Kermit's right...it's not easy being green

Last year, I got the Green Fever.  I insulated our attic, serviced the furnace, and replaced nearly every old-fashioned incandescent light bulb in our house with the new compact fluorescent models.  Those were a hard pill to swallow at a little over $2 apiece, but I did it and felt really good about myself.  I was being a steward of the Earth by saving energy, right?  Al Gore himself would drop by any day to pat me on the back.

Those CFL lightbulbs seemed like a good idea.  Sure, they're more expensive.  But they only use about 13 watts (compared to 75 to 100 for the old incandescents) and have a life span of at least five years, so hey, I was actually saving money, right?

Wrong.

In the past week, I've had two of these new fangled units burn out.  Both of them have a nasty black spot on the inside of the twisted glass.  Thankfully that's all they did - if they had popped, we would have needed a HAZMAT team on the scene to collect all the mercury they contain.

So I'm through with these pieces of junk.  As I threaded in a trusty old thirty cent 100-watt Edison Special, I swore to myself that I'd never again get taken in by things like these that almost sound too good to be true.

At least until these CFLs come with a ten year warranty.