Vroman's Bookstore has finally announced the winner in their short story contest. Alas, it wasn't me. I've only read the first few paragraphs of the winning story and it's pretty good. Not necessarily better than mine, but I've already put mine out on the submission circuit to see what response it generates.
NP: "Baby, What A Big Surprise," Chicago, Chicago XI
WC: 20,041, ECD: 27 Feb 2007.
It's got snakes! And Samuel L. Jackson! And they're on a plane!
And it doesn't suck. If you're one of the suckers who didn't go see it, get off your ass and into the theatre. Because all the new movies this week do suck. And not one of them has snakes or Samuel L. Jackson on a plane.
NP: "Eating Locally," Science Friday Podcast.
WC: 17692, ECD: 8 Feb 2007.
So if you want to go for a walk in L.A. where do you go? We didn't really want to wander our neighborhood again, and we decided to head over to Century City. Maybe we could even see a movie.
Well the movie thing didn't work out (the showtimes are clustered at 7 and 10 which is kind of a pain if you have a job and all) so we walked aroun the mall. I should have gotten the free CW custom T-shirt (I would have had mine read FREE TO BE TV FREE), but I didn't. We walked by the big barricades hiding the incipient Borders and I noticed that the gate was unlocked. Pushing on it, we could see that the Borders is almost ready to go. There are books on the shelves and everything. The Borders on La Cienega has a painfully uninviting vibe, so I'm hoping that this will be an improvement.
NP: "(Night Time Is) The Right Time," Ray Charles, The Best of Ray Charles: The Atlantic Years
WC: 13730, ECD: 19 March 2007.
NP: "Coda," Robert Fripp, Dec. 3rd, 2005 St Peters Church
WC: 12,351, ECD: 30 May 2007
This is the first in an on-going series on how to make your life better and save the planet all at once. I'm going to start with the simplest and easiest things and move on to the harder things later.
So in that philosophy, there's not much simpler in life than changing your light bulbs. I first discovered complex light bulbs way back in 1991 when a basic CF light bulb was around $10-15. But even with that, by just changing the bulbs in the lights that I used the most, I saw a significant drop in my electric bills. Now that you can buy bulbs at the dollar store, it's an even better deal. Taking a look at light bulbs at Ralph's recently, I found that while the unit cost of a CFL bulb was higher than that of a traditional light bulb, since they last longer, the actual cost in bulbs was exactly the same. Then you throw in the savings in electric bills and you're actually coming out ahead in your bills.
So get yourself out to the store and change some bulbs. Start with the lights that you use the most, and then move on from there.
There are some negatives to watch out for though: Some light fixtures (rather rare) can reduce the life span of your bulbs. Also, there is a small amount of mercury in each bulb. IKEA and many other stores that sell CFL bulbs will take the dead bulbs back for recycling at no charge. Note that they must be unbroken to do so. If you do break a bulb accidentally, the amount of mercury is small enough that you don't need to get a biohazard suit on, but it's better not to pile these up in our landfills without first removing the mercury.
More information: CFL article at wikipedia
CFL FAQ from GE
Buy compact fluorescents from amazon (IKEA is cheaper though)
NP: "What's a Planet? - SciFri Podcast - 2006081824," Science Friday Podcast.
WC: 11918, ECD: 30 April 2007.
From Owen Wilson's response to charges that he ripped off Steely Dan's song "Cousin Dupree" in writing You, Me and Dupree.
I have never heard the song 'Cousin Dupree' and I don't even know who this gentleman, Mr. Steely Dan, is. I hope this helps to clear things up and I can get back to work on my new movie, Hey 19.
