LJ: "We KNOW Drama"

The horrible horror writer is at it again. Every six months or so, he can't help himself, and challenges the world to a duel.

He was banned from LiveJournal a few years ago, but recently made his way back on. Further, he set up a syndicated feed there from his Xanga. Over the past five or so years, he's made many enemies among not only the writing community, but also among anyone who thinks his writing is awful. Seriously, I'm not a competitor jealous of his talent for mangling the English language: I grow orchids, make a living at math, and love gardening. But I can string together a coherent sentence. That makes me the enemy.

Predictably, when he set up his syndicated feed in a venue that does attract a lot of writers and would-be writers, people criticized not only his writing talent (or lack thereof), but also his immature, nasty, and outright rude behavior. Those who have only become recently acquainted with him and his writing always ask whether English is his second language.

What happens when people get on his case? Things go "splodey,"of course. It's vastly entertaining for a boring evening at home. SJ went out this evening to play at a local chess club meeting, so I have a few hours on my hands.

Greater NY Orchid Society Show - 2007

Attention dyslexics: it stands for Greater New York Orchid Society, and has nothing to do with female body parts. I ended up skipping the show yesterday to rescue my fallen soldier of a desktop PC, which required reloading the OS not once, but twice. That was time consuming but in the end all that really got blown away was some email passwords and the drivers for my Nikon, which I had on CD.

SJ and I went today instead. Sort of felt like I was dragging him with me, but it turns out he enjoyed playing hooky today and watching me power shop. Took the train into NY Penn and hopped the 6th Ave. subway up to Rock. We used my Metro Card, and on the way back my Metro Card and my PATH Quick Card, so it only cost SJ round trip excursion train fare, plus the Starbuck's mocha he bought. I bought the smoothies from Cucina & Co. later, after we'd hit one section of the vendor area. We called that lunch. On the way back, we'd have had to wait almost an hour for the next train out of Penn, so we walked back over to 6th Ave., hopped on the PATH to Hoboken, and got really lucky. We caught an express train that left within a minute of our arrival, and blew through so many towns without stopping that we were the second stop. We definately got home faster by going through Hoboken on the return trip. I soooo rock at commuting.

Below are the pictures I took today. The first few are of the show, and the last few are of the plants I bought. All but one of the ones I bought are species, and all but three are from South American vendors. I didn't pre-order from any of the South American vendors this year, so it was "pot luck" regarding what they imported, but I ended up with some really nice stuff, and nothing that I know I'll have trouble growing.

For the record, here's a list of my purchases today:

- Sobralia macrantha, a species, from Andy's Orchids in CA (Andy Phillips himself was working the booth with a couple of helpers)

- Maxillaria picta, a species, from Andy's Orchids

- Sobralia fragrans, a species, from Ecuagenera in Ecuador (Ivan Portilla was working the booth; the other guy might have been his brother Juan. Both are extremely nice and speak English just fine. Told me to grow the Elleanthus under the same conditions as the Sobralia)

- Elleanthus oliganthus, a species, from Ecuagenera

- Restrepia antennifera, a species, from Orquideas del Valle in Colombia (Don't know where Andrea was--some guy was working the booth.)

- Zootrophion alvaroi, a species, from Orquideas del Valle

- Sphyrastylis escobariana, a species, from Orquideas del Valle (Never heard of a Sphrastylis, but the guy told me to grow it like the other two, which is easy enough.)

- Leptotes bicolor 4N, a species, from J&L in CT (I didn't see Cordelia Head in the booth, but the woman who was there laughed when I wistfully took a picture of the Masdevalias that I just don't have the right conditions to grow.)

- Laelia cowanii, a species, from Aranda Orquideas in Brazil

- Brassavola perrinii, a species, from Aranda Orquideas

- Vanda Jose Coronado, a red hybrid, from some random vendor

And now for the pictures:

Hybrid Phalaenopsis


Hybrid Cattleyas


Dendrobium spectabile - this species smells like warm honey


Some Cattleya hybrid


The Leptotes bicolor I bought from J&L - the flower on this 4N genetic version is about twice the size of a typical Leptotes bicolor--about 1.5 inches across. It's a miniature. And yes, I sprung $30 for this gene stock.


Elleanthus oliganthus - note the oliganthus name penned in ink on one of the leaves. Unfortunately, the spike got broken in transit, but Ivan assued me it does indeed bloom dark orange.


Vanda Jose Coronado, the only hybrid I bought. I love red vandas.


Sobralia macrantha from Andy's. Not blooming, but his plants are always so pristine.


A bunch of the miniatures I bought from assorted South American vendors


Maxillaria picta, from Andy's. The blooms are faintly, but pleasantly scented.


The massies that I can't grow well, and didn't buy, at the J&L booth


Enjoy. I'm $250 poorer, but happy nonetheless. The Sobralias were real finds, I must say. All the collectors make a beeline for the species orchids. It's the casual buyer who buys the commercialized fad-of-the-year hybrids. You know the type: "Oh Marge, look at this one--it's so pretty! Are or-kids hard to grow?" spoken in a heavy Edith Bunker Queens accent.

Which Horror Killer Am I?

This one came back about right.

You scored as Jigsaw. You are Jigsaw. You dont enjoy killing people at all. You instead love to see how far people will go to live. However if it ends in a bloody death, you still sleep with a smile on your face. You are intelligent, and know how to outwit just about anyone. And that spells bad news for anyone who falls into your games of death and torture. Jigsaw 90% Leatherface 70% Freddy Krueger 65% Pinhead 65% Jason Voorhees 55% Hannibal Lecter 50% Michael Myers 35% Candyman 25% Buffalo Bill 25% Captain Spaulding 15% Which Horror Killer are You? created with QuizFarm.com

Happy Easter, everyone. Several years ago, it was warm enough on Easter to wear a rayon dress with a wool blazer. Today, it's snowing. The ham's in the oven at 250 really just to heat through before I glaze it, and we're poised to do our catering act for my parents. At least there's not much real cooking to do: just glazed baby carrots and mashed potatoes, which can be done in 20 minutes at the end.

Then we toss everything in a cooler with a bunch of dish towels, throw it in the back seat, and off we go. I made oatmeal raisin cookies yesterday. Those are already packed away in a tin. It's gotten to be routine for us with the holidays to do this sort of catering, although I've never done it before on Easter. My parents are only 10-15 minutes away, depending on how lucky we get with the lights, so keeping everything warm isn't really a problem.

I like to sleep late on weekends unless there's some compelling reason to get up early. My parents like to eat their holiday dinners in the middle of the afternoon, which I don't really mind, but it's going to make time a bit tight heating the ham all the way through. I don't suppose it really matters, though, because it's already cooked, and it's really only the outside that gets glazed for the last 10 minutes. It even came with a glaze packet. Seems pretty idiot-proof.

Easter Dinner

*cross-post from my Xanga*

We are good to go tomorrow. My parents accepted our offer of catering Easter dinner, and want us to eat it with them. Their suggested, and agreed upon, ETA for us is between 2:30 and 3:00 pm. It seems a bit early for me, but they keep early hours. Really, it's approximately zero effort to make glazed carrots and mashed potatoes. They live only 15 minutes away from us, so transporting food without having it go ice cold in transit isn't such a big deal, if we use enough dish towels for packing material in the "cooler."