Auctions, lightbulbs, and dim bulbs

First post here, but I see no reason to make it too epic.

First order of business: I just listed one of my first gaming treasures, a copy of Akumajo Dracula for X68000, on eBay: link. Lucky me, I've got a spare.

Next up; I've finally replaced a lot of the sixty-watt (and some 100-watt) light bulbs around the house with 23 and 30 watt Sylvania compact flourescent lights. The 23W lights are advertised as being the equivalent of a 60W bulb, but I found that the 30W ('100W replacement') bulbs are closer to a 60W clear bulb (although the light emitted is clearly nicer, being bluer and less yellowish - the shorter wavelength makes reading easier). The new bulbs do get very hot to the touch but take longer to do so. They don't get as hot as the old bulbs, of course, which pour out oppressive amounts of heat as soon as they are switched on. They seem to stay warm longer as well.

Unfortunately, you'll also find that they don't fit in places the old 60W standby did. Sylvania's 23W is no bigger around than the old 60W bulb, but the corkscrew design doesn't taper around like the bulbs did. As a result, I can't put that particular variety in my ceiling lamp, which has a glass plate over it. I might be able to find a stick variety; I hope I will. The 30W (100W equivalent) is bigger in diameter (between one and two centimeters more in diameter, I think) and thus is even less versatile.

Watt for watt the new lights definitely beat out the old ones, but I'm somewhat disappointed that I wasn't able to get cold cathode CFLs - lights hanging under constant heavy foot traffic (say, in a basement) are going to get knocked out quite often, and CFLs are reportedly more resistant to this than an incadescent, but not as much as a cold cathode light. Of course, I would really like LED lights, because mercury freaks me out.

Last bit: It seems that Blizzard has put up job postings for development of some sort of Starcraft MMO, maybe a Starcraft game. I would think that they are going to try either something with a strategic element or perhaps real-time action gameplay. I'd say strategic gameplay would be a great idea, and while it seems counterintuitive for a MMO, I think it could be done with squads. Another idea being floated (less likely, I'd say) is that it'll play something like Huxley, i.e. Starcraft: Ghost.

I refuse to believe that the people at Blizzard really think that they need another standard WoW-style MMO. That would end up cannibalizing users from WoW who want a change of scenery, and would give up the chance to stake out new territory in the MMO genre. We'll have to wait and see.

Tune in next time for Fallout 3: My adventure on Bethesda's boards, and my current thinking about this series.