We've now converted every incandescent light bulb we could (around 40-50 of 'em) to a compact fluorescent (CFL).  Since incandescent bulbs are only about 2% efficient and CFLs are around 8%, it seems like a no-brainer.  CFLs also last about 8 to 15 times as long as the incandescent cousins.  After buying and trying a few different brands (and reading some reviews online) we picked up a whole slew of N:Vision bulbs at our local Home Depot.  I've read that lighting accounts for 9% of the energy in a typical home.  If CFLs use about 20% what a comparable incandescent uses, I figure I could reduce by energy usage by ~7%.  We'll see if reality reflects my math.

I couldn't resist the $400 TiVo Series3 deal, although I got mine from store.tivocommunity.com, the store attached to a TiVo enthusiast message board (for $399 instead of about $430 at Amazon).  As a former lifetime-subscription owner, I was bummed that TiVo discontinued their lifetime-subscription transfer deal a few months ago.  Based on several message board posts I read, I asked TiVO customer service if, under certain circumstances, they would still give out the aforementioned lifetime transfer deal.  For some reason unknown to me, that's all it took to convince them to go for it.  That means for $200 extra (on top of the $400 box), I won't ever have to pay a TiVo monthly subscription again...for years to come, I hope.

Update: I'll keep you posted on how it goes hooking things up to Comcast this weekend

I heard an interesting and somewhat shocking interview on my local NPR station.  It blew away almost everything I thought I knew about watering my lawn.  Searching for the information I heard later lead me to an article by the same research team at MSU.  Below are some of their findings on the best way to irrigate lawns.  A lot of it is against the conventional wisdom.  No doubt this is the first time science has ever disproven conventional wisdom.

Here are some interesting out-takes:

• "Generally, lawn turf requires 0.5 to 1.5 inches of water per week"
• "That corresponds to 0.1 to 0.2 inch of water [daily]"
• "Light, frequent applications of water are much more productive than heavy applications once a week."
• "The best time of day for watering is early afternoon just before the highest temperature period of the day."

Full information at the link below.  I hope you find it as useful as I did.

Full Article: http://www.turf.msu.edu/docs/turftipsE09.pdf
MSU's Irrigation Practices to Preserve Water Quality
G.T. Lyman, P.E. Rieke & J.M. Vargas Jr.
Departments of Crop and Soil Sciences and Plant Pathology, Michigan State University

This Wired article (non-subscribers: Wired is not one of those mags that usually writes breathlessly about flying cars and cyborgs...you're thinking of Popular Science/Mechanics) talks about an Irish company, Steorn, that claims to have stumbled onto a true "perpectual motion" machine--a machine that produces more energy than it uses.  They are currently accepting scientist volunteers to validate their claims.  Count me very skeptical but interested...

Steorn: http://www.steorn.net/frontpage/default.aspx
Video Mirror: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1784833525509845733