Use of Cacti in Desert Gardening

Use cacti to fertilize new plants. He digs a hole, pounds the cacti, then plants above it. The cacti decomposes into both fertilizer and source of water. Brilliant!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCrlomuLj9M

Soil & Civilization

Interview of Geologist David Montgomery on Coast-to-Coast. I've read the book Dirt: The Erosion of Civilization.

What happened to David Montgomery's project From the Ground Up? Plenty of talk about China that sound paranoid, but this is Coast-to-Coast episode. It lead my interest to terra preta. I'm still not sure what that is about. Something to do with biochar.

Jane Eyre (2011)

Compared to the dozen adaptations I've seen, this went slow, mainly because I was watching it online and it kept crapping out on me. Had to keep waiting for it to reload. Anyways, several scenes were taken out, but didn't ruin it for me.

Choice of Jane Eyre was excellent. Rochester was at his best at the scene after being woken up from the fire in his bedroom. Choice for St. John was not. Been a fan of Jamie Bell since his debut film. Instead of being uneasy about St. John, I got hot and bothered, especially in a fit of jealously, he started shouting at Jane. Rawr. In this case, I would have rather picked St. John.

Overall. 7.

The Secret Life of Chaos (2010)

OMFG. Clearly a must watched for any nerd. Actually making me think I want to pursue microbiology with emphasis on organic mathematics? Is there such a field of study? Idk.

I haven't been this amazed since the time I watched Nova's feature on Mendelbrot's fractals. So fractals like those other phenomenons mentioned on The Secret Life of Chaos has connections with feedback effect and of course, the namesake, chaos. I admit, the first time I heard about quantum physics, I didn't like it. Didn't like the randomness, or more aptly put chaos, involved. It wasn't elegant or safe. Now I think, it is quiet beautiful. That Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction was mind-blowing.

Watching pieces like this, makes me begin to believe, that perhaps the little world that I have made for myself is good enough ... as if I'm discovering secrets all for myself and myself alone.

There's another documentary with Professor Jim Al-Khalili as host I want to watch after seeing this.

Also, rip Benoit Mendelbrot

The Golden Bowl (2000)

Stunning, but I didn't like The Golden Bowl. There's bias of course. I don't care for Henry James, but the film does portray what I dislike about Henry James as a writer. James doesn't know what short an sweet means.

Kate Beckinsale has an amazing turn-of-the-century American accent. Yet, if she was an American aristocrat, her character, Maggie, would more likely have had a Mid-Atlantic accent. I'm getting good at this.

Toulouse-Lautrec's Paris (2010)

Art Exhibition at San Diego Museum of Art.

Loved it. Mostly lithograph. I remember working with lithograph in high school, but have basically forgotten most of what I was suppose to be learning. Also drawings and sketches.

Saw pictures as well of the artist and the Paris he lived in. Lautrec doesn't look like a little person, if I can say that. He might have been small, but not in the way he's portrayed in Moulin Rouge film. As for the Paris of his age, I guess the future romanticizes about those headier days, but when I say actual pictures of it, it looks like squalor. I like modern images of Paris better. Another info I didn't know about him was that he was from a rich family.

Other than works of Toulouse-Lautrec, I was surprised at other things the museum held. This isn't NYC of SF after all.

Black Swan

Reminds me of The Piano Teacher starring Isabelle Huppert, because of the similar ending.

Movies about ballet are rare, except on the Lifetime channel. The ones on Lifetime is usually about ballet and anorexia. It goes together it seems. My favorite film on ballet, hands down, is Billy Elliot. Have to watch with subtitles though. It gets my throat chocked up.

The Veg Edge

"The Veg Edge" was seriously inspiring. I watched the debut episode on the cooking channel. One dish that caught my attention was the mung bean crepe. I love mung bean.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

The recent dead come alive after a space probe from Venus comes back to earth with mysterious radiation or other. The zombies start eating people. A group of people hole up in a house trying to fend off the zombies or find a way out.

I liked it. There's a black guy in a black and white movie playing on TMC so I had to watch it. Plus he was, Ben, the lead. The time period in which the film was made gave it more significant. There are obvious faults to the film, but even before reading up on it online, I got the sense it was a landmark.


Everything about the film, now that I think about it, screams the late volatile sixties. The middle-aged married dysfunctional couple representing the dysfunctional under the surface establishment, the young idealistic couple dying after trying to save the others, the crazy white woman - well I can't think what she represents. And as for the black guy - killing the black guy even though he wasn't a zombie is so American of them. An interesting point I read when I researched on this film later on, is that Ben's death has some resonance to slain black civil rights activists of that time.


I was digging Johnny's dark leather gloves by the way.

Curse of the Golden Flower

Empress is being slowly poisoned by the Emperor. Empress is having an affair with her step-son, the Crown Prince.  Crown Prince is having an affair with the daughter of the doctor who creates and gives the Empress her poison. Empress is plotting something and wants her son to be emperor. Doctor's wife has a dark past which drives her daughter insane. Then the youngest prince is totally ignored. Talk about dysfunction junction.

Did nothing for me. I mean, it wasn't bad, but I did fast forward all the long silences. If I had the choice, probably would have watched something else. I am a fan of Gong Li. There are billions of Chinese, but she seems to be in all the big production Chinese films. Lucky her. It was psychedelic and over the top.

Film did remind me of cultural differences. I'm use to American movies, where big production films always, and I mean always, ends with a big fat happy ending. It's interesting. Maybe it's a good thing to be shown the reality of life. I mean, Harry Potter has got someone dying in every later books.

Curse of the Golden Flower They should renamed it. More like Curse of the Golden Cleavage. Then again, it isn't the only Chinese film I've seen that got cleavage.

Part I liked - clearly the ignored youngest prince who goes bat-crazy violent. To think, he played the so innocent young boy for most of the film.

The Round Tower (1998)

A young woman, Vanessa Ratcliffe, gets pregnant and refuses to reveal the man who impregnated her. A working-class man, Angus Cotton, gets the blame. Vanessa runs away from her loveless, palatial home to avoid getting an abortion. Angus takes pity on her, lets her stay at his place, and marries her; even with the expressed disapproval of his mother and sister. Angus, meanwhile, quits working for others and starts his own business as a way to prove himself against the upper-crust of his town.

It was okay. It has Emilia Fox and Ben Miles and I'm a fan of both. The ending was a bit weak and most of the characters, especially of the Ratcliffe family, were one-dimensional, caricature-like.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I

First part of the last Harry Potter novel series. There are some noticeable deviations from the book, or I can't remember, because it's been awhile since I read it. This film starts with Harry leaving Privet Drive, and ends with (spoiler) Voldemort taking Dumbledore's wand.

I loved it. I must say, this must be the best I've seen yet of the film series. The length of Harry Potter films can be noticeable, but this time, I actually wanted it to be lengthier. Also, I found myself often looking away or closing my eyes, because it was scary. I watched it with my friend and she kept giggling for what ever reason, and I started giggling. I don't know. It's quite poignant the way the audience grows up along with the movie characters as well as the story itself. I mean, if I were eight years old, I'd be wetting my pants with fear if I watched this.

(Spoiler) When Dobby died, I started hearing plenty of coughing in the audience. I know what they were doing. Trying to hide leaky eyes and noises with coughing. It made me think of a documentary I saw long ago, or perhaps it was an article, pointing out how we humans tend to exhibit more compassion than what can be explained out with present evolutionary theories ... or something like that. Dobby isn't a real creature, he's made out of pixels ... freakin' CGI, and yet I hear men and woman uncleverly hiding their tears with coughing. Then again ... I got a bit teary watching Wall-E when it came to this idea of having ruined the Earth and coming back to it - because it is home.