being a left-click. HP's laptops seem to be going in that direction too, even Lenovo though it looks as if there might be some ThinkPads left that have three actual buttons, which is what I prefer. Avoiding these hide the buttons touchpads may considerably limit my options.

A productive weekend

I have been oddly productive this weekend. I worked out both days, I sorted and rearranged clothes, did some yardwork, some hours of the computer work (today including getting the new router into the regular backups), wrapped some gifts, wrote to my uncle, trimmed my hair, etc. while still largely relaxing in the evenings. I am now taking a break as hungry-before-meal grumpiness hits. Steak is in progress, with blue cheese and whatnot. I try to limit it to just being an occasional treat: apart from the environmental impact of cattle farming, more selfishly there seems to be consensus on the health benefits of limiting red meats.