Goddamn it! How many of these things have I owned? A LOT. Why? They’re cheap. Otherwise I wouldn’t buy them, that is for sure. They break or worse in less than a year. Usually the switch just dies. Tonight, the switch melted. MELTED! The room stunk for over an hour!
–
“it’s all real”
“I KNEW IT!!!”
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com
They always manage to look nice in the store, and then when you bring them home, they look cheap as hell.
I hate them. I think when this one finally bites it, I’m going to break down and buy some real lamps.
Rose
I told you not to be stupid, you moron.
What the heck is a torchiere lamp?
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—Red Green
Rilch:
They’re those floor lamps that shine upwards, on the ceiling. Usually they have a cheesy contemporary style to them and WAY, WAY too bright a bulb. Halogen, I guess.
You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing for them or to them. – Malcolm Forbes
I like those. Never had any trouble with them, either.
I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!
I like them too. I have real lamps and I have to torchiere lamps. I think they give a room a classy look…
“Do or do not, there is no try” - Yoda
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I bought a torchiere from Ikea for about $30. It’s a cool green colour and doesn’t have those cheesey gold bands in the middle. There also no artistic little plastic piece below the top disc. I looked at a few torchieres, and this one seemed to be the best-built. Sorry, I don’t know it’s name.
I bought the torchiere because I needed a lamp and didn’t have a table to put it on. I don’t know how “classy” it looks, but from a utilitarian standpoint it functions well.
I bought a Victorian lookin’ one from Walmart for my office, as I cannot deal with Florecent lights. It was $25, It’s quite classy (seriously, I am a fan of subtlity, and this one is quite lovely.) has never given my any problems, and runs a 60 watt incandecent.
The $20 ones are crap, though. Besides the problems you mentioned, the bottoms are not weighted correctly, and they fall over the first time your cat runs into them at full speed.
Habit rules the unreflecting herd. - Wordsworth
My trusty torchier died shortly after becoming the seat of choice for a stray cat I invited in. She leapt from the top of the drapes to the disk at the top, throwing it off balance and careening into the fireplace. From there it was practically a straight shot back out the door to wildness. Luck was with her that day, as the lamp was off. Otherwise she’d have smelled like burned cat fur for days.
In an old apartment I had with a cathedral ceiling, the lamp would attract moths in the summer. The odor of burning moth coming from a lamp is disconcerting, not to mention the eerie glow of the bulb for a few moments after it’s turned off. I have real lamps now, and I’m convinced that one was a fire hazard.
Oh, thank god.
I opened this thread thinking that OpalCat was talking about those torches that people stuck in the ground in their backyards back in the 1950s, when they were having ersatz luau parties.
I had a fleeting and very scary image of UndeadDude mixing Mai Tais in coconut shells with little paper umbrellas, and Opal in a sarong, offering me a canape from a pu-pu platter.
Uke
i learned that you can’t mix small children and torchiere lights.
my smoke detector went off and that awful cyanide burning plastic smell filled the house.
turned out that my daughter was playing “basketball” with the lamp and a happy meal toy.
My coolest incident with a halogen lamp involved a moth. Being attracted to the light as most moths are, it flew directly into the bulb. The next thing we noticed was a small wisp of smoke rising up from the lamp…
I had a halogen/moth experience. A group of four was sitting around the table playing cards, with said lamp a couple feet away. A large moth suddenly appeared and, curiously, landed on the table. One of our party flicked it away, intending only to remove it from the playing area, but somehow it sailed through the air and landed directly on the bulb. In addition to the instant curl of smoke, there was also a loud and vivid sizzling sound, accompanied by the strong scent of frying insect. There was a moment of surprised silence amongst the group, but then the one who had done the flicking could not resist a faint bit of pride in his accuracy, however serendipitous. Kind of like that hopeless basketball throw from the opposite end of the court that miraculously goes in.
The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go.
I have one I bought in an antique shop for $20. Heavy metal base and pole. Unfortunately, the “bowl” type glass shade busted when we moved and I haven’t had the cash to go out and get a new one, so it sits collecting dust. I know the shades aren’t that expensive but some things just aren’t a high priority.
I bought one of these hoping it would illuminate me properly on my webcam. Damn thing is too bright, and whenever I have it on, I get this neat burn effect, and I look like a big white splotch.
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Clerks - Just because they serve you doesn’t mean they like you.
I was thinking of torch songs, and thought you had a lamp shaped like Marlene Dietrich with a light bulb coming out of her head.
(shudder)
I have a couple of those lamps (actually they appeared when my fiancee moved in), and they seem to work well. Are you saying they easily catch on fire?