Yesterday I experimentally installed a twist-lock base 4-LED mini bulb as a replacement for a 50w halogen, and the new bulb was maybe twice as bright as the bulb it replaced, with a cooler tone. I found a pair of broken sunglasses and popped a lens into the fixture.

I’m pretty sure I’m doing energy efficiency wrong.

A theatrical gel would be the ideal solution. I did spend twenty minutes looking for a set of Mars Staedtler permanent markers i *knew* I had which would have let me make a gel by coloring a piece of glass or cellophane and adjust the colors. They were like an art director set of Sharpies – all the primaries and two steps between each with chisel tips, great pens.

As I was looking I came across a cassette tape. The J-card was really colorful and I knew I had used the Staedtlers to do the card art. I was excited, thinking that possibly the markers were near.

Then I realized I had dubbed the cassette and drawn the J-card before I moved to Seattle, back in Bloomington, before 1990. So presumably I had just spent thirty minutes, thirty logarithmically-fast-paced minutes, looking for a set of markers I last saw and used more than twenty-five years ago.

The sunglass lens works great.