h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hey there, y'all. Another quickie journal, to supplement the offsite stuff.

I seem to have eradicated the millipedes from my rubber plant, having repotted it in mostly fresh soil and saturating everything with insecticide. The citrus-based insect repellent has rid us of the fruitfly/gnat problem. If I see any more millipedes I may need to get some Neem soap, unless anyone else has any safer alternatives. I'm leery of using poisons in the apartment on the off chance that Herman gets curious sometime.

The catnip hasn't sprouted as of yet, but the cat grass and lemon mint are doing well. I have a little succulent which seems to have sticky blotches on the leaves- the soil is dry, so it's not root rot. Could it be the orange insect stuff? Any ideas how to keep it from getting worse?

That's it for the plants and my not-quite green thumb.

Treated ourselves to the complete "Spectreman" series on DVD, and had a rather mediocre Mexican dinner yesterday (why do I *never* get what I ordered at that restaurant? *note to self: go someplace else next time, excellent salsa notwithstanding*). Tonight I'm making fish in a peach salsa, with black beans and rice.

Also picked up the newest Nick Hornby book, "A Long Way Down", somewhat apropos in light of events occuring earlier this month. Has anyone read it yet? I won't say I'm a fan of Hornby, but I did enjoy "High Fidelity", and this one sounds intriguing.

Speaking of books- Edward, I just read "Everything is Illuminated", and you may find the film somewhat disappointing having read it first. Some changes and a lot of omissions... I'm glad I watched first and then read. Bawled both times.

It's rainy as hell here, and we've both got a bit of cabin fever, although truthfully, we'd planned on staying home and being shiftless, so I don't know what the problem is.

Incidentally, we're still doing the alphabetical/sequential CD-listening thing (and we excluded cassette and vinyl, ack, we'll have to do those, too!) and we're only at "F"- Fifty Foot Hose at the moment.

At this rate it'll take us a good 4 1/2 years to finish. What about all the stuff we've bought in between?

Sometimes you see one of those combinations of words which you can be pretty sure has never been found in a single sentence previously, nor ever will be again, such as:

'I seem to have eradicated the millipedes from my rubber plant'

From my own mouth, my gavourite ever was:

'And then the piece of chappati became lodged behind the skirting board.'

It's a holiday weekend, hence me being up late ona Sunday. Yesterday Cath's gym had an open day, so we all went along and I was forced to try out a bike. I *will* start exercising soon. By the miracle of vestigial socialism, I'm getting a gym pass organised by the NHS. Then last night we had over our friend Sarah who is shortly taking her two boys to join her husband Gunnar who's just got a job in Germany. It was a gorgeous evening, and the kids wanted to watch a Pokemon movie, so we all sat in the front garden sipping sparkling wine and eating the first of the season's mangos. Then today we met her again at a place an hour's drive away where you can get a ferry to a small island which we walked around - about 6 miles. I shall try and organise a photo on http://bonoboworld.blogspot.com.

Everything Is Illuminated - I don't see how a film could could do justice to Alex's language.

Music - I've downloaded the new Springsteen, the Dirty Pretty Things and Two Gallants, and I've uploaded the CD re-issue of The Jam's Snap collection. Hey! Isn't it cool! iPod's alphabetise for you automagically!

Is neem poisonous? You can get neem toothpaste...or even clean your teeth with a neem twig.

Neem is not poisonous; it's the ultimate miracle cure all tree in Pakistan/India/parts of Middle East.

Millipedes. Hmm "chongololo" in Africa squeak.

Here are millipedes & some other cuddly beasts:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.santsior.conwy.sch.uk/Insects/chongotitle.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.santsior.conwy.sch.uk/Insects/exotic.htm&h=87&w=509&sz=21&hl=en&start=3&tbnid=3cyu_Noy6ItCiM:&tbnh=21&tbnw=128&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dchongololos%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3Dlang_en%7Clang_fr%26sa%3DG


We have been doing Gardening here too. I shall pass you to NBY to explain.

***

Quoth viking: "Terri is a murderer of Flowers." Terri and her garden deny this charge. So do the nuns who admire the undead flowers. Zombie geraniums.

Terri also has a cork with the face of Jesus. Bidding starts at $1,000.00.

zdt/NBY

Maybe it's not the neem in the insecticidal soap that makes the stuff poisonous... but the label on the neem insecticidal soap had an awful lot of "pets & small children" warning on it.

Sparkling wine and mangoes sounds awesome! I got some mangoes last week, but they're not ripe enough to eat yet. Sounds like some nice walking, too!

"Everything is Illuminated", the film- didn't quite do Alex's language justice but did OK. They subtitled the Ukrainian bits so it was quite different.

I wonder where Viking got the flower-murderer info from? Methinks the man watches too many newsmagazines or something on the TV.

PS- I've bookmarked the Bonobo Blogspot and will most likely register soon. I might do it from work, as this machine's still acting weird and I haven't always got the patience.

We'll be purchasing the new computer during May. We've decided on a Dell with a shiny DVD dual drive (those also record CDs, I guess?), and some other nice stuff, as well as a program that assists in transferring files from your existing machine to the new one.

Whoops... time for cremes brulee.

NBY here.

The flower murderer thing comes from differences of opinion on plant-pruning methodology.

We get our mangoes from the subcontinent. Gunnar is the real expert. Sarah said that he buys about four boxes per week, and she hadn't realised how expensive they are. This weekend's were delicious - still slightly sharp, the way I like them, and quite small - but disappointingly the boxes were filled with shredded office documents. Sometimes you get tinsel. We were going to go back to the old 'hood for a couple of boxes, but spent the holiday ironing and sorting our finances out instead.

Note to USAnians:
In most of the world it's the international workers' holiday. Over hear, Thatcher declared that it was...something-or-another else.

So workers come join us/ And the final fight we'll face/ The Internation-a-a-le unites the human race

Does not sound like first degree planticide then.
More like assault or battery or both

Handcuff angry pruners!

Though pruning is a good place to put excess negative energy, only if you LIKE the plant

I am merely dead-heading. This encourages the plant to carry on producing flowers rather than committing suicide. Meep & deaningful philosophical discussions about the meaning of life, the universe & everything including pansies & petunias are very wearing.

I think i may consult Jerry Garcia, who is well qualified to advise:

Dead & presumably Grateful
Has met me & survived
Scarlet begonias
""I don't know, maybe it was the "

zdt

she in the song did it!
She comes on like a rose
And everybody knows
She'll get you in dutch
Well you can look but you'd better not touch

Poison Ivy, Poison Ivy
Well late at night when you're sleepin'
Poison Ivy comes a creepin' all around

She's pretty as a daisy
But look out man she's crazy
She'll really do you in
If you let her get under your skin

Poison Ivy, Poison Ivy
Well late at night when you're sleepin
Poison Ivy comes a creepin' all around

Measles make mumpy
Mumps'll make you lumpy
Chicken pox will make you jump and twitch
Common cold'll cool you
Whooping cough will fool you
But Poison Ivy Lord will make you itch

You're gonna need an ocean ah
Of Calamine lotion ah
You'll be scratching like a hound
The minute you start to mess around

Poison Ivy, Poison Ivy
Well late at night when you're sleepin'
Poison Ivy comes a creepin' all around

La-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la

I'd like to offer a word of advice to all of my friends. Should you ever need to prepare documents for presentation, in a nicely bound presentation jacket, with tab dividers and all that, run, don't walk, away from the clear tab divider labels marked "Easy Apply".

I would normally spend about two hours sticking individual labels on ten dividers each for fifteen financial reports. Today, I spent the better part of 40 minutes peeling a strip of "Easy Apply" labels off my sleeve.



I need to prune a couple of plants, myself. I have an unidentified plant I adopted from my gram, and it's suddenly lost nearly all of its leaves. They turned sort of white-spotty, shriveled, and fell off. My shallots don't appear to be faring too well, either. And the catnip has not yet sprouted.

The cat grass is almost a foot high, though. And the spider plant should be big enough to start grabbing house guests soon enough.



At last, dinnertime!

ALL spider plants are called Eric; it is extremely rude to address them as simply "spider plant". They can quickly descend into a severe emotional decline.

If you are fortunate enough to have a Pregnant Eric, the babies are referred to as baby Erics, until such time as they are living happily in 4" pots, when they become Erics.

You have a social duty to pass baby Erics on for adoption by suitable parents, who must of course be carefully vetted & informed as to the naming procedure.

zdt

At last I can address my grandmothers plants! I always wondered why they never answered back. Now I know it's because I was not using their proper names.

Presentations...

My life has become a *lot* simpler since LCD projectors became more common. Remember the days of having to print everything out on acetates? Which would always jam in the copier...then you'd have to peel off all the backing sheets...and they'd all stick together with static...and you'd have to slide them into fiddly plastic pockets...and you'd notice all the typos just after you'd finished...and you'd get in a fankle with the overhead projector...

And rememeber even further back when we used to draw them by hand with those smudgy markers? Sweaty fingers could play havoc!

I gave my annual lecture at Glasgow School of Art last week. I was highly embarassed when the students started writing down what I said...and at the end someone even asked to look at one of the slides again so he could copy it. I just gave him the CD! And it was alarming to get at the end!

Congrats on a successful lecture, Edward! Wish I could've heard it.

Re: overhead projectors- I remember them all too well. The light bulbs could also burn out mid-presentation. I've never actually used an LCD projector as of yet. I don't get to *give* presentations, I only get to prepare them. I think I prefer things this way.

Terri, thanks for the info regarding plant names. This one kind of looks like an Eric. He's been moved into an 8" pot since the weekend, and seems happy there.

I'll be sure to find suitable parents for some of the offspring.

As well as having a copy of the presentation on CD, I had one on my iPod. Since they were Product Design students, they were very impressed by my home-made duck tape case...which uses a piece of redundant overhead acetate for the front.

A while back I had a conversation about flower names with a colleague:

She: 'I always think the word "lobelia" sounds rude.'
Me: 'Yes...but what about "clematis"?'

And with another colleague...during a conversation about the acceptability of a word which we can't use here, she (inadvisedly!) revealed that her word for her (ahem) 'special place' was her 'flower'. From then on I'd regularly ask her if she was going to be doing any gardening at the weekend. One day she replied:
'Aye! My boyfriend's coming over and he's promised to give my lawn a good going over.'
Ah, she was one fine lassie! I used to buy Moroccan exports from her.

"Clematis" has always made me snigger, too. But then, I'm pretty puerile, when you get down to it.

Love the gardening anecdote. I always like to learn other people's euphemisms for Doing The Nasty, or their "Naughty Bits". One of my personal favorites was "booting up the hard drive".

hehehe!



Don't know much about these ipod thingys, but presumably you can download audio books onto them too if in a conv. format? Same goes with recorded lectures?

What's the best gadgets for recorded lectures now?

I hacked away my bamboo plant a while ago because Saph kept on using it as cloak and cover and it broke it several places it's now sproutin' for some reason...G observed it this morning and said "you killed it" and when I showed him the tiny shoots on the side he said "it has eyes"