new and improved LED

NEW AND IMPROVED LED

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Ah, twas a glorious time at the Bison Compound, full of celebration and gaiety. The ordered LED bulb had arrived and we breathlessly waited until the hurricane winds blew in the clouds so that twilight arrived early. At last it was time to test our newest illumination source, nipples were hard, sphincters tightened and breath was baited. Oh, glorious Baby Jesus, that son of a biscuit eater was bright indeed! At least twice as bright as the last bulbs, installed some years earlier. Rather than have a partial shadow on the page of your book, and being in the subconscious habit of at times slightly turning the entire book to catch the maximum light available, now your page was lit spectacularly. No shadow, no effort to read. Yes, yes, a shame that I didn’t have an official comparison of lumens so you could scientifically tell the performance enhancement rating. Blow me, doughboy. You get a Best Ass Guess, as that utilizes free equipment. Just go with “at least twice as bright”.

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When I was first informed that LED lights were available in 12v auto bulbs ( thanks to our intrepid Colorado blogger Big Bear ), they ran $30 and used five watts. Since they replaced my 18 watt incandescent bulbs and were actually brighter, it was all great with me. I welcomed the change. Well worth the money. Then, a year later ( or whenever ), the same light was down to $12 and used only 3 watts for even better illumination. Again, thrilled to death. I had all the travel trailer bulbs switched over, and was even able to store some away in Faraday cages ( since they were now cheap enough ) just in case those super sneaky ninja North Koreans fired a rocket into the sun, a massive flare erupted, and we were all fried to a crisp. Future archeologists would then be able to dig up the bulbs and use them. But these new LED’s, the latest and newest ( and, hey, at the rate oil is dwindling and international trade is declining, it might be the best and last, so stock up ), are even cheaper and twice as bright. I don’t need a whole lot, just enough for three locations ( the two reading seats and the kitchen )( note to fem minions- I was a proper gentleman and chivalrous and gave the bulb to the wife’s light so she could more easily read at night, and I’ll wait for the additionally ordered bulbs to arrive. I am truly just a swell guy, especially since she doesn’t really deserve me ). I’ll put the replaced bulbs in protected storage also, and as long as my solar panels and batteries hold out, I’ll have plenty of bulbs to light up the trailer. After that, I’ll just switch to flashlights using rechargeable AA batteries. In theory, I have enough LED lights to keep the Bison Compound free of animal fat candles the rest of my life. My descendents, who if I’m lucky, in theory from a buxomly wench ( if I get to do any post-apocalypse procreating ), will be stuck with the crap candles. But I’ll be sitting pretty. Using ANY petroleum source of lighting is stupid when LED’s are available. What’s that, you say? You don’t have a trailer, nor do you plan on living in one, nor would your delicate princess of a wife consider one? Relax. You can still use these bulbs.

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If you have a solar back-up to your concrete bunker of doom in suburbia, instead of wasting energy converting the natural DC current into AC to power less efficient florescent lights, you should go down to your friendly neighborhood RV dealership and buy some light fixtures and some DC wiring. Run a few lines of DC power and set up these bulbs ( this assumes you don’t run too long of wires- primarily I’m thinking of a short line to your basement shelter rather than wiring your whole house with a parallel system ). At three and three quarter watts per bulb, it won’t take much in the way of panels or batteries to keep yourself in light. I figure my consumption is, in winter, six hours a day for two bulbs, so about forty watts per day. If I get three and a half hours of sunlight a week on my seventy watts of panels, I have illumination. And at $12 a bulb ( $7 per bulb and $5 for shipping- no free shipping on this item ), these things are a bargain. It was my luck, I ordered a day or two before they dropped the price, but it was still a bargain ( I think I also erroneously reported I ordered the fifteen “bulb” unit- the order number is BA-15, so I think I was looking at that rather than the actual number of thirty ). If you come across this article in the future without the accompanying graphic ad, the name you want to type into the Amazon search is

HQRP BA 15, bayonet base 30 LED 5md bulb

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Okay, I need to blather a bit more to fill up my quota of 1k words, so I’ll rag on a book for a bit. Remember I told you about “The Great Collapse”? I had read half and was unimpressed and thought it sucked and I’d tell you if it got better? Well, the putrid pile of bloody monkey bile got even worse the second half. Seriously, it went WAY down hill. I only read it because I care about all my minions ( now buy my crap, curse it! ) and I had to properly review this stinking turd. I forced myself to read it. There are several things that can go wrong with a novel. It doesn’t teach you anything. It is hard to read. It has no entertainment value. If it only does one thing badly, it is worth reading. If it does two things wrong, as long as the price is low it is okay. When it does ALL poorly, plus is expensive, PLUS, as salt in the wound, it has typos out the wazoo, it ties for the record of worst horrid piece of crap ever. So few books reach this pinnacle of wretchedness. This is one of them. Avoid at all costs.

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My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
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