And I've lost my porpoise.

I'm going for a nice drive today, and it's perfect driving and sunglasses weather.

And I have a New South Wales gold driver licence, I'm special.

I like to pretend my Mazda automatic tiptronic gearbox is really a manual and I like to change gears and make engine noises.

Just came back from seeing the movie "Hidden Figures", and I definitely enjoyed it.

Just your type of movie.

Did you go to any protests or marches afterwards?

That is very amusing. That just happens to be the very movie I was just out protesting. Go figure.

Sorry - let me help get it back on track.

The cost of LED bulbs has come down a lot. Maybe 3-4 years ago one was looking at $10 or more for a single 40W equivalent. Now you're getting a name-brand 4-pack of 65W equivalents for about that much. Made it much easier to do a big switch throughout the house this weekend. And the lights are significantly better in quality now, too, so we are getting better output with lights that are supposed to be lower in equivalent wattage. Win-win.

Just ordered about 40 LED replacement fixtures for the shop. They'll take the place of the old 8-foot T12 fluorescent bulbs, going from about 1.5A to 0.5A per fixture. Better lighting, no more buzzing noise from the old ballasts, and I shouldn't have to replace any of them for quite a while. Not cheap, and I doubt they'll pay for themselves in my lifetime, but the lighting will be much improved.

All part of a hoped-for transition to a solar array within the next couple years. I don't care so much about the green part of it (I do a bit, but that's not the big reason) - I simply think it's cool technology, allowing one to be their own power company for much of the time. Why pay Northern States Power when I can have them pay me some money to no longer be paying them?

Once the lighting is done, we need to schedule a home performance eval to find all the leaks. That'll be painful. 8,000 sf between the house and shop, and it won't be cheap or easy to take care of all of the inefficiencies. On the upside, done well we can reduce our use by half or better, and then let a solar / wind system take care of much of the rest. Might not get down to NetZero, but maybe we can get close.

Never knew blank cassette tapes were still so popular.

Had two boxes of TDK blank tapes and listed individually them on eBay.

Selling like crazy for $29 each.

I just replaced all the incandescents at my place with LEDs.

Problem I have is that some of them aren't instant, they take a split second to come on and can be annoying.

And dimming them is a nightmare and some of their lumen and CRI ratings are somewhat dubious , but apart from that they're great.

Cost hasn't come done all that much though, it's still expensive to change over and really only financially feasible over the long term or if you're a heavy user.

We have a couple in the house that are - like you said - a little bit delayed. Most are popping on right away, though.

The place has a bunch of dimmers but we haven't messed with those. Gonna swap the switches out at some point.

We put "60W" flood lights in the kitchen to replace some 75s, and they're doing a better job - big improvement there. The regular (table lamp-style) bulbs elsewhere appear to be a really close match.

In the shop I'm looking at either $78 or $175 to replace each 8-foot T12 fluorescent, depending on the brand. Not chicken-feed by any means, but even replacing the old T12s with T8s would run a fair chunk of money. Had a couple LED test lights - one of each brand - installed about 6 weeks back and they both do a really nice job. Not thrilled spending $4-5 thou on lighting, but this will help keep down the size of the solar equipment.

We're not heavy users, for the most part. Pretty conscious about turning off lights, and we keep the heat low and the AC high. So not expecting much of a payback. "This light will save you $57 over its lifetime!" Uh, yeah. We'll see about that. Takes a long time for the two of us to rack up 10,000 hours on a light.

I do the same in my Mazda2 too.

Holy crap, and I'm complaining about spending a few hundred dollars on mine.

Speaking of crap, I've noticed there's a lot of crappy LED bulbs on the market.

The really cheap ones are always light in weight, if you pull them apart they almost have no heatsink so I wouldn't expect them to last all that long.

Good thing about LEDs is that you can select a colour temperature to go with the room.

In my laundry, I use a cool white bulb and the white appliances look awesome, almost showroom.

I want to make a porn movie on my front loading washer.

It would be a German porn movie because it's a Bosch.

The leader of Islamic State is reported heavily wounded after air bombing; supposed hospitalized and not to make it alive! Also; White House connected with Russia and declares to potentially join forces (instead of clashing, as Obummer had planned and set the stage towards beforehand) and strike the filthy scum together!!!

Hooray for the good news!!!

LOL.

But yeah, they've come a long way. Wont be long and they'll simply be the normal choice since they'll do the job as well as the old bulbs for just a little bit more cost and a LOT less power use. Pretty happy with the progress in a short time.

I don't overly mind paying more for that stuff. There's just something about reducing the monthly expenses, even if you have to spend more upfront to do so. But hell, you gotta pay someone, so you may as well put the money into something that is yours instead of paying it to someone else. A big reason why we're looking at solar: you're still buying power, but eventually you own that power.

/raises fist

They are finally thinking tough.On the spot license suspension for texting while driving.Still not tough enough as far as I'm concerned.

I'm fond of photography now. It's my new hobby. Today I registered at https://www.voubs.com and decided to participate in the photo contest for begginers. Hope to win some cash. Wish me luck guys!

Good luck and make a bundle.
Oh dear,the rep disappointed you and didn't warrant a reply.That's why they say never judge a book by it's cover:)