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after watering my grow closet i took a new survey of what i have growing:

best boy hybrid tomato (12)
super sweet 100 hybrid (6)
giant thai hot pepper (0)
hot pepper mix (12)
thai basil siam queen (12)
sweet basil (6)
shasta daisy (14)
delphinium fastasia mix (6)
snapdragons (20)
milkweed (7)

the tomatoes will need to go next week irregardless of the weather conditions outside; they're simply outgrowing my grow closet. the best boys look stout, but the cherries seem simply (is that natural for the variety?). none of my giant thai hot peppers germinated, so i ended up growing 3 extra mixed hot pepper. i don't like mixed variety seed packets because i won't know what i got until mid-summer at the earliest and that's too long a wait. next season i should just buy the varieties that i want (only problem is i have a lot of mixed pepper seeds; if only there was a way to tell the variety from looking at the seeds).

i've expanded my overall flower seedlings count simply by dividing up the seedlings (isn't of just thinning) and repotting them. biggest increase are the snapdragons; their seeds are tiny but have a tremendously high germination rate (reminds me of basil). i planted too much and ended up with too much. the 20 that i have seem to be doing fine, even the newly transplanted ones. i could've had even more but sadly i tossed them out because i simply didn't have enough containers to plant them.

i've also increased my shasta daisy count; they're currently living in a box outside of the grow closet because i didn't have any room and i thought the daisies are hardy enough to take the change in environment. they'd been sitting outside this past week, and was even attacked by a squirrel (no seedlings were harmed fortunately). once the tomatoes are relocated, i'll move the daisies back into the closet.

delphiniums are hard to germinate. they take almost 3 weeks to sprout and when they do the seedlings are slow to grow. even 6 was a hard number to come by, i had to transplant a spare seedling into one of the containers that never germinated. fortunately i've planted about a dozen new delphiniums at my parents' place, to increase my overall numbers. finally, i also transplanted an extra milkweed. i finally threw out the remaining seeds in my fridge because they were all moldy. hopefully these 7 will be the start of a successful milkweed colony in my community garden (i wonder if there are any garden laws regarding milkweeds? i don't see anybody else growing them there).

i left a bit before 11:30 to central square for elias' annual birthday movie marathon starting at noon. it takes less than 10 minutes of slow riding to get there, but i get there early so i can pick up some lunch nearby. traditionally that's been wendy's but since it went out of business, my options were limited. i went with option 2 which was moody's falafel palace. i hadn't been there in a while and noticed they renovated the place. i got the lamb schwarma wrap for $6 (i used to be able to get a spicy chicken sandwich plus a drink and fries for $6 at wendy's).

i was the first to arrive, followed by mike kelly, who has his own ritual of getting some lunch takeout from mary chung's. mike recently went on the aggressively vegetarian "eat to live" diet (after gaining back the 40 lbs. from his last diet), but today was his one exception day so he was taking full advantage of it. he was explaining his dietary restrictions, including things like sugar and salt, which sounded like a really awful diet.

the theme of this year's marathon was "then & now," featuring several categories with a choice between a film from the 80's or a more recent movie. before we started amanda came up to me with a very serious look on her face. it was ready for some bad news but turns out it was good: they're having a baby! they're one of my few married friends who don't have kids and every time i see them i'm always looking for signs of possible pregnancy. at only the first trimester, amanda wasn't showing at all. the next time i see her though, she'll probably already had her baby!

the first one was time travel. when the categories were revealed a few weeks ago, i was certain one of the selection would be hot tub time machine. but that's a weird film because even though it's made recently, it takes place in the 80's. the modern choice was primer which i've never heard before and the 1989 bill & ted's excellent adventure. the odds were stacked in bill & ted's favor and naturally that movie won. it's an enjoyable film, and the sequel bogus journey (1991) is just as good (especially the scenes with the grim reaper). i wouldn't mind seeing another sequel, even though keanu reeves nowadays commands a high enough salary that i'm not sure if a new film would be monetarily feasible.

next category was androids, with the films being india's most expensive film enthiran (robot) and 1987 making mr. right. the power of malkovich won this round. i'd seen the movie before a long time ago, a love triangle of sorts between a lovelorn career woman, an understanding android, and his misanthropic creator. it's awfully quirky, with strong albeit neurotic female leads. the idea of malkovich being romantic leading man material is kind of insane. there are classic malkovichian moments, like the rising crescendo angry outbursts.

the choice for cliques was either mean girls or 1988 heathers. i like mean girls (for lindsay lohan and tina fey) but it plays on television so many times i've already seen it enough. regardless, heathers was the people's choice. when this movie came out i thought it was the best movie ever made. seeing it again so many years later, it doesn't seem that good. the only reason to watch (for me at least) is to see winona ryder at her peak popularity. so many other recent teenage black comedies seem so much better (superbad, easy a, juno) but perhaps heathers was the film that started it all. it's definitely unique in its tongue-in-cheek message of killing off your classmates; the last film to do that was jawbreaker in 1999, a movie with deep heathers influence; a few months later the columbine massacre happened and now you'll never find a movie like heathers ever again.

misfits pitted 1985 the goonies against attack the block. i was sure would win, especially since elias was wearing a goonies t-shirt. i changed my vote and picked attack the block, the film that was eventually selected. i'd heard about it before, about an alien invasion in the london ghettoes pitting gangbangers against extra terrestrials. everyone knows the best gangs are american, and all other gangsters are posers. the film isn't bad, with a good blend of action, horror, comedy, and message (people are all alike). the dialog was a bit hard to understand, with the combination of accents and slangs, but it wasn't difficult to get the gist of it.

the 8:00 block was all about monsters, pitting zombieland against 1987 monster squad. there's a lot to love about zombieland and it's definitely one of my top 5 zombie movies of all times (the others being return of the living dead (1985), re-animator (1985), return of the living dead 3 (1993), and dawn of the dead (2004)). but i picked monster squad because i've seen zombieland recently. monster squad is a great cheesy movie, repeatedly putting children in life-threateningly dangerous situations. i guess in the 80's it was okay for children to be out at nights without their parents, or for kids to visit a stranger's home for pie, or even smelt some silverware to create werewolf-killing bullets in shop class. it felt like the little rascals, with even a treehouse sign that says "no girls," being entrusted with the task of preventing dracula and his monster gang from taking over the world.

driving was the last category, a choice between ryan gosling's drive and 1988 license to drive. i picked the two corey movie just for a chance to see 17-year old heather graham (in her film debut), but drive ended up winning. i wasn't disappointed to see drive again (it is a good movie after all) but most of the audience hadn't seen it yet and i don't think they were ready for the level of shockingly graphic violence depicted in the film. the audio is also weird on the movie, either whispery dialogue, or loud 80's inspired background music.

there was also a trivia contest based on the career of the 2 coreys. i ended up winning, which i don't know if it's a good or a bad thing. for my prize i picked up some fluorescent orange shoelaces.

with the nighttime temperature still in the 60's, i passed several house parties while biking back home. i also dodged the myriad of drunk people spilling out in the bike lanes trying to hail taxis. for some reason the inside of the house smelled like either cabbage, clothes that's been left in the washer for too long, or fermenting wet shoes. my roommate was still up when i returned, and seemed a little worried i'd been gone so long (he didn't get up before i left this morning and i didn't bother leaving him a note). i was too tired to ask my roommate about the foul odor but i opened a window to let in some fresh air. also a neighbor had tossed out a perfectly good office chair onto the curb which i acquired.

Power Tool - "Two Heads Are Better Than One"