In the Southeast, we call the Cotinis nitida, a June Bug. It is the cousin of the Cotinis mutabilis, and the two cross breed in Texas where their ranges overlap. They both look almost exactly like a Japanese Beetle and causes the same damage to plants. The larvae grubs of all three eat the roots off your plants. The adult of all eat three leaves and fruit off your plants. Earthworms and beneficial bacterial and fungi will all three break down your compost without eating your plants. I still don't understand why people would want to encourage either kind of June Bugs to breed in their yard any more than they would want Japanese Beetles to do so. Unless you like making compost for some use other than growing plants, it seems to me it would make sense to take measures to discourage them from breeding in your compost pile than than trying to encourage them. It sort of reminds me of an old joke where a young boy notices a farmer going back and forth past his house with truck loads of manure. When he asks the farmer what he was doing with all that manure, the farmer said he was putting on his strawberries. The young boy replied, "I like sugar and cream on mine, but lots of people say I'm strange." The only use I've ever found for either June bugs or Jap Beetles was when I was a young (decades before the iPod, Facebook, or Twitter), me and other kids in the neighborhood would catch June bugs and tie a lasso of sewing thread around their abdomen. We would then set on the grass in the middle of the yard and watch the pesky buggers fly around in huge circles at the end of a long string. The object of this endeavor was to see who could catch the biggest June bug that could fly in the biggest circle for the longest time. Don't ask me why we thought it was fun. I guess we took our aggression out on bugs instead of beating homeless men to death as kids do nowadays for entertainment. Popillia japonica - Japanese beetle -------------------------------------- Cotinis mutabilis - Western June Bug - Green fruit beetle - Figeater beetle -------------------------------------- Cotinis nitida - Southeastern June Bug - Green beetle Even though there are slight difference between the two June bugs, the damage they've done to the leaves of the plant in both pictures is very similar.

I see you get it - understand - Lux and Gean - that is good descriptions. But like Ingrid wrote - a garden in the state of perfection is just fleeting moment/sense/even feeling - how can a camera capture that? A camera can capture a perfect rosebush (Hoovb have captured - some of her magnificient rosebushes - the size we can only dream of over here) - but proving that perfection or garden ideals in California or elsewhere in the world for that matter are different. A camera can capture a perfect flower - a perfect rosebush - a perfect part/angle of the garden - but the quality of the picture will reflect the quality of camera equipment - lighting conditions - time of day - humidity - and filters - photo-editing - layers etc. and not least the skill and knowledge of the person using it. A camera also only captures some angles of a garden - depending how we zoom in and and out and what we choose to capture/expose. A camera will never document a feeling of having reached perfection - and the fact that my idea and ideals of what constitute perfection and overwhelming, tearful joy - will or might be very different from others ideas or ideals of what a perfect garden is for them. But I sat there - and the beauty - flowed through me and touched me deeply - and tears began to flow - what I had hoped for - I sensed - I felt - I smelled - not just saw - I am afraid we have become to visual and in a day of age where we upgrade our digital cameras/lenses and photo-editing equipment all the time - we tend to forget that a garden speaks to other senses that just our vision/Eyes - but touches our whole body and soul. These days I am working on my new ugly plot too - it may never become beautiful - I could divide it into small garden vignettes or rooms - to use for temporary garden articles - showing plant combinations - but it will be "Artificial" - "staged" and the end result - will look great on pictures depending on the factors mentioned above about what a camera is able to capture and the following photo-editing that can manipulate near every aspect of a 18 mill. pixels - 8 MB RAW photo file. I just shared this moment of my love for roses and my garden - "perfection is probably is more than in the eye of the beholder" it is a fleeting feeling and it will not last - it will be hard to maintain - and like you know it takes work and years - and such moments may not come again - as all who have a garden and grow many roses - know all too well. I just hope that you one day might get the same feeling and you will KNOW what I tried to capture - I will take pictures - but the light is harsh - and today I might spot a yellowing leaf, a weed or 2 and before I know it I will be sweaty, have dirt under my fingernails - scratches from rosethorns because I forgot to wear glowes ... and it is hot as hell .... maybe perfection was just a day or 2 ago ... Well I better go out there ... No time to help Catsrose or blog right now Jimmy ... I will however...

From the response to the photo, you know it's hard to tell. The loose end on the red wire may be for a secondary drive, can't tell if the middle of it is attached to the silver enclosure on the bottom bay and whether that is a harddrive, usaually a harddrive is just screwed inside the bay and not in a enclosure. To me it looks like the harddrive should be the black area, it's gotta be one of the two bays on the bottom. The 2 at the top are CD/DVD or floopy or whatever shows on the front of computer. A local Mom and Pop computer shop would be able to tell you in a minute if you carried it in without the case, may not even charge you. I hope the comp usa extended warranty gets there soon, the kids must really be desperate to play with it by now!

You don't really want to be storing all your digital media on an iphone - just the content you may want access to on the phone - drop or lose the phone and well... start over! It sounds like what you may be looking for, at least for the videos, jpegs, and MP3 music, is what known as a DME (digital media extender) that connects to your television and home audio system. It then connects to you home LAN and can access files on your computer, a dedicated home media computer, or other network storage device that contains all your digital media. They typically have USB ports and SD card readers built in as well to read media off other devices. The Apple TV is an example of this but there are also solutions from several other manufacturers, as well. As pointed out, several Blu-Ray players have this capability built-in, as well as some televisions, with local media playback via USB as well as local area network playback. Since capabilities, file formats, and output quality and options can very greatly, you'll really need to do some research. Since you haven't migrated to itunes yet, you may wish to explore the various options first as the itunes format may limit your choice of options. By the way, in looking around, the DME acronym has been made somewhat obsolete by the marketing people and products are often now called things such as Digital Media Players, Receivers, Renderers, and such. You may also wish to check for "DLNA" certification on the product to hopefully avoid DRM (digital rights management) issues.