Nocky's Journal

Has anyone read Anne Rice Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned books? If so, what did you think of it?

I have a 3-in-1 so I've been reading. I read Interview with the Vampire and I liked it. I don't know if it's because I loved the movie or whatnot but I kept recalling scenes from the movie as I read the book.

The Vampire Lestat was 'okay'. All the brooding was driving me up the wall.

I'm on the last book and I'm slowly trudging through. I read 5 pages before I get bored and do something else. I'm constantly skimming paragraphs because I'm so bored of the twins, Queen and King/Mother and Father stuff...

The vegetable garden is pretty much out. The spaghetti squash were the first to bite it as I predicted. The zucchini is no longer happy, it's dying off. The yellow squash isn't doing good and on its way out.

The cucumbers are still growing but the vegetables are all distorted but they're still being eaten.

Which leaves the tomatoes. All the various tomato plants are still thriving and producing.

Even though it's been raining a lot, it doesn't help when the sun comes out and everything wilts as fast as it can.

"You can't get to the little man behind the curtain unless you walk the yellow brick road."

You are so wise... *snickers*

Wow.. I'm so surprised to hear the news. MTV is doing a big tribute right now for him. Dang... What unexpected news.

The Sims 3? The Sims 3?? They're coming out with The Sims 3 already???

Wow. Imagine my shock when I found out they're releasing The Sims 3 on June 2nd. I played The Sims & all expansion packs as well as The Sims 2 and the first two expansion packs before I lost interest. I looked at the information for The Sims 3 but it doesn't seem that much different than The Sims 2. From what I understand, in The Sims 3, all families will be living their lives and having babies while you're playing one family at the moment.

I don't plan on asking for The Sims 3 but it's just weird to see they're already coming out with it in less than a month. Huh!

My upside down tomato plant has a tiny tomato so far! It's still growing as a U-turn and the tomato plant is now taller than the pot's rim.

Anyone else creeped out by the whole Swine Flu situation? Every time I check, it's getting worse. I feel like there should be some "Day 6" or something like that appearing around here. I'd hate to see "Day 100".

That would have to be ilea. vermifugethered hasn't been around in years. :\

The smell of Wisteria is overwhelming. I tried to take a picture of the wisteria that was still in the sun this late evening!



Here's some close-ups of the blooms.

Wow, I don't believe it. There's hummingbirds coming to the feeder that I put up just a few days ago. I thought it was way too early but I guess it's never early enough.

It's just surprising because tonight is supposed to be freezing. I didn't bother moving the plants back into the greenhouse though. I'll let them weather it out there. It shouldn't be that bad. It's just a pain in the butt when you lug everything out with lows in the 50s for a few weeks and then here comes this final frost out of the blue that may impede on the flowers. :\

I tried taking a picture to show how the air is just all yellow. It's a smog of pollen. It didn't turn out so well. The air is just so thick with all this yellow.

I made the mistake of stepping out to plant some seeds. I walked down the porch steps and paused to wave away the dust... only to find out that it's everywhere. YELLOW SMOG! I quickly came back in but I think the damage was already done. I feel a headache coming on and I'm starting to get tired. Ugh.

I guess I could head back out and just get the seeds planted. I planted some cucumber and zucchini seeds yesterday. I dug out a flowerbox that I thought would be neat for 3 or 4 Tiny Tim tomato plants. It all depends on how much soil there's left to work with. The bag is 3/4 empty. Hmm...

I am still planning on doing my vegetable garden where I wrap the soaker hose around in the big pots so that I can quickly turn the water on and hurry back in during the intense heat of summer. Last time I did my vegetable garden, I had to pour 3 watering cans of water per pot every early morning. I often had to water them again in the afternoon which was even worse. I can't complain. There were tons of cucumbers and yellow squash that summer. Zucchini didn't produce a single one though.

That reminds me. I need to write 'yellow squash seeds' on the list.

I refuse to take part in your
silly upside down-ish humor!

Gah! My tomato plant is curving his way up towards the sun - which I knew was going to happen but it was quite a surprise to step out in the rain and spot this U-turn! hehe. Should I... stake it? I imagine the weight of the tomatoes might straighten it out but I don't know how much growing it'll do while it's curving its way up. I'm also not sure how this thing can be staked upside down?

I finished the egg. Woohoo! It'll go out in the front lawn with that ugly rabbit for Easter.

( Because I are too big for your friends list! - Hanging Tomato Love! )

Instead of the bag-craze, I received this Upsy Downsy from Lowe's. A lot of wincing and cringing and "Please don't let this kill the plant when I squeeze the rootball through..." later... Got a hanging tomato plant! ;)

I haven't watered it though. The soil came from a bag that was pretty wet and we're expecting rain in a day or two. If this plant dies, at least I have seeds. I don't know. I think this tomato plant should do okay though.

After looking at how this planter worked, I looked around the yard and spotted *THREE* more planters that were made in the same fashion except the hole in the middle had a grill pattern. I could cut out the grill pattern and try more. Maybe even one with a Tiny Tim and see how much I could get out of it!

Anyone seen the commercials for those hanging tomato baskets? They're everywhere! I actually went to the plant nursery near here so that I could get my hands on a tomato plant so that I can try it myself.



Unfortunately, all the stores selling those upside down tomato baskets said they were all sold out when they put them on the shelves yesterday! Dang. I have to wait for the next shipment to come because I wouldn't mind trying one.

This plant is called "Better Boy" and looking it up online, I'm wondering if this tomato plant is the wrong type to use. Wouldn't it damage the planter when the plant got big enough? Hmm...

This is my last attempt and growing tomatoes. If this fails, I'm done with the normal variety. I have bad luck with them. However, the Tiny Tim did extremely well. I have some leftover seeds and am definitely planting some of those in pots.

I'm painting me a big easter egg.



I should've taken a picture of what it looked like before. It was dark blue, dark green, and red. My mother toted it over to me and said, "I hate the colors. Repaint it to bright pastel colors." Of course, I said 'okay'. Even though I seem to have develop a hatred for painting, I figure the egg isn't too detailed so I should be able to repaint it to bright colors. The smell of paint brought back memories of painting but ... eh... I just know if a pattern is too detailed, I will lose interest fast! There's a Gingerbread Train Station *still* waiting for me to prime and paint it but the idea of painting that station just... makes me flee while screaming in horror.

I feel sick to my stomack right now. It's the pollen. I went out to inspect my plants and see how they were doing. We had massive rains yesterday and this morning. I checked the jade plants to see if any rotted (some seem soft and dead from being frozen in the greenhouse during some really cold days - The heater didn't get turned on due to um... forgetfulness!). The jade plants are still sitting around but none of them are growing new leaves to indicate that they're still even functioning to some degree!



Both of my potted Crown of Thorns were quick to send out flowers before any leaves came out. That's pretty neat. It won't be long before those fast-moving black ants invade them again.

I use IE6 heavily until I re-installed IE8 a couple days ago. I don't think it's safe. Already, some weird program has installed itself and gives me random pop-ups to places like eHarmony and luxury cars. I ran Ad-Aware and it found nothing.

I'm trying Spybot next to see what's going on. The pop-ups don't stop coming even when the browser is closed.

EDIT: Well, spybot found a few things but nothing helped. I'm now getting a yofolufe.dll error every time I boot up and pop-ups are still happening. AVG free hasn't found anything either.

This is the second time in a row that IE8 has turned out to be a crappy idea. Guess I'll be formatting yet again and heading back to IE6.

It's pretty neat looking. Very heavy though. I'm not sure how well it'd work since it never gets cold here. *remembers the snowfalls* Well, what I should say is that it doesn't stay cold long enough at all. The blanket, if very hot, would only be taken out 3 or 4 times a winter. Hmmm...

It is pretty neat looking though.

I don't believe it. Flurries. It's supposed to drop to 19 tonight and it is currently 30 degrees right now. Wow. A bit of shame, really... A lot of plants started growing over the warm period and now another shocker is coming to kill them down. I believe plant-life will be struggling this year. Hopefully the bugs will be cut down too. They were getting plenty active the past week or so.

I wanted something to describe me instead of "Owl" or "Vampire". So I took 'Nocky' from 'Nocturnal'. It became a name of a dragon after awhile but it melted back into a username again.