Welcome to TsuKata's Org*
"No one should be this delicious!"
Monday, 12 May 2008
Braces Free!
I’m de-braced and re-tainered! Yes, yes, I know that I’d previously mentioned a delay to May 20th. But, my dentist, once the retainer came in and all was well, arranged to stay late today so that we could go ahead and deband me.
Next steps: Follow-up appointment in a few weeks to make sure the retainer is doing its job, followed shortly thereafter by a whitening treatment just to finish things up beautifully.
Here’s my retainer:
Here’s a before & after shot:
Here’s me wearing my retainer:
(As always, you can click each picture to make them larger.)
I have a wicked lisp now that is best described as reminiscent of either Stan’s older sister on South Park or Cindy Brady.
My mouth is sore from the retainer right now, just from adjusting to having it there instead of the braces. There’s also a couple of edges on the back of the bottom retainer that my tongue catches on if I move it in a certain way. Overall though, it’s not bad…just something to adjust to, like the braces were. Oh, and it’s way easier than the braces were those first few days, for sure. It’s even less painful than the day after an adjustment. It’s just a new thingie to get used to having in my mouth.
New Job
I just accepted a transfer to a new position within my company. This is a calculated risk for me. I’m moving into a position that will likely mean a bit of a stasis for me from a pay perspective (certainly more of a stasis than I’d be in if I kept my current job), but it’s a position that will give me experience that will help me get to the roles that I eventually want. It improves my resume for external hunting, too, assuming it goes well. It’s a risk in the sense that I may end up seeming to have been at my same level for a very long period of time, and it’s a risk in that I’m taking a job that is very different from any that I’ve had before.
It’s also a job that has the following (for me) benefits:
* I will no longer have to deal with the Very Zealous Wankers at all. No more wanking! I’m on that other interface, the one that the wankers don’t use but that their primary competitor does.
* I will get to travel to much cooler places, and it will be less frequent (but longer) travel. That is, I won’t be flying domestically 1-2 times a month for a day or two. Instead, I’ll be flying internationally once every quarter, for a week at a time, to meet with vendors.
* It is a position that will be easy to get my MBA covered by the company, and it’s a position that I feel I can do while doing my MBA.
* Instead of being an advocate for another company within my company with no real prerogative to be the voice of the end user (although I did it anyways without having the prerogative for it), I’ll be focused on the end user, advocating for my own company and its bottom line instead of someone else’s.
* Because I’ll be working with overseas offices, the hours are even more flexible than my current position. Granted, it won’t be unusual for me to be on calls at 10pmCT, but I also won’t need to be in the office precisely at 9amCT…nowhere close. Working remotely is assumed.
* I’ll get to experience and do things that are way cooler to me. I don’t want to go into too much detail at this point, but the work I’ll be doing will be more rewarding to me, I think…and more challenging in a good way.I gave my current manager the news today. He was happy for me, though sad to lose me. He knew I was on my way out, and he was happy I ended up somewhere internally and that I ended up in a job I’ll enjoy. (Unlike some of the previous jobs I’ve looked at internally, this one is completely removed from my current organization…so I’m further away than he was anticipating, though I’m still internal. That’s another benefit from my POV, though.) The news will probably spread slowly to others. Officially, I won’t be starting the new job for another few weeks, and there will be some kind of rolling transition process, TBD…those details are to be worked out over the next week…but my current job is not allowed to keep me any longer than June 9th, so by then, I’ll definitely be gone.
Wednesday, 07 May 2008
XBox 360
In a fit of want this past weekend, I bought an XBox 360 + GTA IV. The UPS dude delivered it yesterday. It was a nice consolation for the braces/retainer disappointment.
So far, GTA IV seems unremarkable, but I only finished the tutorial challenges last night, so it’s too early to say anything definite. I downloaded the demos of Beautiful Katamari and Lost Cities. Lost Cities is a bit disappointing. If they’re going to sell it, I hope they make it part of some German/Euro game bundle or something instead of its own entity. I spent a good half hour playing Geometry Wars and another half hour playing the Bejeweled clone that uses hexes (can’t think of the name…Lumex maybe?). Beautiful Katamari is, well, beautiful, but I don’t expect much from it aside from that.
My XBox Live ID is myTsuKata if anyone wants to look me up.
Tuesday, 06 May 2008
DD-WRT Router for Sale
D’oh.
Not getting braces off today after all.
Dental office just called…retainer didn’t come in yesterday like it was supposed to. They called the lab to check on what had happened this morning, and it turns out that the lab shipped it yesterday instead of shipping it to *arrive* by yesterday as they were directed to do. So, there’s no retainer waiting on me.
And the dentist office was willing to stay late Thursday (when the retainer will arrive) or bring me in this Saturday…but I’m not available because of a (DH - excuse the rant, it’s emotion-fueled and temporary in nature) stupid trip for a stupid tournament that I stupid didn’t want to do to begin with and only got talked into because of stupid cool airplane and stupid cool friend who was going along but has since cancelled. And so, because the dentist office just moved and thus is booked solid (because they were unavailable for a week due to moving…hence it even being this long before my retainer day), the first slot I can get into is on May 20th.
The thing is…I’m sad. I’m not sad so much because I’m unhappy being in braces. I’m sad because I’d kind of built up today, and I’m annoyed because I’d really re-arranged work and a bunch of other things to be able to do this in a way that was relaxing and stuff…and now I have to do all of that again.
Retainer Day!
I’m getting my braces off this afternoon! Whee!
New Addiction
TypeRacer: Race against other players by typing phrases from movies
Monday, 05 May 2008
Indirect Consequence
Found in a comment (from user nadiap) over at TeamSugar:
This morning, the pastor at my church said, “I better watch what I say, because I don’t know which one of you plans to run for President a few years from now.” Everybody laughed.
(grammar/spelling corrections made)
Also, in a related note, here’s a New Yorker cartoon that actually makes sense.
Saturday, 03 May 2008
On a related note…
Another commercial from TV that never fails to make me tear up:
(Agency: 72andSunny. Director: James Rouse. Production: Outside)
The world *is* awesome. The only thing better than the above ad from Discovery Channel is the shorter version that often airs, in which Adam sings about liking to set things on fire.
Oh, and suppose you, like me, want an MP3 of this version of the campfire ditty to throw onto your favorite music player…well, here you go, courtesy of me with the help of vixy.net.
Evil Commercial
Damn you, Sarah McLachlan and your evil cute abused puppies and kittens. I don’t want to bawl just because I accidentally let the tivo play commercials instead of skipping them. I just this year managed to get off the ASPCA’s bug-her list…I’m not going to do it again. I’m not.
Maybe there’s a way to give via proxy.
Friday, 02 May 2008
Dancing
So I’m headed to this place for the evening with a friend, to dance the night away. If I drunk dial you, I apologize in advance.
Monday, 28 April 2008
To G or not to G
It seems like I go through this thought process every month or so on my own, so I figured I’d open it up to the all-knowing f-list. Right now, my primary e-mail is via my domain (tk at tk dot org). This has advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage is that when I give out my e-mail address, I have to decide whether the recipient is someone that I am not upset about handing my website out to…and y’all know what I post here, so perhaps you can understand the concern. This, of course, is only a concern when I’m giving my e-mail to someone who also knows my real-life name and who might potentially be the kind of ass who would want to do harm to a person with my proclivities. Thus, 99 percent of the time, it’s not a concern at all. (I do know that my domain/real-life connection is discoverable, but you have to be trying to find it with some tenacity. For example, there are ways to search the wayback machine and link up my real-life name with this domain, but they’re not entirely obvious. Otherwise, if you know that connection, you’re likely someone with equivalent proclivities and/or a liberal mindset such that I don’t imagine you care. And, of course, I operate on the theory of security by volume…that is, to get to the good stuff, you’ve gotta be willing to sift through a massive amount of less interesting stuff.)
Because my work has required me to become a part of several social networking sites (e.g., Facebook) and because I’m looking for other work, I’ve also established a GMail address that is in no way linked to this site (versus my other one, which is tk at gmail dot com). Because that address gets frequent e-mail, I’ve been using GMail more often than I have previously. It’s made me really come to like GMail.
My domain e-mail has also been known to have problems, and when it does have problems, it is not always immediately apparent. I’ll be sending mail having no idea that the recipient isn’t getting it and vice versa. At one point, any e-mail sent from the webmail was not getting to people, but e-mail sent from T-bird was. Weeks went by before I found out and thus pinged my hosting company as to WTF was going on. GMail is far more reliable.
However, I also have some pride in owning my own domain, and in the 99% case, I’m usually happy to be publicizing my domain via handing out my e-mail. It has on more than one occasion served me well that someone I gave my e-mail to then navigated to the domain. I nagged a husband that way.
I see my options as threefold:
1) Start transitioning friends and family to the (tk @) Gmail address. Set up T-bird to IMAP with the GMail address. Use tk dot org e-mail only for mass e-mails and the like (e.g., when I sign up for e-mails from commercial sites, order confirmations). This removes the problem of directly exposing people to my domain. It’s not like I’d
2) Switch tk dot org over to using Google Apps For Your Domain (GAFYD) for e-mail only. Then, I get the power of G on my tk dot org addresses, mostly…but GAFYD is often behind standard GMail in terms of features. I’m not even confident it has IMAP. It also doesn’t fix the 1% problem.
3) Leave everything as is.So far, every time I’ve had this discussion, I’ve settled on option 3, as much from inertia as anything. Any thoughts from y’all?
Saturday, 26 April 2008
Free Webkinz
So, in honor of the Webkinz anniversary, many stores are giving away a free Webkinz with a $10 purchase. However, the webkinz are limited to the assortment shown here. I already have the frog that is shown there, and it’s hard enough not confusing between my two tree frogs, so I’m putting a general call out if anyone wants one of the free ones, let me know, and I’ll make sure to get it.
My addiction is sad.
Friday, 25 April 2008
Hooray for the plague!
My passover plague is complete!
Here’s the plague sitting around the welcome table:
They all had their favorite foods as part of the welcome party.
Hera has some interesting ideas for Tunisia. But, after a hard day’s work, it’s time for a nap, so they all retired to their customized beds for the night:
Monday, 21 April 2008
Japanese translator?
So, I bought some kikori no kirikabu (chocolate tree stump cookies) while we were in Chinatown. The inside of the package always has the lumberjack saying a message, but I don’t know what the message says.
Anyone read Japanese well enough to translate? I can only make out the hiragana, and that’s not enough to know what’s being said.
No tees for me’s
By the way, I am not allowed to buy any more t-shirts. Some spring organizing last week revealed that I have well over thirty t-shirts that fall into the “nice enough to wear out” category (i.e., no holes, no stains, no obvious wear). I also have about twenty t-shirts that are workout/pajama t-shirts. Thus, I have zero need for t-shirts.
If you see me desiring a t-shirt, help stop the madness. Don’t be an enabler.
(I do need some long sleeve tees, especially since 3-4 of mine seem to have disappeared. They may be mixed in with Scott’s stuff…not sure.)
Fruit Drunk
Yesterday, on our way home from Passover in Detroit, we stopped for dinner with a friend in Chicago’s Chinatown. We wandered around and ended up choosing where to eat based on what seemed to be busy, figuring that busy means delicious. We had dinner at Joy Yee Noodle, which I now know originated in Evanston. At any rate, it was the most delicious Asian food that I’ve had in a long time. When they said something was spicy, it really was. Also, they had a fruit drink menu that was 3 large pages long, with freezes and bubble teas. My DH had a Banana Ice Cream Freeze (bananas blended with ice cream). I had a Peach Mango Freeze. K* had a Tropical Freeze. They were all delicious. We were also sitting such that I could see the service staff bringing things from their storage area and freezer to the kitchen. I saw 6 giant bags of strawberries, 8 bunches of bananas, and at least 2 crates of pineapples go to the kitchen in the hour that we were there. Point being, they’re using real fruit. Their fruit drink prep area is visible to the public, too, although it was on a different floor than where we sat. The drinks are sizeable, too…at least 16 ounces, probably closer to 22. (They have a mega size that you can get that is a 50 ounce serving.)
For dinner, I had pineapple chicken with shrimp fried rice, served in a pineapple husk. It was dee-lish. Scott had a pork and beef omelet in a stone bowl. K* had pork Thai lettuce wraps. We all sampled everything, and of it, there wasn’t a dish that I wouldn’t recommend. The dishes the items come out in are just fun. Some dishes come in a little wooden treasure chest.
After dinner, I got a pineapple coconut freeze to go, and halfway through the drive home, I started feeling besotted. I told Scott I was drunk on fruit. When you think about it, that’s a massive amount of fruit to eat in one sitting, for someone not used to it. I probably had 3/4 of a pineapple, 1 coconut worth of milk, 2 peaches, and 1-2 mangoes between the drinks and the meal. I also had a fruit crash a couple of hours after we got home, where my stomach felt gurgly and I could barely keep my eyes open. I fell soundly asleep on the couch at one point. It felt very much like being drunk, although I imagine in reality, I was on a crazy natural sugar rush.
It was so good though. I had some grapes for breakfast this morning…hair of the dog and all.
Friday, 18 April 2008
McFil-A
McDonald’s has stolen the Chik-Fil-A chicken sandwich. On their menu, it’s called the Southern Style Chicken Sandwich. Harumph.
So far, I’ve been showing my displeasure by buying lots of them.
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Impressions
I had a braces appointment today, and we took impressions.
My dentist showed me her lab’s designs for retainers, but she gave me the option of using this site’s designs, too, since I’d pointed them out to her. My dentist spoils me.
May 6th is naked tooth day right now, but if an earlier appointment time becomes available, they’ll move me into an earlier slot. The date was out a bit because of their availability; they’re in the middle of a move to a new office which is making appointments tighter than normal.
Monday, 14 April 2008
Rejected by Facebook
It’s one thing for a computerized algorithm as part of its regular parsing procedure to reject a two letter name; it’s yet another for a human being assigned to the task of being smarter than the computer to follow the same ill-advised rule.
Congratulations, Facebook. You get to join the wall of shame along with (now-defunct) America West airlines.
