I feel like I’m reaching a new stage of my life. As far back as I can remember, I’ve had no luck with plants. I just never understood how the whole growing thing worked, and really didn’t have much desire to know as well. I do enjoy plants, but never felt up to the task of having any of my own to take care of. It seems, all this has changed.

It starts with my best friend growing Water Lilies. He’s been growing them for almost a decade if I remember correctly. At one point, my wife finds out about this when he invites me to come up and take some pictures of his flowering plants, as they are beautiful and don’t flower all that often. Sadly, I never made it up to get the pictures, but I did get to see a few of his. Then, one day my wife is shopping for flowers for her work, and sees that they are selling water lilies there. She thinks that it would be fun, and that I’d enjoy it, and picks one up. I honestly have to wonder, if as she picked up the plant she had a moment of foretelling and could see what that single purchase would set off, if she would have let out a shriek of terror and thrown the offending plant away from herself… But there is no way to know such mysteries.

So, she brings home the plant, and we start to realize what this is going to take to get going… A large water tight pot, aquatic soil, aquatic plant food, special mesh pots to pot the plant in, cleaning equipment, anti mosquito chemicals, time, money… But figured what the heck, lets go for it! Our first attempt at planting Toby (yes, his name is Toby, I don’t know why) was a total failure. We didn’t understand we needed a mesh pot to put him in, and just dumped a ton of soil in the bottom of a large pot and ran with it from there. Turns out that pot wasn’t water tight… The next morning, poor Toby is almost back out into the world of the dry. So back out on the hunt for a better pot, and mesh thingy to hold the plant, and other various things…  So we’ve ended up with a 35 gallon mini pond out on our balcony.  Toby is alive, so far, and seems to be continuing along this path.  He’s sprouted several leaves, but as of yesterday non have opened up at the water’s surface… Hopefully in time they will.

So then, on a forum I read someone talked about this tropical plant called Synsepalum dulcificum, or the common name of Miracle Fruit.  Intrigued, I investigated more.  I could do a full post on the fruit itself, but will limit to saying when you eat one, for up to an hour sour/bitter things taste sweet.  Check out the Wiki on it for more details.  So I decided I could spend several dollars to get the fruit shipped out to me… or spend a few more dollars to get a plant and get a somewhat endless supply of my own, that I can use for years to come.  With the success of Toby not being dead after a month or so, we decided to buy a plant and give it a shot.  Problem being, it’s a tropical plant and needs warm temperatures and high humidity… Which in my current location, those two things are not all that common.  So we decided to make a small greenhouse for just the plant, and get a small Grow Light to give it some sun.  While planning for this, I started thinking about other plants I had been interested in…  To make a long story short… er…  We just bought a 4 foot wide grow lamp, and are planning on turning our 2nd bathroom into a rather large green house to grow at least one banana plant, and 2-3 citrus trees…  My friend with the water lily warned me about this from the beginning.  I should have listened.

Now, I know so many of you have been waiting to hear if the Remastered version of 5th Element is better than the version I had originally.  I did end up buying it, because I seem to be unable to own every version I can of that movie… Yes, I even have it on VHS.  It’s actually rather cruel that the packing for the two different versions is only slightly different, and there is no mention anywhere other than the SKU information that there is really a difference in the two copies.  But, I have watched the remastered version, and can tell you that there is a HUGE difference.  It’s not perfect, as I did notice a few scratches in the first few minutes, but it’s good enough that when I stopped looking for them they were as good as gone.  The issue with the “static” over everything has been resolved as well, which is a huge bonus as that was almost as distracting as the scratches.

So, if you are looking to get 5th Element on Blu-Ray, then make sure you get the remastered version.  If anyone has any desire, I’ll post images of the differences between the two copies so you can make sure not to make the same mistake I made.  Hooray for high definition!