Monday, November 14, 2005

On light bulbs, contests, and other miscellany

So, given that I have this new house and all, I've had a prime opportunity to implement a migration from incandescents to the new hotness. Care to guess how many bulbs it took? So far I'm at 24 and I could easily go another half-dozen. Thanks to Home Depot though, it hasn't cost a whole lot to do. They're currently selling six-packs of the 14 Watt (60W equivalent) bulbs for $9.97. That, in layman's terms, is what they call a really sweet deal. Considering they sell a single bulb, same rating, for $5; that's 66% off. (In fact, I told the Home Depot guy as much while I was making my purchase. Got to spread the cult of CFL ya know...)

But, you say, that seemingly shameless plug for the luminous wares of the Commercial Electric corporation wasn't enough? Well then, I shall tell you, on top of the price, EnergyStar is offering a chance to pay your energy bill for a year! Which brings me to the point of this post.

Inside the six-pack of bulbs is a scratch off ticket with your id number. You can take it to this page and find out if you won. Except, with the four packs I bought, each ticket had the exact same id number. Is that legit? D08469. You too?

It got me wondering if, for these kind of promos, it's easier to print one whole big batch of "unique" identical loser numbers, and then run off the 100 odd winners as actually unique prints. Seems pretty cheap, but maybe they figured no one would catch on? I mean, how many people would buy 24 CF lightbulbs at a go, right?

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