I just saw the movie Lights
Out. It’s pretty good, and even though it overuses that overused horror
movie cliché of the lights flickering on and off, it’s still pretty effective.
But seeing that happening in the movie time and again made me think of those
horrible CFL light bulbs Congress mandated a few years ago. That was a
ridiculously inept and, frankly, treasonous thing for those idiots to do to us
and to the environment, because despite saving a little bit of energy, the CFL
light bulbs are chock full of poisons and hazardous materials, and for this
reason they must be recycled in a special facility; only nobody actually
disposes of them properly because it’s a pain in the ass, in addition to the
fact that everyone driving to a special recycling facility just to recycle
their damn light bulbs alone would send more carbon emissions into the
atmosphere by itself than switching to the CFLs would purportedly prevent. It
was an absurdly self-defeating policy. Add that to the fact that most CFL light
bulbs flicker, take a while to even turn on, emit a hideous fluorescent light
that makes everything look ugly when bathed in it, in addition to burning out
way faster than incandescent light bulbs, and despite claiming they will last
for years, the vast majority of those I have used and seen used in the homes of
friends and family burn out within a couple of months. Plus, they’re a lot more
expensive than incandescent bulbs. And since most people I know just toss them
into the trash to be thrown into a landfill, these toxic CFL bulbs will leak
all of their hazardous materials like mercury and lead, as well as ricin,
strychnine, arsenic, cyanide, nicotine, polonium, botulinum toxin and radium
into the ground to contaminate the ground water. (Okay, maybe not all of those poisons are in CFLs.) The
whole thing is a sham from the get-go, and Congress should be ashamed of
themselves for doing it.
So thank God that there are now LED light bulbs that
actually work, use very little energy, truly last a long time, and are not full
of poison and contaminants. Plus, they don’t flicker and take five minutes to
actually start lighting up. So I thought using the movie Lights Out and its flickering light bulbs would be a fun way to
expose crappy CFL bulbs and advertise the far superior and far safer and more
reliable LED light bulbs.
We could see a scene from Lights Out, where the CFL light bulbs in a fixture and in a lamp
start to dim, begin to flicker on and off, and then go off altogether, at which
point a movie character is attacked and killed by Diana, the movie’s
ghost/monster. Then the announcer says: “Unreliable CFL light bulbs can’t only
get you killed by vengeful ghosts and monsters, they’re also full of toxic and
hazardous materials like lead and mercury, and when not disposed of properly,
like they are in large numbers, they can contaminate the soil and poison the
ground water. That’s why we developed the (whatever brand of) LED light bulbs.”
Then we see someone turn on a light with the new LED bulbs in it, and the ghost
screams in pain and disappears. Then the announcer continues: “They’re bright,
reliable, and they contain no poisonous materials, so you’ll be safe from the
dark, and the ghosts and monsters that thrive in the darkness, and you’ll be
safe from toxic materials too. That’s a win-win situation. And that’s why
bright people choose (whatever brand of) LED light bulbs: the brighter, safer,
more reliable light source.”
(Actually, there is apparently lead in LED light bulbs.
Maybe that’s what LED stands for: it’s like the “Led” in Led Zeppelin. {“Hey
LEDs: Get the lead out!”})
