Talking about HBO. Just watched two episodes of the wire. Not sure of the series number. Waiting for the good citizens of Baltimore to take out a class action. Must be millions to extracted from HBO. It cannot be all true.... Thought i would look up the murder rates of countries on google. Course i found a lot a guff from the gun lobby, but i did find some figures that might be solid. About .04 per 10000 for the USA. About .015 for Australia. Heaven alone knows for Baltimore. Anyway, I love The Wire, the Sopranos. etc etc.

There are a few plants that will take really low light but even those will find it hard to survive with only 1% UV light. You might want to designate one or two windows for your plants and use the window treatment on the rest.

I live in the Pacific Northwest and bring my potted citrus in each winter. Usually, I just put it in a poorly lit corner with an incandescent and minimal watering. Yes the fruit will hold, and I have an orange tree that will even bloom under those conditions ( much to my surprise ), but will not set fruit ( not to my surprise ). Don't let them get TOO dry, though. However, this year, I brought them into the living room and set up a lot of grow lights. I have two very small Meyer Lemons, one of the original type and on improved. Both are sharing 24" fluorescent grow lights with other plants, and both are blooming. You can buy these 24" fixtures, including the bulb for $10 or less at Walmart or sometimes the supermarket. The light usually has a reddish color. You can replace the bulb, and if you do, get a sunlight bulb, or, if you want to spring for it, a full spectrum bulb (garden shop). If you have a lot of space and want a bigger indoor garden, get a 48" shop light which holds two bulbs. Put in one sunlight bulb and one daylight bulb ( which will look blue next to the sunlight bulb ). Suspend this from a chain and hook in the ceiling. This gives a good light combination. Incidentally, YOU TOO will enjoy these lights, especially on dark winter days. If you are growing them with a lot of light, though, check the soil constantly. They can use a lot of water -- just don't over water. I don't know whether these can self pollinate. Maybe someone could tell me? Mona Everett

I think the Internet is WONDERFUL! I have learned so much from it. Thanks to search engines, you can find whatever you're looking for really fast. Not like when you used to have to go to the library and thumb through books for hours. Plus you can "meet" so many nice people on forums like these that will share their ideas and expertise. I am all in favor of kids going to school on the computer. My grandsons had such a tough time in school. One of them was bullied constantly. I had to take him to counseling to learn how to blow off the things some of the other kids would say and do to him. They would stick their legs out into the aisle as he was walking down it, just generally do or say anything they thought of. If the teacher couldn't catch them doing it, they didn't get disciplined, and they were always smart enough to do it when the teacher couldn't see. My other grandson was a class clown, disrupted the classroom, every teacher hated him. He thought everything was funny. Teachers don't have many disciplinary tools available to them, makes it impossible to teach. If they could've stayed home and got their education on the computer, it would've solved both problems. At least they wouldn't have to have any contact with kids they didn't want to be around, they could invite their friends over, though. A lot of the teachers at the high school where DGS goes are not computer literate. It's really hard to deal with that, they don't answer their e-mails and they don't post the grades very well on the school's website. When I can see the grades and the assignments, it helps me a lot to know if DGS is holding up his end. I can also see if he was tardy or had some other discipline. I don't go to parent/teacher conferences any more. I just watch the website, and I give my e-mail to each teacher at the beginning of the semester. If they need me, they know how to get me. If they can't use e-mail, they can call me. I admit, I don't get out as much. But, it saves gas and wear and tear on my vehicle. People on the computer don't care how I'm dressed or if I haven't done my dishes yet. If I wake up at 5am I can still get online and see what people wrote who like to stay up late. If somebody is ugly to you, you can choose to ignore them. Harder to do in person, eh? Unfortunately, it's easier for some to be ugly to people on forums because it's still impossible to send your fist as an attachment. LOL ;~) I don't think anybody has a super-clean house anymore. I've been to people's houses unexpectedly and they always apologize all over the place about "the mess". I just tell them, "I've got one at home JUST LIKE THIS!" Then they relax. I try to keep my living room picked up and my dishes done and counters clean in the kitchen. We've got a dog that sheds more than I ever, in a million years, would've believed, so we have to vacuum every two or three days and I'm grateful for hardwood floors. But I don't mop as often as I should and my little "office", where my computer is, is littered with piles of papers and packages of garden seed, CD's, seed catalogs, recipes and such. It keeps me out of DH's way for a few hours every day. I do take a break from the computer to watch our favorite TV programs with DH every day and I spend time out in the garden when the weather allows. I have a quilt in the works and a sewing project on the sewing machine. The cat comes in and walks on my keyboard for me every now and then and the dog lays on the floor behind my chair, so I can't make any sudden movements. All in all, I'd say the computer allows me to have a pretty decent life. Better than the alternative of becoming best friends with the woman who lives across the street, and all she wants to do is talk about her illnesses (real and unreal) and cry about how soon she thinks she's going to die..... (she'll probably outlive ME) I learned to type on a rebuilt Royal because they didn't even have electric typewriters yet. THAT's how old I am.