A Triumph for the 36-watt CFL:

You've heard me carp about the new compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Well, they're not nearly all bad, and here's a case where a CFL made me happy.

There's a lamp in our front yard that used to have a conventional 40 watt bulb. It died recently, so I replaced it with a 36 watt CFL. That lamp will use a little less electricity now, while burning much brighter, but that's not the exciting part.

Each time this bulb burns out, I have to stand on tiptoe and reach up with my arm, yet down with my hand, to barely touch the old bulb to remove it. Screwing in the new bulb is just as awkward. But these CFLs: the more watts they use, the longer they are. It was easy to screw in the 36 watt CFL, and it will be just as easy to replace it with another, similar bulb, when the new one dies much, much sooner than the manufacturer claims.