Tuesday, October 30, 2007

the government should be in Ottawa and not my bedroom

My soul patch is starting to grow back and I am hopeful that more deep thoughts will be forthcoming.

In fact, I had a mini-deep thought this morning on the way to work.

Our Canadian government in it's deep wisdom, has within five years made incandescent light bulbs illegal. Their plan is to push everybody to using the energy conserving fluorescent bulbs. My concern is that this will cause a major decrease in our national birth rate. We will go from reproducing our 1.2 children per couple, to just .2 children per couple. Less babies mean less people paying taxes so I can collect my pension.

You see, it's been my experience that fluorescent bulbs don't work well at all with my lamps in the bedroom, mainly because they are on a dimmer switch. This is so that I can read with low light beside my bed, while Lauralea is sleeping soundly.

Alternatively, the low lighting in the room can be used to set a mood, or, to hide just enough wrinkles to make me interesting.

What happens when its all, full bore, all on, harsh fluorescent lighting. Think, your last visit to the indoor swimming pool. Do you want that unflattering lighting in your bedroom, or dinning room, or living room? I think not.

Libidos across the country will be dropping faster than the temperature in January.

And thus our national birthrate will decrease. And I won't get a pension.

Whomever was it who said the Government should stay out of the bedroom may have had a point in this case.

6 comments:

  1. you should go to costco or super store and start stocking up on light bulbs so that when they stop selling them you have some for you lamps and stuff. you could store enough to last a few years....

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  2. It'll be growth for the black market of light bulbs and firecrackers shipped from the US.

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  3. Halogen lights don't work well on a dimmer switch either. Maybe stockpiling the incandescent lights will be the answer - or else they are going to have to continue working on new advances in fluorescent lighting to meet our needs for moods.

    I find that the fluorescent ones do not meet the need for brightness either and my old eyes need brightness when I am needing to work with them, like in the kitchen. Maybe we'll just have to install more of them. Not sure if that ends up saving energy or not.

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  4. Mains voltage halogens work fine with dimmers, but not the 12V variety (our kitchen has halogens on a dimmer).

    You could try small fluorescent units in bed-side lamps for more appropriate mood lighting.

    Conversely, if many Canadians are as 'sizist' as I am, you might find blacking out the bedroom actually causes an increase in the birth rate. Yes, I'm shallower than Hal.

    :P

    ;-)

    But seriously, look out for LED technology to take over from fluorescent lights.LEDs are significantly more efficient, and better still, respond very well to dimming with reduced current. The only issue might be that you'll need specially designed dimmer switches to control the current drivers that are used to operate the light unit. Some of the best LEDs are around 25% efficient, compared to about 5% in incandescent bulbs and 15% in fluorescent lamps. The only downside is that ALL the rest of the energy is dissipated as heat directly from the lamp unit, and overheating means runaway and burn out.

    Look for Luxeon, Cree and Osram as the leaders in this technology. And remember, you read it here first.

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  5. Just wear sunglasses. Not only will you be able to reduce the amount of light but you will also look darn cool in the bedroom, sort of like Corey Hart. Think about it Randall.

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  6. lol

    and he does wear his sunglasses at night...

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