I'm trying to be a responsible energy user. But what makes it better to do laundry at 8pm when it is 90 degrees out and everyone is using their A/C then it is to do at 3pm when it is 90 degrees out and everyone is using their A/C.

Because not everybody is using their A/C at 9p.m. Most office towers turn off their AC in overnight (or turn it down dramatically). Businesses are increasingly closed and using less power. The manufacturing plants that are working one shift have shut down for the day, and so on.

Home AC is just a small part of the equation, industrial AC is the bull in the China shop and its use decreases dramatically outside of normal business hours so shifting electrical needs outside of that window can help.

Thanks Alex. That makes sense.

Now to get our office to make the place a tiny bit warmer. There is no need to keep the building at 70.

Myth busters recently debunked the "bull in a china shop" saying. Not that it matters. Just reminded me. They set up shelves with china in an enclosed pen and let bulls run around. Very minimal damange, not one shelf knocked over.

Yes, but it was in a familiar location (their own pen) and they were completely not agitated. Had they been in an actual china shop where they'd be sure to be far less comfortable, I'm sure it would have been a different story (not to dismiss the fact that they were far more graceful in that situation that one might have imagined.

I saw that!! Well, even though they were familiar with their pen, I am still surprised, at their size, they were so careful. We have a big dog and no matter how familiar he is with a location, he can destroy with his body or even just his tail wagging!

Bye bye power! Lost it about 20 minutes ago. Not sure if it is due to a rolling blackouts or an accident.

Roommate plugged the router and modem into his UBS but my laptop battery is going to die soon :(

Certainly. There are often situations on Mythbusters in which I disagree with the methodology. I was more just bringing up something I was reminded of.

However, I always thought the phrase referred to someone who was clumsy and apt to break things. In which case, I would say that it certainly was debunked that bulls were clumsy. As you said, they were much more graceful than most would have suspected.

Haven't seen that episode so I'd be interesting to see the setup (and I very frequently have procedural issues with their setups though the results are usually at least suggestive).

But in my head, whenever I heard the phrase and tried to imagine it, it was in some small store where the aisles were physcially smaller than the bull trying to get out (some combination of a china store and a China(town) store). In other words, not that something is inherently clumsy, just too big for the environment it is in, which is the way I was using the phrase above.