Archive for December, 2006
December 15, 2006 at 12:52 pm · Filed under Bonsai
I laughed when I saw the title of this article. But after I read it through and saw the pictures, I thought that’s not half bad.
Starting with a nasty sprouted spud will make this activity all the more fun while you create your own bonsai potato. This is a perfect use for those recently rediscovered spuds that might be otherwise headed for the trash. All you need to do is plant it in a pot and with patience and careful pruning, you too can create a bonsai potato.
Plant the potato in the pot so it juts out of the dirt. Your potato should be at least half way in the dirt. Before planting your spud spend some time observing how the sprouts grow out of the potato. The sprouts become the branches so you’ll want to plant the tuber with these sprouts above the dirt. How you position the potato in the dirt has everything to do with the form that your bonsai will take after planting. Because every sprouted potato is different, every bonsai potato will be different. I like to imagine the potato is a rock and the sprouts are small trees growing from the rock.
~ Potato Bonsai Project
Bonsai isn’t a particular plant, but an art. It encompasses any small plant dwarfed by pruning for a desired shape. And I have to commend this person for the effort. I might even have to give it a try. There’s even a community of bonsai potato growers. www.bonsaipotato.com Who knew?
December 14, 2006 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Bonsai
I’ve put the kibosh on the tea leaf/bamboo experiment. After three more days of adding used tea leaves to the water, the plant certainly wasn’t looking better. The leaves began to look faded and grainy. So, I ended that quickly. I’m going to see what I can do, now, to get this baby looking healthy again.
Why did I imagine that adding used tea leaves to the water would help in the first place? Well, back when I received the bamboo, I also got a bottle of ‘Green Green’. The liquid content of GG is bright yellow, which made me think of tea. The ingredients are derived from Ammonium Nitrate, Ammonium Phosphate, Potassium Nitrate, Calcium Phosphates. I figured the tea leaves would breakdown and release some delicious Nitrates into the water. Apparently, not so. I dont know where my ‘Green Green’ bottle is so I’ll have to make a trip to Chinatown or chance it.
A few websites state that yellowing or brown leaf edges may be caused by fluoridated or chlorinated water. Well, poo. I’m not about to purchase bottled or filtered water for the bamboo. Sorry, little fella’. However, some cultivator sites recommend leaving tap water out over night. The chlorine will evaporate, but it won’t remove the fluoride. They also recommend changing the water every 3-7 days. That’s something I never do. Typically, I used to keep adding new water every few days, because it would evaporate or get used up. I’ll change it more routinely.
Lastly, it turns out lucky bamboo isn’t bamboo. It’s a dracaena or a ‘ribbon plant’. It’s native to Cameroon in tropical west Africa. One website says:
Depending on the temperature & humidity of your home, it can last from a couple weeks to over a year. There really isn’t much you can do if bamboo doesn’t like your home environment, so enjoy it while you can.
Well, thanks a lot for the encouragement, Buster Brown. I’ll just have to sleep with my plant at night and simulate a rain forest in my chilly apartment.
December 11, 2006 at 3:14 pm · Filed under Bonsai
The bamboo hasn’t been doing well over the last few years. A couple more leaves have turned yellow and died, though all the stalks are still green. Perhaps it’s time to donate it to science.
A while back, I read an article about a Tea Leaf Experiment. The author decided to use tea leaves as a fertilizer under the claim that they add acid to the soil to perk up the plant and it’s color. Her experiences were positive, and the only downside was some occasional molding of the leaves. I choose to try this with my bamboo water.
After I steeped a cup of tea, I threw the leftover leaves in the bamboo water. I did this over a four day period. The water has turned tea colored and kinda murky. A yucky film has also appeared on the water surface. But, the leaves look ‘perkier!’ I dont know about ‘greener.’
Actually, the water just looks gross…I’ll clean out the dish and try again.
December 7, 2006 at 5:47 pm · Filed under Techy
I was perusing a message board, today, when someone mentioned ‘pointing out Wilhelm screams’ and referring back to a youtube video. Huh? Well, I watched the video and listened to two screams and yelled, “AH HA, I KNEW IT!”
We’ve all watched Star Wars a hundred times, and yet there is this one sound clip that has always frustrated me. It’s a cliché scream, and I’ve heard it in dozens of movies. In many cases, the scream doesn’t even match the voice of the character. It’s as if it’s just being thrown in there. Well, here’s the answer:
The Wilhelm scream is a stock sound effect first used in 1951 for the movie Distant Drums. The scream was most likely vocalized by actor-singer Sheb Wooley. The Wilhelm’s revival came from Star Wars series sound designer Ben Burtt, who tracked down the original recording (which he found as a studio reel labeled “Man being eaten by alligator”) Its use in the Star Wars films was the beginning of something of an in-joke amongst some sound designers of the film industry. In a tribute to its origins, the clip was used in the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when the villain Mola Ram was eaten by crocodiles.
Now, I can take this off the list of ‘Mer’s list of Unsolved Mysteries and Conspiracies.’ Here’s the youtube video I saw, and a long list of movies which the Wilhelm scream has appeared in. Thank you, internet!
December 1, 2006 at 1:55 pm · Filed under Lifestyle
The arctic blast, or whatever you want to call it, hit Chicago this morning. As I expected, it wasn’t as overwhelming as reporters said it would be. I’m looking outside and there are maybe 3 inches. Granted, it is substantial. But it seems to me that whenever people try to predict the weather, they make it seem a lot worse that it turns out to be. The actual big storms are always the ones that meteorologists never see coming.
Albeit, we did lose power this morning. I was laying in bed debating whether I should get up or not. I thought it was curious that the heater wasn’t clicking on. I thought that the rest of the apartment must be warmer than my room. That’s usually the case. When I got up, I saw that the thermometer was at 57o, which is colder than what it’s set at. I went into the kitchen to make breakfast and saw that the refrigerator light was off. Then, it all made sense. *click* No heat, no computer, no light. A couple of hours later the electricity came back on. To pass the time, I had to curl up with some blankets and read Harry Potter. Finally, I could make my morning cup of tea. I might also take some pictures soon. My roommate said he’d bring his work camera here, and I could snap some pictures around.
On some side notes: I’m rooting for you Jonathon. Outwit. Outplay. Outlast!
UPDATE: They found the family, but James Kim is still missing after going for help. Here’s the story.
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