EnergyReadingUsingANetcam - Gone with the expensive cheap hardware. COTS camera, some shell script and it works.
EnergyReadingUsingACam - In fact, using cheap USB camera's and cheap routers, you will be able to measure your power usage with a lower total cost than using "specialized" consumer hardware to do it. Reading your power meter with a network enabled reader can be done for less than 50 euro.
The dutch railways claim to be on time most of the time. Of course that's a lie. But what's worse: they even just depart too early on a regular basis (ranting in dutch about the NS, de nederlandse spoorwegen). Fortunately they give you money back if you have a delay due to the NS of 30 minutes or more. Look here: IkWilGeldVanDeNS