My CFL's sounds likes broken glass inside bulb - Normal?

Hi everyone, I recently bought 3 23watt CFL's and I just strung the cord together using a lamp kit and 2 extra sockets spliced into the cord original lamp kit. I put the bulbs in, turned them all on and plugged it into the wall. It lit up nice, looks great except that they felt sort of hot, only had them on 60 seconds... Is that normal? Also while they were on my spastic power strip didnt allow the plug the go in completely so for a few seconds they flickered on and off rapidly as I moved the plug. Also now when I shake them it sounds like broken glass or sand is inside of it, I never noticed it before, is that normal for cfl's? Am I overloading this plug or something? I wanna be safe about this as well. Thanks for the help.....

How hot is hot?
If you can keep your hand on it, its not hot.

The rattle is probably the drop of mercury.

The flickering is probably a bad connection in the socket for the plug.

BigBudBalls said:

How hot is hot?
If you can keep your hand on it, its not hot.

The rattle is probably the drop of mercury.

The flickering is probably a bad connection in the socket for the plug.

Click to expand...

Well that sounds like good news... Do you guys think that will overload the wire? I just tried it again and they are too hot to keep my hand on for too long, like 10 - 20 seconds. Is it the wiring?