It is said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and honestly, I agree. But having only a little power apparently means you can’t run three external hard drives and your dryer at the same time without blowing a breaker. Personally, when an external hard drive can be considered a “major” appliance in power consumption terms…there just may be a problem. Ever since moving here this is probably my biggest gripe (which isn’t too bad really), the way that power is distributed is based on what they give you and not what you’re willing to pay for. There is a cap (which can be raised, but ours is as high as it goes I think) on how much you can draw at one time. So when you pass said limit, POW!, everything goes out…as in, the entire apartment. Now, that wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t mean that I had to go down to the street level to open a panel and turn everything back on (and don’t forget to unplug whatever made you cross the line before you go down there…cause it’s a long walk of stupid-shame if you do). Suffice to say that doing things like washing clothes, drying clothes, doing dishes, and having anything else “big” on is a lesson in time management and scheduling. Getting into why this is how they do things involves too much in terms of politics and economics so I’ll pass on that, but I can tell you that I’m not looking forward to figuring out what appliances I can run at the same time as my air conditioner when summer comes (cause it gets hot here). However, that being said I do have electricity, and for that I’m eternally grateful. You don’t want to see a geek in the later stages of tech withdrawal…it’s ugly.
