So, I guess the Olympics are on

I haven't watched any of it. I watched the games in the sixties and seventies. I still remember Jim McKay covering the murders of the Israeli athletes in Munich.

But I can't work up any enthusiasm for the Olympics today. I'd rather plump up the pillows in the Very Dark Room and snooze or read a book, or sit in the back yard with the dog.

The world beyond my own doorstep doesn't interest me much anymore.

Happy Lunar New Year

Chinese New Year

Tet

Korean New Year

Sunday morning

Old and gray
Big and slow
Shuffly and shambly
Came from nowhere
Going nowhere
It all means nothing
What's for lunch?

LED Bulbs

I decided to try one of those new LED light bulbs, and I'm pleased with the result.

The bulb I selected cost $59.95, uses 4w of electricity to produce as much light as a 65w incandescent bulb, and burns for 30,000 hours, or a little less than three and a half years.

You can't tell much from the picture, but the color temperature seems to be close to halogen. I half-expected it to have that creepy blue cast that LED Christmas lights have, but the color of the light is just fine.

Ceiling fans and light fixtures

Most homeowners want to add ceiling fans if they don't have them, but I'm getting rid of mine.

The ones that are in my house, installed by the previous owner, are simply attached to the eighty-year-old lath and plaster ceilings. There are no mounts or supports connecting them to the joists. Adding supports would be a huge job.

Ms. HRP retextured one of my ceilings just a few months ago, and it already has hairline cracks which I believe are caused by the weight of the ceiling fan.

Moreover, I never use the fans. The one that caused the cracks has not been turned on in the eight or nine years I've lived here. I prefer floor or table fans, and I have three of those.

Plus, the ones that are in here are all-white budget models, and they're frankly tacky-looking.

So I'm taking out all but the one in the den (which I installed myself years ago) and replacing them with ordinary flush-mount light fixtures.

I bought what looked like a pretty nice mission-style fixture over the Internet last week. It arrived today, and what a disappointment it has turned out to be. The fixture is a knockoff of a competitor's much more expensive version, and seeing it up close, it's obvious where corners were cut to bring the price down. Some of the metal parts are the thickness of colored craft paper, and bowed out slightly because they weren't fit together carefully by the maker.

Maybe it will look okay once it's installed, but if it doesn't, I may give it to someone else and buy the crazy expensive one that's the original product.