Gamer Girls

(I’m “out of town” for a few days so I’ve prepared a couple of random articles that will be posted periodically)

I had something similar to the video when I lived in New England. It was a stove but there was a separate knob to control the heater, which was on the side of the stove. There was just a big vent along the side and you turn the knob to control how hot it would get. It would get extremely hot even on a low setting. You had to turn it off periodically rather than rely on it to heat at a steady temperature. There was no thermostat or timer or anything.

That was the only heater in the apartment. The kitchen was in the middle of the apartment so the heat would spread out somewhat but I don’t know. The kitchen would get hot and the other rooms would be less hot. It didn’t seem safe but these things seemed to pretty normal at the time and in New England.

In my childhood home, there were vents in the floor. Central heating. You adjusted a thermostat to your desired temperature and the house would heat properly. No problems.

I don’t remember ever being cold in either property. That place in New England was downright tropical. I don’t know how much gas was costing me but it couldn’t have been much because I never stressed about it.

Then I moved to the UK. I’ve lived in probably 20 places. They all have radiators. When it gets hot, you turn the dial on the radiator and it starts to heat up. Really old fashioned.

There were some places that had some kind of central heating but I never figured out how they worked. They seemed to be timers. There was a clock mechanism on the thing and you would flick switches on this dial to determine when you wanted to the heating to be on or off. So there would be a switch for 12:00, for example, and depending on which way you flicked the switch, the heating would either be on or off at 12:00. Something like this.

The place I’m at now has “central heating” and a thermostat but…it’s shit. It’s just a little box and you set the temperature that you want the house (or at least that thermostat) to be. It’s a digital thing, you just press the buttons until you reach the desired temperature. Somehow, this thing remotely turns the radiators off or on depending on whether or not the desired temperature is reached.

I always had that thing set to 18 and it was cold as fuck. 18 Celsius is 64.4 degrees Farenheit. So yeah, that’s cold. But the recommended setting is 18-21 degrees. I figured I can take it so I went with 18.

My fingers would swell up every winter. So I thought, “That’s weird. Must just be from getting older.”

No. It’s from the cold. I went to the doctor about this, not knowing what it is, and they didn’t a give a fuck. I went like three times. They didn’t know what it was and didn’t seem interested in finding out. I can’t fucking close my fingers because they’ve swollen so much and these doctors didn’t give a fuck.

I had to do all of the research. Chillblains. It’s from extended exposure to the cold. They gave me some steroid cream, which does work, but you know what else would have worked? Turning the fucking heat up. If they told me what this was, this could have all been avoided.

So this year, I’m doing it right. I’m thinking 19 degrees. Maybe I’ll be crazy and turn it up to 20. But in the US, 70 degrees is normal, which is 21 degrees Celsius.

I’ve been cold every winter for the past ten years or so. And it doesn’t even get that cold in the UK. That’s another reason why I left it at 18. I figured it doesn’t really get cold.

But no, it’s because I had the heating on so low. And cost is a concern. I have the money but it seems to be expensive. I never worried about utility bills in the US but it’s a concern in the UK. Also, a lot of the places I’ve lived in, including my current place, are just electric. No gas. I’m pretty sure that gas is cheaper.

The whole energy system in the UK is unsatisfactory from the shitty radiator-based heating to the incompetent energy companies.

You even get people in train stations and shit trying to get you to change your energy provider. How crazy is that? You’re trying to get a train and some shady guy says, “Psst, pal. You want to change your energy provider? I’ve got some sweet deals.”

What the fuck are you talking about? If I wanted to change my energy provider, I’d go to the internet like a normal person. I wouldn’t go to some lunatic holding a clipboard in a train station.

And they’re complete assholes. If you politely say no, they’re assholes. If you ignore them, they’re assholes. The only thing I’ve found that works is telling them to fuck off. You have to out-asshole them. It’s the only language they understand.

I’ve never seen any of this in the US. Maybe it exists, I don’t know. Maybe it’s a more recent development. Maybe I just wasn’t in big enough cities. But I get the feeling that these people would be punched out and/or shot within five minutes if they tried this shit there.