if only it actually worked...

once japan is done reveling in the postseason exploits of dice-k and oki-doki and the world champion boston red sox, perhaps they can get on to the more important matter of protecting themselves on the street by pulling 21st century ninja magic like this skirt that hides the wearer inside of a coke machine.


read more about it here.

Red sox book display

importance of the dewey decimal system

i know the dewey decimal system. i'm a librarian, naturally. this brief video explains why you need to know it too.

enjoy.

blog action day - more about lights

In honor of Blog Action Day, a day aimed at getting as many bloggers as possible all blogging about a single topic, in this case, the environment, I'm adding another post today about the whole CFL business. See my previous post for more about CFLs.

I noticed in my Sunday paper circulars that Rite Aid is having a sale on CFLs, apparently aided by the PG&E CFL program. In case you don't know, PG&E is trying to encourage people to convert their traditional incandescent light bulbs to energy-saving CFLs. But since many people (including myself at first) balk at the high initial cost of purchasing a CFL, they are subsidizing the cost of CFLs at participating stores. The idea is that if you can get your first CFLs for almost the same price as regular bulbs, why not give it a shot? Best case, you like them so much you decide to keep on buying. Worst case, they don't work for you and you give them away to a friend. It's a great idea and I'm glad PG&E is doing it.

Anyway, for the time being, the deal that caught my eye was that you can get a 3-pack of 100-watt-equivalent bulbs for $1.99. This is a pretty sweet deal. The other day I bought four similar bulbs for about 8 bucks. If I get around to it, I'll probably buy a bunch of these now and stockpile them and give a few away to my parents so I can get them started on CFLs.

Maybe you should do the same? Of course, unless you enjoy burning power and money.

lights

we've started to replace some of the light bulbs in our house with cfls (compact fluorescent lamps). if you don't know what i'm talking about, you either don't watch non-dvr'ed tv, listen to the radio, or you're dead. otherwise i know you've seen those commercials with the talking light bulb and the talking curly white thing.

i'm not going to explain the whole cfl thing, but i will post this sweet commoncraft video about new light bulbs. enjoy.


here's my take on this whole cfl business. if you're an environmental evangelist, your reasons for changing bulbs is clear. but even if you don't quite buy exactly what al gore is selling, you just can't get around the fact that the cfl is gonna last longer, meaning you'll buy less bulbs, change less bulbs, and pay less on your electric bill. that oughta make sense to pretty much anybody, regardless of your political persuasion.

i would be remiss to not point out that cfl's aren't ideal for every purpose. supposedly you get poor results if you can't leave them on for at least 15 minutes a pop. so closet lamps, or any room you don't stay in long may not be worth changing. also cfl's do have a warm-up time. we bought some ge 100-watt equivalent bulbs and they take about 1 second to turn on after you flip the switch. at first you get light about equivalent to a 40-watt bulb and over the next 60 seconds it gradually gets brighter to full illumination. so if you need instantly full illumination, you probably wanna skip the cfl. for almost anything else, go for it! you've really got nothing to lose.

one more thing to mention. don't forget that the cfl's contain a tiny tiny amount of mercury. if you break the bulb you've gotta be careful not to breathe it in. try to ventilate if possible. sweep up best you can, but don't vacuum and kick up more dust. wipe up with a wet cloth and put everything in two plastic bags and toss the works. of course if you don't break it, you need to recycle it. try earth911.org to find out how and where.