My friend Neil is doing a comedy show on October 9th. If you have a chance, you should check it out.

Here’s a bit about the show in Neil’s own words:

Hi there! I’m excited to announce The Attack of the 1-4-5 Show, which invades Center City Philadelphia Friday, October 9. The show’s new venue is the Tuscany Café at 222 West Rittenhouse Square, at the intersection of Locust Street across from the Free Library. The ticket includes newcomer Mike Casey, 1-4-5 favorites Mike Eiswerth and Carolyn Busa, the amazing Joey Callahan, and of course, me.

Doors open at 8pm and admission is $10. Seating is limited so arrive early and, uh, often.

Hope to see you there!

Neil “Oh, not him again” McGarry

If it’s anything like his last show, it promises to be hilarious.

A few neat things from Friday’s issue of Science:

• Some bacteria use nitric oxide as a weapon against toxins in the soil or host organisms.
• Wind energy could be a viable alternative for China, if they are willing to make the investment.
• I’m not sure how to summarize this. I just think transposons are neat.

I went to Lowe’s on Thursday night to pick up some supplies for the new container garden. Unfortunately the fungus gnats (and the battle to get rid of them) decimated most of the existing plants. Only the basil and rosemary survived, and those are still not looking too well.

Still, I miss having growing things, so I’m going to try again my plan is to plant the following:

Lettuce mix (cut and come again) with Arugula thrown in
Snow Peas
Dill
Sage
Oregano
Thyme
Chives

The seeds are from a variety of sources.

I’ll be planting in stages, and will probably get some self watering container mix and trying out a non-organic potting mix for the non-self watering containers, since I seemed to have so many problems with the organic stuff before. (Unfinished compost can be bad stuff.)

On a final note, I saw some carnivorous plants at Lowe’s today: venus flytraps, purple pitchers, and one other type. They were in little plastic terrariums. I also saw some seed kits with biodegradable pots. I didn’t get any of these items, but I was tempted. I really should not be left alone in garden supply centers.

On that note, I will leave you with this image, from Le Jardin des Plantes Utiles in the Montreal Botanical Gardens.

To anyone who has lost a loved one today or any other day, my deepest condolences.

I’ve made some updates to the French Resources Page on this site. Most of them are speaking resources that allow you to find native speakers with whom to practice.

I’ve also added two lists of gender endings that I have used to help me figure out common patterns of gender. The first list is from about.com, the other is hosted here. There’s a good bit of overlap between the two, but also enough differences to make it worth noting both sites.

And below is a gratuitous picture of the flags of Montreal and Canada from my last trip.

I went to Boston in June to see some friends. I finally got around to processing my photos, all of which are from the Boston Public Gardens.

The full set is here.