Thursday, September 20, 2007

Bad knitting, good presents and leafy fun...and oh yes..a fly

Sweater news first. I managed to snap a lousy pic of the icky front. Go on, take a gander.

UGH

I've frogged it and am redoing without shoulder shaping, which you can see in the pic...looking horrendous. UGH.

On a happier note, I just received my birthday pressie - a day early (good timing!). All the way from home. I miss my family.

Bday presents

It's the very very cool Ipod Nano, from my little bro. Isn't he the best brother in the world?

Warning: Non-knitting content ahead.
Last week a bunch of us were taken to MARDI (Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute) by our university to understand and get a first hand view of organic farming. It was a mellow experience. This organisation however was making waves in Malaysia with their research that inevitably bettered the crop production of the country.

However, I do have a question. Would y'all prefer organic crops that haven't been sprayed with pesticides or any other chemicals to genetically enhanced, highly nutritious, high-yielding crops? Would you mind picking up organic veggies that have teensy holes...cos...well...no pesticides so it's really party time for that dang catterpillar.

I'm not too sure what I'd pick. No chemicals sure does appeal, but to me, so do the genetically enhanced ones.

Oh yeh, they have a couple of scary ass chickens, whose dung is used as fertiliser (!!!) in organic farming. I've never seen chickens so HUGE. Damn it's like seeing Chicken Little on steroids. Here's one that was camera shy:

Organic Chicken making a run for it
Trust me, it was huge.

While we're talking about veggies, here's what our Crop science project looked like a few weeks ago:

Crop Science Project
Aren't they purty? Unfortunately, the whole lot is right now drying in an oven. How sad is that?

Warning: Grossness ahead
Just for funsies, a picture of a mutated fly (Drosophila). The red dots are eyes. And yes you do see eyes all over the fella.

Drosophila

The fella was knocked out using ether and then used for the photoshoot. I've got more, but then y'all would just be totally grossed out. Lets not have that shall we? =)

Lis, am still thinking about things about me for your meme. Will post it soon =)

That's all for today. Happy Knitting everyone!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, did I miss your birthday? With all the drama going on round here lately, I'm not surprised... Happy birthday hun!
And thank you for your lovely comments regarding Sheeba. x

PS: I prefer organic. Definitely.

alt.ayu said...

Happy Happy Birthday!!! ;) Wishing you good health and a fruitful year ahead!!

Anonymous said...

Happy birthday Rain! What a cool brother, wanna trade? I'll give you two for the price of one. ;)

Mira said...

lucky lucky woman! enjoy your ipod! me so JJJJ ;p ;p

R a i n said...

Thank you everyone for the sweet comments.

I really appreciate it more than you will ever know!

Jennifer said...

I'm finding that fly picture to be kinda disturbing. Eww....

I'd still eat the organic produce. I'm just not a big fan of all the pesticides.

Jackie said...

A very happy birthday wishes to you.

alltangledup said...

Happy birthday!

You open up an interesting point on what people what to eat, I think that there are 3 choices: organic, traditionally farmed (with pesticides) and gentically modified. My personal preference is for organic and traditionally farmed. I'm not keen at all on genitically modified since introducing new genes may have some unexpected effects not obvious for long terms.

alltangledup said...

happy birthday!

I think that there are actually 3 possible choices: organic, traditional farming (pesticides) and gentically modified crops. The first 2 are ok for me. The last one isn't since you can't tell what long-term damage you can introduce through human assisted changes.

Pr3tty* Knitty~ said...

happy happy birthday Rain!!!
huggggg

Annie said...

Happy & Blessedd Birthday! I plant some veg & fruits in my garden, absolutely no pesticides! :)