Welcome to TsuKata's Org*
This is the first time I've owned a domain, so I'm kinda just having fun with it right now. I work a full-time job, and I have a full-time life so chances are that by the time I finish doing something, it's out of date. Have patience, and most of all, have fun!
Got questions? Got problems? Got milk? Then e-mail me 'cause my milk, as always, has gone bad.
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Thursday, February 28, 2002
Oh and by the way, bugger the whole PRF thing. I mean, I am still all PRF-ing, but it's never gonna happen. Not in a million years. Silly of me to think it would. Better chance of actually being killed by orcs, or of dating Orlando Bloom and convincing him to go about in sexy elven garb and shoot arrows at people. Yum. So, time for me to extract myself and move on. ::sigh:: Oh well. It was fun while it lasted. :)
Wednesday, February 27, 2002
"In a free society, diversity is not disorder. Debate is not strife. And dissent is not revolution." -- President George W. Bush, pleading for religious tolerance in China.
I have to say that I'm impressed by President Bush on occasion, although I still can't help but feel that there's a flood of irony in him stating that when his recent speeches at home seem to be full of notions of "good" and "evil" that are Judeo-Christian-centric at best. Really good article on salon.com about Ashcroft's failings in the religious tolerance arena, but unfortunately, you can only read it if you're a premium subscriber (as I am). If you're not a salon.com subscriber, I do recommend it...especially if you (like me) are the type of person who flips straight to the editorials in the newspaper. I like opinions mixed with my news. It incites me to agree or disagree, and most of all, it incites me to research my own opinion.
I was reading some articles on blogger.com about blogs and bloggers and why it is that someone like me would sit here and do something like this. Well, allow me to enlighten you all. I'm doing this because I'm bored. I know, I know. You were probably hoping that I'd say I'm doing this to right all the wrongs of the world, to push my political philosophy out to the masses, to someday get elected for Princess of the World, and of course, to share my PRF-ing with all of you lovely readers. But, nope, has nothing to do with that. I'm just bored.
Darn it, I can't leave it at that, because it *isn't* just that. It's that I, for years, had a cobwebsite...that being a site that I updated maybe once a year. And the reason was that I'm a perfectionist, so when I sat down to code something, it had to be perfect, which meant it took several hours...and I'm only willing to devote several hours to my site on occasion. So...I got a domain. I learned CGI programming. The point being to create something that would automate the page-creation process for me...that would allow me to update my site daily in less than an hour. Then, lo and behold, a salon.com article led me to WWDN, and a friend led me to lockergnome...and eureka! There's my tool! Blogger! So here I am. And darn it, this is useful. Keeps alot of people in my life updated on the little things that happen that aren't worthy of an e-mail. :) And maybe, just maybe, there are some random readers out there, too. :) Hello random readers!
And FWIW, my CGI skills shan't go to waste. I'm working on a tool right now that would let me post photo albums easily (automatically generate HTML pages for every picture file in a directory and then generate an index file of those pages), and I've written a couple of things to make playing Space Empires IV easier.
As for now, though, I made an important discovery this morning in that my alarm clock does not continue to go off after two hours of hitting the snooze button. Alarm was set for 7am. I had plans to snooze until 9am. Kept hitting snooze. At a quarter of 8, I hit snooze for the final time...and didn't wake up until 10am, when my cat proceeded to sit on my face and tell me that she loved me...well, actually, she was telling me she was hungry, but allow me to be sentimental for a bit. :) So now I'm at home, just now getting ready to head into work. Thursday may come pretty quickly if I keep this up. ;-) Tomorrow! Tomorrow! It's only a day away! (And yes, loyal random readers, my parents did dress me up as Annie when I was a child.)
V. upset that my plaid preference is not showing up below. Seems that the site has gone down. Grr. If it doesn't return soon, will remove annoying dead picture from that blog entry. :(
Tuesday, February 26, 2002
why oh why can't it be thursday??????????
Totally PRF-ing right now. :) PRFing being Pervy R* Fancying...and a PRF being a Pervy R* Fancier. Speaking of, I got totally busted while PRF-ing this past weekend...was having a little mental fantasy, and he caught me staring at him. It was funny, and I'm sure I turned the color of that plaid down there. :) I just thought of that because once again, I'm realizing that if he ever reads this, I am *so* busted. But then again, that's a super-easy way to resolve the thing. Either he'll hate me or he'll avoid me or he'll fess up that he's secretly a Pervy TsuKata Fancier. :) And we all know it's that last one that's true, right? RIGHT??? :) But for the record, should he ever read this, I'm quite happy with the friend aspect, and I wouldn't be a PRF if it weren't for that being there. Don't want to bugger the friendship up with my PRF-ing. And I take comfort in that he's not as much of a webgeek as I am, so will probably never read this crazy bloggy thing. :)
So I did another quiz, and it turns out I'm plaid. And that's wild, because I used to say that plaid was my favorite color (it's a Piers Anthony thing), and my old site design on my AOL site was done with my favorite plaid (black watch plaid). So anyways, here's my results and a link to the quiz:
What Pattern Are You?
I made a forum. Check it out. :) It's linked below. :) But I'll link it here too: TsuKata's Forum!!!!. Y'all can thank xnera for introducing me to this nifty little thingy. :)
Okay, so I'm working at home today (snow rules!), and I run to the store to pick up a binder, as I've discovered that I'm all of six cards away from a complete set of MTG: Torment. Yay! :) So rather than the usual cardboard box & sleeve treatment, they will be receiving binder treatment. Go them. So anyways, I'm at Jewel Osco, getting out of my car and I notice this guy staring at me. Quick person check...nope, don't know him...and hey, look, I've got all my clothes on (I have actually forgotten my shoes before), so why is he staring at me? So I'm like, okay, freaky, and proceed inside the store...well, freaky guy was coming out of the store...he suddenly turns around and goes back in...weird, right? Go inside store, go to school supply aisle, note that Jewel Osco carries MTG cards...$3 a pack...slightly less than elsewhere...get a binder...go to checkout...and there's freaky guy! Waiting by the checkout aisles! Staring at me again! Totally strange. So I'm like, okay, be prepared to kick ass if need be. Purchase my binder (and some brownies that somehow wandered into my shopping...hmm, how did that happen...) and walk out of store, right by freaky guy, who then follows me out of the store...so then I go quickly to my car, toss my stuff in, and speed off. Freaky guy remains standing in parking lot and staring. Very very strange. I've never had someone do that to me before.
In other news, I got a package from the queen of the insidious spaghetti...that's right, Ainsley!!! Yay! I'm so happy. Haven't heard from her in forever, although another friend of mine had told me that her bf was in town. So I'm totally going to give her a call later tonight when the cellphone time schedule allows for free long distance. She sent me a CD with a funny cover. Haven't listened to it yet, but the cover is hilarious. Some guy picking carrots in a chicken suit and a flaming cow is about to land on him. LOL Okay, so you have to be me to get this, but it's funny.
And the crush still continues...
And so does the buffy-watching...halfway through season three...woohoo...
Sunday, February 24, 2002
To mitigate my Buffy-induced trauma (which just led me into a spiraling bout of "nobody loves me" depression...but that's okay 'cause then I took a long bath and listened to Cake and felt better), I was catching up on reading Xnera's blog, and I stumbled on this quiz to determine who your fellowship guy is...and I ended up with Aragorn. Figures. I always fall for the paladin type. They just never fall for me. :( Just call me Amanda...or Spike...but hey, even Spike got some Buffy action. :)
Tall, dark, and RUGGEDLY handsome!
Aw, you go for the tall, dark and handsome type. How trite.
True, Aragorn's as much a man as any of the Fellowship, but the whole
"I'm not good enough to be king" thing really gets in the way of bedroom fun.
Whining can be a real turn-off, you know.
Okay, so I'm totally bawling right now because I just finished watching Becoming, Part II (Buffy episode...season 2 finale)... evil.
Friday, February 22, 2002
Useless Information seems to be a cool link from lockergnome.
And, OMG, Wil Wheaton reads salon.com too!!!!! I go to that site like daily. :)
In case y'all can't tell, I don't have too much to do right now. :) Those tasks mentioned below got done very very quickly. Yay. Go me.
Okay, you know what's annoying? You come into work. You know you have alot that you want to finish up during the day, so you get all nicely arranged into your groove...get the MP3s going, headset on...and before you know it you're jamming to "I'm a Believer" and writing your happy little heart away, making terrific progress on the day's tasks...and then you realize that someone is standing behind you so you pull off your earbuds and ask the man to your right what's up...and as it happens, he needs to know how to reserve a room in Outlook. Those of you who have done this know that while it's not simple, it's not amazingly difficult either. So you explain it briefly, trying not to lose your train of thought on this little sidetrack...and return to your groove. Cake's playing now. When she walks, she swings her arms...instead of her hips....When she talks, she moves her mouth...instead of her lips....and I've waited for her for so long...I've waited for her for so long...I've wondered if I could hang on...I've wondered if I could hang onnnnn....yeah....Let Me Go, she said....(four more changes done) let me go, she said...let me go and I will love you more...la la la outlook la la la...wait...outlook? That's not a cake lyr--Ack! The man has returned! And you are abruptly yanked from the groove! AAAAAHHH! So you clarify the procedure for doing Outlook room reservations...and then...back to the groove...when she wants, she wants the sun, instead of the moon....when she sees, she sees the stars...inside of her room...RRRRRIIIINNNNNG! RRRRINNNG! It's the phone!!! AAAAHHH! Bye bye happy groove! So you pick up the phone! It's the man again! AAAAHHH!
So you go to his cube, you reserve the damn room for him, showing him for the tenth time how to do it...and then leave. You shrug, you sigh, and you try to return to the groove to finish up the tasks that should have taken you an hour and are now pushing two.
Let me go, she said....let me go....let me go....
Thursday, February 21, 2002
FWIW, I feel your pain, Wil Wheaton. I totally feel your pain. Can't tell you how many things I've had ruined by cat pee. Maggie got over the issues once she was fixed, but she used to be really bad about it. Killed off my original copy of Ricochet Robot (awesome game, btw). Killed off comic books. Regular books. All sorts of things. It's very evil. And I've had to suck it up and deal with it on more than one occasion. Happened to me once that she had done it to my favorite big huge rolling duffel suitcase right before I was going out of town for 2 weeks. No time to get it drycleaned, so I Febrezed the hell out of it, packed all my stuff inside plastic bags and survived. Had no choice. Was the only bag that was big enough to take everything. I know, gross, but that's the downside of having a fluffy ball of fur who loves you and waits patiently by the window for you to come home.
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Favorite Buffy quotes from my recent completion of the season five transcript:
Anya: I'm eleven hundred years old. I had trouble adjusting to the idea of Lutherans.
Giles: It appears to be paranormal in origin.
Willow: How can you tell?
Giles: Well, it's so shiny.
And, FWIW, I'm totally bummed over buffy's demise. :(
Tuesday, February 19, 2002
Well, welcome to yet another political blog. Oh but first, I am mourning the loss of my manicurist. My salon called me yesterday and let me know that she's no longer working there...I don't know if they fired her or if she quit, but I know she had back surgery coming up, and given that we generally have a 2 hour chat once every few weeks, I kinda have an attachment. She's the best one I've had. :( And I'm a little worried about her. But I have to remember to call the salon and cancel my next appointment. And to keep y'all updated, the crush continues, but it's muted. So anyways, I was doing my usual checking e-mail thing and I spotted an article about a Supreme Court ruling...and being perpetually a wannabe law student, I like to read these things. (have I mentioned that I took the LSAT for fun and then did really well...a 163...and would be a law student right now except that I'm not willing to give up my money and time for it at this point in my life? Had to brag) Unfortunately, the article is on AOL so I can't link you to it, but the title was "High Court OKs Kids Grading Kids" by Anne Gearan of the AP. The case is Owasso Independent School District v. Falvo, 00-1073, in case you want to look it up. Basically, Falvo's argument was that it was a violation of her child's privacy for kids' grades to be public. The argument came about because her mentally handicapped child was teased horrifically after every grading session. Falvo felt that parental permission should be obtained before releasing a child's grades in a public forum. The School District's argument was that the 1974 Privacy Act was never meant to encompass this practice. The court agreed with the School District. Now here's the quote from the article that upset me. Michael Simpson, general counsel for the NEA, said that a decision in Falvo's favor would have forced teachers "to spend time grading papers instead of preparing for class and actually teaching." Okay, now keep in mind that I was a Lisa Simpson back in my day. Straight A student. Total teacher's pet. Hung around after class and helped grade papers. I know it's time-consuming work, and I know that (especially at an elementary school level) it's very brain-numbing. There's not much to marking a test on basic addition. It's not like an algebra test where you can critique the steps taken by the student and thus help them learn the material. But nonetheless, could someone please tell me exactly when it became something to be pushed off on the non-paid students?? If I remember right, part of "actually teaching" is grading tests, letting students know what they did wrong, and taking note of the ones who need exceptional help. I can't tell you how many teachers I had that would have us grade tests so they could go home early...or how many stupid ScanTron bubble-in tests we took because it meant a machine graded it. Do you know what you learn from getting a ScanTron back? Not a damn thing. I know teachers are underpaid and underappreciated. And I'd be the first to say they deserve better. But I'd also be the first to say that having students do their work for them is not the answer to their woes.
Monday, February 18, 2002
If you have the day off today, I hate you. :) It's a beautiful day, and the entire world has it off except for me. I'm exaggerating as always. Sosumi. :) You know, I've actually had people ask me what Sosumi means in Japanese. ;-) Hint: say it out loud. lol If you've heard the song "I second that emotion", that's my current state-of-mind re: crush guy. Thing is...he's very cool, and I enjoy being friends with him. I just hate to miss out on an opportunity with one of the few guys in existence that have the capability of being right for me just because of what is essentially a number. But I must get back to work.
Saturday, February 16, 2002
I think I'm solidly in crush. ::sigh:: But for now, I must go prep for the tournament later this morning. :)
Friday, February 15, 2002
I took my cat to the groomers this morning. She meows pitifully whenever she's left somewhere...these low scared meows...it tears my heart out. I started crying when I left...like I was leaving my kid at the first day of school. I'm such a sap sometimes. But I love her to death...she is so affectionate and cute...and she's my only real responsibility. In other news, I have decided that I want one of everything that is within Starbucks. They have such pretty coffee mugs. Their coffee makers are even pretty. And they have good CDs. I stayed up until 2am last night having a random bitchfest with a friend because I couldn't sleep. And I'm getting a manicure and pedicure today (yay)...it's been over a month since I even had a manicure (I used to get them every 2 weeks at least), and over 3 months since I had a mani/pedi combo. Hmm...not much else going on really. I'm procrastinating doing work.
Thursday, February 14, 2002
You know what? My valentine's day didn't suck at all. :) In fact, it pretty much ruled. No guy in my life still, but I had fun anyways. :)
I keep hoping I'll be able to update this and click to go to blogger.com quick enough that I'll see my blog on the recently updated list, but it never happens. :) In other news, it's time for me to leave work. yay. There was something else I was going to say, too, but I forgot. Oh yeah. On the subject of toilets...yes, yes, I know...let me expose the inexposable for a minute...we have these auto-flush toilets at work, but the sensor is such that it is right at the top of my head...it's this little IR sensor that senses motion and flushes the toilet...in theory, when you get up. But not for me. My toilet flushes about five times while I'm sitting there because I'm shorter than the sensor so unless I stay perfectly still while I'm sitting there (and we of the short attention span cannot do that). Thus, I get a wet bum. Quite annoying. And I can't very well sit there with my hands over the sensor the whole time. That would require acrobatics and yoga-like flexibility.
My site is too secure for my own good. I can't remember where I stuck my e-mail CGI script that lets me e-mail using the tsukata@tsukata.org address...and I don't want to use my work address to drop an e-mail to Wil Wheaton saying, hey, you rule, and I wanted to let you know that I'm linking to your site like a million times each day. That would just be odd. (Bring your own irony.)
Okay, so I was just reading Wil Wheaton's site, 'cause he rules my world...and I saw one of his recent blog posts where his stepkids acted like him and made him all touched, and I nearly totally cried. Let's all say it together....Awwwwww.....
An Ode to Why Valentine's Day Sucks, by TK :)...just kidding. I'm not as depressed as I thought I'd be. Heck, I'm going gaming tonight. I'm likely going to see guy-of-latest-semi-maybe-crush and kick his ass at LotR. :) You know, it just occurred to me that he could be reading this. :) Woohoo! That would be like the easiest way in the world for me to get a definite answer as to his interest/intentions. You know, I think that men should be forced to wear a neon sign on their forehead that say Friend, Sextoy, or Dating so that you can be sure of what it is they're wanting from you. I swear they're the most confusing creatures on the planet. Especially for me. I have all of one female friend. All my friends are guys. It is perpetually possible for a friend-guy to cross into dateable-guy or sextoy-guy status. But it's damn difficult to figure out what they're doing...what they're going for. A question for all you readers...at what point do you know for sure that you're on a date and not just hanging out as friends? I mean, I wonder sometimes (and I know it's happened in the past) if I'm thinking it's a friends thing and he's thinking it's a date thing or vice versa and thus we end up giving out wrong signals and confusing the other person. It's extremely difficult to tell when a guy is being a nice guy or when he's hitting on you if he's already your friend. Part of that too is that I hang around with engineer-ish guys who aren't the types who are very likely to just out and say "Hey, wanna do me?" or similar. :) Heck, my ex and I (Ryan, shown on the picture pages) almost ended up hating each other because on our first encounter we were confused about what the other person wanted, and both of us got upset that our expectations weren't fulfilled. So there ya go. And there was this guy Skippy (who took the photos of me from my senior year in high school that are also on the picture pages) that I knew in high school and I had a huge crush on him...but we were friends and I didn't think he'd be interested, blah blah blah...found out years later at which point I'm in another state and he's married that he had a crush on me too and probably would have dated me. Sucks ass when you find out stuff like that. He was a total babe, and he rode a motorcycle, and I've always wanted to ride a motorcycle. But back to gaming....a couple of my friends are going to be there. Should be a good time. Only part that sucks is that I had japanese pan noodles for lunch and then I let Joe tempt me into having some of his homemade valentine's day cookies AND chocolate pudding. Evil. I now feel like I could easily burst at any minute. I think I'm going to fast for the next 24 hours...nothing but coffee, tea, and thee.
Wednesday, February 13, 2002
I was going to write a really cool blog just now and I lost it because of an accidental refreshing. Grr. I was two pages into it.
Tuesday, February 12, 2002
Check this out...
I'm a gazelle. :) Go figure. I was hoping for "sex kitten", but hey, I'll take what I can get. ;-) The Perl class is going well. I learned regular expressions today, which are really confusing ways of running a find on textual input. It's much easier than doing it in C though, I must admit...and an amusing way to code secret messages to your Perly friends. :)
OMG. I just realized I had the blogger settings wrong. Shoot me, folks. If anyone tried to visit and got the "page not found" error, it's because I'm a moron. :) In other news, latest-guy-semi-maybe-crush called me tonight. Joy. :)
Monday, February 11, 2002
Okay, so I'm not so dead as I thought I would be. But that might have something to do with the fact that I've had 2 cups of coffee and half of a venti Frappucino...parapapapapa! I could do a proper Xena yell right now, but my compadres in the Perl training class might get snippity. Yes, my friends, your dear TsuKata does not yet know Perl. Well, let's change that. I know some Perl, but not as much as I'd like...and through the wonder of company-sponsored training, I can take a very nifty Perl course for free and pick up a copy of the O'Reilly Perl bible for free while I'm at it. Woohoo. I've had this instructor before (for CGI Programming with Perl...during which I learned the few tidbits of Perl that I currently know...now I'm all like FEED ME SEYMOUR!!!), and he is quite nifty. He worships the slack, and he installs Linux on the machines here. I don't like Linux, but I admire people who can handle it. I'm just not among them.
Jammin' to the Thunderpuss Madonna megamix...man, I am totally going to be hurting tomorrow morning. Have training, must be in schaumburg by 8am. Ouch.
Sunday, February 10, 2002
Just wanted to let all of you faithful readers know that I updated the pictures area. I'm looking for a better way of displaying the pictures that will also not be a PITA for me to add pictures to. I'm considering either breaking them up into photo albums and doing a next-previous thing or doing a popup with the picture. There are advantages and disadvantages for all choices, so right now, I'm leaving things as they are. 'Cause I'm lazy and indignant. Yee-haw. :)
Oh yeah, and my snowman (from the Snow Day pics linked below) is now merely a puddle. How depressing.
You people better appreciate me. I just did a re-vamp of the Site Prefs to make it easier to understand what exactly you're doing. Those of you who used the old version will probably like this version better. Anyways, it took a serious bit of code re-writes. Oh and since the site prefs had somewhat broken the menu functions, I fixed that, too. So I'm up at 2am doing coding...reminds me of college. At least I'm not alone...xnera is keeping me company while she works on her site. All hail middle of the night coding. Granted, this is not the code poetry of my youth but rather plain ol' javascripting and HTML hacking...but still...it's almost more frustrating because you have to work around limitations imposed by The Powers That Be in HTML-land who decided that Thy Website Shall Not Have Global Variables Except In The Form Of Ubiquitous Droppings Called Cookies Which Shall Not Be Easy For You To Access Without Much String Parsing, and Thy Viewers' Browsers Shall Be Capable of Ignoring Your Cookies Whenever It Suits Them And Thus Shall It Be In The Land Of Our Creation...Amen. It's been a long night. Peace out good buddy.
Okay, so over the past few days, I have seen Tea With Mussolini, Memento, Unbreakable...all for the first time. Tomorrow I'm going to watch What Dreams May Come. My brain is tired. Discuss. Oh, wait...you can't. ha ha ha. :)
Saturday, February 09, 2002
Woohoo...time for some more linkage. One of my friends has gotten me hooked on reading The Very Secret Diaries of LotR Characters...check it out at Cassie Claire's Journal site. And Cassie's site also has this link that just makes my toes curl...in a good way. :) Let's see...I'm spending this weekend making Magic decks and entering cards into my database. Yes, I am actually Type A enough that I have a database of my MTG cards. And they're all sorted alphabetically, and I have a notebook of card lists and a printout of my current database that I use when trading. Yes, I am that bad. So spank me. Bwah ha ha. I took a picture of the remnants of my snowman last night. I'll get that on here in a bit....someday. Someday I want to make a page for MTG on here, too...and maybe a "books I've read" page or something. Someday my prince will come, and he will do all my HTML for me. lol... :) Alrighty, I'm outta here. I gotta get dressed and go do things.
Friday, February 01, 2002
Site preferences done! And I fixed the links too so that they display correctly in the blog here. :) Yay. So that having been done...here are the two sites that inspired me having a blog: lockergnome and WWDN...did I mention that i have a huge netcrush on Wil Wheaton? Don't tell his wife. ;-)
