Sunday, September 30, 2012

Full Metal Gecko: 
For Queen and Country at the Great NorCal Tomato Battle of 2012

OK - so this one is random - even by my (very) relaxed standards.  Today's adventure was to head over to the lovely town of Pleasanton (its very pleasant there, apparently) for an afternoon of fragrant fruit flinging in none other than the 2012 NorCal Tomato Battle!   http://tomatobattle.com/info/  I'm not sure who entirely to blame for this one (I think it might have been Living Social) and it wasn't even a forfeit for the GL&LC, so guilty as charged m'lud.   I was again dragging Lori along with me to keep me company for this salsa insanity, so headed out to meet her in Walnut Creek first for lunch, before we headed over to the Pleasanton Fair Grounds for War.

I'm not sure quite how this happened but, somewhere along the way yesterday, it was somehow decided that I would be going into battle in Full Metal Gecko costume, accompanied by my trusty companion, the Potato of Destiny and Despair.  Since his outing on the Ducks last Sunday and his turn at the wheel, he'd been on my case to go out again (I think he just wants to go out and get smashed).  Anyway, who am I to deny the P of Double D, so I helped him sellotape his eyes, mouth, ears and nose into place so as to withstand the tomatoey onslaught later on, packed my gecko outfit and hopped into the car to drive over to meet Lori.  The Gecko outfit had been purchased for my first ever Halloween party at Sudler back in 2008 and, unfortunately, it didn't survive that initial outing unscathed, the big red wine splat down the front prompting it's renaming as Sloppy Gecko.  So this time, Sloppy Gecko was out for redemption (and yes, I really was sending a work email to a client when that was taken!).

The weather was absolutely BAKING - it's on days like these I realize how shitty the weather is in San Francisco compared to the rest of California and I can understand the whinging and moaning of folk who bitch about the SF fog and cold.  It had to be in the upper 80's - just the ticket for getting dressed up in a full gecko outfit.  But, the sky was blue and the sun was shining, I'd been singing along to my new Train CD in the car (coming soon in Part 2 of the Penguins and Pyjamas...) so life was good!!  There was (as usual) a bit of traffic near the Caldicott Tunnel, but other than that, it was a pretty smooth drive over to WC.  Before heading over to the Fairgrounds, we stopped for lunch in Danville first at this great place called Peets where I had a delicious Paleo-compliant tri-tips and avocado caeser salad, chased down with a couple of jumbo prawns with a delicious tingly sauce!  Yum yum!!  So, but about 1.15pm, it was time to make our way over and, as we drew up to the parking lot, we got our first glimpse of the fruity forum, our tomatoey battleground.  

I'm not sure quite how many thousands of pounds of tomatoes were there, but there were a fair few.  And they SMELLED!!  They weren't rotten per se but there were distinctly niffy and squishy and you knew it wasn't going to take long before those bad boys liquified into a soupy mush!  The arena of salsa was fenced off until it was time to go into battle, but - just by sheer luck - just a few of us were allowed in early to take pictures of the tomatoes, introduce ourselves to our fruity foes and try not to get too saucy.


When in Roma....
Somehow resisting the urge to dive in, head first...
Where Comic Relief red noses come to die....

We sat and people watched for a bit, which was FASCINATING (lots of peeps very sh*tfaced already) before it was time to get in my costume and join the amassing throngs for the costume contest! Our car park buddies, who were not sober, were already in their *ahem* costumes - I can't remember what their names were but they were both Brits and the guy in his white underpants called himself (for some unknown reason) Marky Mark.  So I - of course- asked him about his Funky Bunch which seemed like an appropriate question, given his attire.  He seemed to find that suitably amusing and tried to give me a hug to show his appreciation for my wit.  Not so fast, drunk boy.  This Ninja Gecko ain't no soft touch...Plus you'll squash my paws.

Our sh*tfaced car park buddies -
 Marky Mark and his funky bunch

So i finished getting changed into my full get-up and was, of course, instantly roastingly hot.  But, it was completely worth it as as we were walking back into the Battlefield, we could hear lots of people exclaiming "look, its the Geico Gecko!". I did, indeed, just for a few moments feel Like A Complete Rock Star.  Or something.  No, Rock Star.  That was it.  Yes.  Armed with the P of Double D, we were ready to smash some tomato ass!!

***Ninja Gecko***
Walk Like an Egyptian Gecko 


Before the main splattage started, there was a live DJ playing lots of angry-sounding music (to get us into the fighting spirit, maybe?) (yes, yes - as opposed to a dead DJ, I know) as well as a costume contest that seemed to go on for an infinity.  And beyond.  I know I got through the first round of audience "Yeys" or "Nays" but then I got bored and we wandered off towards the tomato pen(ne?) as it  was obvious that the crowd's heart was set on a fat dude in pair of Bavarian leather shorts winning the grand prize.  And I thought the Folsom Street Fair was last weekend.

Gettin' yer teats out for the lads...
The crowd's favorite - Will Ferrell was the special 
guest star in traditional Bavarian dress
Reservoir Dudes

Anyhoo, anticlimatic costume competition over, it was finally time to let battle commence!!  We all grouped up around the pen, strategizing where we would go and what our plans were until *POW!* the gates were open and people were off!!  Running headlong into a big pile of warm, stinky tomatoes! We followed in about a minute after the first people had entered into the Pit Of Pith and already the fruit was flying.  And this was where the P of Double D came into his own.  Rather than gather and lob tomatoes individually, prolonging my exposure on the battlefield, I instead scampered into one of the big piles and, like a Roma-rampant squirrel, quickly gathered as many tomatoes as the P of Double D would carry, before scooting back out to the fringes, out of the main battle zone, fully laden with mushy missiles.  Freakin' genius.  The P of Double D was, indeed, a Fully Loaded Potato Head.  

Concealed Weapon....

What wasn't quite so genius was being on the battlefield wearing a bright green gecko costume.  I may as well have painted a big red bulls-eye on the front!!  I managed to avoid quite a lot of the craziness through effective deployment of my tomato-scoopage strategy, however, when I heard the juiced up battle cry of "GET THE GECKO!" I knew I was in trouble.  SPLAT!  SPLAT!  SPLAT!!  Ouch!! Those buggers hurt!!  In the end, I think I still got off pretty light, but i'm sure I'm going to have some interestingly placed and shaped bruises tomorrow - and i was very grateful I was wearing decent sunglasses to protect my eyes as, right at the end, I got a big fat tomato right in the face.  I can tell ya they taste even worse than they smell.....

So, after about half an hour of this (with Lori clinging even more to the fringes, staying out of the melee but instead taking some great videos), we were flung out so wearily made our way out of the Mosh Mush Pit, Lori taking a few tomatoey hugs along the way from guys who decided she looked way too clean!  We got back to the car without further incident, and - with a great deal of relief, I peeled off the gecko layers and picked the tomato seeds out of various nooks and crannies, scraped the squish off my face and marveled at the folks who were only just going in to Battle. 

A little light shopping before Battle
Saving people 15% or more on their car insurance
After.  I survived.

Tomatogeddon
The Tomato Squash Mosh Pit
And, so our first Tomato Battle had been done and won, and it was time to head home.  Driving back to Lori's (via the saddest, most melancholy Safeway's I've ever been in), her brand new car smell was slowly and insidiously being replaced with an overripe sweet Roma stench and - as i transferred my tomato-sodden gecko costume to my car - I, too, got to enjoy that delightful aroma on the drive home.  Traffic was as expected so it took me about an hour to get home so, all that was left to do, was to give the Potato of Destiny and Despair a thorough scrubbing and to thank him for a job very well done.  I feel we bonded today on a whole new level.  It's been really quite special.

Gettin' clean...

Drying out at the end of a long day.

A little snippet from Lori's view of the proceedings, safely on the fringes:


And from one of our fellow warriors - a video from a helmet cam to give you a sense of the carnage...


Or, if you want to know what it would have been like in the Heart Of Tomato Battle, here's the director's cut of the whole battle from soup to...err... soup, I guess. Be warned - this video is not for the faint of heart.....


Friday, September 28, 2012

A Night at the Museum: 
Penguins, Pyjamas and Highjinks at the California Academy of Science 

Here it is.  The post you've all been waiting for.  Its a long one, so its going to be a multi-chapter affair....  Its bonkers to think that a week ago, I was running around the California Academy of Science in my Angry Birds pyjamas and Doctor Who t-shirt with an Angry Bird and Pig in each pocket and an illicit cocktail in hand, but there you have it.  And what an absolute blast it was.  As you can imagine, I took just one or two or three hundred pictures, so its taken me a little time to go through them and process them and whittle them down to the forty or so below.  My partners in crime for the evening were the Trinity of Trouble, Lori, Sarah and Chana so here's how it all went down...

Phase I:  Arrivals and Ostriches
Honest, guv' - just the one night....
So after weeks of anticipation, the day had finally arrived!  It was time to get our Penguin on!!  The event was due to start at 6pm for registration and arrivals, so - of course - we wanted to arrive nice and early to bag a good spot at the front of the queue and be able to have our first pick of where to set up camp later on that night.  Fortunately, Sarah and Lori were as keen as I was to get there early, so we all rendezvoused at my place around 4.15pm, and headed over en masse.  Traffic wasn't as bad as expected, so we arrived by about 4.45pm - over an hour ahead of the doors opening!  But - as you can see - we weren't the first to arrive!  There were two lines, so we plumped for Line 1 and the girl at the head of it (who'd come to the very first P&P last year) had actually been on line since 2pm that afternoon!  Reassuring there was at least one person more bonkers than us!  And - contrary to what the picture looks like - we really were only staying overnight but there is a lot of gear to lug, what with blow-up mattresses, pillows, Angry Birds, Wildlife Bingo, sleeping bags, slippers etc!  But it was fun to wait in line and people-watch - we were very curious to see what the rest of the crowd would be like - would it be a glorified version of the (in)famous Thursday evening Nightlife at the Academy parties which are a huge party/meat market and turn into a shagfest OR would it be full of assorted geeks, nerds and science-heads all eager to boffin out at all the exhibits?  I was delighted to report it was the latter.  And, though I did spot some brave chaps on line, it was predominantly women, though the gender ratio did seem to balance out later on in the evening.

The benefit of arriving early - yeah!!!

Anyway, it was very pleasant to stand outside in the early evening sun and strategize our strategies for where to sleep.  I'd had a FB message from a friend saying "Don't sleep in the aquarium - they cover the tanks at night and the pumps will keep you awake - sleep in Africa Hall or near the penguins instead".  So that got added to the critical questions list to interrogate the staff with.

After an hour of patiently waiting, it was finally time!!  The doors opened and we were in!  Checking in, there were 3 zones to choose from to sleep in - the aquarium, Africa Hall and the Swamp.  Obviously we chose the aquarium as Sarah was keen to sleep with the fishes, non-mob style!   The next step was to go and drop our bags off in a tented enclosure out the back of the Academy - this is where all our kit would get stored until it was time to set up our sleeping areas.  So, with eyes wide as we scampered through the museum collectively coo-ing about just how DAMN COOL this was, we headed over - and that's when we first saw the baby ostriches!  I can't emphasize enough how completely adorable and cute they were (and a bit stinky too, but lets cut them some slack here) - the pictures just don't really do them justice!!  As the lights were still on in their enclosure, only about half of them were asleep with their long necks stretched out in the sand as if the strain of holding their heads aloft all day was just too much.  The others were awake and hanging out and, as people started to gather round their enclosure, they got more interested in us, so came over to investigate and say hello.  

Periscopes Up!!
A ridiculously fluffy bundle of weird cuteness
So we oo-ed and aah-ed over them for a wee while, before heading out to explore the rest of the museum.  We'd been given a schedule of events from opening til about 2am and - chatting with Scott, one of the organizers, this year they didn't have quite so many things overlapping, so that people didn't have pick and choose over competing activities.  Sounded like a good plan to me.  We were curious how many people were going to be attending and Scott told us that they had deliberately limited the number of tickets to about 300, so as to keep the event small and manageable.  BONZA!!  300 people in that huge museum and exhibition space?  No wonder it felt as if we had the place to ourselves!!  'cos we pretty much did!!  It was brilliant!!  Being able to wander round and look at all the exhibits outside of the craziness and crowds that pack the space during regular opening hours (particularly at the weekends when there are soooooo many kids racing about) was a real privilege.

So, next up was the Tropical Rainforest or, as it became known (at least in my head...)

Phase II: The Taking of Butterfly Mountain
Here's the blurbage from the Academy's website explaining the rainforest exhibit and some of the animals, plants and wildlife contained within it:

The rainforest is contained within a spectacular 90-foot diameter glass dome. It's the largest spherical rainforest exhibit in the world.
Follow a spiraling path up through the exhibit, experience what it's like to actually walk in a real rainforest. Temperatures are maintained at 82-85 degrees Fahrenheit, and humidity is maintained at 75% or above using a unique misting system.
The rainforest is teeming with 1,600 live animals - including 250 free-flying birds and butterflies, 100 exotic reptiles and amphibians. There's also 100,000 gallon "Flooded Forest" tank, where hundreds of tropical freshwater fish cruise overhead.
Each level represents a different rainforest around the world - Borneo, Madagascar, Costa Rica and the Amazon. Each level represents a distinct rainforest habitat containing its own special zoological garden.
Eighty skylights in the roof, supplemented with metal halide lights, enable the growth of lush, tropical plants found in various rainforests around the world.
Living plants include numerous trees - such as the Brazilian beautyleaf and West Indies mahogany, dozens of shrubs - including Theobrama cacao, the plant from which chocolate is made, and hundreds of flowering plants - from begonias and philodendrons to orchids and bromeliads.


Impressive, huh?  And even more so when you have pretty much the run of the place to yourself!!  I think when we first went into the rainforest, it was just me, Lori and Sarah (Chana had yet to arrive, being not quite as bonkers as we all were!) in the whole exhibit which was fantastic!!  The thing that you are struck with as soon as you enter into the rainforest (through a set of double doors, to prevent anything from inadvertently escaping) are all the butterflies.  BIG ones and lots of them!!  They were everywhere!!  And simply stunning.  Some of them were so huge, it was like a insectoid flying carpet.  I (obviously) took loads of pictures and as we curled up around the spiral path, we saw amazing birds, reptiles, snakes, fishes, crazy-assed plants, an ant farm (hmm...) as well as a myriad of butterflies of all sizes and hues.  It was really well done, especially with each level representing a different forest (which I didn't realize at the time - i was just too busy taking pictures of butterflies!).  The only downside was the tropical humidity which was causing my hair to have Houston-style flashbacks and start to puff out bigger than a pissed-off Lionfish.  So, in lieu of you being with me there in the rainforest, here are some of my favorite pics.  We came, we saw and we conquered Butterfly Mountain.

Big bugger of a butterfly 
Bird 
Wistful bird, gazing artfully into the distance
Hang on!!!!
Not a butterfly.  Sarah hopes to attract a few passing
 Lepidoptera with her choice of fashion 
This little guy could save you 15% or more on your car insurance
Wha' you lookin' at?
Mmm...spiky AND delicious.
The fabled Curly Tongue Butterfly
 Butterfly yoga. 
At the juice bar
Showing off...
Another bird with attitude... 
Australian Butterfly
The Urban Commuter Butterfly, waiting for the elevator
Fat knacker finch.
Obviously squatter fat is a cross-species phenomenon 
Spooky Halloween Butterflies congregating and plotting
world domination.  They'd better be quick... 
Arty farty shot.
And thus Butterfly Mountain was well and truly "done" and it was time to move on to our next adventure.  Phase III and its a fishy business....

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

And its about bloody time!!  Week 5 Results of the Get Lean and Loopyliscious Challenge....

Finally.  The Svengali-like hold my microwave has had over my bathroom scales would appear to have been broken.  I'm guessing my Paleo Diet clubbed it over the head into submission and dragged it back to its own corner of the kitchen.  I'll post a longer breakdown of the highlights of Week 5 tonight but - for those of you awaiting the results today with bated breath - bate (?) no longer cos here they are.....

Weekly target: 1.5lbs
Weight loss acheived this week: 3.3lbs

WHOOO-HOOO!!!  About freakin' time!!  Finally, the hard work in the gym with bad-ass Natalie, coupled with a week's worth of eating like a cavelady, has paid off and we are starting to see some downward movement on the scale.  I even got congratulated by my Slacker Tracker - and that hasn't happened for a looooooong time, so all in all a GREAT result this week.  And - what's even better - that forfeit selected by Cap'n John on Sunday during International Duck Day can damn well stay in the Potato of Destiny and Despair for another week cos I AM SAFE!!!  (albeit with a roller disco forfeit still left to do, but even still....).

And so, onwards and downwards into Week 6.  YEAH!!!

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Bill and Ted's Most Excellent Terrarium Workshop!
Bill:  "Duuuuuude!  What day is it?" 
Ted: "Duuuuuuude!  Its Sunday morning, man!" 
Bill: "Whoah, Ted. What happened to Saturday?" 
Ted: "It was most triumphant, Bill.  We went back in time and met some totally egregious old dead people and rocked out our History term paper"
Bill:  "Whoah.  That sounds bodacious, Ted.  And what are we doing today, dude?"
Ted: "Today, we are going to have another most excellent adventure"
Bill: "What's that, dude?"
Ted: "We're going to learn how to build a completely bodacious terrarium"
Bill" "Whoah.  Totally non-bogus, dude" 
 BOTH AIR GUITAR
Bill: "What's a terrarium?  Is that one of those teenage ninja turtle dudes?"
YEAH!!  Plants in little glass houses!!
(OI! Stop throwing those stones, you plants!)
And so it came to pass that an otherwise normal Terrarium class, held in a very quaint old workshop in the Mission District on a Sunday morning, became the unwitting scene for the re-emergence of everyone's favorite stoners from the Nineties.

It all began, as the best stories do, quite normally and with nothing but the slight frission of excitement in the air, borne on the promise of creating something potentially quite lovely, but without risk to life and limb.  The location for the Terrarium workshop was an offshoot of the famous Paxton Gate store, home of a whole assortment of weird, wonderful and improbable artifacts of various shapes, sizes, groups and genera and formerly home of the now liberated Puff Ducky.  This was the place they use to do all the kids workshops and it was a delightful old building - full of interesting stores, artsy-places and eager entrepreneurs doing terribly worthy stuff.  Plus us upstairs constructing terrariums.

I met Karen at around 10.50am, coffee in hand, ready for our class to start at 11am.  We were the first to arrive and meet our instructor for the class, an uber-cool hipster chick called Franny whose passion for plants rivaled that of Xander's for bees (maybe I should introduce them to each other to err... cross- pollinate?).  She was covered in cool tattoos and piercings and wearing some acid-washed jeggings -and was, of course, young enough not to have been alive the first time acid wash jeans were in fashion, back in my tragic fashion decade of the 80s.  As Karen adroitly remarked, "everyone seems to be about 25 in this town".  True, very true.  *sigh*  

Anyway, folk started to filter in, until there were about 8 of us round the table.  It was an interesting bunch of people - Karen and I were too busy catching up to really chat with anyone else, but everyone seemed normal enough, so finally we were just waiting on the last two to arrive.  Franny left it til a few minutes past the hour and then got started, as it would be easy for the late comers to catch up as she would be spending a good half an hour or so telling us all about the history of the terrarium, the different types and general principles regarding their construction, care and maintainence.    
And that's when Bill and Ted turned up.  

God only knows what those two were on, but there were definitely on something.  And quite possibly everything.  They were absolutely off their heads.  There did seem to be one of them who was fractionally smarter than the other one (but its all relative) based on the fewer number of conversational dudes per minute or DPM count.  You can see both of them at the other end of the table to me - the one as completely dumb as the rocks we were filling the terrarium with was in the baseball cap and he literally didn't stop giggling and DPM'ing the whole workshop.  The other one, in the bright yellow t-shirt and still wearing the entry wrist band for whatever club they'd been to the night before (it probably wasn't the California Academy of Science) actually managed to gather together enough coherent words to ask a couple of questions, which surprised the rest of the class no end.   Bless 'em.

Bill (yellow) and Ted (cap, on end) DPM
their way through class
But, anyway, they livened up the group and everyone got plenty of exercise in the eye-rolling and the barely-perceptible head-shaking department, so no need to go to the gym later on (this was before the Crunchy Bicycle Chain Revelation would rain down upon me).  And they had only missed the history part which I think was probably a blessed relief for their little brains - those poor cerebral hemispheres had their work cut out for them simply trying to ensure co-ordinated hand-eye movement with the maintenance of sphincteral control.

First, sniff your terrarium.
But, down to business.  Random terrarium factoid #1 - they were invented by the Brits!!  Huzzah!!  I can't remember the name of the chap who invented them, but I do recall that he was originally trying to study a silk worm (brought back from some tropical locale) and - to keep it warm - constructed a basic glass frame to put over it, to protect it from drafts and keep it alive long enough so he could study its lifecycle.  Alas, that particular experiment failed, as the silk worm died - however, he noticed something else very interesting instead.  He'd included in the glass jar some dried up old moss for the worm to live on and - though the worm died - noticed that there were suddenly little green sprouts appearing and that a little fern was starting to grow.  He was very excited by this, particularly as the fern was one he had been trying to grow outside in his (rain-sodden, sunlight-lacking) English garden with no success.  Thus the terrarium was born and soon gave rise to a thriving industry that was, at least in the beginning, very much a rich man's hobby due in large part to the exorbitant and exquisitely costly glass taxes that were imposed in England at that time.  It was also a time of exploration, with huge expeditions going overseas and discovering new lands and plants and different species for the very first time, so ships would have on board shelves and shelves full of terrariums so that the explorers and botanists and scientists of the day could bring back thousands of specimens alive, rather than dried up plant cuttings and pressed flowers.

So that was all fascinating stuff (although a dangerous amount of information for Bill and Ted to absorb) and Franny certainly knew her stuff!  But we were definitely ready to get on in there and get our hands dirty after the history lesson was done, so let me now take you through how you build a terrarium.

A little known side effect of terrarium construction is the
uncontrollable urge to mug for any passing cameras
You're welcome.

Step 1 is to select the appropriate terrarium for the type of plant you are working with.  We had two plants - two succulents who are great candidates for terrariums because their root structures are very shallow and so occupy very little subterranean space.  Our glass container was very open, but you can get all different types - from the most open, like ours, to those that are enclosed - but not airtight.  Obviously, the more enclosed your terrarium, the more water it will retain - so terrariums with little to no opening are considered best for moisture-loving plants such as ferns, orchids, some air plants and carnivorous plants.   Karen and I were both excited to hear that they will be offering both orchid and carnivorous plant terrarium classes in the future, so that will be fascinating.  The other main thing to consider is placement - under glass, stuff gets a lot hotter, so you obviously don't want to put it into direct sunlight.  That would be bad and you would have a cooked plant.  Instead you want to put it in diffuse sunlight - and here's a neat trick whereby you can find the perfect place.  Hold your hand up to the wall.  If you can clearly see the outline of your hand, its shape clearly visible against the wall, that is direct sunlight.  If you hold your hand up against the wall and you can still see a shadow, but its fuzzy and ill-defined that, my hopeful herbalist, is diffuse sunlight.  Bingo!  Terrarium nation!

Anyway, when you've selected your terrarium and you have your plants, you need to put a thin layer of soil on the bottom.  You can also place it on a rolled up circle of tissue paper, as i've done below, if you want to tilt it slightly so that you build up the layers at a fun angle.

Step 1: add a thin layer of soil
Step 2 is to add a layer of charcoal so that it just covers the soil.  The purpose of the charcoal is to help keep the water cycling through your terrarium clean and algae free.  You can also add pebbles to provide some extra drainage if you like.

Step 2: The Charcoal.
Not sure where i'm supposed to grill the burgers though..
After the charcoal, then it was time to get mucky and add a 2' deep layer of soil to the top.  I can't remember the exact composition of the soil but it had these little crumbly white bits in it, that were made of some special mineral or other and hadn't been touched by human hands before we got our porky little fingers into the soil bag! (the terra equivalent of Fuji mineral water, I guess).

Step 3: Special Soil.  With extra for the tray for luck.
Ooops.  The Terrarium Destroyer
claims its first victim

Once the soil was in, then it was time to carefully place the plants.  Tapping them gently out of their little tubs, you then equally gently shake free some of the soil from the root ball structure, before placing them into a knuckle-deep hole that you've made in the soil.  You then pack them in with additional soil so that they are stable and don't wobble around.  This is when you also get creative with rocks and pebbles - both for decoration as well as to help hold the plants in place.  After the adornments with rocks, pebbles, colored glass and various mosses and lichens are complete, just give them the tiniest squirt of water using a nozzled water bottle, directly to the soil at the base (rather than onto the plant directly) and - shazam! there you have your very own terrarium!

Unless you are Karen and you don't know your own strength and happen to destroy your first one by accident!

I was actually pretty pleased with mine - here's how it turned out (all planted to the tunes of Bob Marley and Kate Bush on the radio - I told you, Hipster Nation!!)

Front
Side
The Other Side
The Back Side (steady)

Terrarium Stereo.  (think they were around in the 80's too..)
So, a job very well done, I think.  A very easy way to feel very productive on a Sunday morning without having to either do any housework or go to the gym.  I will leave you with a picture of our graduating classmates and our precious little planted prizes.  I will also leave you with probably the quote of the day, from our favorite stoners and newly-minted terrarium warriors, Bill and Ted:

Bill: "I want to make a hybrid animal" (upon hearing that Paxton Gate also offers taxidermy workshops)
Ted: "How long before my brain starts sprouting flowers?" (enquiring as to the blooming cycle of the Lithop plant)

Class of 2012.  DUUUUUDE!!