Asian Tiger

Mother in-law’s tongue also known as the snake plant or the Sansevieria, is an excellent indoor ornamental plant for offices, homes and buildings.  This plant is also called the “bedroom plant” because it converts carbon dioxide (CO2) to oxygen (O2) at night.

Besides the precious conversion to oxygen, this plant is able to purify the chemical formaldehyde.  Examples of where this chemical exists are foam insulation, plywood, pressed-wood products, grocery bags, waxed paper, fire retardants, adhesive binders in floor coverings and cigarette smokes.

We will need 6-8 waist-height plants per person for air purification.

As far as I know there are 2 methods to grow the Mother in-law’s tongue:

1. Re-potting - From an existing plant, lift the plant and look for shoot or offsets. Cut though the flesh that is attached to the parent plant and pot it.
2. Cuttings -  From the stem, cut 4 inches across the grain and pot it.  Beware of the orientation to ensure that you pot it the right side up.  In about 4 weeks, you will have a mother in-law’s tongue plant.  If you see new offsets, you can re-pot those as well to propagate more plants.

In both instances of growing, ensure that the soil is moist and not soggy.  Water minimally once a week but before that, test to ensure that the soil is dry before watering. This is because the mother in-law’s tongue dislikes over-watering where the root will rot.

For a couple of weeks, my body became the feeding ground of bed bugs.  Almost every night, bed bugs fed on my blood which saw their them surviving and me suffering from intense itch, not to mention the possibility of contracting some dreaded disease from these nocturnal pests.

There are several methods to get rid of bed bugs as listed below:

1. Move out of your home for 12 months - this is known to get rid of bed bugs because they will die from not feeding on you. However, cockroaches will be the head of your home.
2. Take a big piece of fabric and seal the entire mattress in it - because your mattress is sealed, no bed bugs can get in or out of it causing all bed bugs and their youngs to starve inside the mattress.  They will die after 6 to 12 months or so, therefore, you cannot remove the mattress cover for that period.  I tried using a large plastic sheet sealed around the mattress but it caused uncomfortable sleep and heat too.  The other fact I found was that this method is good only to kill bed bugs in your mattress but not entirely since bed bugs can live just about anywhere; bed frames, cracks in the wall, curtains, etc.
3. Drown them - bed bugs die easily when immersed in water.  Wash all your linens, fabrics (bed sheet, curtain, clothing, etc) that is in the room.
4. Sun everything - take your mattress out into the sun and let the sun ray do their magic.  Remember to turn the mattress over for a good and even tan. If possible, take your bed frames out for sunning.  If you are really desperate, move your furnitures out into the sun too.  The heat from the sun either kills them or makes them leave.
5. Use insect aerosol - Spray them with insect aerosol. I targeted the bed frames and furnitures but made one critical mistake, I used a non-water based aerosol which made my furnitures all oily and sticky.  Your room will stink for a few days, trust me on this.
6. Use steam to kill bed bugs - Heat from the steam makes bed bugs pop like making popcorn. And if you are wondering where to get steam to the room, I used a steam iron.
7. Call for professional help - if you can afford their fees.  Any pest-control company should know what to do.

Good night;
sleep tight;
don’t let the bed bugs bite.

I’ve just bought my Sony PSP. Instead of jumping straight into games, I want to connect my PSP to the Internet. My home WiFi service is heavily fortified with MAC Address filtering. That means, even though you may get connected to my WiFi signal, you will not be able to access my network.

Therefore, in order for my PSP to get connected to my home WiFi and subsequently to the Internet, I needed to add my PSP’s MAC address into the network whitelist. Doing that is simple but getting my PSP’s MAC address was not. I had to search around the Internet for it (and yes, I’m too lazy to read the PSP’s manual)

To get your PSP’s MAC address, go to the home menu, select System Settings and press the circular X button. Select System Information and press the circular X button again.  You will now be able to view your MAC address.

By the way, my PSP is Felicia Blue.