Class Action

Too bad I never felt impeded while going to my favorite movie theatre (The Angelika). Turns out they lost a class-action lawsuit - details are at Class Action - Mockingbird Station (part of the Class Action Administration web site). After reading through all the stuff, it turns out anyone who felt they couldn't navigate the property is entitled to $50 from a large fund, and the property owners agreed (without admitting guilt) to donate $30,000 each to 8 accessibility-related charities (total $240,000). Hmmm.

Over the years, I've been underwhelmed by the amount that an individual gets from one of these class-action lawsuits. I remember a couple settlements: one from Microsoft gave you a discount if you bought even more of their products! Another got some trinket (free data cartridge?) if you bought another Iomega product. I suspect the only ones who make out like bandits are the attorneys.

At 12:43AM Monday morning (soon after midnight Sunday) I got a phone call from my XGF (who obviously is chronomically challenged - she thought it was 9:30). She was still at work, and once she realized the hour, the call ended. If it hadn't been for that, I might not have noticed a chill in the house. I have 2 furnaces, and the large one (middle of the house) wasn't on (the thermostat read 67 degrees). So, I located a flashlight and went to investigate. Turns out the "kill switch" wasn't depressed completely, and once I corrected that, the furnace roared to life (at 1am with the neighborhood quiet, that's a fair choice of words). And no, I didn't wet my pants.

The next morning, I noticed a weird smell from the smaller furnace (whose pilot light I lit the day before). The smell, as was explained to me in years past, is from burning dust .. the stuff that accumulates atop the flame elements during off-season. I can only imagine hundreds of thousands of dust mites, searing after months of solitude. Good thing they don't have an attorney .. they might file a class action suit against me.