Confluence

As a Business Intelligence professional, David McCandless's TED talk about the beauty of data visualization really struck a resonant chord for me. I aspire to be a designer who has a solid background in programming and database concepts, but I don't find many opportunities to work on data visualization at my 8-to-5, as I'm focused mainly on straight-up reporting.

Last year, in lieu of one of my normal and customary Year In Review blog posts, I created a series of graphs that represented the easily-trackable data in my life: weight loss, music listening habits, miles walked, photos taken, things like that. In going back and re-reading my past Years In Review this week, I realized that my "infographic" review didn't actually give as much information about what I'd done during the course of the year. It didn't do an effective job of presenting the highlights like I'd previously done in verbal form. The idea had been along the lines of "show, don't tell," but it didn't manage to do either very well.

Looking back objectively at my 2009 Year In Review, here's what the graphs and numbers tell me:

• I went to Japan. I walked a lot one of the days I was there (14 miles), and I took lots of pictures.
• When I ate out (back at home), I had mainly Asian food (Chinese, Japanese, Korean).
• I tried to lose weight, but didn't do very well.
• I took lots of pictures. Some of them were with my iPhone. Most of them were from vacations and trips, including Japan and Chicago.
• I listened to music, and my musical taste was stuck squarely in the '90s, for the most part.

That's kind of lame. I can do better than that.

With these two experiences rolling about in my brain, I've decided to try creating personal infographics over the course of the year, but keep the standard prose-style Year In Review for next year.

Practice is the only way to learn and improve, be it creating data visualizations, or writing, or photographing. We'll see how long it takes me to successfully find my own style, and to successfully identify and convey relationships between datasets.

eCycling

A couple weeks ago, Aaron found this ad while browsing through the local paper:

It's true: I tend to hoard old electronics. Like my old Power Mac 6500, and the Frankenstein PC that was my first foray into replacing major parts (like the motherboard and processor), and that old bondi blue iMac I picked up at the Goodwill a few years back in a fit of nostalgia.

So, after some sorting of cables and cleaning-off of hard drives, Aaron and I loaded up our trunk full of obsolete electronics and headed out to The Andersons for some eCycling.

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Preparation

My new computer arrives tomorrow.

I'm moving from my Dell Dimension, circa 2004, with an Intel Celeron 2.4GHz processor and 2GB of RAM, to a brand new Dell tower with a 6X 2.6GHz processor and 4GB of RAM.

I specifically bought it so I could play Civilization V. But I was probably overdue for a new box, anyway.

I've made upgrades to my computer for the sake of Civ before, but never have I purchased a whole new computer just to play a game. —Well, mainly to play a game. There are actually a few games I haven't been able to play on my PC: Portal and Spore, just to name two. I'm also just looking forward to having a speedier computer overall.

The actual migration to the new box shouldn't be too bad. I have two external hard drives which hold most of my media and my projects, so all I'll have to move is my iTunes library file, My Documents (mainly odds and ends), and everything on my Desktop (also odds and ends).

Figuring out over time which applications I need to install will be an adventure, too — I'm probably going to make a list tonight (and check it twice) to figure out which apps will need special attention (like my Omron pedometer database, which holds historical data of how far I've walked/run). I'm really hoping that the move to Windows 7 and a 64-bit OS won't throw a monkey wrench into any of my normal applications.

Tonight: Moving stuff to the external hard drives. Sorting through digital files as needed. Exporting bookmarks and other necessities.

Tomorrow: Physical organization of desk (as much as possible in one night) and hooking-up of tower to peripherals. Will also involve dusting and vacuuming and other grossly-neglected duties.

...Oh, who am I kidding? This is probably gonna take the rest of the week.

Reader Roll-Call?

So, who reads this thing on a regular basis, anyway?

Most of my hits come from Google, not regular readers. So, I guess I'm just curious about who's interested in my life. I mean, I know my husband reads this blog, but I end up just telling him most of this stuff, anyway. And I know my Mom reads it, but I end up telling her a lot of this stuff on the phone (or over Facebook), too.

Speaking of Facebook... I no longer automatically port all my blog posts over there. Facebook "friendship" is a very passive and voyeuristic animal, and I don't necessarily want to put all my blog entries into the mix of passively-consumed personal information. If people really want to know, they can type in my URL or subscribe in Google Reader (which is at least a little less passive than Facebook).

I've also realized that my posting frequency has dropped dramatically since I've started using Twitter. Seems I've been condensing my thoughts down to 140 characters as they occur to me, rather than expounding on them in depth later in the evening. If I knew who was listening, I might be more inclined to spout more massive amounts of prose on a more regular basis.

So, who's out there?

*crickets chirping*

Getting Shit Done

I have lots of to-do lists. I have a Moleskine Piccadilly notebook full of itemized tasks I want to do sooner or later. I have an archived version of my old Palm Desktop with leftover to-do items. I have text files where I tried to consolidate some of my old scraps of paper full of lists, and I still have said scraps of paper full of lists from years ago.

I haven't found a satisfactory way to organize all these maybe-somedays and to-do-this-weeks. Maybe Epic Win will save me.

From the Epic Win website:

Our lives are full of quests. Remember that birthday card, send that email, or drag ourselves to the gym on a regular basis.

Trouble is, sometimes we’re having too much fun doing other virtual stuff like hunting down rare items in World of Warcraft or leveling-up in Facebook games to remember the stuff we’re supposed to be doing.

EpicWin is an iPhone app that puts the adventure back into your life. It’s a streamlined to-do list, to note down all your everyday tasks, but with a role-playing spin.

Rather than just mentally ticking off your chores, completing each one improves and develops your character in an ongoing quest to level-up, gain riches, and develop skills.

By getting points for your chores it's easier to actually get things done. We all have good intentions but we need a bit of encouragement here and there. Doing the laundry is an epic feat of stamina so why not get stamina points for it?!

Watch as your avatars stats develop in ways to represent your own life. Will you be a Maiden of Juggled Priorities, or a King of Win? The lifestyle you lead will decide.

This app will either be Epic Win or Epic Fail. I'm not sure which yet. I can see me either finding it amusing for a week, then deciding it's dumb; or getting WAY more into it than I should, and breaking down my tasks into stupid little sub-tasks, just to level up my guy.

Until Epic Win is released, though, I think I'll stick with the Piccadilly-to-Google-Tasks method I'm using now. As long as I can get one little thing done a night (e.g. cleaning off the dining room table or changing the bed linens), I feel pretty good about myself.

Brainstorm

Yesterday, I suddenly got the bug to redesign my website. I've had this iteration of the design for almost two years — the one previous was the longest run yet, at over three years.

I'm going to do it right this time, though, and rethink everything. The comment form, the design differences between individual entries and the index pages (sidebar or no sidebar?), a fluid layout, a mobile layout. Plus, I'm going to get to the bottom of why dynamic publishing and pagination aren't working with my installation of Movable Type.

So, it'll likely take some time, but those of you who actually look at my site every now and then (as opposed to an RSS reader) will see a change sometime in the relatively near future.

Rate iPhone Apps Friday

It's that time again: time to show some appreciation (or disdain) for the apps you love (or love to hate).

Today on iTunes, I rated Photoshop.com Mobile (5 ★), TimeJot: a time log / journal (4 ★), and Words With Friends Free (4 ★).

Comment Spam

I've been getting some amusing Engrish-y comment spam from various permutations of a JoanSmith0999:

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I certainly enjoyed reading your blog and alliance in back of surreptitiously it both edifying and interesting. I purposefulness be fated to bookmark it and bull-whip it as overweight as I can.

I enjoyed the article and thanks in greetings to posting such valuable tidings as an alternate of all of us to imply to, I become of fall upon it both of publish and educative and I directors to forgive it as again as I can.

I enjoyed the article and thanks because of posting such valuable info seeking all of us to skim, I start it both useful and revealing and I meals to appraise it as again as I can.

Hey, I guess if I'm going to get comment spam, it might as well be amusing, right?

...But Do I NEED One?

I bought Aaron an iPhone for Christmas 2008. I bought one for myself shortly thereafter.

We used to have ridiculously cheap Nokia cellphones, with Tracfone pay-as-you-go plans. Our friends used to joke with us that it was so bizarre how we were cell phone luddites, while still having the latest and greatest in other techie gadgetry and entertainment technology. (Truth be told, we aren't early adopters, and neither do we have the fanciest and newest stuff. We just have a really big HDTV.)

Our iPhones vaulted us into the 21st century, mobilely speaking. Not only do we text each other (and, on occasion, our friends), but we read the news, check Twitter, search on Google and Wikipedia, and get ourselves unlost in the car (and in foreign countries) with our iPhones.

Did we need our iPhones? Hell, no. But they sure make life easier.

Now, there's this iPad. In its current state, it basically looks like a really big iPod Touch, or maybe like a Kindle and an iPhone had a baby. This fills in a gap that Apple seems to have invented, or at least exploited:

cellphone > smartphone > tablet > netbook > notebook > laptop > desktop

Aaron and I bought an old Dell laptop at a garage sale a couple of summers ago. We bought a new power supply and battery, got a network card and a DVD player, some more memory, and now we're golden. The last time our laptop got any use was when Aaron was using it as a portable DVD player while doing some indoor stationary biking. Before that, we took it on vacation with us, to blog and surf from our hotel room.

For me to be interested in purchasing the iPad in its next iteration (because, really, only Mac fanboys buy 1st gen Apple products), Apple is going to have to convince me that there is a need in my life for this product. With the iPhone, the basic need it served was that of communication. Instant, and in multiple mediums. Phone, text, e-mail, web. And it fits in my pocket or purse. But this? I don't think I'm their target audience. I'm not a Mac fangirl, or a student, or a young executive who prides herself on having the latest and greatest.

That's not to say that I won't play with the iPad when I see it in the next Apple Store I happen across. But I'm as likely to buy an iPad as I am to buy a MacBook Air, despite the major price difference between the two.

Prove me wrong, Apple...

Lain Figurine

[Taken on 14 Jan 2010 | 1/60sec @ f/6.3 | ISO 800 | 200mm | off-camera flash, bounced]

Serial Experiments Lain was one of the first anime series Aaron got me to watch, over ten years ago now. If you're into anime or sci-fi, especially thought-provoking (or even mind-fucking) plots and universes, you owe it to yourself to watch it through. It's only 13 episodes, so it's not a huge time investment, but the experience is worth it.

A Narrow Writing Window

It's funny: I have, let's see, no less than fifteen ideas for blog entries written in my faux-Moleskine notebook, yet I can't make myself sit down and write.

Part of the problem, at least for today, is that I let myself get sucked into video games during my tiny bit of productive, brain-is-working time. Part of the problem is that my body has reacted unusually strongly to the time change this year, and demands to be put to bed an hour earlier.

If I want to write a coherent blog entry that's worth reading, I need to get my ass in my desk chair shortly after dinner, without any TV or gaming. If I want to watch TV or play games, I need to resign myself to that being the only thing that gets done that evening.

Tomorrow is Photo Thursday. That I can do.

Temporarily B0rked

Somehow, between Thursday and Friday evenings, my Movable Type installation got slightly hosed. The permissions on all my cgi scripts were wrong -- not sure how or when that happened, since my hosting provider claims they haven't made any changes -- but setting those back didn't fix everything. At least now I can post from my iPhone again, even though the normal New Entry screen is still hosed.

So, although I have several posts in the mental queue (new scanner, weekend with Amy, various photos), entries may be scarce while I'm having to tickety-tap them out on my iPhone keyboard.

Here's hoping the nice people on the MT forums will be able to help...

Seven Years Running

Before I had a proper content management system for my blog (i.e. Movable Type), I updated my blog manually. This was back from September 2002 to March 2004. For a few months after that, I used LiveJournal.

It's been slow going, importing all those old entries into MT, and I'm not done yet. I've recently taken up the project again, working backward through time, and am currently importing blog entries from Spring 2003, around the time Aaron and I got married — I had to create a category called wedding — and around the time my Memaw died of complications from lung cancer.

Since I have to at least glance through every entry I import, to make sure my customized PHP script correctly stripped and reorganized my Dreamweaver HTML code into MT Import format, I'm being reminded of so many things that were going on in my life back then. Our wedding and Memaw's illness were at the heart of it, yes, but I was also noticing how overweight I was, and I was complaining about a job I wouldn't leave for another six months.

It amazes me how naive I was about blogging back then. I literally had an audience of about a dozen close friends, and although part of me knew that my blog was technically open for anyone in the world to read, I didn't actually think anyone would care. Now, though, as I'm looking through the rants about work and the details of my bachelorette party, I'm having to decide whether to edit certain things, or to just leave them for posterity and trust that a future employer won't blackball me because I took three drags from a joint in the privacy of my own home once upon a time.

There will eventually be official blog entries back to late September 2002, and a few brief bits (before I knew what a "blog" was, and was just copying off of Timmay's regular updates) from early 2001, during my last semester in the dorms.

It's a blast from the past, for sure.

Referrers

Usually, when I'm curious about who finds my blog and what they're looking for, I check my Google Analytics. It rarely shows me anything I didn't already know, honestly; for instance, most people find my blog by searching for either CC's Archibald Barasol joke, t-shirt surgery, or the lyrics for "What the Fuck Chuck" by the Phunk Junkeez.

One thing I'd forgotten, though, is that Google Analytics only works for pages on which I've stuck its code; that is, only on my blog proper. This evening, I checked my server's AWStats page to see usage/hit stats on everything in the dianaschnuth.com domain, including all my archived websites of old. What I found was intriguing.

My top referrer so far this year? A Wikipedia article on the RCA tape cartridge (1958-1964). Back in college, I had a brief fascination with audio recording media, including various cassette media. I created a small sub-site on my personal homepage (circa 1998) that housed all the research I'd done, including a page on this oversized early cassette tape by RCA.

It's a damn shame I didn't notice earlier that the Back link was broken. This was an archive of a page I hadn't touched in YEARS, but wanted to keep for posterity (and because I'd done a decent amount of research). I'm going in right now and fixing broken internal links — but that fantastic late-90s design is staying the same. Again, for posterity, despite the fact that the damn background with that tiny font makes my eyes bleed.

Another surprise was that my review of Fujiyama / Domo on Urbanspoon is generating a decent amount of traffic for me, too. When I look up this stat on Google Analytics and drill through for more detailed info, it seems that people usually only stay on my site for about a minute after clicking through to read my full review, unfortunately.

Sometimes I consider looking into some sort of banner ads for the pages that get the most traffic. But then I realize that a single page getting 100 hits a month is peanuts.

I think I'll stick with blogging for the sake of blogging. Monetizing this motherfucker would be too much work.

Side Projects

I've been thinking up tweaks and minor add-ons for my blog lately, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with me being more secure in my coding prowess, and confident that, given enough time and resources, I could pull some of these ideas off. Or maybe it has to do with the analytical nature of my data warehousing gig. At any rate, I keep scribbling more blog enhancement ideas into my Moleskine and letting them filter through into my Action Items list for the ongoing project of my website.

Until today. Today's idea was so I-Can-Do-This that I wanted to try it RIGHT NOW. It killed me to have to wait until I home from work to try it out. All it consisted of was a list of Most Visited Sites on my blog, as determined by Google Analytics.

The verdict? It'll take a little reading up and a little experimentation (especially with authentication), but I can definitely do this. I might even make a little graph to go along with. It'll be fun!

I'm not kidding myself: I know this is a simple thing that could be done in a day's work, if tweaking my blog were my full-time job. But, considering that a.) javascript is but one language I know kinda-sorta; and b.) I'll be doing this when I have time in the evenings, I think I'll be able to puzzle this out and get it live sooner rather than later.

Is it a major necessity for the site? No, not really. But it'll be fun to prove to myself that I can do it.

Not (Quite) Indispensable

Don't get me wrong: I love my iPhone. It's awesome to have the internet at my fingertips almost anywhere. But, for me, it's still a toy. It's not an indispensable tool. Not yet.

I regularly use my iPhone to Twitter, track my daily weight, look things up on Wikipedia, read USA Today, check my Gmail, track my to-do list, and check the weather. I rarely use it as the phone it is, as my friends are mostly e-mail or Facebook types, and I don't have a kid to track down multiple times a day. I do text with Aaron every now and again, when one of us is at work.

Very few of these things actually require a mobile handheld device. I could check the weather from my computer at work or at home. Same with my e-mail and Twitter (although Twitter wouldn't be quite as much fun that way). I have an Excel spreadsheet with my daily weight. And so on.

That said, the iPhone was the closest thing to an indispensable tool when we were in Japan.

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Testing, Testing...

Micfo to the rescue! Their customer support may have saved the day, after their mod_security updates b0rked my blog.

The big test will be whether I can post a link in a post without it barfing on me...

Still Broken

Tried to post my Photo Thursday entry from my iPhone, and got the same problem I've been getting from my computer. (Which sucks, since it took me for freakin' EVER to type out the image tag one-fingered on that little keyboard.) I wonder if it's something to do with having HTML in the entry?

[tests preview with a URL in the entry body]

Yep, that's it. Hmm. Guess I'll go and repair my database? There has to be a funky unescaped character in there somewhere, gunking up the works, since I haven't made any changes to anything lately.

Sorry for the nerdy website talk. I'll be back to normal blogging as soon as I get this damn thing fixed.

(I might have to miss a week of Photo Thursdays. That's disappointing.)

This Isn't Good Timing.

This is peculiar. My tweets were posting to my blog just fine around 3pm today, but I can't seem to make the regular Movable Type interface let me post a blog entry. It won't work from Firefox or Safari. I'm trying this from my iPhone, to see if it's something to do with my MT installation itself.

If this makes it through, I'll try posting from Aaron's computer. If not, I'll try posting to the help forums. Gah!

Dollar Drawing by Alex!

Alex Heberling sketched my face on an index card for $1 at Animarathon last weekend! I will soon have a new avatar on teh internets...

Getting Too Old For This

Yesterday, Aaron and I went to Animarathon, an annual free convention hosted by Anime in Northwest Ohio, the anime club of Bowling Green State University (my alma mater).

We came to a realization when we walked into the building full of becostumed teens and young adults: we are no longer part of the anime con demographic. We've seen and heard most of the panels, some of them multiple times. Any anime we want to check out are easily available online (generally speaking), so we don't hit the video rooms. We've cosplayed a couple of times, and it was fun, but we don't get the joy out of it that we once did. We definitely don't get any joy out of listening to fangirls squee or otaku guys try to sound intelligent. We're tired of rude otaku of all persuasions being pushy and inconsiderate in dealers' rooms.

It's not fun anymore.

Granted, it was awesome to see Alex (who created the awesome mascot for the late WARP Anime Podcast) and Traeonna (local cosplayer extraordinaire). It was also awesome to get a new Beer-chan shirt from Wizzywig.

Plus, it was free. You can't beat free.

Will we go to the upcoming Garasunoshi-con (translation: Glass City Con) at Owens Community College? Probably, as it's also a free con. But I don't see us traveling to Columbus for our once-favorite cons anymore.

Aaron does point out, though, that we weren't too old for the Providence Anime Conference, as it was 21 and up. The youthful insanity was at a minimum, and the panels were interesting and relevant. Hopefully, that one will stay around for a while, and maybe start a trend...

Roadshow Recap

After reading this article about how to present while people are twittering, I thought it would be fun to have the iPhone out and a-twittering during today's MicroStrategy Roadshow in Cleveland. Alas, it seems that I still scribble physical notes faster than I can type on my iPhone. So, instead of live-tweeting the roadshow presentations, I opted to take notes for later publication instead.

If you're interested in Business Intelligence software and would like to know what I thought of the new features in MicroStrategy 9, read on. Otherwise, just know that I got up excessively early, learned a lot, and got excited about an updated product for my work.

[Update: in response to a reader's comment, I've expounded on a couple of new features of MicroStrategy 9: Personalized Prompt Answers and the new Graph Report Designer.]

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It's Official: I *heart* my iPhone

I'm all curled up on the recliner, tapping away on my iPhone. Thanks to this MT plugin, I can blog from wherever I can get a signal on my cell. Granted, it requires me to type one- or two-fingered on a tiny qwerty keyboard, but I'm getting used to that, anyway.

This will come in quite handy when we're on vacation this summer. This will be especially handy if we can, in fact, make our iPhones work in Japan for an additional fee.

Is liveblogging your vacation cool or lame?

Ah, Courtship.

Aaron and I had been dating for less than a year when he moved out of his dad's house at age 22. After that, we were finally able to spend weekend nights together (as the twin bed in my dorm room wasn't terribly conducive to overnight stays, and I couldn't exactly sleep over at his house with his dad around).

Those days were lean for Aaron, monetarily speaking, so he'd make food for us most Saturdays, except when we went to the $5 Chinese Buffet for lunch. There were a couple of years, one in particular, that I remember spending entire Saturdays in his apartment, eating Chicken Helper Shake-N-Bake for lunch or dinner — rather, the more generic but still tasty Chicken Bakin' Magic or Chicken Bakin' Miracle — and playing video games ALL DAY LONG. Broken up by rounds of snoo-snoo, of course.

Recently, Aaron ripped the audio from the Puyo Puyo Sun PlayStation game, and we listened to a few select tracks on his computer, including the intro:

We played the shit out of this game back in the day, so I didn't even need the visuals. I pantomimed everything that went on during the intro, even though I hadn't played the game for years. And when the track got to about 1:35, I made the funny face I used to always make, mocking the main villain character (who, incidentally, is named Satan).

Yep, those were the days.

So, what else did we play? Let's see... we started out on Saturn and SNES, mainly, then moved to Dreamcast and PlayStation. I remember playing Bust A Move, and Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, and Dr. Mario. [Edit: And how could I forget Tetris Attack? We played the shit out of that one, too.] We didn't just do puzzle games, though; I held my own quite well in Soul Calibur and the occasional Bushido Blade. Later on, we got hopelessly addicted to the Tony Hawk games, with 2 and 3 being our favorites. As we got a little less rabid in our gaming days, we'd play Cool Boarders 2 and SSX Tricky and the later Tony Hawk games and Dave Mirra.

These days, we don't do a whole lot of gaming together on the weekends. When we do, we tend to stick with Carcassone on Xbox 360, or Boom Blox, or sometimes Wii Sports or Rock Band.

We should really get back into gaming together, though, even if we have to drag out the Saturn or the Dreamcast to do it right. Those days were so much fun.

Twitter Update (#1081720320)

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Twitter Update (#1074760341)

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Weekend of Techie Goodness

It was Saturday evening, after a scrumptious dinner of Vietnamese deliciousness. We had come home from dinner and Starbucks, and had been snuggling on the couch, having a quiet evening together, talking.

I was looking at the packages under the tree; one smallish box in particular was wrapped in this year's signature "From Diana To Aaron" wrapping paper. And this present was mocking me. I couldn't let it sit there for another three weeks. I had to give it to him TONIGHT.

So I did. I gave Aaron his new 8GB iPhone as an early Christmas present — partly because I wanted him to have it sooner rather than later, and partly because it would be wasteful to be paying for this month's voice and data plans while it was just sitting there under the tree.

He loves the shit out of his new toy, and he's already texted his BFF several times (OK, guys don't have BFFs, but you know what I mean). Hell, he even went and signed up on Twitter. He might even get a Facebook account next! Who the hell knows.

I don't think it lessens his joy one bit that I went out and bought an 8GB iPhone for myself after lunch today, and signed us up for the Family Plan. If anything, shared joy is doubled. Right?

We spent the weekend setting up our new toys, learning how to make ringtones, downloading apps, texting (that was mostly him), using the wifi at Starbucks, and generally making the leap to "real" cellphones from our old prepaid jobbies. We even have camera phones now! Holy shit.

This is going to be fun.

Website Unb0rked

Hey! How about that? A simple suggestion (go back to static publishing instead of trying dynamic) proved to be the answer. I really should have thought of it myself, but I was so intent on making it work the one way I wanted.

So, you can now access my blog at http://www.dianaschnuth.net or http://blog.dianaschnuth.com — they both point to the exact same place. Comments work again, feeds should no longer do funky things, and all is well.

I can now go back to posting normal blog entries and waiting with bated breath for my regulars to post comments. Oh, yes, and I can also go back to finishing my website redesign.

Website Still Broken

For the sake of my RSS / LJ subscribers, I'm going to leave my website broken for now. Individual entries are broken, categories are broken, and basically the only things that work right are the main page and the RSS feed. (Well, except those extra 15 duplicate entries that came down the pike tonight.)

So, until the nice gentleman from the MT forums comes through with another idea for me, or until I come across the answer elsewhere on teh intarwebs, I'll just leave it like this. Anyone who would really want to comment on anything can either e-mail me or hit me on Twitter. Or Facebook. Or MySpace. I'm not hard to reach.

Come to think of it, maybe you should hit me up on one of those places even if you weren't going to comment. The beauty of social networking isn't so much that you make fake friends, or that you pretend to be closer to the friends and acquaintances you have, but that it's that much easier to get in contact with people. Think about that.

Success!

If you can see this entry, that means my domain has successfully propagated to point to my new server. Yay!

I'm sure there will be some broken things on the site. Files missing, homegrown databases yet to be restored, other indignities of that nature. Just shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment somewhere, and I'll address the problem as time permits.

Once things are back to how they used to be, I plan to do a major overhaul of the site. You folks who subscribe via RSS probably won't notice much, but anyone who visits the page will see the first big blog redesign in the past three years.

I just saved myself over $100 per year by moving servers. How about that shit?

Update, just before midnight: Well, almost success, anyway. I have some troubleshooting to do regarding my fancy new add-on domain and Movable Type. If I use the add-on domain or its corresponding subdomain (dianaschnuth.net or blog.dianaschnuth.com), MT gives me a 500 Internal Server Error. If I don't use one of those, and I use dianaschnuth.com/blog instead, I break all the links in my archive pages. Most notably, my stylesheets.

Argh!

My Queue

My plan had been to get a move-on with migrating my blog to my other server tonight. I'm planning an entire redesign, and am finally ready to sit down and do it.

My hosting provider had other plans.

Turns out that, somehow, I didn't get the Past Due Notice that I'm *sure* they must have sent before charging me a late fee. So, when I tried every possible password combination to log into my Cpanel and nothing worked, I decided to log into the Members section of their site, where I discovered that my account had been suspended. I promptly PayPal-ed them my annual $85 for 5GB of webspace (plus a $9 late fee), then contacted Billing (via a support ticket, since they had no e-mail or other contact form on their site) to confirm that my payment had been received and that my account would be un-suspended.

To their credit, they responded within an hour and reactivated my account — while I was writing this blog entry, in fact. I was seriously considering whether I wanted to continue my business relationship with a company that doesn't seem to notify its customers before suspending their accounts... but this is the first real issue I've had with them (besides their initial data entry error in calling me "Dina"), so I'm willing to stick with them for another year. After all, dianaschnuth.com has been hosted there for the past three years with no major snafus.

I hadn't been planning to go off on my web hosting provider, though. I'd been planning to detail my project plan for the next couple of months.

November, as usual, is National Novel Writing Month. I've never "won," meaning I've never successfully completed a 50,000-word novel in the month of November. I've never finished a 50,000-word novel at all. I have three unfinished novels, though: the first, started in 1999 (I think) and clocking in at 19,400 words, I haven't touched since 2004, according to Windows. The second was my first real attempt at NaNoWriMo, back in 2005 — between my NaNo wordcount and subsequent additions, it's up to 16,000 words, and hasn't been touched (besides the story bible) since late 2006. The third was last year's half-hearted attempt at NaNo, which only made it to 10,000 words, despite being a plot idea I'm particularly fond of.

I'm going to pick one of these to write on this November. Since I haven't successfully completed NaNoWriMo with 50,000 words in 30 days, I'm not going to be invoking the Zokutou Clause by finishing a previous work and still claiming to be officially participating. See, the rules clearly state that all actual writing must be done within the month of November (of the current year) in order to qualify. So, technically, I'm not planning to do NaNo this year. I am, however, planning to devote much of my November to writing.

Which means I need to get my blog redesigned (or well on its way) in the next 2½ weeks. And then decide which story I want to finish this November.

Oh, yeah, and after that? I should really update my portfolio and resume.

Providence Anime Conference: Artists Alley

Since I don't have a great track record of finishing giant long entries about my travels in general, I'm planning to write several shorter entries about PAC instead of doing one giant con report. (If you'd like one long con report, feel free to listen to Aaron and me on his podcast, "live" from our hotel room.)

The Artists Alley is a staple at anime conventions. For those readers who haven't had the privilege of attending a con, the Artists Alley generally consists of talented (and not-so-talented) anime fans, selling either fan art or original art, in almost any media you can imagine. In the past, Aaron and I have bought prints, figurines, hats, boxes, t-shirts, and probably other things, too. Usually, though, we skip past much of the original art and the fan-art bookmarks and buttons.

We were pleasantly surprised to find several artists at PAC with unique and skilled reinterpretations of some of our favorite characters, as well as some really compelling original works. Shelli Paroline was the artist behind the official conference graphics (as far as I know), and was selling and displaying some great ink drawings of Totoro, Star Wars, One Piece, and original creations. I really wanted to buy a print of her interpretation of Luke and R2-D2, but she didn't have any more on hand to sell. Neither did she have any more copies of her great Ewok print. So, I satisfied myself with the Totoro print.

I also highly enjoyed Stephanie Yue's prints; most of the ones that caught my eye were super-cute original drawings of martial arts as done by mice. I bought an 11x17 poster of 24 Posture Mouse Tai Chi Chuan — I haven't done the 24-form in years, but watching the mousie do it reminded me of how it goes. There was also a great print of two mousies sparring, and one doing a hip-throw on the other. (Poor mousie — I've been on the receiving end of a hip-throw myself, and it's a little scary, IMO.)

Sharing a table with Stephanie was Zack Giallongo, from whom Aaron bought a Megaman poster. It has a great cel-painted look about it, and has an intricate background full of Megaman villains, bosses, and bad guys.

Also in the Artist Alley was Alison Wilgus. Alison is a friend of the Ninja Consultants, and we met her through them at Otakon two years ago. Unfortunately, she didn't have anything we were interested in buying at the time, but we did enjoy shooting the shit about the con and the panels we attended. Interestingly enough, we seemed to have attended completely opposite panels, but enjoyed the panels we attended equally.

All in all, the Artists Alley at the Providence Anime Conference was small but awesome, from my point of view. I don't usually buy anything from Artists Alley (excepting the massive Artists Alley at Otakon), so buying two prints (and wishing I could have bought more) is a pretty big deal.

Still to cover: panels, accommodations, and the overall "feel" of the con. Stay tuned...

One Thing I Saw This Weekend

Seen in the dealer room at the Providence Anime Conference, 5 October 2008.

More photos (and con report) to come...

New Toy

I'm sitting in the recliner, typing on our new-to-us laptop with a brand-new stick of RAM installed.

(Note to self: need to trim fingernails before doing any hardcore typing on this here laptop.)

Aaron and I are preparing for our trip to Rhode Island this weekend for the Providence Anime Conference -- he's ironing and spot-cleaning his cosplay, while I'm trying not to fall asleep before I get all my stuff packed and ready to go. The laptop will be accompanying us, despite the fact that our hotel only has wired internet, and we only have wifi on the laptop. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that the Convention Center will have wifi. If nothing else, we'll be able to mess around and pre-write blog entries about the con.

New toys are fun.

Twitter Update (#926285556)

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One Down, One Zillion To Go

Apart from a few minor issues that I need to finish addressing, my freelance gig is complete. The site is done, the client knows how to update it, and I've been paid for my work. Now the trick is to get Chelsea Tipton's website to come up first in the Google rankings for a search on his name, instead of being stuck on the second page of results.

Now that I have one project in the bag (or I will very shortly), I can contemplate my next project: moving and redesigning my blog.

And after that's done, I have a laundry list of projects that will literally never end. Not until I'm dead.

Minor things like editing home videos and outputting them to DVD. Major things like finishing a novel or two. Mundane things like getting my fucking desk clean once and for all. Pragmatic things like updating my resume and portfolio. Creative things like songwriting, or photography, or scrapbooking. Oh, Lordy, the scrapbooking. I haven't even finished scrapbooking our honeymoon, and we celebrated our 5th anniversary this past May.

Whenever I hear someone say they need a hobby, I want to invite them to have one of mine. I have more than I'll ever use up.

Techy, But Thrifty

Aaron and I have been on the lookout for a cheap garage sale laptop for some time now. While we didn't want to plunk down multiple hundreds of dollars for one, we thought it would be helpful to have one for when we go out of town to anime conventions (and whyever else we go out of town), so we could actually use the free wireless connections we sometimes score. Granted, Aaron's Nintendo DS and PSP can access the web via wifi, but having a laptop would be so much easier.

Imagine our surprise when we were garage saling a few weeks ago and came across a laptop for $15. The woman manning the sale said it was her husband's, mainly, but that something was up with the power cord, and it wouldn't stay powered up. Usually the laptops we find have a cracked screen, which is a big dealbreaker — but this one had none of that. It was dirty, missing some clips and feet, and had cracks by the hinges, but the screen was fine. We talked the lady down to $10, and I ponied up for our initial investment in this used laptop.

We took it home and tried to power it up, with no luck, of course. I eventually noticed that the power light on the AC adapter wasn't even coming on, so Aaron took the next monetary hit for the laptop and bought a new adapter online for $17.

The adapter arrived yesterday, so we plugged it in and it powered right up. Rock! Then it came up with a Windows 2000 login screen. Suck! We tried various combinations of administrator and admin as usernames with various obvious passwords, but no dice. I went online and located a utility to boot into Linux from a CD-R and hack the passwords, but before we tried to use it, Aaron saved the day by suggesting the one obvious administrator username and password we hadn't tried ("administrator" with a blank password), and it logged us right in. Effin' A.

So, we sat down and played around with our new toy. Unfortunately, the previous owners didn't leave anything cool on the computer — just a Disney game that Aaron uninstalled without even launching it. We experimented with letting it run on battery power alone, and discovered that it only lasts for about a half hour on a full charge. I'd already requested a replacement battery from Dell, since we discovered in our online research that the battery had been recalled; but I haven't gotten any response back, so I'm assuming that the recall program is no longer being honored. Turns out that batteries are $60, so I think we'll be content for now with having a semi-portable computer that just needs an outlet.

Next necessary element: a wireless card.

Our new-to-us Dell Inspiron 5000 takes almost any PCMCIA wireless card. We could have had instant gratification by buying the Linksys Wireless-G card at Best Buy for $50, but that would really defeat the purpose of buying a laptop on the cheap in the first place. You don't pay more for the wireless card than you have for the whole kit so far. So, after some searching online, Aaron found the very same card on eBay for just under $20 shipped. Score!

So, in probably less than a week, we'll have a functional laptop with wireless connectivity. Next upgrade will be more RAM — it's running with 65MB right now, but can hold up to 256MB, I think.

Hey, all we really need it for is internet, so it doesn't have to do much. For about $50 so far, this is a deal.

FAIL.

Not sure if I'm relieved or totally pissed... but I just solved in half an hour what I've been trying to puzzle out for six, count 'em, six hours.

If only I would have Googled the right words when I started.

See, I want to include a list of upcoming appearances on my client's website, and I knew Google Calendar would be easily updated and — I thought — easily pulled into WordPress and styled just so. Turns out it's not quite as simple as all that.

Well, actually, it is, now that I've found the plug-in and don't have to write the damn thing from scratch. *headdesk*

Granted, I learned a lot about XML parsing in PHP during my research tonight. I also reinforced the unfortunate truth that I really can't just go out and learn the piece of a technology that I need RIGHT NOW without first learning more of the foundations. I'd put myself at a beginner-plus level of PHP. Parsing XML? That totally requires at least a novice level. At least I know enough to tweak the code in the plug-in now, I guess.

I still have a decent amount of work to do before the site is complete, and I couldn't really afford to spend so long on this one problem, but I still think it was time well-spent.

And I'm still including this evening in my billed hours. Totally.

PS - I'm getting really tired of Movable Type showing me a blank screen after just about anything I do with this blog anymore. I'm hoping a clean install will fix these annoying issues... but that's going to be easily another month, if not more.

My First Users Group Meeting

I think it's going to be an unusually early night for me, because it was an unusually early morning for me today. Before I crash, though, I did want to talk a little bit about the MicroStrategy Users Group Meeting that was the reason for my early morning. (Just in case you missed today's flurry of Twitter traffic.)

First, some backstory: I've been working with the MicroStrategy application for about eight months now. Before that, my only reporting experience was with MS Access, and I had no real Business Intelligence (BI) knowledge to speak of. Now, I'm finally to the point where I feel I can implement a simple project from start to finish on my own. Just about. So, I knew I wasn't going to get a whole lot out of today's presentations, from a technical standpoint, but I also knew it would be helpful to get an idea of how other companies are using the software and what's possible with it. Plus, despite the four hours in the car, I actually welcomed a chance to get paid to go someplace different and do something besides work at my desk and go to meetings.

There were three presentations: one about Supply Chain Management and BI, by an employee of Spartan Stores; one about using Narrowcast (a proprietary report distribution service), by an employee of Borders; and one about BI and Geography, by an employee of GM.

Frankly, I was surprised that such companies used this software. It's hard to get much info about MicroStrategy online, since the manuals and help files and training info is all copyrighted material. I guess I assumed that a lack of search hits — besides press releases, that is — meant that the platform wasn't popular. Apparently I was mistaken, as there were two dozen employees at our User Group meeting, representing eight or more companies, including the three listed above.

The Supply Chain presentation, while informative and interesting, was not something I could translate to my projects and experience at work. The Narrowcast presentation was more potentially useful, but since I'm not a Narrowcast expert, I could only take a few notes and hope that I can get my supervisor a copy of the presentation for later.

GM's presentation, while generally overarching and not technical, was eye-opening. The presenter basically listed all the things they track in their databases, mainly thanks to the technology of OnStar, coupled with a popular mapping software subscription service. We were proudly told that GM can pinpoint the location of a vehicle so closely as to identify its current parking space. We were told lots of things, most of which had little to do with possibilities for our own BI, and had instead to do with how much data GM has regarding its vehicles and business in general. Granted, we did see the ease with which this data can be aggregated into useful information via MicroStrategy. Mostly, though, our reactions were a combination of, "Wow, you can track how many times the car has cycled from a cold motor to a warm motor and back?" and, "So, you say only a court injunction can force you to disclose all this information you've collected?"

I did record audio of all three presentations with my digital point-and-shoot as a bit of an experiment; however, I think the experiment was a bit of a failure, as they're not entirely listenable. I might go through with my plan to tweak the audio a little and burn them to CD for my supervisor, since she couldn't make it to the meeting, but I'm not sure.

Either way, it won't happen tonight. I'm surprised I'm still awake, honestly. I don't generally get up before the sun. Not during Daylight Savings Time, anyway.

Little Bit of Everything

I don't do these massive update posts much anymore — I prefer to keep my blog entries on one topic at a time — but I figured I'd do one catch-up post, then maybe expound on parts of it later. So, working backwards from today...

Weighed in today at 196.5 lbs on my home scale — that's one and a half pounds away from my recent all-time low of 195 from May 2007. (Yep, I gained 15 pounds in six months, and it took me longer than that to lose it again.) It was a bit of a disappointment, then, to weigh in at my Weight Watchers meeting at 200.4 lbs, even after I had an ultra-light breakfast and didn't drink much water before the weigh-in. My mini-goal had been to weigh in under 200 pounds at the meeting. Oh, well — I guess I'll wait until next weigh-in to hit my mini-goal, and to reward myself with some shorts and dress pants and blouses that fit.

My supervisor asked me this morning if I'd like to attend a User Group meeting in Lansing (two hours away) this Thursday. Then she asked me if I could drive, since her car doesn't have air conditioning. D'oh! So, I'll be getting up at the buttcrack of dawn on Thursday, driving with my supervisor for two hours, attending four hours of Business Intelligence lectures and panels, then having lunch and driving two hours back. At least we don't have to work for the last couple hours of the day; basically, my day gets shifted forward by two hours.

I landed a freelance web design gig yesterday. Actually, I pretty much "landed" it last Wednesday, when he asked me if I do web design, but yesterday's client meeting was the first official sealing of our new business relationship. He's the resident conductor of a local orchestra, so I'm basically making him a PR tool, which is perfect work for me. I underpriced myself, as per usual, but I made sure to leave myself an out: a flat fee for the first 20 hours, then an hourly fee for the next 20, topping out at 40 hours. So, I won't have totally hosed myself.

This past weekend, Aaron and I went up to the Ann Arbor Art Fairs. Great time, as always. I took a few pictures (with the Holga, too, although I'll have to wait until those are developed to post them), and I bought one expensive thing and one not-so-expensive thing.

Oh, and I still need to get this blog moved to its new home on another web host, and not just because something's borked with my MT installation/upgrade (as you will have noticed if you tried to comment on a post lately — your comments ARE going through, I promise). I have until the end of August to get my stuff moved — which, incidentally, is also the deadline for getting my freelance site done. I'm going to be looking at some mighty busy evenings here. I'll need to carefully ration out my time.

And now I should get to bed, because I need to ready myself for my epic early-morning wakey-wakey in another day or so. I haven't gotten up at 5:30am since... um... well, it's been a while. Not counting jet lag in another timezone, of course.

Yep, Still a Trekkie.

Just channel-surfed to a fifth-season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Sci-Fi. Even though we have all the ST:TNG episodes on DVD, and even though the commercial breaks were atrociously long and frequent, I couldn't change the channel.

I did notice a few things, though (in addition to Wil Wheaton's fantastic eyeliner), that I never noticed before:

1. Wesley, why are you calling that guy Nick? That's Tom Paris!
2. I always thought Wil Wheaton was cute. I just never consciously realized it until now.
3. Wesley Crusher never grated on me as much as he did others exactly BECAUSE of his Mary Sue nature. Even though I was a girl, I was only a few years younger than Wesley at the time, and I was smart and precocious and socially inept, and I could identify with him — even though I never once saved the universe as we know it.
4. I miss Star Trek. REAL Star Trek. NEW Star Trek. And I miss Wesley Crusher.

Infinite Loop

This upgrade to MT 4.1 has been an interesting journey.

Last night, when I enabled MT-Twitter, I didn't put in the correct "regular expression" to keep it from ignoring tweets that started with "New Blog Post." Hence, when I got to work this morning and looked at my blog, I had hourly Status Updates about my New Blog Post about my Status Update...

So, i deleted all the unnecessary duplicate posts from work, but restrained myself from using Twitter until I could get home and make sure everything would work OK, with no infinite loops.

I think I'm addicted to Twitter.

To keep myself sane, I wrote all the tweets I would have liked to have posted in an email to myself, so I could post them here:

Enjoying hearing some long-lost prog rock on my iPod. I forgot how much I like(d) Dream Theater. 10:41am
Finally have enough tasks at work that I’m using the Outlook Tasks feature. Nice. 11:17am
Should be hungry. Focusing more on other kinds of cramps at the moment. 1:00pm
Yay! I know enough about my job now to know when a piece of data was left out. 2:53pm
I need a nap. 3:58pm
Damn, you, @wilw! You got me… 4:14pm

Anyway, I think my site upgrade is at a good stopping point... for now. Next up: migrating to a new server.

*girds loins in preparation*

Movable Type Upgrade

Just upgraded my blogging software, Movable Type, and added a new plug-in to incorporate my Twitter posts into my blog proper. My tweets don't look very pretty right now, either on the site or in the RSS feed, but I hope to remedy that tomorrow evening.

Until then, sit tight and know that I'll be working my magic soon enough...

(Wow, that doesn't sound egotistical or anything.)

Sapping My Will To Blog

I think that being able to Twitter quick updates all day long is diverting my blog creativity. Well, maybe not my creativity so much as my desire. I mean, I still have plenty of topics to blog about. I have a list. But twittering quickies about how I feel or what I think about during the day is seeming to take the place of blogging. Which isn't what I'd intended at all.

So, for those who subscribe to the RSS and don't read my sidebar (wherein lies my twitter feed), here's what I twittered today (in reverse order, of course):

• 19 days until Hawaii. 26 minutes ago
• Longest Friday EVAR. Because I had nothing to do and had to look busy at my desk. And it was beautiful outside. Now I am home. about 3 hours ago
• last.fm appears to be mainly unb0rked now. we'll see when i go to scrobble today's listenings... about 6 hours ago
• iPod just shuffled from the Beasties to Bonnie Tyler (Total Eclipse of the Heart). WTF? about 6 hours ago
• o noes! @wilw sez that last.fm asploded. well, their datacenter lost power, anyway. ungood - i'm addicted to tracking my listening habits. about 8 hours ago
• New live-action Speed Racer by the Wachowski bros looks sweet: http://tinyurl.com/6absre about 9 hours ago
• Still can't concentrate on work. Doesn't help that I'm waiting on someone else before I can actually do what I need to do. about 10 hours ago
• Can't concentrate on work. Want to be outside! Argh! about 12 hours ago
• Just found out how to set Windows Movie Maker to widescreen mode. AFTER I already captured and uploaded the video wrong. Fix it after work. about 12 hours ago

See the fun crap I post all day? My tweets seem to be par for the course: mainly self-centered updates about the status of me, occasional interesting linkage, and random observations about life in general. Kind of like my blog, but shorter.

My 8th-grade English teacher, Mr. Jay Falls, signed my yearbook (or was it a comment on an essay of mine?) that, like a world-class athlete, a writer like me should practice every day. So, in honor of Mr. Falls and his wisdom, I'm going to make a concerted effort to write a blog entry every day, from now until I go to Hawaii (on May 7).

That doesn't mean I'm going to stop twittering, though...

Edited to Add: Just for kicks, I Googled Mr. Falls to see if I could find out what he's doing now. I think I found him... so I wrote him a "thanks for being a good teacher" e-mail. Am I a goober? I think I might be...

Anime Punch 2008: Armageddicon III

This weekend, Aaron and I took a trip down to Columbus for our first anime convention in over a year. Honestly, it was nice just to get out of town for a weekend. The convention, however, was a great time, as always.

Anime Punch has been one of our favorite conventions the couple of times we've attended, just because they a.) stick to actual anime themes, instead of being an all-encompassing anime / gaming / J-rock convention; b.) insert their collective sense of humor into everything; and c.) include intellectual and intriguing academic panels alongside the typical fan panels. This year was no exception.

But let me begin at the beginning: with bologna sandwiches in Waldo...

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Animarathon and Asimov's

I skipped out on the Saturday afternoon session of this weekend's Aikido seminar to go to Bowling Green with Aaron. We checked out the Animarathon for a short while, walked around campus, then got a coffee at Grounds.

But first, an aside. BGSU alumni: take a look at this landscape and tell me what's missing:

I'll give you a hint: I'm standing in the parking lot by Jerome Library and Anderson Arena. On the left is Kreischer. On the right is the art building.

If you said the Saddlemire Student Services Building, give yourself a point! The old bookstore building was torn down late last year in preparation for a new Fine Arts building. It was unsettling to see a big empty dirt plot where the bookstore once stood. Almost as unsettling as walking around an anime convention inside Olscamp Hall, where I attended so many classes nearly a decade ago.

Grounds for Thought, however, is a more comfortable sort of familiar, as is the taste and smell of a single mocha and the feel of the heavy, tall glass mug in my hands. It feels like home, somehow.

A good part of the joy of Grounds — for me and mine, anyway — is perusing the used books. In particular, I like looking for new-to-me science fiction. And we hit the jackpot this time, when we saw an entire shelf of Asimov's Science Fiction and Analog magazines. Aaron and I sat Indian-style on the floor in the middle of the aisle and scanned the table of contents for each one, looking for authors whose names we recognized. Our resultant haul:

• Asimov's, January 1985
  Including stories by Frederick Pohl, Connie Willis, et al.
• Asimov's, August 1986
  Including stories by Orson Scott Card, Harry Turtledove, et al.
• Asimov's, August 1989
  Including stories by Isaac Asimov, Orson Scott Card, et al.
• Asimov's, Mid-December 1989
  Including stories by Isaac Asimov, Connie Willis, Harry Turtledove, et al.
• Asimov's, February 1990
  Including stories by Bruce Sterling, et al.
• Asimov's, June 1990
  Including stories by James Patrick Kelly, Larry Niven, et al.
• Asimov's, November 1991 (double issue)
  Including stories by Isaac Asimov, Mike Resnick, Robert Silverberg, et al.
• Asimov's, November 1993
  Including stories by Frederick Pohl, Connie Willis, et al.
• The Black Hole: The Illustrated Adaptation of the Exciting Film.
• I, Jedi - A Star Wars novel by Michael A. Stackpole

After we got our coffee buzz and our sci-fi books, we went to Goodwill and found the Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture 2 DVD game (with questions we can answer! Yay!), then headed to the Woodland Small Mall to Steve and Barry's, where Aaron and I got some geeky T-shirts.

I'm going to have plenty of short fiction to read for a while, and hopefully will discover some new sci-fi authors to follow. I'm looking forward to this...

New Toy

Since I've had a little extra money to throw around, I've been treating myself here and there to things I've been wanting, but haven't really been able to justify. This time, it was a macro lens for my Nikon D50.

I'd noticed recently that the lens I usually use didn't work so well with close-up photography. This is unfortunate, as I really enjoy finding small and/or unusual things and photographing them as best I can. Granted, I do think my "old" lens is in need of cleaning (OK, I know it is), which would explain the weird glow in the comparison photos I took tonight:

I can get in so much closer now, and the images seem to be crisper and have more contrast. I can also narrow the depth of field waaaaay down, throwing everything but my subject out of focus. (Which, for those of you who have seen a decent amount of my photography, is my usual MO.)

So, now I can give you the marimokkori photo I really wanted you to see:

Note the pronounced, um, mokkori. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

OH MY GOD.

End of an Era

I finally did it.

After turning the thought over in my head for months now, I finally submitted my resignation as LSM webmaster.

It's nothing against them. It's just a reorganization of priorities for me. I can only handle so many projects at a time, and can only keep focused on so much. I'm sure that there is someone actively participating in the corps who has HTML skills and can do just as good a job as I did. Or better, probably.

I just haven't been devoting the amount of time to the website that the corps deserves, and it's been like that for quite a while now. LSM deserves more than I'm currently giving them. And I deserve to be cut free of the guilt I've been giving myself over that very issue.

The announcement feels like a weight lifted from my mind.

Mixed Feelings

Some of you may remember the drum corps website I worked on back in '05. Well, it seems that the corps is "streamlining" their communications, and they'd like to retool the site. That's fine. I can dig that. I can even use the design they'd like me to use, although I insist on trying a few different variations on it first.

The only thing that really makes me sad is that I worked SO HARD on getting the content management system to be robust enough to serve their needs, and now the site is pretty much going to be a static electronic brochure. No individual member logins, no real need for members-only news items... they'll keep the news feed around, and they'll keep the schedule up-to-date, and I think they'll keep the file upload feature for staff, but it's not the same. The site will mainly be used as a recruiting tool, rather than the multifaceted communications tool I'd wanted it to be.

Maybe I wasn't proactive enough. Maybe I didn't keep up with it as well as I should have. But I did what I was told, when I was told, and I was so proud of what I'd achieved. I learned so much by programming all that, and I was actually pretty proud of my design. (I went through lots of thumbnails and comps to get to that final.)

Maybe this is my chance to make something that really pops, though. I can take the site and streamline it all to hell. I won't be depressed about this — I'll be grateful for the chance to update this two-year-old design.

Really, I will.

Geek Chic

I decided to take a different tack on the job hunt this evening, and look one-by-one at each business that's located in the business development where I currently work. I'm a big fan of the location, being that a.) it's a fifteen-minute drive from home, and b.) there's a fantastic wooded walking path through the middle of the area. So, I sat down with a list of (most of) the businesses in the park, and went to all of their websites, and determined whether their industry is something I'd be interested in pursuing, and looked for job postings.

I found a few that sounded vaguely interesting, and a few that I'd already known about — but I found one business that finally sparked my interest enough to get the job-hunt juices flowing again. It's a national firm, an IT services and solutions provider, and I'm only vaguely familiar with most of their offerings. All of it made the geek girl in me drool, though.

Only a computer nerd would look through a list of technology solutions and think, "Ooh, HP Storage Area Network. I've never heard of that! Sounds cool!" Lots of the names like Altiris and Veritas and Citrix, and lots of the buzzwords like Web Content Filtering and Business Continuity Planning, all sounded familiar to me, but not enough so that I'd even be able to talk for two minutes straight about a given one.

The only section of their services where I know I can shine is Web Development, including website design and development and website management services. That I can do. The other stuff... it harks back to a day when I went around with Kirkum and installed new network cards in pizza-box Macs. Or imaged computers in the labs. Or installed a right-angle adapter in my own legacy Mac so I could install an ethernet card.

At any rate, I got fired up enough (and undepressed enough) that I worked on my Personal Marketing Plan like the nice outsourcing lady told me to. I have a list of about a dozen companies that may or may not be hiring, but that it would be pretty cool to work for. You can all expect that, once I have my Marketing Plan done and ready for prime time, I'll be sharing it with you and asking you, "Do you know anyone who works for...?"

I Am Teh Win... I Hope

I don't usually spend an excess of money on display items. However... I think I may have scored this before PodBrix.com exceeded their bandwidth:

A limited-edition Young Woz and Jobs custom "Lego" set. I read about it on Wil Wheaton's blog, who read about on BoingBoing (which I need to start reading again).

Their mockup of the 1984 commercial sold out in less than a minute, according to their website. This set may have done the same, barring technical issues. The Young Woz and Jobs set went on sale at 9pm, and I had a heck of a time getting the page to load. I just kept hitting Reload, Reload, Reload... and kept getting Firefox telling me to Try Again. Then I got a few minutes of 403 Forbidden errors. Then, just after 9:10 or so, I got through.

I do have a PayPal confirmation e-mail, so I *think* I'm golden. We'll see if I am one of the elite 300 soon.

Update: PodBrix says, "If you were able to make it through to PayPal checkout and ordered, we have your order." So, it sounds like I'm golden.

BTW, Aaron saw the $200 price tag on the 1984 Playset and about shit a brick (a Lego® brick, perhaps?), but then he saw that the Young Woz and Jobs set cost much less. :-)

Nuts-N'-Bolts

For the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Why must I have these fantastic ideas like, Let's put the menu for my portfolio site in the bottom left corner! That way, I won't be able to use the standard nested unordered list to stylize my menu, and I'll have to come up with some effed up way to rig it! Yeah, that sounds like fun!

I feel like the answer is obvious, yet it eludes me. I'm sure that a.) it's just a little late at night for actual mental activity to be successful, and b.) upon a proper Googling later, the answer will present itself.

In the meantime, anyone who'd care to school me on how daft I'm being right now is welcome to take a gander at my portfolio in progress. I just want the goddamn submenus to stay visible. *sigh*

It's a very basic problem. I just need more sleep to conquer it.

Astronomy Geekgasm (or, Ursa Major Space Station)

I just watched the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle Atlantis fly over. That was SO COOL.

Earlier this week (or maybe it was this past weekend), Aaron had mentioned that our friend Kris took his three-year-old son, Sam, outside and showed him the ISS flyover. After that, from what I understand, Sam not only wanted to see it fly over ALL THE TIME, but every passing car and truck became a space shuttle.

I can dig it.

Earlier this evening, I got a SpaceWeather.com e-mail stating that the Atlantis had left the ISS and would be traveling behind it for the next visible orbit. Hmm, I thought. I should go out and look at that. So, I punched up the Heavens Above website and discovered that the flyover time for Toledo would be around 10:32pm. The ISS would come up in the northwest, pass through the Big Dipper, then arc overhead to set somewhere on the southeastern horizon.

I went outside a few minutes early, to get my eyes dark-adapted — but I got eaten by bugs and startled by neighbors, so I went back inside to wait out the last few minutes. With one minute to go, I stepped outside and sat on the front step, focusing my sight on Ursa Major.

And then, holy shit! There it was! No, there THEY were. One giant, fat, bright star, being chased by an only slightly dimmer star. They came up through the trees and passed through the Big Dipper, as promised. I felt like, if only my glasses were a little stronger, I could have seen those fancy new solar panels on the station. I was so excited, I not only gaped at the sky like a slack-jawed, grinning idiot, but I ran across the driveway in my bare feet to follow them to the other side of the house, so I could watch the ISS and Atlantis orbit over to the other horizon. As the pair set, they got dimmer and dimmer until, several degrees above the horizon, they both disappeared from sight. As they did, though, I saw another satellite crossing their path — I'm not sure which one it was, but it may have been Cosmos 1455 or TRMM.

That trumped the hell out of Halley's Comet. (I lied to my Girl Scout leader about being able to see the comet back in 1986, just so they would let me pass the binoculars to someone else already.)

I could easily make this a ritual and watch the ISS flyby every night before bed, chamomile tea in hand. Good night, astronauts... :-)

By the way... are there any other Trekkers (or Trekkies) out there who have trouble calling the International Space Station the ISS, in light of the mirror-universe ISS Enterprise?

Accomplishment

"Task" for potential employer: done.
Time to complete: 10.5 hours.

I've never coded someone else's website layout before. I liked it. Could be that my calling is strictly as a web developer, not a designer. That, plus I'm a grammar nazi. When I'm plugging in content, I *have* to correct comma splices and misspellings. Web copy editor, anyone?

Now, it's time to focus on following up with other companies to whom I've submitted a resume online. I am armed with legal-size paper and a full clip of determination.

I have three months to land a job in my field. Granted, if I don't, I get to take home a decent chunk of severance pay... but it's not worth it to waste job-hunting time and possibly miss the job for me, just to stick around and get my severance. You know?

Japan Update

Aaron's passport arrived on Monday, at which point we faxed in our order for Ghibli Museum tickets to the JTB (Japan Travel Bureau) office in Manhattan. According to Maiko-san, they were overnighted to us today, so we should have them in hand tomorrow. And that's the last piece of the pre-planning puzzle to fall into place.

Aaron and I still need to figure out a more detailed itinerary, but we do have our trip roughly sketched out:

Tuesday:
Leave Detroit Airport 2pm local time

Wednesday:
Arrive Narita Airport 4pm local time
Two-hour limo bus to hotel
Dinner (in hotel?)
Commence jet-lag

Thursday:
Dynamic Tokyo Tour
- Tokyo Tower: check out the observatory and the kitchy souvenir shops
- Tea Ceremony at Happo-en Garden
- Lunch at Chinzanzo Restaurant
- Driveby of the National Diet Building
- Photo-op at the Imperial Palace Plaza
- 40-minute cruise up the Sumida River to Asakusa
- Asakusa Kannon Temple
- Nakamise Dori (Avenue) shopping area
- Drive through Ginza shopping district

After tour: dinner somewhere, then watch Japanese TV in the hotel?

Friday:*
Akihabara!
- Super Potato (collectibles)
- Maid Cafe (lunch or snackies?)
- Kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi - lunch or dinner?)
- Hell, we'll probably visit just about every store there...

Saturday:
Sanja Matsuri in Asakusa - the third largest festival in Japan!
Check out the shops and the festival/parade
Overnight stay in the Ryokan Asakusa Shigetsu

Sunday:*
Nakano Broadway - a giant otaku mall in Nakano
Maybe check out the Harajuku girls?

Monday:
Ghibli Museum in Mitaka

Tuesday:
Breakfast, check-out
Limo-bus back to Narita Airport
Depart Tokyo around 4pm local time
Arrive in Detroit around 2pm local time, same day

We still have to fit in a few more definite things, like the Ramen Museum south of Tokyo, and we still need to be sure we have everything marked in our handy-dandy bi-lingual Tokyo atlas. We obviously have some more time to fill in, and the asterisks on Friday and Sunday mean that we might swap our Akiba and Nakano days around, since we'll be closer to Akiba after spending the night in Asakusa, anyway.

Oh, and as a cute illustration, allow me to show you our neighborhood-for-a-week:

Distance from Tokyo Prince Hotel to the nearest 7-11: one-third of a mile.

Let me know if you don't know WTF I'm talking about with some of our itinerary... it's getting late, and I'm getting lazy with the linkage. :-)

OMFG Japan! *head asplodes*

Life Is Good.

Furniture was delivered Saturday afternoon. Only major downside was that the old couch didn't fit through the basement door, so the entire point of buying a new couch (so we could put the old one in the basement) was nullified. On the upside: we have a giant, nine-foot pillow-back sofa on which to lounge; a new, smaller dining room table with non-80's chairs and a bench; and after our return from Nihon, we will have a new massagey recliner.

In other news, Aaron has determined the status of his passport. Due to our change in departure date, it hasn't yet been processed, even though he applied for it back in February. It has now been expedited, and should be on its way by week's end. Which is still calling it close, and may mean that we'll need to obtain our Ghibli Museum vouchers after we arrive in Nihon instead of in advance.

Weight has stabilized at 198 pounds. I'm OK with that for now. Slow and steady weight loss means it's more likely to stay off. I won't make my goal of 190 by Japan, but so be it. I still intend to eat heartily while we're on vacation.

I am SO almost done with my freelance project. I'm hitting some snags with programming the content management system, and I'm going to just have to set some strictures on what it can and can't do. I can't make it account for every possible instance of weirdness. Hopefully, the client will be accepting of that. Honestly, though, I'm really just glad to have it done. I don't know if I'll get the remainder of my pay by the time we leave for Japan, which is unfortunate... but, again, I'm OK with that. Between Aaron and myself, we have enough money saved up to have a sufficiently good time.

Yes, indeed... life is good.

My Geeky Worlds Collide

So, I was reading the novelization of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home — you know, the funny Star Trek movie with the whales — when I came upon a scene that was removed from the final draft of the screenplay, but was left in the novelization. I remembered reading this before, but it made a little more sense this time.

In late-20th-century San Francisco, Mr. Sulu is approached by a young Japanese boy, who asks if Sulu is his uncle. Actually, he says, "Ah! Hikaru oji san desu ka?" (Which, truth be told, don't you just use oji for your own family, but ojisan for someone else's? Not sure about the proper politeness factor on this one.) Then the boy asks casually what his uncle is doing here. I recognized the words tokoro, nani o, and desu ka, and the rest of the sentence made sense with the author's prose around the Japanese.

At this point, Sulu replies with some vocab that I don't know, but I can at least recognize the sentence structure. From the English context clues the author provides, he is responding (in antiquated Japanese that he learned from classes on literature) that the boy has mistaken him for someone else. The boy exclaims, "Honto desu ne," which I think means something like, "Really!"

The boy starts to get all creeped out and back off, but Sulu asks the boy to wait with some other words I don't know. Then he asks the boy's name, which I totally understood, and the boy responds that he's Akira Sulu. According to the author's English paraphrase, Sulu of the Enterprise then tells Akira Sulu that he will live a long and happy life, to which the boy responds, "Ogisama arigato gozaimasu," before scurrying off.

I know my Japanese skills are still severely limited at best, but it done my heart good to recognize some Japanese spoken by Hikaru Sulu's great-great-great grandfather. ^_^

Productive

Finished the initial roll of film in the Brownie Starmite. Today was appropriately sunshiny, so I took identical photos to yesterday's overcast ones, plus some others to pad out the roll. Wrote a check to Dwayne's Photo for $14, packed up the film, and will be shipping it off tomorrow morning. I expect to have twelve 4" x 4" prints in my hot little hands by May 1st.

Put away the mess of clothes on the floor by the bed. Went into the small bedroom and arranged all of our board games on a small plastic shelving unit in the closet. (Damn, we have a lot of board games. Trivial Pursuit especially.) Moved my empty steamer trunk from the small bedroom to beside my nightstand. Sometime in the near future, I'll be going through the linen closet and moving blankets into the trunk to make room for the new sheets I intend to purchase.

Submitted the new freelance site to Google for spidering and indexing. I'm planning to use a Google search for the site search, so a good spidering by Google would be a definite plus. Still have a lot to do... I'm not going to end up getting everything done this week that I told them I would. I knew I was giving myself a mighty tall order, what with the laundry list of stuff I had yet to do. Not to worry. It'll get done well before the Japan trip. Hopefully by the end of April, if not sooner.

Paid my credit card bills. A simple task, but still one that makes me feel... satisfied? Relieved? Accomplished? Meh. It's done, anyway.

Paying bills is going to get more interesting in July, when Sky changes over to Huntington's payroll system. Bi-weekly instead of semi-monthly. This will take some getting used to, after being paid on the 15th and the last day of the month for the past 4½ years.

T-minus 28 days and counting

We bought luggage at TJ Maxx this past weekend: two large 29" Dockers suitcases for about $60 apiece. We're still contemplating whether to purchase a new carry-on or two, or just use our backpacks and shoulder bags as carry-on.

Since I expedited my passport, it arrived a couple of weeks ago. Aaron's still waiting for his to show up, even though he applied for his much sooner than I did mine. As soon as his passport arrives, we'll reserve our Ghibli Museum vouchers, since we need passport info to get those.

Due to an incredible stroke of luck, we managed to book a room at the Ryokan Asakusa Shigetsu during the Sanja Festival. The Shigetsu is practically across the street from the Sensoji Temple and Asakusa Shrine... well, OK, maybe a couple streets and a park away. At any rate, we'll be in Asakusa, in the thick of things, during the Sanja Matsuri. Could be crazy. Will definitely be a new and fun experience.

I've completed the Pimsleur Japanese Short Course, all eight lessons, and am going to continue with Japanese I tomorrow. (From what I understand, the Short Course is basically the first eight lessons of Japanese I, so I'm starting with Lesson 8 tomorrow.) Vocab from JPod101 is starting to dovetail with Pimsleur, which tends to make my Pimsleur lessons feel less difficult... or less meaningful. When I already know all the new vocab except the word "lunch," I tend to feel a little jipped, I guess.

I have the feeling I'm still going to either have to consult Aaron's phrasebook or look up some words online before our departure. After I'm done here, I may take a few minutes to look up "water," "menu," and other daily vocabulary I might need. Honestly, though, I'm fully expecting not to need my meager Japanese skillz in Tokyo. I expect that the person at the front desk of the Tokyo Prince Hotel is going to greet us in English, rather than saying, "Tokyo Purinsu Hoteru e youkoso irashaimase!" So, I'm probably not going to have to remember about nimei being the honorific term for "two people," or roppaku being the word for "six nights." It might be polite of me to give it a shot, though, and I'm still not convinced that we won't need my fantastic *scoff-scoff* Japanese skillz somewhere along the line.

I'm afraid I might try to get too fancy if I try to speak too much Japanese, as I'm basically doing the language version of learning to play piano from that crazy infomercial guy. I don't know all the underlying grammar and structure; I'm learning phrases on the fly and picking up some structure along the way. The particles are still eluding me a bit, and there are words with similar meanings that confuse me. I'm afraid that if I try to put together new sentences with words I know, I'm going to fuck the grammar all up and end up sounding like... well, like a foreigner, I suppose. Go figure.

[Hmm. I'm a big word nerd. I just cleared up some of my confusion by reading the Wikipedia article on Japanese particles that I just linked to. Just tell me that "o" indicates a direct object, and it clears things right up. Wikipedia makes everything clearer...]

OK, off of the Japanese language rant.

At any rate, things are starting to come together. We'll start being a little more methodical about planning the things we definitely don't want to miss, and listing things in the same vicinity that we could squeeze in around the biggies. Like, Nakano Broadway is a must. The Ghibli Museum is a must. The Ramen Museum... OK, that's really high up on the list. The Parasitological Museum is a free oddity that would be fun to check out, but is not necessarily a must-do. ;-)

What's the Japanese word for OMGEXCITED!!!111 ?

Hitting The Wall of Nihongo

It's not that my brain is full. I'm still doing OK with picking up the grammar and vocabulary in the Pimsleur lessons, and the JPod101 Survival Phrases. Thing is, I'm not sure if they'll be helpful, and if I'd be better served to spend all my Nihongo brainpower on the katakana studies that Erin suggested. Although that would be harder to study during my lunchtime walk.

Between what I learned from Josh in Japan (mainly just left/right and numbers) and my two other audio sources of Nihongo goodness, I can introduce myself, ask directions, ask if you understand English, be humble about my own knowledge of Japanese, ask you to repeat yourself slowly, be generally polite, make sure I get on and off the train at the right place, ask if you'd like something to eat or drink, ask how to say something in English, ask what something says in Japanese, and a few other parlor tricks. Most of the really useful stuff has come from the JPod101 Survival Phrases, though.

I've read that the Pimsleur lessons don't give an accurate representation of native language speed or rhythm — which is daunting, but expected. I think I can get a better idea of the flow with a half-hour Pimsleur lesson than a 15-minute JPod101 lesson, though. I guess I'm just wondering if I should even keep bothering. I know I'm going to sound pretty idiotic saying stuff like... oh, I don't know... OK, for example, I don't think I'll ever have occasion to say, "Ee, eigo ga yoku wakarimasu. Watashi wa amerikajin desu." ("Yes, I understand English well. I am an American." Well, hello, Captain Obvious! Was my god-awful accent the first giveaway?) I also don't think I'll ever have occasion to actually ask someone if they'd like to eat or drink something, and especially not at either my place or their place. ("Watashi no tokoro de?")

I've read online that there's an upcoming lesson that teaches how to count yen. I need some help with remembering numbers without counting on my fingers, so I'll stick with it at least until that one. Listening and repeating also helps my recall of the previous lessons. I don't think I'll get need to use very much Japanese in Tokyo, but I'd like to at least sound like I'm trying my best when and if I do use it.

(The people at my work think I sound Japanese. I don't think they've ever even watched anime.)

Nice Engrish

I just submitted a reservation for a ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) in Asakusa, Tokyo. Turns out there's a festival going on while we'll be in Japan! How cool. However, it makes our goal of staying in a ryokan a little more challenging, as the good ones in Tokyo all appear to be in Asakusa, and they're probably all booked because of the HUGE festival.

Anyway, I just got the greatest confirmation message ever:

Thank you for an application.
I do the telephone of affirmation by return.
In addition, since there is also a case of a transmitting trouble, 2 and when you will carry out for three days and there is no reply, please ask by E-mail, telephone, etc.

o.O

I'd imagine the Japanese are probably too polite to nickname the hack-job that we gaijin do to THEIR language.

One Week Till Relaunch?

Stayed up a little too late last night after getting home from Easter festivities in Cleveland. Woke up this morning, way late and bleary-eyed, and decided to use one of my personal days. After all, I need to get my freelance project done this week, and there are a few important parts that aren't done yet. So, I stayed home, slept in a little, and worked for about four hours total on that.

I'm realizing that creating my own content management system (CMS) from a flat-file database is a little more challenging than I'd thought it would be. I thought it would be ridiculously simple, but it's really not. I'd really rather use SQL, but enabling SQL on my client's webhosting would cost them extra from their webhost. I'm highly tempted to just tell my client to edit the file themselves as needed, and upload it via FTP... but I know I should really afford them a way to edit their news and such in the browser itself.

I spent long enough figuring out how to check a username and password against a flat-file db, and remembering how to get PHP to remember that the user has logged in, via session variables. I finally had some ideas about how to edit and delete records after being flummoxed for quite some time... but I got sidetracked by Japan trip stuff, and never got back to coding, and now my brain's winding down enough that I'm not going to attempt it now. Maybe tomorrow after work. I'm thinking about feeding the db into an array to display it, then editing the array and spitting the whole array back out into a new file, overwriting the old. Should work, right...?

Back to work tomorrow. Meh. I'm looking forward to finishing this freelance job so I can a.) invoice the client, and b.) finish up my resume and portfolio redux in preparation for the pre-Japan job-hunting blitz.

Plug Your Desk Hole With a USB Hub

I no longer have a desk to accomodate such a thing, but I so could have used this back when I worked at RCC.

It's a USB hub that fits in the little 3-inch desk hole where your cables go. How cool is that. Belkin is apparently planning to release an iPod dock adapter along these same lines. OMGWTFBBQ. I <3 gadgetry... except when I currently have no earthly use for it.

Maybe someday I'll reclaim sufficient geek status to work somewhere with a desk hole. *sigh*

[via NOTCOT.ORG]

I Think I'm Learning Japanese

A while back, Aaron borrowed the Pimsleur Language Program Japanese: The Short Course audiobook from the library. It was really almost on a whim — we were looking through the books-on-CD, and there it was. We hadn't booked our trip yet, but we'd seriously discussed it; so Aaron borrowed the CDs from the library and ripped them to mp3s, which we promptly loaded onto our respective iPods.

One of the basic tenets of the Pimsleur Approach is that you listen, repeat, and engage in "conversations" with the native speakers on the CD — but you are NOT supposed to go look up how to write or spell the words. This is problematic for me, as I am naturally a visual speaker: I remember what words look like. Some people remember what letter a word or name starts with; I remember how many letters it has. If I can't see how the word is formed properly, I'll make it up in my head, and that's probably not good.

For example, in the first lesson, you learn the word for "a little," which is pronounced "skōsh". Knowing what I know about Japanese already, I knew that the romanji spelling was probably "sukoshi". While I really, REALLY appreciate the correct native pronunciations, not knowing how things are spelled (in our alphabet, anyway) makes some words difficult for me to remember.

I've discovered a solution: fellow bloggers who have already completed the Pimsleur Method lessons. These individuals have transcribed the conversations, new words, and review words in each lesson. I glanced over the Lesson 3 notes briefly before I listened to Lesson 3 today during my lunchtime walk, and I think it helped.

My favorite phrase right now? Watashi wa Nihongo ga sukoshi wakarimasu. Demo mada jouzu ja arimasen.

I'm also enjoying the JapanesePod101 Survival Phrases. I've taken to listening to one 30-minute Pimsleur lesson during the beginning of my lunchtime walk, then following it up with a 10 to 15-minute Survival Phrase podcast. I find that it brings me down slowly from the intensity of the Pimsleur method of learn-and-recall, but it lets me stay in the zone just a little while longer and learn some more vocab in a more light-hearted way.

Both JapanesePod101 and Pimsleur are teaching me phrases that will be ultimately very helpful in Japan, I think. Pimsleur is giving me stuff like, "I'm sorry," "I understand Japanese a little," "Do you understand English," and other standard niceties... so far. JapanesePod101 is teaching me stuff like, "(Repeat) one more time, please," "Slowly," "What is your name," "All right (OK)," and other helpful tips, like using the "magical 'wa'" to infer a question. I'm enjoying having the dichotomy of the formal vs. the informal, and I like aspects of both. If I had to choose only one, I'd pick Pimsleur, hands-down... but I really do prefer pitting the two against each another for a more robust learning experience. ^_^

I had a bit of a Japanese epiphany today, and it combines my otaku geekery with my musician geekery. It occurs to me that some vowels in Japanese are pronounced like you would "ghost" notes in jazz. When I marched in the Bluecoats (a drum corps known for performing jazz), there was one particular phrase in which the brass staff had us "ghost" a note. That is, we pushed down the valves that would produce the note, but didn't actually blow any air through the horn. The result is a note that is almost audible; it's difficult to explain verbally, but makes perfect sense if you have a musical background. (Musicians and former musicians, back me up on this.)

Some Japanese syllables — most notably, "su" and "shi" and "ki" (and many others, I'm sure, in various word positions) — have vowels that aren't voiced. They don't seem to be silent, exactly, but they aren't as pronounced as the others. And it struck me today, during my walk, that those vowels are like ghosted notes. You move your mouth like you're saying them, but no sound really comes out. The result is a vowel that you might almost hear if you know it's there. Not really like a apostrophe... it's still there, just not emphasized, or really voiced at all. (Japanese language enthusiasts, tell me if I've got it right.)

I'm really enjoying learning a new language, and for a purpose, working toward a goal — that goal being basic communication in a foreign land at a specified time in the near future, rather than a high school or college exam. I'm enjoying making my brain wrap itself around new concepts again. It's a feeling I hadn't realized I'd missed.

OMG Japan trip! *squee*

The Not-Really-Big Reveal

For anyone who's been interested in what my freelance gig is and how it's turning out, I thought I'd share with you the HTML mock-up I've created for my client. They chose this design out of over half a dozen Photoshop composites, and I spent this week creating a stylesheet that I can plug their content into. After I do that, there will be some content-management issues to tackle and some bells and whistles to add.

So, there you have it: the midpoint of my freelance project. I think it's some of my better work, IMHO.

T-minus 10 Weeks and Counting

The plane tickets have been purchased. The hotel reservations have been confirmed. The Dynamic Tokyo Tour is a go.

OMFG, we're going to Japan!!

Wednesday, May 16: Arrive in Tokyo. Limo-bus to hotel. Check in, get our culture shock going on. Locate dinner.
Thursday: Guided tour. Begins at 9am. Ends late afternoon in Ginza. First major task: getting "home" from Ginza.
Friday: Still open. Maybe Akihabara? Maybe Ghibli Museum?
Saturday: Also still open. Perhaps book Saturday night at the Ryokan Asakusa Shigetsu.
Sunday: Visit Harajuku and the Meguro Parasitological Museum?
Monday: Possibly a day trip to Nikko, or just catching up on whatever we haven't done yet.
Tuesday: Check out, have lunch, and catch the limo-bus back to Narita Airport for our flight home at 4pm.

As Sheryl would say... ::flail::

...

WTF am I going to do with the 2500 WorldPerks Bonus Miles I'm going to earn from this trip?

Freelancing Update

Looks like the HR issues I was having with my contracting job may have been ironed out. I wasn't able to connect with the contact person to do the training on how to use the online timeclock, but she had sent me the Word file that explained the process. I had thought that a phone conference with this person was a requirement... but it seems that I am able to log in and record my hours, so that issue may be resolved.

This is good, since I finished a four-hour project this past Wednesday and have already been presented with another, more involved but similar project due by next Thursday.

My main contact there said that they could potentially give me enough work for a 40-hour week, but also mentioned that the summer months are the slow season for their firm. I'm not comfortable with the idea of relying on freelance and contract work to keep me financially afloat, even with a relatively steady inflow of work from this particular firm. Like I've said before: if it were just me, I might be more inclined to take the plunge. But I'm beyond the carefree "oh shit how do I buy food this week" days of my youth, and I can't afford to jeopardize my half of the mortgage and car and insurance payments, or my student loans and credit cards and whatnot. That narrow window of financial spontaneity has officially closed, and I now crave stability.

I also have new comps due to my freelance client by Monday. They happened to choose the design I liked the least, but because its main features (rounded corners) matched some of their previous marketing materials. Once I had a copy of their existing flyer to give me ideas, and vector versions of the logo and logotype, along with their ideas on what they wanted to incorporate into the new comps from the old, I felt much more prepared to give them what they wanted.

It's shaping up to be another working weekend of sorts. As long as I'm getting paid, though, I'm OK with it.

Step One Complete

Four composites are now completed and posted on a private website for my client to peruse. One of them totally sucks, one could become something decent, and two of them are actually not bad. Truth be told, I really like one of them, but it's the most totally boring one of the lot. Says something about my style and personality, maybe, that I prefer the muted and beige and straitlaced design over the one(s) with bold colors and rounded corners and other elements I don't usually use.

I sent the link to my clients around 9pm this evening; my self-imposed deadline was tomorrow. I said I'd have a completed website in four to six weeks once we finalize the design, and I think that sounds completely reasonable. The only issue is going to be figuring out how to allow them to make additions to content without using a database. (From what I can tell, it would cost extra on their hosting plan.) Their usual modus operandi is Frontpage, as I've mentioned before, and I'm afraid it would wreak havoc on any design I would throw out there.

We'll come up with something. I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

Definitely A Learning Experience

I gave myself one week to come up with three to five composites for my website redesign client. No problem — I did similar projects with similar deadlines in college. VCT, graphic design, yeah. No problem.

I hate all of my ideas.

No, let me rephrase: I can't seem to translate the ideas in my head to something that looks good on-screen. I feel like I'm missing lots of the finer details and the subtleties that I admire in other designers. Shadows, patterns, gradients, tiny lines and shapes and ornamentations that just aren't popping into my head. The 4x3" ballpoint pen drawings look like drawings of decent web page designs; my Photoshop comps look like a VCT 102 student put them together.

Maybe trying to take design cues from my favorite designers isn't the best way to go. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself because of it. In any case, I have one evening and two weekend days to finish at least one and a half comps, if not more, and preferably improve on what I already have completed. If I have to give them crap and say they're first drafts, I will, but I'd rather give them awesome comps and just let them choose what kind of website they want.

It's just so frustrating. I finally have the opportunity to wow a client with my flair... and now... *pfft*

A Productive Morning

This morning's accomplishment: the majority of a CSS layout for my new portfolio. It still needs navigation, which will be in the lower left of the screen, and my logotype in the lower right. For the most part, though, the basic framework is up.

Just thought I'd share. OK, back to work. Maybe I'll get the dynamic display thingie working before I tackle the navigation, as it's been a while since I coded pop-up layers/divs for menus.

Update, 6:15pm: I got my PHP/SQL displaying everything but the "keywords" I plugged in. I have a table that lists all the technologies and/or software used for a project; for instance, the LSM site has as keywords PHP, MySQL, HTML/XHTML, and CSS. Once I threw that keywords table into the mix, it totally screwed up all of my logic. I think I have some more ideas up my sleeve before I go calling for help (to Sheryl and Dan and whoever else knows and cares), but this has really been harshing my mellow this afternoon.

Apart from that, though, it works! Holy shit.

Update, 7pm: After a 30-minute, unrelated phone chat with Dan, I implemented one of my brainstorms, and it appears to work. Yay for arrays! Now, I just need to figure out how to put commas between the array elements... later. Details come later. For now, making the damn thing work in the first place is top priority.

Today's Coding Accomplishment

Today's accomplishment: making the beginnings of a photo gallery on the LSM site. Compares a table of events to a table of photos, lists the events where there are photos, links to a page of thumbnails and descriptions for said event, and those links open pop-up windows with larger versions of each photo.

For seasoned codeheads, this is no big whoop. For me, it's applying what I've learned in Visual Basic for Applications and Microsoft Access at work to PHP and SQL at home. And there are still things I need to learn and investigate, like the imagecopyresampled() function that could automatically make the thumbnails from the full-sized images. Hmm.

This weekend? E-mailing the owners of the broken Frontpage site and offering my services for a pittance. I need the experience, and I'm actually kind of excited about taking on a new project. As long as they understand that it won't be done super-quick; I have other things that take precedence, like my portfolio and prior commitments to LSM and my contracting job (if it ever gets started). I'll let you know how it all pans out.

Personal Improvement

I'm glad that I've finally reached a point in my life where I can summon some anger and determination to excel, where in years past I would have sunk into depression and given up for the time being. This is a step in the right direction.

I'm going to go start working on this now, while I have candles brewing upstairs, preparing to earn a big ol' twelve bucks for me tomorrow at work. Yee-haw.

When I'm not working on either of those things, I'll be visiting Cameron Moll's site for sources of inspiration influence.

I'm still so fucking fragile. At least I'm dealing with it in the proper manner now.

Update, 8:45pm: The SQL database backend of my new portfolio site is complete, apart from detailed descriptions of my work. I will now use all of my willpower to make it work *before* I make it pretty.

Update, 9:30pm: I've got a nice While loop happening now, and I've managed to make a dynamic (but unlovely) list of the work I plan to showcase in my updated portfolio. Unfortunately, I completely forgot about my candle wax melting upstairs; fortunately, it wasn't at a critical point where forgetting about it was a Bad Thing™.

Planning the Ultimate Schnuth Vacation

Former travellers to Japan, please complete the following sentence:

"I can't believe you're planning a trip to Japan and you're not planning to go to                !"

That's right, fellow readers, we're taking the plunge and heading off to Japan, most likely in May. My lowest APR credit card just so happens to be able to swing airfare and hotel for a week in the Land of the Rising Sun. It's not the best financial decision we could make, but it's one of those things that I think we'd regret not having done when we had the chance.

We're going to sit down soon (probably this weekend) and think about things we really MUST do while we're in Japan, particularly Tokyo. We may have to forego our tour of southern Japan, just due to funding issues. We'll see. At any rate, we already have some destinations on the potential to-do-in-Japan list:

• Akihabara (Electric Town)
• The Ghibli Museum
• Eat at a kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi-ya
• The Tokyo Tower (conveniently located adjacent to our current hotel of choice)

I'm sure there's a lot more we'd like to do, including visiting a shrine and just walking around the city, but that's all I can come up with right this moment. Anyone have any additions, especially within a decent subway-ride of Tokyo?

I've also heard that it won't matter that we're not fluent in Japanese. Actually, only Sheryl has told me that, and she's one of about three people I know (other than friends of friends) who have been to Japan. Who else wants to chime in on this one? Will I be OK asking how much this costs, how do I get to [insert place here], knowing my right from my left, counting to ten (and higher if I think really hard), and basic shit like that? Has everyone else had Sheryl's same experience of dealing with English-speakers in all the important places? What words do I need to be able to *read*, if any?

(Aaron's not too good with languages, and I'm cool with that. If one of us has to go take a crash course on Japanese, I'm it. Bring on the vidcasts and websites and CDs.)

I am SO stoked for this. I haven't been this excited about a trip in a long, long time.

Video Skillz

For your viewing pleasure... Anime Punch 2006, as presented by the Weekly Anime Review Podcast.

In March of 2006, Aaron and I attended Anime Punch (aka The Armageddicon) in Columbus, and we brought the old-school 8mm videocamera for shits and giggles. I played videographer and taped a few panels, some musical guests, and some otaku milling about in the hotel lobby for ambience. Aaron finally happened upon the source footage tapes last week, and captured them to his computer, setting into motion the process of video making. Also known as "Oh, shit — I'm certified in defunct non-linear video editing software, and now I have to translate that knowledge to a more basic yet more pirateable prevalent program."

I acted mainly as technical consultant, showing Aaron the basics of nonlinear video editing — take your giant source file, make little clips of the stuff you want to use, then string those clips together on the timeline. We learned some things together, like how to apply audio and video transitions in Premiere. He was the main artistic force behind the project, deciding which clips to use, whether to keep the ambient sound, things like that. I put together the images for the intro, suggested the basic wipe as a non-annoying transition ("Is that like what they used in Star Wars?" "Yeah." "OK, that sounds good."), and showed Aaron the ropes of video editing, so to speak.

Both of us decided that we're feeling a little better about someday making an AMV — well, I have about 10 seconds of one put together, but I feel like I might be able to finish the next minute and a half of my short song without crashing and burning.

But, yeah. Good times. Aaron wants to buy a digital video camera now. :-)

Game Design Oversight

So, as per usual, I was whiling away the hours playing CivCity: Rome this evening. I completed the campaign I had started last night, then began a new mission. Unfortunately, I was so stoked about successfully completing the previous military mission that I failed to save my game before starting anew. This created a slight annoyance when the Egyptians overcame my legionnaires and velites (OK, non-Latin speakers, v's are pronounced like w's, so say it in your head: WELL-ih-tays. Close enough).

Anyway, the dudes with swords and the dudes with javelins were toast. I had no more army. And here come the fucking Egyptians. Dammit. Where's the "Concede Defeat" button? How about "Restart Mission"? No? You mean I have to just wait around for the damned Egyptians to either a.) destroy my Town Center or b.) inadvertently cause me to run out of money?

Wait. Where are they going? My Town Center is RIGHT THERE. Where you came in? Where you fellas headed, anyway? Oh, you're just going to plunder and sack the entire town. Nice. I'm gonna go get a glass of milk. Call me when you're done.

Ten or fifteen minutes later, the marauders finally, FINALLY made me run out of money. Killing all the workers and destroying the tax-revenue-generating houses will do that, I suppose. The bastards never did attack my Town Center, even when I used my last remaining... um... shit. Singular of "velites" is... *hits google in ultimate geeky frustration* ...veles. I think it's one of those funky third declension nouns? It's been over seven years since I took any Latin. —Anyway, even when I lured them over toward the Town Center to kill my last javelin dude, my dude proved victorious over the one enemy dude that was sent over to dispatch him, and no one else cared.

Long story short, I finally got to restart after I ran out of money and the Senate refused to grant me another loan. This time, I was sure to save BEFORE I started the mission, so I can reload my saved game if things go south on me again.

My New Obsession

CivCity: Rome rocks my socks.

(But only after I updated the LSM page and learned all about walking through and sorting arrays in PHP and filled out the HR paperwork for my new freelance gig.)

That is all. Thanks for the game, Amy!

Ohayocon7 Retrospective, Part I: Fried Bologna Sandwiches

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].

I haven't blogged about the last few cons Aaron and I have attended, mainly because I prefer to save my opinions and narratives for Aaron's podcast. This time, though, there are enough other random, un-anime things that deserve mention that I think I'll go ahead and blog about the weekend. And I will begin at the beginning, with fried bologna sandwiches in Waldo, Ohio...

read more...

Gone To The Con

Heading out to Ohayocon in the morning. Planning to stop in Waldo en route for some fried bologna sandwiches. Meeting Amy at the Drury Inn & Suites (hopefully before opening ceremonies), and all three of us are bunking up in a hotel room for the weekend.

This might be our last con for a while (or we might go to Anime Punch in the spring), so I'm planning to live it up. Not that I don't usually, but you know.

Still need to pack my clothes, get Amy's Christmas and birthday presents ready, upload the Low Carb Lifestyle Podcast episode so generously recorded by a guest podcaster, and do some dishes (if I don't fall asleep first). I'm sure there's something I've forgotten, too, but I'll think of it eventually.

I'm tired already. This can't be good.

Hen Na Gaijin

For anyone who remembers Jeff "Pip" Hawley, from Residential Computing Connection at BGSU:

Japanese T-shirt "Hen na Gaijin" (I'm a Strange Foreigner)

I remember him telling us that the Japanese exchange students nicknamed him Henna Gaijin, which he said meant crazy foreigner. It's one of only two phrases I picked up from him that semester we were both Senior Lab Coordinators. The other one was "Nihongo o hanashimasen," (although I believe it's technically "wo," but pronounced "o"?), which basically means "I don't speak Japanese." Not exactly the literal translation, but close enough.

Since back then, in the year 1999 or so, I've learned a few more phrases, and a little of how the language is structured, and a few bits of hiragana and katakana (I can recognize "n," "to," "ro," "no," and "shi," from sheer repitition alone). I can introduce myself, and get into a knife fight with the Yakuza, and warn the locals that Gojira is coming. Being that I'm not going to Japan anytime soon, though, I'm not in a big hurry to actually learn the language, although it's something I want to accomplish someday.

Although I can't speak or read Japanese, that doesn't keep me from totally digging on Japanese language and culture.

Grammar Geek

James: Which is right: "you or I" or "you or me"?
Me: In what context?
James: "Let me know if it is you or I."
Me: *pauses* "You or I" is right.
James: OK. It sounded right, but I wasn't sure.
Me: Yeah, it's "you or I," because it would be "me" if it were an object, but "is" is a linking verb, so the object would take the same...

*pause*

Me: I just totally geeked out on you, didn't I?
James: Yeah.

SITACon Group Photo

[Posted on Flickr by Happy House of Hentai]

I used to be the person who stood way in the back of group pictures and was never seen. When did I become this person who declares, "OK, I'll pretend to be a short person and get in the front!"

Left to right: Scott and Rym from the Geek Nights podcast; me; Andrew Corbin, con chair; Martin Leung, Video Game Pianist; Aaron (from the Weekly Anime Review Podcast, of course); and Hello Kitty and Lord Kaosu from the Happy House of Hentai.

Fifteen Minutes of Fame

I'm taking Friday off of work, so that Aaron and I can drive eight hours to Utica, NY for an anime convention.

Normally, we wouldn't go to two out-of-state cons in a row like this — after all, we just did Otakon a couple months ago. We're making an exception for SITACon, though, since they invited us as guests. They're covering our hotel room, some of our travel expenses, and our admission to the con.

This is weird.

Aaron is going to be presenting a Meet-and-Greet panel about his podcast, and is going to be on a massive Podcasters Unite roundtable panel, with the hosts of half a dozen other podcasts. I told him I'd join him for his Weekly Anime Review Podcast panel, being that it's just him and all, but I'm probably just going to be running Nikon recon during the roundtable discussion, taking photos of the panelists for posterity. Assuming none of them are camera-shy, which could conceivably happen. Podcasters can be like that sometimes.

It was very considerate of the con chair to invite me, too. I mean, he listens to Aaron's podcast enough to know that a.) we're married, and b.) we go to cons together, so he invited us both. Very cool.

I guess I'm still not sure what to think of this whole thing. I'm not sure if it's going to be fun meeting other podcasters we haven't met before, or if it's going to be a thinly-veiled popularity contest, or what. I *think* it'll be fun... I *hope* it'll be fun...

And if it starts to go downhill... hell, I'll *make* it fun. I'm a guest at an anime convention, dammit! ^_^

Those Crazy Japanese

For anyone who hasn't seen this yet...

Along the lines of All Things Japanese, this site was helpful for me in deciphering why it was amusing for an anime convention to be named Nan Desu Kan. I'd heard enough Japanese to recognize it (or, rather, "nan desu ka") as a common turn of phrase, but the Learn Japanese website explained that it means, "What is it?"

I'd love to take a Japanese class. I don't think there are any local evening classes taught by native speakers, though. I want to be able to do more than count to twenty badly, ask "what is it," and other fun otaku tricks. If the Learn Japanese site had audio clips to confirm pronunciation, it would be even better. I'll have to look into some of the podcasts on learning to speak Japanese.

Not like I'm ever going to make it to Japan any time soon, unlike *some* people I know. And, yes, I do know more than one person who either has been or is going to Japan. ^_^

I Am A Geek.

I just made my own RSS feed for the Lakeshoremen website. Admittedly, not all by myself — with some help from a couple of websites that I've bookmarked for future reference. But now I know, and knowing's half the battle.

Now I just need to see if I can schedule a cron job to output this file every day. Or... I could just have it regenerate every time someone posts a news item. Somebody pin a medal on me — I'm fucking brilliant. ^_^

*squee*

Mac Junkie

I walked into Goodwill this weekend, and what did I see?

A first-generation iMac. Bondi Blue. Tray-loading CD. No keyboard or mouse, a little discolored and worn, missing the door cover to hide all the cableage. Price: $60. Plugged it in at the store, saw that it was running OS 8.6.

I went for it. *shakes head* I figured, WTF. My old legacy Mac is running at 275MHz, this iMac had a sticker claiming it was a 333, and I was pretty positive that all iMacs were G3s. My 6500 was merely a PowerPC.

I brought it home, plugged in my PC's USB mouse, and surfed around the Mac as best I could with no keyboard. I discovered that the OS had been a little lobotomized in the previous owner's zeal to clear off the hard drive, so I pulled out my old OS 8.5 CD and performed a clean install of the operating system. After all, the iMac has built-in ethernet, so I'll be able to download OS upgrades from the 'net, no problem. I'm pretty sure that Mac operating systems through OS9 are free downloads... and I may be able to procure a copy of OSX for a reasonable price somewhere online.

After a little online research (from my PC, that is, after retreiving my USB mouse), and after some serial number decoding, I learned that this is actually a Revision D iMac, apparently in Blueberry. (Coulda *sworn* that was Bondi Blue...) Processor speed 333MHz, bus speed 66MHz, 6GB hard drive, 15" screen, manufactured in August 1999 in Mexico.

Why, you ask, did I buy this relic? It's unexpandable, un-upgradable, and obsolete.

The answer? I just can't pass up a Mac at the thrift.

Really, the more reasonable explanation is that I haven't used my 6500 in months, just because it's so damn clunky. I can't install any modern web browsers on it, Gmail didn't work right in IE 5.5 last time I checked, and I have little reason to even power up the Mac anymore. I guess I thought that if I had a G3, I might be more inclined to at least check the layout of my websites on a Macintosh. Plus, I'm curious about OSX — the last time I used a Mac on a daily basis was right before the switchover from OS9 to OSX. Apparently, this iMac can run OS 10.3.9 with no problem, and maybe even OS 10.4 with a little tweaking. With its whopping however-many megs of RAM, though, I might be better off sticking with a "classic" OS.

I've gotten so used to Windows PCs now. I used to be a complete Mac-o-phile. Now, I don't know if I could do without my right mouse button and scroll wheel on a regular basis*. If I had over $1000 to blow on a computer, I'd probably end up spending it on a new flat-panel display and/or a dual-processor Windows-based something-or-other, rather than a Mac mini or a new iMac.

I just purchased a keyboard, puck mouse, and cover door on eBay. Total cost with shipping: $25. So, I blew $85 overall on an obsolete computer. Did I get hosed? Sure.

At least it looks kitschy.

*Yes, I know the Mighty Mouse has those capabilities. The question is, would I really want to spend $70 on a mouse after dropping a grand on a computer?

Branding

For the longest time, I used a simple blue square next to my name (in Avant Garde font) as a logo of sorts for myself. It was easy to recreate in various applications, like Word, but it still gave me some identity.

I'm jumping on the Photoshop bandwagon now, updating my cute little blue square into something a little fancier:

(The tagline may or may not change. I decided to go with the painfully truthful schtick for now.)

That was fun. Now to come up with some more thumbnails for the actual site.

Got The Bug Again

I think that the current incarnation of my portfolio website must hold the record for the longest-running web design I've ever created without redesigning.

That streak may be broken soon.

I've got the itch to redesign my site — especially since I've learned SO much more about stylesheets since I first designed my current portfolio site. I need to fix my freelance (aka "services") section to reflect what I'm truly comfortable freelancing, punch up the design a bit, and update the examples of my wares. Maybe remove the stuff from back in 1998 that doesn't look so hot compared to today's standards. I also need to make sure everything works in IE, Netscape (I guess), and Firefox. Everything doesn't right now.

I don't think I'll redo it in Flash, although I really should put some of that pricey (for me) Flash workshop to use. I get so much stupid blog traffic from Google, though, that I'd rather my portfolio site be indexable.

Sooo... I may be embarking on yet another project. Hopefully I'll actually finish this one, or at least have the decency to quit it before I get in too deep.

Update, 10:40pm: I hate it when I get the design bug. For inspiration, I go and look at sites like Cameron's, and then I wonder if I've really ever discovered my own design style at all. I never think my shit looks slick enough, no matter how much my husband assures me that it kicks ass. Damn.

Update, 10:45pm: I should totally make my own "blogroll" database. I could easily make one of those little popup windows and populate the current URL and add it to my own SQL database and even make little icons for my links later, if I wanted. And maybe even a "shoutbox" of my own, too, although I'd have to make sure I didn't leave any security issues out there. ...But I was talking about redesigning my *portfolio*, not tweaking my blog. Right...?

Making Things Difficult

So, I finally decided it's time to get off my ass and work on the LSM page again. Figured I'd start with installing phpBB, the standard generic PHP-based forum. Simple to configure, free... can't go wrong. Right?

Well, I came across a problem. LSM's hosting only allows one SQL database. That spot is currently being used by my home-grown content management system, which is kind of important. So... now I get to figure out how to write a forum FROM SCRATCH. Or at least steal appropriate someone's code.

I'd just gotten myself all excited over figuring out how I might make an alumni database work. Now this... this is a little more daunting. I don't doubt that it's possible, but I also don't doubt that it'll be buggy as hell. I just hate to disappoint. Shout-out to all web geeks: any help here? Where can I find my holy grail of forum code?

I guess the bright side is that my users a.) will be able to access the forum with their site login, and b.) will *have* to sign up if they want access to the member forums!

Update, 6/9/06: Thanks to Sheryl's and Dan's patient explanations, I now have a brand-spankin' new forum installed on the LSM site! Now all I have to do is write a post about how to sign up, how to play nice, etc; add a forum link to the main site; and email the board of directors so they can be my guinea pigs to test the thing. :-)

Database Wrapup

Tomorrow's going to be a mighty early morning. James and I are getting to work at 7:30am — half an hour early for me, a whole hour early for him — to put the finishing touches on the Loan Corrections database.

It's been nearly three months that we've been working on this database, and it's finally reached completion. For now. The next step is developing databases for other departments within the Loan Servicing umbrella. We have meetings scheduled with two out of three supervisors: one on Friday, one on Monday. After our preliminary meetings, we write synopses/proposals for each department's potential database and submit them to our supervisor, who will then submit them to his supervisor, who will then decide which department gets first dibs on us.

We haven't been promoted, per se, and we haven't gotten a change in pay or job description. We have been removed from the main brunt of Loan Corrections duties indefinitely, though, and are getting beaucoup experience. If they don't change our MRs (Major Responsibilities), we can just leave. By the time these other databases are complete (and after I've safely taken maternity leave sometime next year), we will have amassed enough experience to get a better job elsewhere. Then Loan Servicing will have a bunch of databases with no administrator, and Application Services will have to support even more products made by "rogue programmers" (their words).

That said... I probably shouldn't have indulged in that 90-minute nap today. It's going to be a challenge to go to bed early enough to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn tomorrow.

Ouran High School Host Club

My experience with anime and manga has mainly been through Aaron. After ten years together, he has a feel for things I would probably like, and introduces me to them. That's how I found out about Neon Genesis Evangelion, Serial Experiments Lain, Tonari No Totoro and all the other Studio Ghibli movies, and all my other favorite anime (of which I may or may not have yet finished watching the entire series). Hence, I get exposure to a lot of robots and mecha (like Eva), or blatant mind-fuck anime (like Lain, and like Eva), and some sci-fi type titles. I haven't really gotten into the shonen titles, because I'm not much for ninjas and hack-and-slash type entertainment.

However, I am also not a overly girly person by nature. I shy away from anime featuring bishonen or magical girls or anything overly girlish. If not for Erin's manga review of the Ouran High School Host Club, I would certainly have passed it by without a second glance. I mean, really. A bunch of obviously bishonen guys on the covers of this manga, and with a pink and purple cover, no less? Please.

Erin's review piqued my interest, though:

By 2002 host clubs were all the rage.... Rich women would pay big money to talk to hot young men. Ouran High School Host Club is the high school equivalent thereof - idle rich girls at a private academy hang out with the host club's hot young men in an ornate, unused library. They're not looking for sexual favors later, but they might want a date.

The protagonist, Haruhi (Haru for short), stumbles unknowingly into the club, breaks an $80,000 vase, is mistaken for being a hot guy herself, and is forced to work as a host to pay back her debt. At least one character is surprised to discover that Haru is actually a frumpy girl and not a guy - as a scholarship student she simply couldn't afford the school's fancy uniforms.

Much of the humor of the book is derived from fact that Haru is middle class while the boys are upper class. They've never had instant coffee or instant ramen! Haru has never had fatty tuna! The rest of the humor stems from Haru's calmness as she is surrounded by metrosexual prettyboy dramaqueens, many of whom need their egos stroked continually. Haru becomes the calm in the middle of the host club maelstrom.

Ever since listening to this review on the Ninjaconsultant podcast, I've been buying up the English translations of the Ouran High School Host Club manga. And just last week, Aaron told me that he'd heard that the manga was being made into an anime — so, of course, I went out and downloaded the fansubs via BitTorrent.

Maybe it was just my inexperience with the act of reading manga (right-to-left just ain't natural to me), but it took me watching the anime to finally realize why it is that I love this series so much. Sure, there are the guilty pleasures of looking at cute (yes, cute, but not necessarily handsome) high school boys. Even more than that, though, is the protagonist's view of the metrosexual guys she's forced to hang out with, and the flighty fluffies who come to the host club to drool over them.

The biggest draw for me, I just realized, is the satire. The stereotypes are fantastically funny: the supposedly popular guy whose ego gets crushed whenever anyone sees through him, the twins who border on having just a little too much "brotherly love", the baby-faced Senior who carries around a stuffed bunny, the smart and diabolical schemer behind-the-scenes. Even Haru is kind of dull-witted at times, more so in the anime than in the manga, which makes for hi-jinx and hilarity when the punch line needs a little more beating into the ground to be truly funny.

There are six volumes of the manga available in English, and currently there are 13 episodes of the anime, which is still in production in Japan. Until Ouran is licensed in the U.S., I will valiantly download and watch every fansubbed episode, and be proud of myself for reading a manga and watching an anime that Aaron didn't find first.

Revealing The Mystery

During the past couple of months, I've alluded to a new job function I've managed to acquire at work, but I haven't gone into detail. Now that I've been doing it for nine weeks, though, I think I'm good to let the cat out of the bag. It's really not much of a bag, to tell the truth, but I've been hesitant to jinx myself. :-)

It all started when our boss, Eric, was looking for someone to "volunteer" to do 1098 duty for tax season. See, people get statements of how much interest they've paid on their qualifying loans (usually mortgages), so they can claim it as a deduction. The job of sending duplicates and making corrections to these tax forms is big enough that two people need to be taken out of the normal job rotation to handle it.

I almost got volunteered (by my boss) to do 1098s, but he decided to sleep on it, and ended up choosing someone else for the job. (*whew*) While my boss was giving me the news, Scott (our trainer and my cubemate at the time) mentioned that, if Eric wanted to put me on something different, I knew how to program databases.

Flashback to a couple weeks prior. Some people from Application Services (the people who do most of the techie programming stuff) came to check out our workflow, and were absolutely aghast that we were logging in all of our requests for loan changes (our department's main function) in Excel. We were getting probably 200-300 requests a day, by email, fax, interoffice mail, and postal mail, and every one of them got logged into Excel, as proof that we received the request. Application Services suggested to our boss that we should be using a real database, like Access — a suggestion that a few team members had repeatedly made in the past, but one that now seemed like a really good idea, since bonafide codeheads suggested it.

Back to me and my boss in my cube, and Scott "outing" me as a geek. It didn't take Eric long to ask if I wanted to work on the Access database, and it took even less time for me to agree to it. My co-worker buddy, James, had already started on a database a few months before, on his own, and with Eric's permission. I told him what was up, and asked if I could use the basic database as a jumping-off point. He agreed, and I agreed that this was *our* project, especially since he'd started on it first, and since he knew Access much better than I.

(Funny story: Scott later said that he was in Eric's office after our cube meeting, and Eric said to him in a scandalous whisper, "I didn't know Diana was a geek!" Neither of them were sure whether it was something I was comfortable with, apparently. Being called a geek, I mean. I assured them both later that I'm quite secure in my geekiness.)

So, for two weeks, I did my normal job and worked on the database. Luckily, my spot in the rotation for those two weeks was boring and simple and I got done with it by Tuesday or Wednesday both weeks. By the end of those two weeks, James and I had laid out the structure of the database, gotten most of the forms working, and started thinking about what kinds of reporting we'd need to do. We weren't comfortable with it "going live" yet, though. Not nearly. I told Eric so when he popped his head into my cubicle and asked if it would be ready for April.

Of course, when he told us that we could both get off the rotation to work on the database only, we compromised and agreed to have the data entry portion ready to go in one week, by Monday, April 3rd. We've been off the rotation ever since.

I've gone from never having used Access in a real database situation (CS 100 doesn't count) to learning how to build union queries and establish relationships and implement multiple tables with foreign keys and enable referential integrity and all sorts of geekery that I had no idea how to do two months ago. (Actually, some of it I could have done in FileMaker Pro for Macintosh about six or seven years ago.)

As soon as we get our department's log stable and "finished" (as much as we'll ever believe it to be), we're going to be pressed into service for other departments who could use similar tracking databases. James and I have been agonizing over this, because neither of us get paid enough to be a Database Administrator, or even a programmer. This project we're doing because we enjoy using our brains and skills and getting paid for it. Any other projects would be moving into the realm of potentially being taken advantage of by management.

We talked to Eric today, and laid it out for him (nicely). We basically let him know that, if we're going to be creating databases for other departments, it wouldn't be fair for us to still be taking up space in his department, but not doing any actual loan corrections work. We told him that we want to have our job descriptions changed before we do work for any other departments, and that a change in pay grade would be mighty nice, too. We didn't have to be total dicks for him to get the point, which is good. He says he's going to go to his boss and see what her thoughts are regarding our positions.

It's really hard to stick to our guns when it comes to compensation, especially when we're both still stoked to be off the job rotation. We're waiting for someone to pinch us and wake us up, or for the other shoe to fall, or for some other dramatic cliche to happen.

At any rate, that's what I've been doing for the past two months. And it makes going back to PHP/MySQL both easier and harder in different ways. (Not IsNull() doesn't work so well in PHP, but leaving out the Then in my VB If-Then statements doesn't work so well, either. For the geeks out there.)

For once, I'm sated.

Geekery, Continued

Everything just seemed to fall into place.

We had talked to our department's trainer, and asked him if he thought we should train everyone on what we had of the database so far, or whether we should wait until the database is complete — god only knows when that will be. The trainer agreed that we should train our department ASAP, and fill them in on any additional updates as necessary.

We worked on borrowing a projector and a laptop, and making sure one of the nearby conference rooms had network access. Then, a supervisor from an IT-based department upstairs said that we could just use their training room, already equipped with a projector and laptop and room for eight people — exactly big enough to train half of our department at a crack. We booked the room for a week and a half in the future.

We continued to work on getting reports and statistics-gathering forms functional in the development copy (aka the test database). We met with our supervisor after he returned from vacation earlier this week, and got his reactions to the database and the reports we'd created for him. He gave us some suggestions for tweaking the reports, but said that we could go ahead with implementing the statistics-gathering from team members. Month-end is tomorrow, so the new method of gathering stats in the database would be implemented effective Monday. Just in time for training.

Everything was ready to import into the live database yesterday afternoon, and we did our update at 4:30pm yesterday. The import had only one minor glitch in one report, due to some previously-entered data that invalidated the referential integrity we'd set up between tables. We came in early this morning to fix the problem, rather than staying late yesterday. After correcting the data in the main log table, everything was fine. The database was essentially complete. Again, just in time for training.

Our first training session was at 9:30am today. I stood at the front and did the public speaking, while James sat at the laptop and did the demonstrating. Other supervisors in the loan area were invited to attend one of the two sessions, so that they might be able to see whether an Access database might benefit their department. One supervisor was in attendance for the first training session, and our own supervisor popped in for the first half of that session, making a full house.

The first session took just over an hour, including questions. That was a little longer than we'd counted on, as we'd scheduled the second session to start at 10:30am.

The second session actually ended up starting at 10:45am, and one more supervisor was in attendance, in addition to the supervisor of all Loan Servicing departments. (No pressure.) Our supervisor came in for the second part of the session this time. This session took almost exactly an hour.

Overall, we did well on our two scheduled training sessions... but we weren't done yet. Two team members who process payoff checks had asked if they could wait until 3:30pm to train, since the end of the month is a busy time for them. We agreed, and ended up having four people in an afternoon session: the two payoff ladies, one supervisor from yet another department, and one team member who had gotten caught in a 45-minute phone call during the 10:30 session and hadn't been able to attend. That session was a little awkward, being that there was such a small but diverse audience, but it seemed to be well-received nonetheless.

We didn't get much actual work done on the database today — combined a couple reports into one (thank jebus for union queries) and started working on calculations for another report — but, overall, considering all the training we did, I think we had a productive day.

The next potentially stressful issue? How to tell our supervisor that we want a change in job description before we work on databases for other departments. Neither myself nor James are terribly good at standing up for ourselves... but we need to stand firm. It would be easy for The Man to take advantage of our apparently rare and valuable skills. If they had to hire new people to replace us, though, any self-respecting Access database programmer or administrator would scoff at our current wage.

I hate being a self-serving jerk. Our boss is cool, though, so I think we should be able to get our point across in a non-threatening and un-jerk-like manner. We'll see.

Even if I do remain a mere Operations Associate... I love being able to do what I enjoy at work. This is why I went to college. I'm glad I wasn't just chasing rainbows.

Geekery In Motion

Dear Internet,

Today was a very special day. Today I got paid for being a geek ALL DAY LONG! My boss had asked me and a co-worker of mine to create a request log database, and today was the first full day I got to spend on the project. It didn't go very well in the morning, since my chosen geekery was Microsoft Access, which I haven't touched since CS100. I spent the first half of the day figuring out how Access works and deciphering the basic database my co-worker had set up. He couldn't work on it with me very much, as he was busy with "normal" work.

The second half of the day went better, though. My co-worker and I briefly talked over some of our options, and figured out a few key points about searching tables in Access. After that, I did some cosmetic and security-based tweaks, and learned how to tweak VB code a little. I took a class in Visual Basic back in college, but that was a long time ago, and nothing I did then really applies to Access. Google was my bitch friend, though, and was much more helpful than the Access help file.

Tomorrow, I'm going to learn how to do my very own search in Access, instead of using the default Find/Replace function. Google has already given me some clues, and tomorrow I'll finish my research and implement a nice FindRecord with an InputBox.

Yay for at-work geekery!



...should I get paid more for doing what I *like* to do? Hmm.

Unexpected Stress

I had been planning to work on the LSM site tonight.

I hadn't been planning to get an e-mail from Russ saying, "I tried a couple of times to add to the news section of the website and nothing posted."

*!?broken?!*
*OMG Stress*

I knew that something had happened on the server side, since I hadn't touched the code in... well, weeks or months. It took me a while to figure out why everything on the site was broken, but I finally discovered that it was due to someone at the nice webhosting company switching register_globals to off, effectively breaking all of my neato "Wow! All I have to do is stick the newsID onto the end of the URL, and it just goes!" code.

I freaked for a while, but after chilling out with a bowl of (low-carb) ice cream, I finally deciphered what php.net was trying to tell me. One line of code and a Dreamweaver search-and-replace later, everything is fixed.

Until some evil, malicious hacker blows on my house of cards, that is.

Ohayocon6

I can't seem to think of a witty introduction, so I guess I'll just give you a link to my Ohayocon 2006 photos.

I've found one photo of Aaron and me posted online so far. I'm sure there will be more eventually, though.

Aaron and I recorded a con report in the car on the way home from Columbus on Sunday. The audio didn't turn out quite as well as Aaron had hoped, being that we didn't take into account the sensitivity of his mics and the acoustics of the car. Still, though, if you haven't already, check out our Ohayocon report on the Weekly Anime Review Podcast, scheduled for release this Thursday.

Ohayocon Countdown

Only two days left until our fourth Ohayocon, and I'm as underwhelmed about it as I was about Christmas.

I have two unfinished Kujian helmets sitting upstairs: one papier-mache, one cardboard and fiberfill. The papier-mache helmet I only started on Monday, and I knew when I got one layer down that there was no way I'd get it done by the weekend. Still, tonight I decided to prime it for painting, just to see... and, really, there's no way it'll be ready for the con.

The cardboard one is a retooling of the original helmet I made for Youmacon. It was too tall, and the plexiglas outer brim was too brittle to wrap around the helmet, and it cracked in three places. So, I've been trying to improve upon it this evening, to no avail. I'm just feeling... disinterested.

I really enjoyed cosplaying at Youmacon, so I'm not sure why I'm so blase about it this time around. Maybe it's because I can see how uber-awesome my papier-mache helmet will be when it's done, and I hate having to retool a funky fiberfill chop job instead.

Ah, well. I should get back to that, I suppose. *sigh*

Back in the Swing

It has been a loooong time since I sat down and did any video editing.

So, I got a hair up my ass to try my hand at making an anime music video. Downloaded a bunch of free apps (and some not-so-free ones), ripped some DVD footage, imported it into Premiere, and sat down to edit.

OMG. I had forgotten a.) how much I love to edit video; and b.) how easily it can suck away several hours of your life.

Even for my little 1½ minute AMV, this is going to take some serious time. If I were returning to Media 100®, everything would come back to me in an instant. I mean, I was an assistant for Media 100® seminars for my second co-op, and I used the program for probably three academic classes after that. Alas, I am now using Premiere Pro, and I'm having to first remember the *process* of editing, remember how I would have done it in Media 100®, *then* figure out how to do it in Premiere. Luckily, it's making sense now.

Unluckily (depending on how you look at it), I'm still as detail-oriented and anal as I ever was — even more so, now that I don't have a deadline.

Aaron: When you decide to make an AMV, I'll do my damnedest to explain Premiere to you. I think I can make it make sense. We'll see...

Kick-Ass Mics + iRiver = Crazy Delicious

After a weekend of cooking, driving, and eating, Aaron and I drove up to Ann Arbor to meet a couple of podcasters, Erin and Noah — better known as the Ninjaconsultants.

It was a little awkward at first, meeting people we only knew from teh intarweb, but we all relaxed after a while. After we took a turn around Wizzywig and purchased our respective geeky otaku goodness (I got the cutest Nyanko Burger stickers and Post-Its and a Totoro wallscroll), we retired to a nearby coffee shop for some mobile recording.

We got some beverages and sat at a table in the back of the shop. After we'd all had the chance to get comfortable, and we finally got around to talking about some anime-related stuff (good fodder for Aaron's podcast), Aaron busted out the iRiver and his new, handmade lapel microphones. We had two mics between the four of us, so Noah had the idea of clipping their mic to Erin's wooden cappuccino stirrer and propping it up between them in his empty glass. We did the same, clipping our mic to both of our straws in one glass, making a bit of a bipodal affair leaning against the edge of Aaron's cup. It may seem like quite the jury-rigged setup, but it worked smashingly.

We recorded for two hours.

We talked about all sorts of things: Star Wars, the homeless, anime conventions, public transportation, probably dozens of not-quite-related topics. (Aaron's going to have a fun time sorting it all out later, so he can actually use some of it on his show...) But it was a really good time, as I'd hoped it would be.

Whether anyone's interested or not, I'll probably post a heads-up here when Aaron airs parts of the interview (and I use the term "interview" loosely). The audio quality turned out fantastic, we got a good amount of decent content, and Erin and Noah recorded a few bumpers and IDs for Aaron's show. I think there'll be a few fun one-liners he can use, too.

As we were leaving, I commented, "I feel so counterculture, podcasting from a coffee shop..."

Are you hip to it, daddy-o? Yeah.

Youmacon 2005: Photos

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the moment you've all been waiting for: Youmacon 2005 photos!

For a list of other Youmacon photos, check out the Youmacon website. For other pics of our costumes, check out Fan's View (click "next page" to see Aaron's pic), Fiery Panda Studios (again, click "Next Image" to see Aaron), and Tastetheneedle's gallery on Cosplay.com, among others.

Listen to Aaron's and my con report on the Weekly Anime Review Podcast next week!

Mission Accomplished

My Kujibiki Unbalance cosplay costume is complete.

Well, almost. I still have to cut my armbands to size and iron my skirt one last time. But everything else is ready to go.

I put my costume on as soon as I had the last circle of felt glued to the helmet. My shadow had a weird silhouette as I walked up the stairs to the bathroom, to look in the full-length mirror.

I only felt a little ridiculous in my big blue skirt and giant poofy helmet of flannel and felt. Even so, I think my cosplay kicks ass. It has its small flaws — but overall, I'm pleased with my very first cosplay attempt.

Unfortunately, the batteries in the digital camera are dead, so I can't post a picture of my cosplay yet. But we're going to get fresh batteries on the way to the con, and we'll take plenty of pics while we're there. My co-workers are demanding to see a large photo of me in costume, so I'll have to oblige both them and my general blog readership. :-)

Cosplay Update

Since Aaron's Fullmetal Alchemist costume arrived today, custom-made in the mystical land of China, I decided I'd better start work on my skirt again.

I'm not sure how, I but I somehow miscalculated the number of pleats my skirt is going to have. I'd planned on 12 pleats in my six-paneled skirt, but... wait... *thinks real hard* No, that's right. It'll be twelve pleats. I'm thinking I might have sewn the pleats in a little too far, though, because the skirt is supposed to poof outward from the hips, and I have the pleats sewn in for about ten inches down from the waist. I didn't think about the poofy factor at the time; I was thinking about the fact that the heavy material I chose isn't going to hold a crease very well.

Well, if it comes down to it, I do have a seam ripper. I'll burn that bridge when I come to it, though.

I have an idea of how I'm going to make my helmet, but I haven't started it yet. The hardest part is going to be attaching the frame for the helmet to the ball cap I bought at Goodwill. First, though, I want to get the skirt finished. One project at a time.

Did I just say "One project at a time"?

*shakes head*

Tell that to my multiple webpages, soy candle backlog, neglected plants, and my upcoming podcast.

Futari no HAATO BARANSU...

Every time I walk into JoAnn Fabrics, I get the feeling that I'm a little out of my element. However... I believe now I have all the necessary fabrics and notions to create Ritsuko's skirt (see right). I'll tackle the helmet later.

I think I have a reasonable pattern-plan for making a huge-ass flared pleated skirt. Being a very beginning sewer (er... one who sews? Not a drainage system, kthx), I couldn't really come up with it myself. So, I combined a tutorial for making a pleated skirt with a tutorial for making a flared skirt... and voila! — a reasonable-sounding (looking?) plan.

However, I am determined to do this right, especially as I only have 4½ yards of medium blue cotton/poly fabric, so I can't screw this up. My determination not to screw up was only bolstered by the fact that I just spent freaking $42 on my cosplay supplies — and that's before making the helmet.

One question for those who sew, or who have textile-related ideas: The nice lady at JoAnn's convinced me that felt was the way to go for the white stripe of trim on the skirt. I can't really use ribbon, since the pattern will need to be curved to allow for the flare, and any white fabric I found wasn't thick enough to prevent the blue from showing through when held over it. After buying three yards of white felt, though, I'm having second thoughts. I don't think the texture of the felt will be appropriate to match with the cotton/poly skirt. I was thinking of something more fake-satiny, or the same cotton/poly as the rest of the skirt, but it's all so thin it shows the blue through from underneath.

Any solutions to my conundrum? You have a few days to comment, as I plan to wash my blue fabric before sewing, like I'm supposed to. Strict determination to do it right, after all.

I Done It.

The new Lakeshoremen.org is live.

I still have some stuff to add, like the photo database, a forum, and fixing whatever random bugs the membership finds as they tool around the site... but it's pretty much done.

Oh, and can I just say that Core FTP Lite would suck my ballzac, if I had one.

Thanks.

That Was Easier Than I Thought

I just spent 90 minutes to create a form with which the members of the Lakeshoremen will be able to correct any errors with their first name, last name, title, or e-mail address, and will be able to change their passwords.

I actually drew a flowchart.

And it helped.

...Actually, now that I think about it, there's one more step of password validation I should probably add, that I had ended up striking from the aforementioned flowchart: allowing only alphanumerics. The passwords can be 6 to 8 characters, and I'd rather not go through the bother of unescaping HTML to figure out the "real" length, and whatever the hell else would be involved. As it is, could somebody break it? (That was a question, not a request, btw.) Basically, is this a major security issue?

Apart from that, though — holy crap, I made something that really, really goes! I might actually get to work on the photo database before launch. It's on the "Nice To Have" list, while the password editing was on the "Gotta Have" list.

Comments and last-minute suggestions are welcome. The site goes live Friday night / Saturday morning, whether I think it's ready or not. I promised.

Brief Hiatus

There is a distinct possibility that I may be posting less over the next couple of weeks, as I really need to get the Lakeshoremen website ready for its October 1st launch date.

I thought it was all just busywork left, but I apparently still have some troubleshooting to do. I'm going to spend another evening on this particular problem of mine, then if I haven't figured out why my variables aren't talking to each other, I'll ask my geeky homies to get my back.

So, updates will be limited in the very near future, unless something really fascinating happens in the next couple weeks (and I wouldn't count that out entirely) or unless I really get a bug up my ass about something (again, don't rule that out either, as I do have a couple blog entries brewing in my head).

In that same vein: if you've e-mailed me recently and I haven't responded, don't worry. I still love you. You don't suck. I suck.

But, right now, I sleep.

Time To Go All Otaku On Your Ass

First, I would like to make you all aware of a new podcast out on the podwaves: the Weekly Anime Review Podcast. Which just so happens to be produced and hosted by one Aaron Schnuth.

Every Friday, Aaron will be reviewing a different anime; this week, he reviews Genshiken. He's been trying to get me to watch this short series for some time now, but his podcast review was what finally drove me to drag it out of the stack o' anime and watch it. (That, and coming to the end of my Muppet Show Season One DVDs.) I'm on episode three, but only because I'm pacing myself and not letting myself have a crazy Friday Night Genshiken-a-thon.

If you want to find out what it's all about (both Genshiken and the podcast), check it out! Better yet, subscribe to the RSS feed in the podcast aggregator of your choice, and you'll never miss a show.

If you're at all interested in Japanese animation, I would highly suggest checking it out. And not just because my husband is the host. ^_^

Now that the WARP plug has been covered, on to Otaku topic #2: I need a cosplay idea for Youmacon in November.

read more...

OMFG SQL WTF BBQ

Dude. SOMEBODY please tell me what's wrong with this statement:

$query="UPDATE eventTable SET date='$ed_eventDate',
   eventTitle='$ed_eventTitle', location='$ed_location', 
   desc='$ed_desc' WHERE eventID=$ed_eventID";

I've been fighting with this one line for over an hour, trying to get the damn LSM calendar to update, and it keeps telling me I have a syntax error. I know it's gotta be something small and stupid, but fuck if I can tell what it is.

If you know what's wrong and you'd like to share, or if you might know but need to see the code around this to be sure, please share your infinite wisdom with me.

I'm getting that old frustrated "Come on, Diana, it's time for a break / No, I've almost got it, I don't want to stop now" feeling that I used to get when I was learning attempting to learn Macromedia Lingo back in the day. Except this time, I'm not going to stay up all night and watch Weird Al on MTV or Futurama on... whatever channel it was on. I'm going to go to bed instead.

Update, 8/24/2005 8:55pm: It was my variable names! I used "date" and "desc" as variables, and they're reserved words. Once I changed my variable names, the query worked in MyPHPAdmin. I'm still working on getting the actual page to update, as I have several variable names to correct...

PHP + MySQL = r00lz my world

Oh. Mah. Gawd.

OMFG. This is so, SO cool. I feel like an uber-nerd, but I've totally seen the light. After years of explanation and geekitude from Dan (and, more recently, from this tutorial), some support from Sheryl, and of course, an initial introduction from Jamie and from Colvey, I finally have created a functional MySQL database.

It's still pretty simple, and it's definitely not secure yet. But that's OK. I'm just testing my newfound skillz on my own stuff, then I'll worry about security measures to implement when I work on the actual LSM page. For now, though, all my craziness is over that little module in the index sidebar (visible only on the main index page and on the full listing of all entries) labeled, "Keeping Busy."

It's probably one of the simplest things I could have made, but it works. It even sorts the events in date order, and only shows events that happen after today. I'm damn proud of myself.

This has virtually unlimited possibilities. OMG. I should have *made* the opportunity to learn this *years* ago.

*shakes head*

I've got a lot of catching up to do.

It's All Me

Technorati: Tag: Atkins

Five posts from one blog match this tag. Yep, it's me. Just me.

WTF?! I'm cool with that, though. More traffic for me.

Even More Linky Love!

This one's a first: I've never been to this person's website before now, so it's not just a reciprocal link (i.e. 'thanks for linking to me'). Michelle must have found my site from *somewhere*, and thought it blogworthy enough to blogroll. That's my link, there, circled, right above the link to Dooce.

That's pretty cool.

Being in someone's blogroll is cool, I mean, not necessarily being listed next to Dooce. Although that's pretty cool, too.

Thanks, Michelle! I appreciate the shout-out. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. (Or maybe I'm just getting Aaron's cold.)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

First, let me give credit for the photo that has been gracing the masthead this week. I *heart* Google image searches, although I do tend to swipe images without permission. (As my site isn't exactly commercial, though, and gets a grand total of 10 hits a day, I honestly don't feel too bad about it.) Anyway, thanks be to Jessa for posting this wonderful photo from her trip to Ye Olde Emerald Isle back in 2002, even though I'm a cowardly bastige and didn't ask her permission to use it. (OMFG, so jealous. Ireland is most definitely on the list of places I want to visit before I die.)

So, we all know that St. Patrick's Day is in commemoration of St. Patrick, who drove the snakes out of Ireland, right?

Yeah.

If you're interested in what it's *really* all about, here are some links for you:

+ St. Patrick's Day: Customs and History
+ Scotland Online: St. Patrick's Day
+ History of the Shamrock, Leprechaun, and Blarney Stone

read more...

A $649 Totoro Hat?!

...and I'm selling it?

Looks like someone found my site by searching for "totoro hat" on Froogle. Apparently, it's still got some bugs. o.O

Goddammit.

Motherfuck. I'm not going to be able to go to the Animarathon on April 2nd, even though it's only 20 minutes from my freaking house.

Why?

Because I have to be in Saginaw fucking Michigan that day. Three hours away. Playing my mellophone.

Not go to Saginaw? Not an option. Why? Damn commitment to the damn corps.

Why couldn't I be all wishy-washy and half-assed and just say I can't make it? Why won't my brain let me? God damn my integrity.

Have fun at the FREE ANIME CONVENTION down the road next month, Aaron. Let me know how it goes. Maybe I'll get to go *next* year.

*smoke pouring from ears*

Need My Sewing Fix

I swear to God. It?s like a fucking addiction.

I spent fifteen minutes of my 20-minute break today sketching out ideas for a new totoro hat design.

Part of me is like, didn?t you want to try making those s?mores candles tonight? or practice your mellophone? and part of me is like, OMG I might have the answer to the standee-up ears!

Seriously, though—now that I?m actually fabricating hats, coming up with ideas, and being generally creative, I can understand why it?s impossible to find actual character hat patterns online. Especially since so many people sell their hats for a profit. It?s kind of like with soy candles: it?s impossible to find all the little tips and tricks all in one place, just because individual candlemakers (myself included) are so proud of having figured it out themselves, and they?ll be damned if they?ll share their hard work with budding candlists for free.

I know that, once I get this totoro hat to look just right, I ain?t planning on posting a pattern. Buy one and seam-rip it if you really want to know the secret of the totoro hat. ;-)

But that might be a while...

Totoro Hat, Take Two

Attempt #2 at a Totoro hat I'd be proud to wear to the Animarathon in April. Much closer this time. I made the hat *too* big this time, instead of not big enough, so I had to adjust the hems and do some trimming—but, hopefully, I was left with a hat that would suffice for Aaron. I also increased the size of the hatband hem width and the ears, and decreased the size of Totoro's eyes and nose.

I'm afraid I might have to try out some other style of a more form-fitting hat, as having a loosely-fitting hat isn't going to work with those pesky ears. Maybe you can't tell in the photos, but they really like to flop forward and/or backward a lot, and not stay standing up. Rigid, sure, no problem, but upright? Not so much.

Oh, yeah, and I still need to add whiskers. Sticky-outie whiskers, not sewn-on whiskers.

This is fun. Addictive. I *heart* fleece remnants at Hancock Fabrics.

Edit: Forgot to mention one thing. When one is cutting fabric on one's kitchen table, it would behoove a person to make sure that the measuring tape is not unwound and laying about in close proximity to the path of the cutting implement. Otherwise, one may find oneself reattaching the end of one's vinyl measuring tape, said tape having been severed at the three-inch mark.

Totoro Hat!

Yay! My very first Totoro hat is complete. Not bad for a first try... Next time, I'll cut the fleece bigger to allow for seam allowances, and try to figure out how to sew the face on with the machine, instead of by hand. (My practice circles on the machine didn't turn out too well...) Maybe make the eyes a little smaller, and the ears a little bigger.

But, for now, I'm happy. Yay, Totoro hat! I can sew... sort of. :-)

A Non-LJ GIP (Gratuitous Icon Post)?

Well, it appears that Yahoo! has jumped on the avatar bandwagon. These apparently can be used with Yahoo! Messenger, as well. (Too bad I have no intention of getting online with any other messenger service—I use IM too rarely as it is.)

Hey, while I'm at it, here's another me (a la Candy Bar Doll) that I made back in, oh, December, and never bothered to post.

Interesting, isn't it, how all these cute girlie thingies have all sorts of skin and eye and hair color, but no option for build? Yeah, if I ever looked like this in real life, I'd be in the hospital for anemia or some shit.

More Linky Love!

I'm not much for Googling myself to see who has links to me, and the Technorati thing was pretty much just depressing, so I took the link off my sidebar. ('search for dianaschnuth.net: no results found.)

So, when I check out my stats, and find a website I regularly check out as a referrer, I'm always pretty stoked. Number Two on my Thanks For Giving Me A Linkback list goes to Chepooka. I'm a ways down on her page, but I'm happy to be on it at all. Anything that gets me traffic, and anyone who notices that I link to them (and, in this case, trackback to them as well), any of that deserves 'props' in my book.

So, thanks, Chepooka! I appreciate the love.

To Everyone Who E-mails Me Forwards

Edit: Also: when you forward me pictures at work, please make sure they?re work-safe. A picture of a half-naked cowboy with his johnson strategically hidden behind a saddlehorn, while intriguing, does NOT qualify as work-safe.

Dear Friends, Co-workers and Relatives,

I do appreciate your desire to share something funny and/or meaningful. However, I have been on the internet for possibly twice as long as you have, which has given me more time to read the various forwards that are *still* circulating. This has also given me the time and opportunity to cultivate my discerning taste for internet humor.

In the interest of ceasing to waste my time and yours, I offer these points for you to peruse at your leisure:

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Yay, Traffic?

Can you tell when I posted my Ohayocon5 pics? Yeah.

Also interesting to note: I appear to have less traffic on the weekends. I guess y'all like to do fun things on the weekends instead of websurfing.

Looks like either a.) people are still finding my Ohayocon pics (I know people are still finding them via Google), or b.) maybe I got some more "regulars" after the Ohayocon post. Either way is fine with me.

Aargh!

OMGWTFBBQ! I just tried to type some HTML code into Movable Type too fast, and ended up hitting the keystrokes for [Back] and erasing my entire damn entry.

Too bad... it was pretty good. About how I'm too impatient to sit down and write real blog entries. I can't complain about lack of potential content, cause I've got plenty. It's just making myself sit down and blog about it.

That said, I'm done for the evening.

Totoro Makes Me Cry

Am I a total goober or what? I never used to cry at anything—in fact, I often took great pride in being the only stony-faced person in the midst of a sobbing and sniffling movie theater. And now look at me: all weepy at the sound of the Totoro theme.

BEAR NO DRIVE CAR! THAT NO MAKE SENSE! *ahem*

And now, for the Totoro-deprived: some stills from the movie...

Satsuki (emphasis on the first syllable, please) and her little sister Mei wait with Totoro at the bus stop. Satsuki lent Totoro her father's umbrella a short while later, so poor O Totoro wouldn't be standing in the rain.

Oh, look. It's Totoro's bus! It's the nekobasu, or catbus. Legend has it that, as cats get older, they become shapeshifters. This particular cat became intrigued by a bus it saw, and decided to become a catbus. There's some Totoro art out there showing a catbus full of Totoros.

Totoro gave the girls some acorns and other various nuts and seeds as a thank-you for the umbrella. They, of course, planted them in their garden, where trees always go. Now the Totoros have come to Satsuki and Mei's house to help them grow the seeds into a giant tree.

After growing the tree in the garden, Totoro gives Satsuki and Mei (and his little totoros) a ride to the top of the tree. How? On his spinning top! Totoro rules!

Totoro has hailed the catbus for Satsuki, and now he waves goodbye to them as they take off from the top of Totoro's camphor tree.

Of course, I can't give the *whole* story away... but be watching for a special edition Tonari No Totoro DVD set to come out sometime within the next year or so. For now, you can buy the fullscreen English dub. (Ugh. Can't wait for the double-DVD set!)

So, the big question: why does Tonari No Totoro make me cry? I'm not sure. I think it's that whole childhood-lost sort of vibe—the scenes that would have made me OOH and AHH as a little kid now make me remember what it was like to be a little kid. I know, I know, it sounds totally retarded. That's the closest I can come, though. I wish I could turn off the waterworks, believe me. I feel really stupid about it... although it doesn't really matter when I'm home alone, watching Totoro. ^_^

Ohayocon5

I'm still working on a weekend review, but I did manage to finish my Ohayocon5 photo gallery. (I've gotta come up with a new way to make slideshows for my site—besides Flickr.)

There is also a great collection of photos at fansview.com, in addition to an informative narrative on the weekend.

Edit:
OK, here's the overview I promised. Now, it's kind of cold in this room, so my fingers are a little stiff; plus, I didn't take notes during the weekend like I'd planned. So, I don't promise literary greatness here. But, hopefully, between my photos and my narrative, you'll get the general idea.

read more...

Home From Ohayocon

Ohayocon was a great time! Almost like a mini-vacation. Very cool.

I'm currently working on adjusting and resizing the 30+ digital pics we took over the weekend. Until then, here's a pic I just took of Aaron displaying his two prized purchases: his moogle hat and his Mr. Sparkle t-shirt.

Con pics and a review/narrative soon to come!

Anime Weekend

I know I don't generally update much on the weekends, but this weekend will be especially sparse, as Aaron and I will be at Ohayocon in Columbus. We've attended for the past two years, but only for one day—this year, we've reserved a room, and will be at the con from Friday afternoon through Sunday.

Aaron's got some co-workers that are going, too, including some that I've never met. They have every intention of drinking like crazy collegians in their hotel room, apparently. We'll see how that pans out, as Aaron and I will likely be spending most of our "free" time screening anime in one of the several video rooms.

Unfortunately, we didn't manage to procure a sewing machine in time to create my masterful Totoro cosplay outfit. Maybe next year.

We're bringing the digital camera, so I may spend my day off on Monday posting highlights from the con. In the meantime, you can read about our previous experiences from Ohayocon4 and Ohayocon3.

Linky Love!

Seriocomic has put me on their list o' "Linky Love." And I didn't even ask. How cool is that?

Thanks, Mike!

Recent Referrers

People have made it here to my little site from:

• Googling "kris heath" ohio (I wonder if they found Kris's song?)
  
• Googling GLASSMEN DCI 2005 (Too bad they came up with Topless Drumcorps instead of the Glassmen's 2005 repertoire)
  
• A Technorati search for www.kottke.org (which yielded forth my rantings on stereographs)
  
• A Yahoo search for dianaschnuth.net (huh? why?)
  
• Googling Larry King Live December 2004 Gordon Hinkley and Larry King, Gordon B. Hinkley, and one search on AOL for transcript of gordon b hinckley at larry king live december 2004
  
• Googling acidfox productions
  
• Googling churchgoes scott peterson christian
  
• Somebody's own stats page from New Zealand (probably Mike Hudson's, as his is the only .nz blog I frequent)
  
• A few comments I made on Blurbomat, [daily dose of imagery], and a Trackback I posted to adot's notblog*.

It looks like most of my hits are friends jumping on to see if I've updated, with the occasional stranger making a ten-minute stay with multiple page views. The person looking for Kris stayed on my site for over a half hour, and it looks like Sheryl probably left my page open in the background at work for nearly 45 minutes. :-)

I think I'm having too much fun with my counter.

Go Firefox Go!

Fellow Firefox users: I have a belated Christmas present for you!

BoingBoing has posted an article telling us how to speed up your web browsing experience. I've implemented it, and it seems to work.

However, there is a caveat detailed on adot's notblog—apparently, this could potentially cause problems with certain servers, and won't appreciably speed up your load time unless you have an appropriate combination of bandwidth and processing power.

So, remember what you did, in case you need to undo it later. But for now, it's pretty sweet.

Why Do All Computers Hate Me?

Goddamned XP is smarter than me.

I just lost all my mp3's. Somehow.

I mean, I know enough about computers to know that they're still there, physically. The computer just doesn't know how to find them. I guess that's what I get for playing around with my Shared Documents without really knowing what I'm doing.

I even tried doing a system restore, to no avail.

And, to make things even better, our internet appears to be down. Neither my nor Aaron's computer can get online. I can see Aaron's computer, though, and play mp3's from it (since mine are currently MIA).

Guess I'll just hook up the old computer *again* and transfer all my mp3's *again*.

I am seriously annoyed right now.

*sneer*

Edit, 10:12pm:
Shortly after I wrote the above entry, I hooked up the old computer (again) and started re-transferring my mp3 collection to the new computer. In the meantime, I lit a candle and read a book and calmed myself down.

I have now recovered all of my music, read Wil Wheaton's book Just A Geek in its entirety (almost—I still have the appendices to finish), and made the basement smell like a freshly-baked double-chocolate muffin.

*contented sigh*

The Dell Is In Effect

After a long evening of transferring files from the old 'puter to the new, my refurbished Dell Dimension 3000 is humming happily (and quietly) beneath my desk.

I still need to rescue my bookmarks from the old computer, though, and reinstall all my programs, and other new-computer-type things.

For now, though, I'm going to bed.

I'm Popular...?

Well, I just banned a dozen IP addresses in the same subnet (is that what it's called? the first two numbers are the same) from commenting on my blog. I'm going to see if that puts a stop to the spamming that just started this weekend.

If it doesn't, everybody be prepared to plug in your e-mail address next time you comment on a post. Don't worry, MT encodes your e-mail so it can't be harvested by spiders or bots or what-have-you. Goodness knows I can't afford to have you guys stop commenting at all... my poor self-esteem couldn't handle the strain. I'll put a note in the comments area if I institute required fields.

So, yay for the fact that my blog has finally been targeted by a spam-bot. That means *someone* knows I'm out there, besides you diligent few. Boo for spam-bots.

Now Taking Requests

I know I should probably wrap up the detail work on this site before I start bemoaning my sparse readership (again). After all, the website archives aren't on this server yet, and my CSS and PHP still have some glitches to smooth out.

Still, though, I find myself posting my link in other blogs' comments, and signing up on all those blog tracking sites, and wanting strangers to think my site is as cool as I think theirs is. Are. Whatever.

But, in all actuality, I created this site: a.) to keep in touch with my out-of-town and sometimes out-of-touch friends; b.) to encourage myself to continue writing and journaling; and c.) to give myself a continuing web design challenge. So, I ask you, the readership, what you'd like to read:

1. More day-to-day shit (e.g. 'my job sucks' or 'my computer crashed')
2. More links to news stories (e.g. the new Willy Wonka movie, Viktor Yuschenko's face, or the death penalty)
3. More philosophical and sociopolitical thoughts and ideas and rants
4. More pictures and picture galleries (daily or weekly, even, if I have that many good ones?)
5. More links to linkworthy blogs and rants
6. Your content's just fine as it is! Why do you always worry about shit so much?

Leave some love in the comments section.

OMG I Want.

Oh, Sheryl? Doesn't this bring back memories? Heh.

Why Does My Computer Hate Me?

I've been finishing my Mom's Christmas present this evening—I'm not sure what I think of how it turned out, but I'm sure she'll love it. She may even cry. Anyway, suffice to say for now that Photoshop was involved in creating said gift, as was a trip to Big Lots. (I love Big Lots.)

So, we all know how much my current computer loves to run multiple RAM-hogging applications. Surprisingly, the 'puter made it through the end of the project, taking long minutes to save my 50MB Photoshop file after each major change, during which I was surfing on Aaron's computer. (Tuckle Rori > DaisyDo > Moxie Design Studios > Chepooka) But the gift is now complete, so I had thought it would be safe to surf on my own damn computer.

Not so.

I closed out everything except Firefox and WinAmp, because I wanted to surf to some tunes. I Googled shoutcast christmas to find some holiday spirit, and located the SomaFM Christmas feed, which was rocking my balls for about a song and a half.

Then the fucking computer froze.

You lasted through a 100MB Photoshop file, but freeze when I want to listen to music and click on a link at the same time? And I didn't even click—I just moused over the damn link! WTF?

As soon as Christmas Eve hits, you are so out of here.

(I'm never installing anything major in my own computer ever again.)

Hannukah For Dummies

What is Hanukah? (from Hanefesh.com):

The Jews observe the Festival of Lights for eight days, in honor of the historic victory of the Maccabbees and the miracle of the oil.

The Hebrew word Chanukah means "dedication." In the 2nd century BCE, the Syrian-Greek regime of Antiochus sought to pull Jews away from Judaism, with the hopes of assimilating them into Hellenism -- Greek culture. Antiochus outlawed aspects of Jewish observance -- including the study of Torah -- which began to decay the foundation of Jewish life and practice. During this period, many of the Jews began to assimilate into Greek culture, taking on Greek names and marrying non-Jews.

In response, a band of Jewish settlers took to the hills of Judea in open revolt against this threat to Jewish life. Led by Matitiyahu, and later his son Judah the Maccabee ("The Hammer"), this small band of pious Jews led guerrilla warfare against the Syrian army.

Antiochus sent thousands of well-armed troops to crush the rebellion -- but the Maccabees succeeded in driving the foreigners from their land.

Jewish fighters entered Jerusalem in December, 164 BCE. The Holy Temple was in shambles, defiled and desecrated by foreign soldiers. They cleansed the Temple and re-dedicated it on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev. When it came time to re-light the Menorah, they searched the entire Temple, but only one small jar of oil bearing the pure seal of the High Priest could be found. Miraculously, the small jar of oil burned for eight days, until a new supply of oil could be brought.

From then on, Jews have observed a holiday for eight days in honor of this historic victory and the miracle of the oil.

Today, the observance of Chanukah features the lighting of a special Chanukah menorah with eight branches (plus a helper candle), adding one new candle each night. Other customs include spinning the dreidel (a top with Hebrew letters on the sides), eating "oily" foods like potato latkes (pancakes) and sufganiyot (jelly donuts), and giving Chanukah gifts & coins) to children.

read more...

Crazy Day

Just for shits and giggles, I signed up on all those blogariffic sites out there: blo.gs, weblogs.com, BlogStreet, Blogrolling, syndic8.com, and updated my Technorati profile. I also set MT to accept trackback pings and to ping a few of the sites I signed up on, to let them know I updated. So, to anyone who finds my humble site or feed through one of those sites, welcome. I'm not always terribly interesting... but neither are the other friends and strangers whose blogs I frequent myself, so I'm in good company.

I'm not particularly motivated to do anything this evening. Work really drained me today. The stress I felt today was reminiscent of my days back in Lockbox:

24 September 2002: Just Another Day...

Hey, for once I worked an 8-hour day! Yeah, we were doing so well that we actually took a one-hour lunch and everything. Just for reference, yesterday I worked a 14-hour day. Seriously. My co-worker and almost-supervisor, Loni, worked an hour and a half more than me, since she came in at 6am. Damn, that sucked. Makes the normal 8-hour day seem like a luxury instead of a burden.

Being one of three people manning the Loan Corrections Team Line (aka 'working the phones') wasn't horrible, although I had twice as many calls as usual. And doing loan changes wasn't all that bad, either, although I had several requests that I had to call people about and wait around for answers. But all those things together made for one damn hectic day. I felt like I was going in six different directions all day—I'd hang up the phone from one call, go to start a loan change, get another call, have to do research for that call, finally get back to that loan change I'd started, then get another call, then finally finish that first loan change, then have to call someone about a detail of the next loan change... Yeesh. My desk has at this moment about seven different stacks of paper of varying heights and degrees of importance.

That really sucked away any sort of energy, creative or otherwise, that I might have had in reserve for my Me Time this evening.

So... that's today.

Remind me: why did I syndicate this again?

Movable Type 3.1 Upgrade Successful

Well, everything seems to have gone smoothly with the MT upgrade. I tried putzing with the "dynamic page generation," but all it seemed to do was b0rk my one category page (although it did reduce the rebuild time). So, I'm not using the dynamic page generation yet... not until I do a little more research and find out what the big hype is all about.

I do know that there's a lot about this whole thing that I haven't been utilizing to its fullest extent, even with the old version of MT. For instance, I'd wanted to include a different sidebar (see right) with each category index page—say, photography links for my Photography category, and low-carb links for my Atkins category, and links to concert tours and reviews and such for my Reviews category. It seems that, while MT still doesn't support what I'd wanted to do, there is a plug-in that can do this for me. So, I'll probably mess with that sometime tomorrow.

There's plenty of other blog things for me to research in the future, too, like pinging for trackbacks and such. I just can't think of any mainstream blog tracker thingy that would give a shit if little ol' me had an update. :-/ Do people really just surf off of places like blo.gs or weblogs.com?

Since I switched to PHP, and deleted all my HTML-based individual archives, I've also been having some visitors get 404 Not Found messages. D'oh! So, I need to go into my HostRocket Control Panel and make a custom 404 Error page saying to try changing the .htm to a .php to view the page. Awfully ghetto of me, but... *shrug*

Anyway, fun times ahead. Prepare to see more happy categorized entries from Yours Truly. @whee!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, how about that? I managed to whip together a Thanksgiving theme just in time. The most time-consuming part was locating appropriate images online for the background. Props go out to About.com for the pumpkins and the gourd, and to the Google Image Search for finding me the other gourd image.

In other site-related news, I imported entries from April 2004 last night. Now you can read about such exciting ventures as... well... us buying home improvement supplies from Home Depot? My review of Kill Bill Volume 2? Some random couple "parking" on my street? Yeah. Hit the archives for more exciting archived goodness.

I'm also contemplating upgrading to Movable Type 3.1 sometime in the near future, mainly to see what kind of category support it has. (I've been assigning categories to all of my entries, but have only been actively using the photography category.) So, if the site goes all wonky sometime in the next few days, you'll know why.

Let's hear it for four-day weekends. Word.

I *heart* Stylesheets

Did I happen to mention that, with my all-CSS layout, a minor full-site redesign (color changes, slight positional tweaking) would take considerably less time?

How about one evening?

Everything looks the same right now, but you will all get a Happy Hannukah surprise in a couple few weeks. (Hannukah, Chanukkah, however you Romanize it... I'm taking my spelling straight from the Jew myself.)

I'm also planning a Christmas theme, maybe a Yule theme before that (Dec 21), and afterward... Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's, Independence Day, blah blah blah. And, in case you were wondering how I'm managing all this (which I'm sure you were), I'm writing new stylesheets for each holiday theme, then writing some PHP code to plug in the right stylesheet on the right date. There's only a few things—like those fancy horizontal rules—that I'll still have to change out manually, if I get a bug up my ass about it.

And, of course, I'll include posts giving the history and significance of the holiday and of the symbolism I've incorporated into my design. I'm also going to make a valiant attempt to actually do some real research into each holiday for which I design, and not offend anyone by my ignorance. For example, for my Hannukah theme, I wanted to use a real Hannukah quotable in the masthead—but I didn't want to use the name of God, 1.) because Jews don't write the Name of God, and 2.) because I'm agnostic-bordering-on-atheist myself, and don't want to give prospective visitors the wrong idea (that is, that I'm proselytizing). So, I did a decent amount of researching and looking around online, and ended up quoting only part of the prayer said after the candles of the menorah (hannukia, whatever) are lit.

Not that Sheryl would be offended if I put every single Name of God I could find up on my webpage. Elohim! ELOHIM! (Mormons call Him that too, by the way. We—well, they, I guess—also know the Four-Letter Name, and also don't write or pronounce it.)

You'll all get a Diana-style crash course in Hannukah and Judaism (sp?) in another few weeks, complete with quotables from the inimitable Sheryl and many lovely links.

I like my new Hannukah theme better than this yellowy-green thing I've got now. I can't wait to switch it out...!

Still Tweaking...

I've got my Backlog going on, but it's not very pretty yet. I can't figure out how to change the separator from a dash to a colon, like in the current tune. And, even so, it's still pretty long for my sidebar width. I may see if there's some way I can make it only read the title, then link to Amazon for the artist. That would be sweet.

Er, wait. I figured it out. Let's hear it for figuring out how to cut-and-paste the correct lines of code, and to change them appropriately. Now I just have to see if I can make it remember and display my backlog while I'm not listening to WinAmp.

I kind of wanted to play with this more, but I want to check out the Nightline about the Clinton Presidential Library. Sounds interesting.

Edit, 11:30pm: I just did something pretty damn cool, IMHO. No, I didn't manage to make my web page remember my backlog after I quit WinAmp—that would involve more programming than I know or care to get into at this particular point in time, as I think I'd have to export the songs to a file or database.

No, I made it so that my backlog 1.) doesn't show blank lines when I haven't played five songs yet, and b.) isn't quite as ugly and wrapped around funny. Next I'm on, mouse over one of the song titles in my backlog. It should pop up with "search for U2 on Amazon," assuming it was U2 I was listening to, and the link searches for the artist on Amazon. w00t!

Maybe I *should* try studying Computer Science sometime, maybe get a certificate like Amy... I'm really getting off on this coding thing. I'd forgotten that a.) I know enough logic to do basic programming, and b.) I enjoy it.

I Made It Go!

Holy fucking shit. I learned myself enough PHP to make the Currently Hearing plugin work.

Almost.

I'm still working on making the archives pages display it properly, as they're in a different directory. Any ideas, web gurus?

Oh, and something else that's entirely supercool: HostRocket allows PHP parsing for HTML file extensions. I just had to add a line into my mime-type list in my HostRocket control panel, and whoosh! My stupid archives.htm page is suddenly PHP-ified.

I'm going to go scour the HostRocket FAQ page now and see if I can find a solution to my little PHP nested directory issue.

I'm stoked!

Edit: Yeeeeeah! I just wrote my first Else statement in PHP! And it works! Check it: if you're on the main index or on the main archive list, then you're in the public_html directory, and the sidebar displays my Currently Hearing info. If you're in another directory—say, reading an individual entry or posting a comment—you're in a different directory that's not public_html, and you see my driving tunes.

I am such a geek. But I'm OK with that. Next step: PHP-ifying (and possibly MySQL-ifying) the rest of my site so I don't have to rebuild MT so often...

I Made A Pretty

Check it out—I made a Favorites Icon! If you're using Firefox, check the address bar. If you're using IE, check out the bookmark for my site (that I'm sure you have at the top of your list).

If you can't see it... it looks something like this:  

Heh. I'm so geeked by the smallest things. Go me.

A Successful Blog?

Call me egotistical, but according to D. Keith Robinson, I'd like to think that this new blog of mine will be A Successful Blog. Ideally, anyway.

Incidentally, Keith's website is where I inadvertently stole my anti-tagline from. Just like I (somewhat less inadvertently) appropriated some of Dooce's design elements. Imitation is the highest form of flattery... right?

After all, I believe it was Picasso who said, "Good artists copy; great artists steal." —I'm not sure what that makes me, then.

Blogworthy?

Now that my page looks kind of like a "real" blog, I find myself torn between writing more and writing better. Ideally, I'd like to do both. Realistically, I know that if I want to put out high-quality entries like The Elite Members Of The Online Blogosphere (and their groupies know who they are), I would need to sit down and spend quality time on each and every entry. I would basically be writing mini-essays for actual publication, while trying to keep my informal style intact.

It's harder than it seems. For me, anyway.

On the other hand—shit, no one new is reading this thing. My entire audience consists of Aaron, Amy, Sheryl, Eric, Beth, Dan, and sometimes Amanda, Donna, Kristen, Ellie from SomethingNormal, or a random wanderer following a link from my sig or my old Bosstones page (which, remarkably, still gets hits after at least two years of stagnation).

There's nobody here to impress. Y'all know me too well. *smirk*

So, once I get used to being all loose and laid-back while typing in a new interface, I'm hoping I'll be back to my normal blogging self—albeit with a narrower column of text, a different color scheme, and a new backend.

Huh-huh, she said, "back end." Cool.

P.S. - All of my August 2004 LJ entries are now imported into MT. w00t!

Almost Functional

Well, this evening was spent messing with MT. And messing, and messing, and messing... until I realized that my problem lay in some simple configuration settings. Once MT knew where to generate my files, my MT tags magically started working; and once I realized how to make templates work, and how to recompile the site to show my changes, everything started coming together.

This is still going to take a lot of work and tweaking—and reformatting of generic templates when the need arises. If you choose to preview your comment, you'll see what I mean... ;-)

Hello World

This is just me testing Movable Type, and my ability to insert MT tags into my own HTML. Interesting, isn't it, how I've come full-circle: hard-core codehead to reluctant wysiwyg (Claris Homepage) to all-out wysiwyg (Dreamweaver) to reluctant code-head. Heh.

If You Can't Beat 'Em...

Well, I figured out how to adapt around all the little goobers in my CSS compatibility enough to make something that looks presentable in both browsers. Please look around and let me know what you think. Is the jumpy background too overwhelming? If it is, I can try to tweak it into something that might be smaller, both visually and byte-wise, although I'm not sure how the design would hold together without the large photo element. Might still be OK.

If the general consensus on the design is A-OK, then I'll make an attempt to figure out these Movable Type templates and plug them into this nifty design I've created. Once I figure out the proprietary tags, it doesn't sound like it'll be any harder than connecting ClarisWorks to FileMaker back in the day. And, hell, maybe it'll get me on the road to doing some real database stuff. I have MT running under MySQL, after all.

OK, guys. Let me know what you think. I'm outta here for tonight. Soon. Really.

edit: Might help if I gave you the new link.

"Real" Web Hosting: Check.

Well, I done it. I bought a domain name and pointed it toward my sparkly new web hosting service. I have also maxxed out credit card #2 with said web hosting, and made an emergency online 'oh-shit-did-I-just-go-overlimit?' payment. I am totally done charging shit until I get both cards back to about 50% paid-off. Why do I keep doing this shit? I'm really pissing myself off with this.

But I digress. Web hosting.

As much as I would love to set up MT right now, I'm getting a little tired and am having trouble following the installation instructions. How should I know where I want to install Movable Type? You're the experts—where would you put it?!
*deep breath*

I'm just really anxious to get my shit going, even though my navigation isn't quite up to par yet. I think I need to try a couple different templates for horizontal navigation, and maybe set it up so it doesn't look like crap with a space there, in case I can't get rid of it. Kind of like my issue with the fixed background—it looks in both IE and Firefox, even though it looks totally different.

I wish I had more quality brain-time in the evenings. I've still got a good hour of awakeness, but my brain is done. All I'm good for at this point is some TV, a shower, a chapter or two of Lord of the Rings, and hitting the sack. Blah.

I am so addicted.

I had thought to have a computer-free day today. After purchasing web hosting, downloading MT, and almost getting it installed yesterday, I had seriously thought I could stay away from my hopeless addiction to the intarweb. I had planned to do some yoga, put away some clothes, water my plants, et cetera, et cetera. Instead, here I am, basking in the glow of my Compaq FS740 17-incher, watching my old-skool copy of WS_FTP95 (straight from the 1999-2000 ResNet CD!) zip all the Movable Type files to their new home.

Er, no, I'll take that back. I am actually now configuring MT. So far, so good... Now I just need to set up a template, and test this puppy out.

Then comes the daunting task of importing all my old entries.

Manually.

*gulp*

Layout (Almost) Complete

Thanks to the lovely folks at the CSS Forum, I now have my basic layout set up as I had wanted. I still need to design my very first masthead, figure out my site structure and navigation (i.e. pare this sucker down), and finish my background image to my satisfaction. Then, and only then, will I be prepared to shell out some coin for "real" webhosting. And, after that, I will refamiliarize myself with installing perl scripts on a remote server (which actually shouldn't be too hard—I mean, if I could install a guestbook script back in the day, I can certainly install and configure Movable Type six years later).

Questions, though: Amy, I know you use Firefox. When you scroll my test page, does the "transparent" background kind of jump? I think it's just a video RAM issue on my box, but I can't be positive. It does the same thing in Netscape 7.2 (which I downloaded for testing purposes only). The only reason it doesn't do it in IE6 is that Explorer is fubar and doesn't display the background properly... but I kind of like the funky effect it gives, so I'm keeping it, even though it's not what I was going for. Oh, and incidentally... Firefox is now my default browser.

Overall, I believe I am pleased. Any comments on the layout: good, bad, ugly? I'll get the masthead up as soon as I get it designed. ;-)

Getting Closer...

Well, it looks like there will in fact be some degree of image trickery in the new layout. But it's looking better, anyway, especially in Firefox. Turns out IE6 doesn't actually support the full version of CSS1, and barely supports the CSS1 core. So, all the little stylesheet tricks and fun things that work fine in other browsers look like toasted crap in IE6. (I haven't tested on Netscape yet—seems that I uninstalled Netscape 6 from my computer. Imagine that.)

I wish I knew someone who used Movable Type. I know y'all are LJ junkies, or have your own other thing going on, so I can't go to any of you for bugs/issues/how-to-install. Yes, I know, they have tech support and plenty of docs, but it just feels better to have a real human being to ask when you need help. If I can't use my own layout with MT, I want to know now so I can give it up. Guess I should check the docs soon.

Once I'm completely ready to implement, I'm going to buy a new domain and get some real hosting at HostRocket. I know Schavitz has been going through them for years and has had little to no complaint. Upon comparing their services with others, like LiquidWeb, they seem to have more of what I want for a lesser price. Not by much, but anything is enough.

Oh, no... I've turned into one of those people who blogs about their blog. Shit.

CSS Is Driving Me Insane

Interesting evening. The original plan had been:
1.) do yoga while watching local news
2.) eat dinner during national news
3.) brush teeth, practice mellophone
4.) water plants, indoors and out
5.) put clean clothes away and other minor straightening-up
6.) play with new website

The actual plan became:
1.) super-hungry. ate dinner during local news.
2.) watched half of national news, then fell asleep.
3.) came downstairs at 7:15pm. turned on computer.
4.) messed with website for two hours.

Finally got it to look almost right in Explorer, but (as Amy will notice) it looks totally fubar in Firefox. ARRGH! WTF?! I enjoy a good intellectual puzzle, don't get me wrong, but I am getting seriously peeved at this.

After all this tweaking, I just hope I can make Movable Type work with it OK without resorting to using one of their templates. Good gravy.

Redesign Update

If you're interested, the results of an evening of CSS research is here. It's still not done, and I still have a few issues to overcome (mainly dealing with the height of various elements in various resolutions), but it's getting there.

I tested in IE 6 and Mozilla Firefox, but haven't downloaded any other browsers to test on. The page also looks funky on any resolution other than 1024x768 (remember those resolution issues I mentioned?). I'll continue to add to it and tweak it and keep you all posted. If you find something that doesn't work at all, throw me a comment, yo.

Working in a vacuum

I was never very good at working alone without peer feedback. So, I present for your commenting pleasure, the redesign work-in-progress. It still needs lots of detail work, but this is the general layout I'm thinking of starting with. I know I'm violating some cardinal rule of a website redesign by letting you see it way, waaaay before it's ready for prime-time, but I'd like some comments. And, hell, it's not like I have a really huge reader base, anyway. We're all friends here.

FYI, this is a jpeg of a Photoshop comp, originally 1024px wide. The main content area is arranged so that users with 800x600 resolution can still see the entirety of the content. I'm planning to go whole-hog CSS this time, so the partially-opaque backgrounds will actually be DIVs with an opacity setting, not some trickery of background images. The flower background (and likely the color scheme and masthead) will change as the mood strikes me, although whatever image is there will remain fixed as the page scrolls. I'm defenestrating the iFrames. (Look it up.)

I'm not positive I'll be keeping the TagBoard, as I'm hoping to upgrade web hosting and move to some sort of publishing software that allows comments. However, if I do keep it, you'll all be glad to know that I'm working on upgrading to TagBoard Advanced. I doubt it'll be around for the new design, though.

Comments from the peanut gallery are welcome and appreciated.

Ready for a Redesign

Yep, I think I'm ready to embark on my website redesign. Maybe if I had a real website with real content, I could get recognized in the "blogging community"... or some shit like that. I mean, shit, look at Dooce. She writes about her new baby, and breastfeeding, and getting fired from her job because of her website, and wrapping pasta around her dog's snout because it's funny. We're both intelligent ex-Mormon women with a good sense of humor and a decent amount of web design skill, IMO. If I spent some quality time on my new site, got it to look all spiffy, maybe spent another few minutes actually composing blog articles rather than just being satisfied with my stream-of-consciousness posts?maybe then I could get some new readership. Or at least feel better about myself.

Next weekend: Mom's visit and our trip to Dayton. Visit Grandpa and Grandma Cook and Amy.
Weekend after: Michigan Ren Fest (maybe)
Labor Day weekend: Taste of Cleveland (maybe)
Following weekend: Saginaires / Northern Aurora alumni picnic & Black Swamp w/ Amy
Weekend after that: Gravity Games in Cleveland Saturday & parade on Sunday

Gotta staff the phones tomorrow. Blech. I don't mind it so much, except that I have some stuff from last week to wrap up, and new stuff to learn for this week, and it's just about impossible while answering phone calls all day.

Redesign Step 1: Figuring Out What I Like

So, my computer is happy once more, and I have completed my tour of neat websites.

As with many things, sometimes I just like a website's design without really thinking of specifically why I like said design. So, to make myself pay attention, I made a list of likes and dislikes as I websurfed the elite list, so I can integrate some specific ideas into my redesign.

My likes (and I apologize for not writing in layman's terms):
+ a:hover / mouseOver background change on links
+ neat “ 's in blockquote backgrounds
+ little "about" blurbs in the sidebar
+ photographic mastheads with logomarks
+ cute little icons in front of post titles
+ kitsch. 50's pics. retro fonts.
+ having the latest blog entry right up front
+ the 'currently hearing' plugin
+ white (negative) space and an obvious focal point
+ partially opaque backgrounds for text
+ 5px borders on photos
+ logos with truncated letters (i.e. with the bottoms cut off)
+ simple, understated color palettes

My dislikes (or, things that seem chichéd or annoying):
+ centered layouts with patterned backgrounds on the sides
+ cute little icons in front of post titles
+ folder tabs
+ distressed-style graphics
+ overly large header graphics
+ cluttered teeny type
+ boxes with 45° cut-out corners

These are not, obviously, comprehensive lists of everything I like about every cool website, and I'm sure my likes and dislikes will change with time. They always do. After all, I once practically wet myself seeing this on an Apple Cinema Display, and now I just yawn and wonder if he'll ever update his style.

On a similar note, I had an interesting conversation with one of my co-workers today. My partner in the duty rotation had mentioned that he'd been to college, so I asked what his degree was in. This opened up a floodgate of information—for which I was thankful, because it made me feel a little less... well, like a professional failure, to be blunt. Anyway, this guy graduated business college with an MIS degree, had a couple potentially super-cool second interviews, instead got a shitty job in his field away from home, quit and came back to NW Ohio. He ended up getting a temp gig at Sky to pay the bills (sounding familiar?), and accepted a permanent job when it was offered him, despite the fact that he would still be working outside of his field. Now he's biding his time at Sky until he gets married in a month, and until his almost-wife gets her Master's. Then he says he's planning to go back to school (if it'll help) and hopefully start a business with one particular friend/colleague of his.

He also shared with me that, after almost two years of not using his degree, he's experiencing some... how did he put it? "Confidence issues." I can completely relate to that. That's actually one of the reasons I want to go in with Aaron sometime soon and get a video capture card for his computer—so I can edit video again. I've pretty much given up on catching up to the Flash wave. Director was fun to know, but no one uses it anymore. I can still design, though, and I hope I can still edit. I want to practice, and find out.

I shared with my co-worker that the main reason I'm not out job-hunting right now is that I'm waiting to become vested with my ESOP and Profit-Sharing conributions. My two-year anniversary is coming up in October, and then I'll be 20% vested, I think. I'm not fully vested until I've been with the company for five years. But, considering how much Sky dumped into my 401(k) last quarter that isn't really mine yet, I've got a pretty good incentive to stay on for another three years and some-odd months.

I just hope I can stay professionally competitive until then...

Damn Computer

PC froze up last night while I was installing the latest version of Quicktime. Stupid Quicktime. Anyway, this evening when I tried to start said computer, my Norton Antivirus wouldn't load, and Windows told me my registry was messed up. So, it looks like it reverted to an earlier save point—er, sorry, restore point—because a bunch of my shit reverted to its old settings. And Norton's drivers still aren't loading up.

So, just to be safe, I ran SpyBot, which came up with all the usual suspects: tracking cookies from Advertising.com, Gator, and what-have-you, but no real spyware. And since Norton isn't working right now, I'm running Pandascan—and I'll be damned. Just as I was typing this, it found something. One infected file. Damn.

Well, anyway, once my computer is feeling better, I may write about this weekend in Grand Haven. Until then... maybe I'll take some time away from my illin' computer and do some Yoga For Dummies or something.

Homework Assignment

OK, I'm completely serious about this, so don't post something silly without posting something serious, too.

I've been going through this list of well-designed websites, deciding what I admire and what I feel to be cliché. (I must have some amount of good taste, since I already frequent over half a dozen of the sites.) Anyway, one of the things I'd like to incorporate into my redesign (whenever it happens) is an About Me blurb. Not necessarily the full-page kind, as I've tried that multiple times and it just don't work. More of something concise and amusing, like:

Diana Schnuth is a web designer and photographer in Toledo OH, making her actual living in the world of finance.

So, my homework assignment to you is to write one or two brief sentences about me that would explain who I am, and what I'm about, to any complete strangers who might confusedly stumble upon my site.

May the power of The Pink Pig be with you! Now go!

Design Dilemmas

I'm contemplating embarking on a major website redesign. Not just a "the.details" redesign—a revamping of all the Diana Network of websites. I'm contemplating actually paying for my web hosting, and getting a decent amount of storage space. Perhaps an ASP-enabled server (so I can at least put pre-made scripts on it, even if I can't make myself learn ASP alone). Hopefully at least PHP and SQL and Perl. Perhaps even abandoning LiveJournal altogether and trying out one of these other packages like Movable Type or WordPress or Textpattern.

Thing is, now that I give the idea some serious thought, I'm not sure how much control I would have over my design and coding if I use blogging software. My goal is to have a more dynamic page with more flexible design elements—"skinnable" is close to what I'm thinking, although I'm not sure if I could think of more than one or two site designs at once. But, anyway, having started as a hard-coder of HTML, it's hard to give away all control of my coding, CSS or HTML or javascript or what-have-you. Even in Dreamweaver, I have to go in and fix code sometimes to get it the way I want.

And then there's the Trendy Factor™. I don't want my site to look exactly like everyone else's site, spiffy and acclaimed though they may be. Unfortunately, however, my iFrames aren't very searchable or trackable or navigable, though I once thought they were the proverbial shiznit. I want a clean, easy-to-update site with highly customizable design elements. I don't necessarily want bleeding-edge web tech, nor do I want a rubber-stamp MT page with dashed lines around the blockquotes and a pretty patterned background behind my main content panel. I want a classic yet fun and moderately untraditional page that looks like I designed it.

When do I find my style? The one that I like as much as I like the styles of others? The closest I ever got was the Saginaires Alumni page, and even that's beginning to look stale to me. It's like it's almost done, but not quite out of the draft stage. It's missing something vital, some important detail elements.

Now, before I get a rash of "shut up—you design great websites!" comments (which, admittedly, I wouldn't mind reading for an ego boost), I'll concede that I do have some good ideas every now and then. I just can't seem to make them combine into a solid final cohesive product with which I can be satisfied.

Maybe I'll design a spiffy-looking new website with more dynamic and engaging content. We'll see.

Unproductive Evening

Spent all day at work chomping at the bit to get home and work on web page / drum corps stuff. Got home, ate dinner, messed with my computer a little, got bored, went upstairs and read on the couch, fell asleep for an hour, woke up with the cat asleep on me, then watched American Chopper and 20/20 (with the cat still sleeping on me).

I'm only just now getting down to researching more on RSS feeds and planning to create one for my alumni site, even though it's rarely updated. WTF. It's purely for my own benefit—I don't expect anyone to actually take advantage of the Saginaires Alumni Association syndication.

I'm tired but not sleepy. :-/  Blah.

A little sewing help?

OK, guys—well, girls, probably. I don't sew, but I'd like to. I have a project to complete. My plan is to attend Ohayocon in January all decked out in a homemade Totoro cosplay outfit.

This could take some explanation.

Totoro = wonderfully cute creation by Hayao Miyazaki, featured in his film Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro). One of my favoritest movies. If you'll recall, I did some sketches of some totoros back in November.

Cosplay = where otaku (psycho crazy anime / Japanese pop-culture fans) dress up as their favorite character at a convention.

Ohayocon = the only anime convention I've been to so far, located in Columbus. (It's punny—"ohayo" means "good morning," as well as the name of our state. Erika from the Bluecoats taught me that—it was my very first word in Japanese.) Aaron and I will be attending Ohayocon for the third year in a row next January.

So, I want to dress up like the crazy people. There's a plushie out there of Mei, one of the characters from the movie, wearing Totoro pajamas. Instead of making a giant, ugly, deformed stuffed Totoro costume, I want to make some Totoro jammies. Several months ago, I drafted an initial plan of what my costume would be like, but I've revised my ideas since then. Instead of a more simple sweatsuit-type outfit, I'm looking at more of a one-piece footie pajama made out of plushie pile material, with a hood attached (or separate, if necessary).

I guess my big question is, does anyone know where to get a pattern for grown-up footie pajamas? I'll need to modify it by a.) making it out of plush instead of fleece, and b.) adding a white panel to the front belly, besides making it big enough for my fat ass. I'm starting on this project way early, because I know I'm in over my head.

Oh, yeah, and I need to thrift myself a sewing machine. And learn how to use it. D'oh!

website update

Why won't my LJ client upload my entry?! Gah. Must resort to posting from the LJ website.

Anyway, just so y'all know...
- my LJ is now integrated into the.details
- my gardening section is now up
- the photos from the U-Haul moving debacle aftermath are posted

And here's a little something for Sheryl.

Thank you, Sheryl!

Ye Olde Frankenstein PC is back up and running, thanks to a working power supply donated by Sheryl. I installed the new power supply with little to no difficulty, and was delighted to hear that lovely little "beep" when I hit the power button. Then I spent even longer hooking up the PC to my little network of crap (gotta make sure the Mac is all finished being connected before cramming the PC under the desk, which means hooking up the external CD burner and the monitor switchbox, gotta feed both PC and Mac keyboard cables through and figure out where they live when not in use, etc, etc). Then I got to pick up where I left off back in freakin' January when my computer had its little blowout, which was figuring out why Norton LiveUpdate wouldn't update my virus defs. Amongst all those things, I spent all evening with my computer and didn't even get the stuff done that I wanted to do with it (time-sensitive alumni web page updates).

So, now that I've downloaded a nice LJ client for my PC, and updating my personal page is no longer a chore, the question arises: do I keep blogging on LJ, or do I return to manually updating the.details? I intend to do some updates to it, anyway: changing the header graphic and menu system, adding a few sections (like gardening... I'm a dork), maybe even changing the color palette (oh the horror!). Can I get some feedback from my loyal readership? Blog here, or blog there?

It's way past my bedtime. Lemme know what y'all think.

P.S. - Amy's coming to visit this weekend! Schnarf!
P.P.S. - How I've missed having a speedy computer. I like my Mac, but I also like not having to wait for shit to load.

T-minus four days and counting

We have almost everything packed, the U-Haul is reserved, and Aaron's picking up the key to the house on Friday. Time to let everybody know The Moving Day Schedule.

9:00am - Aaron picks up the U-Haul
9:30am - Moving commences as fellow movers arrive
after loading - Aaron and Diana take the crew out to lunch at Easystreet (our treat)
after lunch - Return to Grove Street and line up vehicles for the Schnuth Caravan up to Toledo
upon arrival - Unload at 4651 Ventura

Unfortunately, we're not positive what time the whole operation will be over, but we're guessing sometime in the mid- to late afternoon. So far, the moving crew looks like myself and Aaron, Kris Fries (and possibly his wife Kathy), Kris Heath, Mark Sheets, and Eric Fertel. Jason Garza may be making an appearance after lunch.

I'm kind of frustrated that I don't have Dreamweaver for my Mac, and/or that I haven't gotten myself a new power supply for the other computer yet. I have grand ideas for a slight redesign of "the details" page, but it would require that great search-and-replace function in Dreamweaver, so I wouldn't have to open up every damn file in the whole site and see what styles everything was set at. For the web geeks: yes, I do have stylesheets set up, and yes, they are a linked file and not individually applied within the page. Yes, I will pretty much just be writing a new stylesheet and making new graphics. Still, though, I have become a creature of habit and I prefer my WYSIWYG program to hardcoding, despite the fact that I once prided myself on my ability to code HTML. (That was long before the days of Dreamweaver and its Adobe analog, however, back when WYSIWYG programs were awkward and clunky and required code-tweaking, anyway, to output properly.)

Anyway, as much as I enjoy my LiveJournal, I think I'm going to begin updating my actual page again, as soon as the PC is back up. I may keep the blog section on LJ, and just add updates to the page, though. I'm looking at, first, a new and cleaner design. Second, I'll be updating long-unused sections, like the Reviews, Photos and Bio. Third, I'll be adding new sections, like an Atkins Diet factsheet with reviews of low-carb foods and links to Schnuth-approved recipes.

All this... as soon as I get myself a new power supply.

LiveJournal can be a damn pain.

So, let me share with you the epic saga of today's LJ post. I've been using my Mac today, since my PC is still incommunicado. After finishing up reformatting and reconfiguring everything to work for me for the time being, I attempted to open a browser window and post all about it to my LJ. O silly me, thinking it could be just that simple.

No, LiveJournal decided to refresh the webpage after me entering a few sentences of text... then again after I tried to re-enter about half a sentence. So I said, fuck it. I'm downloading one of those clients for my Mac. No biggie. Downloaded the Phoenix client, which is the only one that works with "Classic Macs" (that is, pre- OS X). It's a StuffIt file, of course... but my version of StuffIt Expander apparently won't recognize it, for whatever bizarre reason.

So, off I go to locate the latest version of StuffIt Expander that will work with OS 8.x, and I discover that my version is about three version numbers outdated. (Yikes.) I download version 7.whatever, which takes 20 minutes for a 9MB file. *sigh*

After a few restarts—and discovering that my Mac freezes after it's been asleep—I've finally installed the new StuffIt, unstuffed the Phoenix LJ client, located the folder in which it was expanded (hiding under a window on the desktop), and fired this bad boy up.

As much as I hate to admit it, I may just have to rework my personal webpage to incorporate LJ as my main blog. This is kind of spiffy. Of course, that's assuming I ever either a.) get my PC to power up again, and/or b.) get a copy of Dreamweaver for my Mac and just edit my site from the 6500.

I'm glad I have two passable computers for just this reason. I do still use Aaron's computer for some things, but having my own that I can tinker with makes me happy. —Hmm. I mean, one that I can tinker with that *does* what I want it to do. And powers up. And doesn't die in the middle of an icestorm. And doesn't make me sad. And doesn't make me whore out to my friends for tech support. Which I don't want to do. Which makes me want to fix it myself. Which makes me more frustrated. Et cetera.

Aaron and I bought a digital camera off of a coworker of his for 75 bucks. It's a Fuji FinePix 2400, with 2.1 megapixels of digital goodness. The max resolution is 1600x1200, or somewhere around there. Not bad. If my Mac had USB, I could hook it up and download pics to the 6500. As it is, we can hook it up to Aaron's Dell and have XP automatically recognize it as new hardware, which is keen. Sure, it's a little outdated, but it's just what we wanted in a digital camera. We can take photos for the web and for eBay, and take it on trips to have a point-and-shoot along.

Oh, yeah, one more thing. We went to see our realtor on Saturday afternoon. She seems really nice, and we're going to go check out houses next Saturday. w00t.

Wish me luck with the PC. I don't know what to do with it, besides spring for a new freaking power supply and hope that's the problem. Any advice would be cheerfully accepted (without directly propositioning anyone to help). Peace out.

I love my job... right.

My boss kind of pissed me off today. Me and my coworker both.

See, last week, my boss Tom was on vacation. My coworker Deb and I ended up having a question about the databases we work with, and since Tom wasn't available, we asked the database guru, Rick. We'd only met him once or twice, in the company of Tom, but we knew he was the programming guy mainly responsible for the CIP (Client Information Program) database.

Turns out that Rick is so much better at explaining things that Tom is. Tom has been known to talk around a subject for 15 minutes and leave you no clearer on the subject. Rick, however, not only explained the process of updating the database, but also brought us back to his area and showed us the SQL databases that are the meat and potatoes of the front-end we work with.

So, naturally, when we came up with a few questions today, even though our immediate supervisor had returned from his vacation, we opted to ask the guy that we knew could answer our questions succinctly and thoroughly. We didn't even consider asking Tom, because we doubted he'd be able to help. Turns out, though, that Tom came to get us for our Friday meeting as Rick was leaving from discussing our database issues. Of course, Tom asked why Rick was in our office, and then made sure to tell us as we were entering our meeting, "In the future, when you have questions, make sure you ask me first."

OK, will do... next time I want a completely unsubstantiated answer.

I liken the situation to asking a scientific question of your local clergy vs. asking Stephen Hawking. Not that Rick is that much of a genius—he's just your average forty-something, well-mannered, friendly and intelligent IT guy. But you know what I mean.

Does anybody know what's wrong with my computer? There's no fuse that we can find, which is weird. The fuse wouldn't be on the motherboard, would it? How do I know if my power supply is hosed? Gyarr!

Aaron keeps telling me that enough is wrong with my computer, with it randomly freezing at startup and during normal use, and now this power issue, that maybe I should just pay the damn bench fee somewhere and get it looked at. I think I'd be embarrassed on some level, though... "Yeah, I put in the new motherboard and processor... —I did what? What did I fuck up? Oh, um, I mean, my friend put in the motherboard..."

Damn livejournal...

Silly me, wanting to change to Rich Text mode in the middle of an entry. No, I didn't want to keep that entry or anything. Gyarr.

So, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted... Where the hell is the goddamn fuse?! I cracked open the computer, and the fuse is not where Aaron said it would be. I can't seem to find it. Hopefully, he'll be able to help me locate it this weekend, and we can go buy a new one at Wal-Mart or Ace Hardware or something. I hope it's not actually the power supply itself, because that would suck. It doesn't smell like burnt computer, though, so that's good.

Although I did discover why you're supposed to keep all the nice plates closing up the back of your computer. :-) Lotsa cobwebs. Jinkies.

I read something on CNN.com today which would explain some of my personality quirks. Scientists have found a relationship between teen depression and a small hippocampus, which is the part of the brain responsible for emotion and motivation. It's possible that adolescent depression could actually shrink the hippocampus, they say. Maybe that would explain my reticence to get up in the morning, eh? —Oh, well. It was a good try, anyway.

And here's a funny for ya: Maybe your parents or grandparents were involved in social or veterans' clubs like the VFW, the Federation of Eagles (Fraternal Order of Eagles?), the Moose Lodge, or similar clubs. But have you ever heard of... The Fraternal Order of Orioles?! One of their local "nests" opened an account with Sky recently... which is probably more than I should tell you. Now I have to kill you.

Stupid computer

So, here I am, using this LiveJournal I signed up for. Why, you might ask? Well, because my computer blew a fuse during last night's windstorm / power funkiness. I haven't opened it up to make sure, but that's gotta be it.

I'm currently on Aaron's kick-ass Dell instead of my slower Power Mac, FYI.

I just didn't want anyone to think I'd forgotten to post, ya know. So, here I am. On LiveJournal.

I had fun overachieving at work today, for once. There's a bi-weekly report we have to compile for the banking centers, and up until now we've had to do it by hand. Print out individual reports, add up each entry, type it into a spreadsheet. We all maintained that there was an easier way, that Programming should be able to make it just go. And, this time, we thought we were golden. It still didn't go into Excel, but at least all I had to do was type numbers straight from one to the other.

Then I found out—after I'd completed the spreadsheet—that the report I'd used may not be completely accurate, and that we may have to do it by hand again. Gah! So, while my boss was waiting to hear the word from Programming, I got a jump on doing the manual report. It wasn't until late this afternoon that my boss got back with me and confirmed that, yes, we'd need to do the report by hand again this time. When I pointed out that I'd already gotten half of it done anyway, he said, "Staying ahead of the game, huh?" I told him I try.

But, yeah. So rarely do I get to make brownie points at work that this little incident made me awfully damned proud of myself.

Hopefully this LiveJournal thing won't be a necessary part of my blogging for long, but I'm glad to know it's here when I need it. :-)

Ohayocon4

...was a lot of fun. Arrived at the Hyatt Regency Columbus at noon, got registered (after standing in line for a half hour), and ate lunch at the Subway in the hotel's food court. (FYI, the Atkins-friendly Chicken Bacon Ranch wraps are yummy, and the actual wheat/soy wrap itself is really quite good, but the portion size leaves a little to be desired.)

After lunch, we hit the Dealer Room to spend our respective wads of cash. Two circuits around the Dealer Room yielded:

• a Chibi Totoro plushie (the white one)
  
• a Chu Totoro keychain (the blue one)
  
• a deck of giant Totoro playing cards
  
• Warcry: a book of Berserk postcards / art
  
• a Berserk Dreamcast poster
  
• a Gamera toy
  
• an Aruru capsule toy (with Puyos—from the Puyo Puyo video game)
  

...and left us enough money for dinner later.

read more...

Tonari no Totoro

So, how does this work: whenever I sit down with a sketchbook and the intention of drawing, I end up with crap. But, when I have the sudden urge to draw something in particular, I grab a handy piece of scrap paper and end up with something cool? Something I might actually want to keep?

I was sitting here at my desk, contemplating my Totoro desktop wallpaper, when it occurred to me to try to draw Totoro. After all, he's not that complex. So, I grabbed the nearest piece of blank scrap paper (well, almost blank — one side had yesterday's quotable from the men's track team alumnus) and a handy pencil. And, after some scanning and coloring in Photoshop (I love my HyperPen stylus), I ended up with this loverly arrangement to your right.

I love Totoro. If I had my way, every child in America would be introduced to what Japanese children already know: Totoro plushies. The movie is fabulous, but the merch is even better. :-) I already have a Totoro on a chain (currently being used as a zipper pull on my purse), a Catbus [Nekobasu] on a chain (on a knick-knack shelf in the bathroom), and a metal wind-up Totoro with umbrella (on a knick-knack shelf in the living room, along with the Evas). When little Sam Fries gets old enough to appreciate it, I have every intention of buying him the Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro) movie. And maybe a big plushie.

Oh, I didn't mention that, did I? Kris and Kathy had their baby on Wednesday, November 19th at almost 7:00 in the morning. Labor for 22 hours... whee. Over 8 pounds. Part of me is really excited for them, and can't wait to go up to Toledo and see their firstborn. Another part of me knows that we'll rarely see them ever again, especially since they seem to have this attitude that their lives are over. Ah, well. Auntie Schnuth will be more than happy to spoil little Sam... for a while. :-)

OK, and the job hunt thickens... I got a call today from another of the companies I sent a resume to. The exec, Steve, conducted a brief phone interview, with such highly laughable questions as, "What web page software have you used? Do you have experience with graphics programs, like Photoshop? How about flatbed scanning? What FTP programs have you used?" Holy shit. I feel smart again, highly akin to my recent Kinko's experience. Seems this company, WorldStart, maintains an online catalog of closeout computer equipment, and the entry-level position would entail scanning product images, typing descriptions, and generally updating the catalog on a daily basis. Even though this would pay less than my new Patriot Act job with Sky, and would require a commute, I think I'd be OK with that. We'll have to see. When it rains, it fuckin' pours.

Today's random news from CNN.com: When will teachers ever learn that inciting non-conformist acts is not necessarily the best idea amongst high schoolers?

And the random humor from Lockbox: Only in Salt Lake City, Utah would you find a bank named "Zions First National Bank."

Yay, Computer!

Thank you, Sheryl! Thankyou-thankyou-thankyou! *big sloppy kiss*

My computer works! It runs Windows ME at 1.8 GHz and with 256 megs of RAM. Oh, yes. Aaron says he may start downloading some of the videos that his computer won't play properly, and watch them on mine. And I'm OK with that. :-)

I only have had to reinstall Photoshop and Dreamweaver — and this gave me the opportunity to get off my sorry ass and upgrade to Photoshop 7 and Dreamweaver MX, supplied months ago by Kris. Thankfully, I did figure out how to save all my messages from Outlook Express before I wiped the HD the first time, and I found how to re-import them, so I didn't lose any important messages. I think I might have lost my address book, though, but no biggie. Anything I really needed is saved in my various messages, I think.

So, I bid a fond adieu to my Mac, as I'm sure it will sit and once again gather dust until I need to do some genealogy or print something on the laser printer.

In other news, I have to work tomorrow at 8am. Yep, Aaron's got the day off and I have to work a full fucking 8-hour day. WTF. But back to general happiness...

Yesterday, Aaron and I headed out to The Taste Of Cleveland festival to eat lots of food and watch P-Funk. Such a great day. Beautiful weather, fresh breeze off the river (this isn't the fiery Cuyahoga of yesteryear), festive atmosphere, all made for a perfect day trip.

Traffic on the turnpike was smooth on the way, and we found our way to the venue parking with little incident. Parking was six bucks, but that was an expected expense, and the traffic flow there was carefully managed. Parked in the Tower City garage, walked across the street to the venue (with the assistance of traffic cops), and found ourselves at the top of a hill overlooking the entire festival. Tents, booths, games, food, and a large tented ampitheatre area. Oh, yes. This looked promising.

We headed down the hill to the ticket booth: five bucks apiece to get in, with the $2 coupons Aaron found online. That done, we went in and bought our initial batch of food tickets for $20. (That's where they get ya.) After wandering around agape at all the food — ribs, Thai, Indian, Mediterranean, BBQ chicken, burgers, sausages, almost anything you could want in festival food. We opted for the gyro booth, and the Seafood Delight, which was indeed delightful. Shrimp and imitation crab chunks were sauteed with sweet onions and squash in a delicious saucy juicy liquid, then slopped onto a flatbread pita with some shredded lettuce, wrapped with foil, and served to us with a plastic fork and napkin. Oh, so good. Those cost six tickets apiece, so there went most of our food stash. The rest was gone with two Mountain Dews from the booth next door.

We wandered over toward the ampitheatre to find a neutral place to eat our Delights, and found one of the tall tables for standing and eating at. I managed to dump the delicious sauce down my front during the course of the meal. :-) After dinner, we decided to take a closer look at the displays and booths, since we had been so hungry when we arrived that we'd beelined for the food. Overall, the most interesting thing we found was the booth for the Gravity Games that we'd already visited on our way in, and the setting sun was totally beaming us right in the eyes. Gah. So, we bought some more tickets and went to enjoy some frozen custard. Mmm... custard. If you've never had it, get some whenever you have the chance. Oh, so good.

(Damn, I should be getting to bed... It's 1:00am and not even really today anymore...)

All right, I'm going to stop here and continue tomorrow. I don't want to be totally dragging when I finally get home to Aaron after work on everyone else's day off. Sigh. I'll tell all about the show (that quite possibly could be the best show I've ever attended) later.

12-hour workdays and moving sales

I've gotta find a new job. One that doesn't require a 12-hour day on Mondays. Ugh.

But the good news is two-fold: 1) UPS was overstaffed yesterday, so Aaron got to come home early, and 2) while he was home (and I was still at work), Sheryl and Sarah came to get my computer. Yes, Sheryl has taken pity on me and is in the process of figuring out what the fuck I did to my PC. I hope she doesn't have to erase my second hard drive... although I would be happy that my computer was once again functional, I would be extremely sad that many gigs of downloaded material (mostly .mp3 and .shn files) would be no more. Still, though... I have faith in you, Sheryl! *grin*

To Sheryl: Thank you so, so much for making my computer go. I feel bad for embarking on what was supposed to be a super-cool Upgrade By Diana and having it end up Sheryl Saves Diana's Ass Yet Again. I feel like I must be putting you out, even though you volunteered to help. (You always volunteer to help...) :-) Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I really, really appreciate your help, especially since you live all the way up in Toledo now, and I'm really the only thing in BG besides, oh, Pollyeyes. (Well... not the only thing... I mean, there's a college campus and a post office and a mall of sorts... but you know what I mean.) End of speech.

Now for something completely different... I've talked about Ellie and her blog before, and you might find me strange for taking such interest in a complete stranger and her activities, but you're entitled to that. It's not one of those envy-type interests, nor is it one of those point-and-laugh-at-a-stranger interests. Rather, I find myself thinking that I would have wanted to be friends with Ellie and her crowd, had we gone to the same college — but it probably would have been kind of like a few friends I have now, where I'm kind of a friend, but more of an acquaintance, and not really someone they'd hang out with all the time. Someone I'd want to be closer friends with, but they just must not think I'm cool enough. —Yeah, that's a lot to read into a stranger's blog, I know. :-)

Anyway, Ellie has a great SHOUTcast stream called normalradio. Ellie has great taste in music. She's a big Morrissey freak/fan, but in the past several minutes of listening to normalradio, I've heard The Counting Crows, James, Dashboard Confessional, and the Lightning Seeds. Currently she's playing Dubstar, whom I'm not really familiar with, but I'm digging it anyway. I don't think Aaron would particularly like normalradio, but I'll bet Sheryl would listen for a while and be happy with a few choices (like James). She's not always on and broadcasting—it's whatever she's playing on her own computer—but when it's up and running, I'm loving it. *sigh* And I can't find all the cables to my cool-ass AppleDesign speakers... Damn you, quiet little internal speaker.

Now that I'm using my Mac so much more, I'm contemplating getting some more RAM for it, and maybe blowing $100 on a G3 upgrade... but I'm not going to, since my PC will eventually kick this thing's little ass. I'll always keep my Mac, but since more applications are available for Windows, I'll probably always use it more, unfortunately.

I have got to get myself some James. Ellie's playing another James song, and I'm finding myself hooked. Sheryl, I see why you like this band so much.

Speaking of music and bands... I'm not much into popular music these days, so whenever I find a band I like, I'm all ecstatic. I know you guys who read this don't generally share all my musical tastes, but these are the bands and artists I find myself listening to the most these days (and no, this isn't a comprehensive list):

• Coldplay
• Bob Mould / Sugar (not a recent band, I know)
• Matthew Sweet
• Catherine Wheel (another 90's alterna-pick)
• The Flaming Lips
• Alanis Morrisette

This past weekend, Aaron and I bought something cool at a garage sale. Actually, it was a moving sale, the kind that's held indoors because most of the items are too big to move outside more than once. We almost didn't go in, because we were kind of creeped out by having to go inside to see the stuff—but since we ended up not being able to just drive through the alleyway to the next street, we were forced by our good natures to check it out, anyway. And it's a good thing we did, because in the entry hallway of the guy's upstairs apartment was a gorgeous black electric guitar, labeled with a $200 price tag. Aaron and I didn't want to discuss our potential purchase there in front of the guy, so we looked around and left under the pretense of "we'll think about it, and maybe we'll be back later." In actuality, we drove out of the parking lot, talked it over, took the money out of the bank, and came back for the guitar sooner than the guy probably expected.

So, we have a 1969 Kay Vintage electric guitar (this model was manufactured with a Les Paul body), an Epiphone bass amp, electronic tuner, three picks, soft case, cables and cords, all for a very good price. Aaron looked for more info about our "new" guitar online, and found that the same guy we'd just bought it from had tried to sell it for that same price on eBay. Apparently the high bidder stiffed him, so he sold it to us for the same price at his moving sale.

It's a bigger purchase than we generally make at a garage sale, but we figured it was worth the investment. Both of us have been playing more often now that we have a decent axe. The Kay is far and away much better than the Silvertone Amp-in-Case model we had before, with the fabulous twanging sitar sound. *smirk*

My, what a novel I've written. Even though I have to handcode now, maybe I ought to update more often again...

My Blog Is Too Mac-a-licious For Ya Babe

Nope, the PC is still not fully functional. I'm about this close *thumb and forefinger one centimeter apart* from taking the stupid thing down to Virtual PCs and making them fix it. OK, guys, don't hose the second hard drive—this is not an option...

I guess the good news is that I haven't gotten any of the new viruses going around. Very few hackers bother to make Mac viruses. :-)

Now, let's see if I can properly segue here without telling you anything my employer doesn't want you to know...

Hey, guess what? Our e-mail was down at work yesterday. And our fax server. And, well, hell, the whole goddamn network was down. Never you mind why. It's a bunch of fun to manually fax clients who either are usually faxed straight from our computers or receive their deposit reports via e-mail. It's also a barrel of monkeys to work harder than usual to get less done than usual, all while the rest of the building is cleaning their workstations and going home early because they have nothing to do without their computers. Ahh... there's nothing quite like having your primary workstation on a network separate from the corporate domain.

My 90-grams-of protein-and-30-minutes-of-exercise-a-day diet died a quick death. Like, two weeks. I'm trying to convince myself that just because I've been off the diet for as long as I was initially on it doesn't mean I'm necessarily a failure. *smirk*

Aaron told me today he's been contemplating the Atkins Diet himself. Yes, I slammed it earlier, I know, but if he's willing to give it a shot, I'll do it with him. He hasn't totally committed to it yet—he wants to double-check what's legal for the first couple of weeks to a month and figure out some potential meals first. Chicken, burgers, and tuna would get kind of tedious after about a week, we'd imagine. Anyway, both of us need to lose the same amount of weight (and, oddly enough, have the same starting point), so if we managed to coordinate our weight-loss efforts, I think we could succeed. All I know is I'm tired of being frumpy.

When Mom visited last weekend, she told me she thinks I don't eat enough. Gee, thanks, Mom. That's just what I need. —Anyway, she's probably more correct than I want to give her credit for. I think eating, for me, is a social thing. When I'm by myself at home, I couldn't give a rat's ass if I eat dinner or not. I say to myself, "Hey, I'm hungry." I look in the kitchen, and if nothing strikes my fancy, I don't eat. I pay my stomach about as much attention as I would a headache (and Aaron always bugs me about not taking anything for my headaches when I have them). I just don't give a shit. If it's the weekend, though, and I'm out with Aaron or other people, I tend to order up something huge and full of pasta. Lately, I've ended up taking half of it home, but still. Maybe I have more of a laziness problem (like, not wanting to actually make anything for dinner). I'd believe that, too. Actually, that's probably right on the mark.

Part of me is sad that all my pretty code will probably get reorganized once I put this back into DreamBeaver. The rest of me smacks the first part and says, "Dreamweaver lives on your GIGAHERTZ machine, and you're currently coding this on your 275 MHz PowerPC. Get a life..."

I *heart* my Macintosh

Finally couldn't stand having an un-updated blog. Since I've been downloading fix-it stuff on my Mac, zipping it to floppies, transferring it to the broken PC, reconstituting it, and attempting to fix it, I've been feeling the love for my trusty Mac. I ended up using Fetch to grab the code for my blog, and (since my blog is too large to be opened by SimpleText, and I don't seem to have BBEdit on my computer) using MS Word 98 to edit code.

Also, I have to give it up for me. By using stylesheets, I have made my little blog so much easier to update manually. It's so much easier to type <p class="entry"> than trying to set all the font sizes and colors, indents, and all that crap. I'm also editing the HTML straight just to try to trick Word out of reformatting everything for me, as it is oft wont to do.

So, here's the skinny on the PC. I was a little too eager to get my kick-ass system going, and failed to note that I had no driver disk.

This is bad, mmm-kay? So, between my existing Win 98 SE cab files (thoughtfully stored on my computer by Sheryl), Aaron's Win 98 Update CD, and downloading/transferring files from the internet, I have seriously fucked up my OS. It refuses to recognize that I have an onboard nVidia video card, and sound card, and it keeps giving me errors when I try to install the drivers for the onboard LAN. I finally did download the drivers I needed, and get them on the PC (which required nine, count 'em, nine floppies), but Setup.exe doesn't launch. I had to attempt to load the drivers manually... but I think the damage had already been done.

I asked Loni at work if she had a Windows 98 Second Edition disc I could borrow, and it turns out that she does. I'm planning to bring it home tomorrow (assuming she remembers to bring it to work), install the fucker, and hope I don't have to wipe my entire C: drive. ...Though it wouldn't be the end of the world. Most of my important stuff is on the other, newer secondary drive.

On the weight loss/fitness front: I have been attempting to raise my protein intake to 91 grams a day. That's harder than it looks—yesterday, I felt like all I was eating was meat. Today I made myself a yummy dinner: two chicken breasts baked with a glaze consisting of honey mustard, organic honey, the juice of one lemon, one teaspoon of soy sauce, and two slices of sushi ginger. (Hey, we didn't have any ground ginger, OK?) Because I was feeling the need for some noodleage, I also made some ramen noodles, topped with a little butter, parsley, and lemon pepper. And, just to be silly, I garnished my plate with two lemon wedges. (I always find it silly to think about food presentation when I'm the only one going to be eating it. But I need to realize that the look of the food is half of the experience. —OK, maybe not half. But some.)

I have also eaten a banana for breakfast every weekday this month, and have exercised at least half an hour (with the exception of Tuesday, when I thought I was making progress with the computer-beast, and didn't want to quit).

Wow... I haven't spent this long coding straight HTML in... years? And to think I used to take pride in this ability. Maybe I should do this more often.

Oh, yeah. On the job front. (Did you even know there was a job front?) I sent an e-mail to one of the managers in Sky's Marketing Department today, detailing my desire to work in said department. I told her where I currently worked, how long I'd worked for Sky (almost a year, fyi), and gave her my qualifications, including my bachelor's degree and my experience in graphic design, web design, multimedia authoring, and video editing. I requested that she (or the appropriate person) let me know if there would be any positions opening up in the department anytime soon. She sent me a prompt reply, and copied the two VP's of Marketing, and told me she was forwarding my message on to the people who did the hiring for the department. So... the ball is rolling. We'll see what happens...

Unk. Now to upload and make sure I did this dang thing right.

Design Cravings, Part 2

This entry is actually only about a half hour after "yesterday's" entry — which was in itself a misnomer, since it was written at about 1:30am.

I just got done surfing around my own (outdated) portfolio, and surfed off of it to one of my "inspirational" sites, PrayStation. God, I just want to cry. How did I manage to drop the ball? How can I feel justified in calling myself a web designer? I'm better than your average non-web-designer, sure, but can I run with the rest of my genre? Even just looking at Schavitz, I've long been tempted to say no.

Even just looking at CoolHomePages.com, I feel inadequate. Would any of my pages ever end up there? No. What would I need to do to break through that barrier from mediocrity to coolness? I feel like my brain just doesn't do cool. Some will say that this is a good thing, because I have a "classic" style and could design for more "conservative" clients.

Well, that's just great. "Conservative" won't get me a design job. Versatility might. Self-confidence would sure help, too.

As would actually looking for one.

Quit beating yourself over the head with your own inadequacies, Diana, and go to bed. *sigh*

Design Cravings

I suddenly have an insatiable urge to design something. Not redesign my website, but just make something for the sake of making it, à là Timmay. Something clean and modern with straight lines and interestingly stark graphics and a unique color palette.

I don't remember how I found them, but there's this group of friends who all went to school in New Jersey, I think. They all have blogs: Steve's is Blind Spot, Garrett's is Maniacal Rage, Shawn's is Morrison Film, and Ellie's is Something Normal. I found Ellie's first, as I recall, by surfing from somewhere or searching for something... I don't recall where or what, exactly. I might have been looking for mp3's. Anyway, I liked Ellie's design, so I bookmarked the page. Eventually I surfed to her friends' sites and found that they were as design-conscious as she, and relatively well-spoken/written, too. If you'd like to do some random blog-surfing, as I sometimes do, start at one of their sites and just go. The results will be rewarding, IMO.

Anyway, it's not meant as a slam to any of my friends, but these guys all have great design skills, and I'd be willing to bet that they inspire each other. I wonder if they were inspired by a certain class or professor at the school they attended. Only fly in that ointment is that Ellie graduated Fairleigh Dickinson University with a degree in Biology, not design.

On the other hand, I think they all use Movable Type, so that could have something to do with it, too.

I feel like some elusive Zen puzzle piece is missing from my life, and I think it's the constant challenge of school. Yeah, college sucked, and yeah, I'm glad I've got my degree (and my $40,000+ worth of consolidated debt) and I'm out. But even just submitting my pictures to the Wood County Fair gave me a little of that old preparing-for-graphic-design-critique feeling. (And yes, that feeling is entirely different from preparing-for-photography-critique feeling. There's less "craft" involved there — you print out your picture and pin it to the wall. In graphic design class, if you suck at mounting and matting your piece, your grade suffers.)

I know for a while there, I was taking a notepad to work and doing design sketches during my lunch. I've been trying to walk during my lunch instead, but maybe I could switch off or something. It's rough trying to improve multiple areas of my life at the same time. Wash more dishes, clean house better, be more active, work my brain more... the list goes on. Aaron says I should start doing crossword puzzles or something if I feel like my brain isn't working hard enough. I don't know. I miss conversations with Amy and design pow-wows with Tim.

Part of me says, "What I wouldn't give to be back in undergrad..." Another part of me bitch-slaps that first part. See, I think I'd love to have that whole experience again, except that half of the whole experience is your friend base. I wouldn't want to make another friend base, and certainly not at this point in my life. That, plus the fact that you will never have a schedule of classes with non-moronic teachers, no busy-work, relevant subject matter, etc., etc. I guess what I mean to say, then, is that I can really appreciate the experience I had: living in the dorm, not having to work more than 10 or 15 hours a week, having great friends (and a swell roomie), sharing classes with people I jived with, having intellectual conversations (or so they seemed at the time), walking to Grounds with Amy, walking across campus at night with a cool breeze, sitting in the computer lab websurfing or working on design homework or staffing the lab, walking up to Donna's room or Tim's room or across campus to Beth's room, late-night group projects... no, on second thought, I don't miss those at all. :-)

Dee-lite vs. Space Channel 5

Remember the 1990 hit "Groove is in the Heart" by Deee-lite? Me too — their album World Clique was one of my first BMG purchases (and one of the first CDs I sold off several years later).

Remember the Sega Dreamcast? Groovy system, died an early death, never truly maxxed out its capabilities (except for the launch game Soul Caliber, which looked smooooth, played quick, and kicked ass).

Remember the game Space Channel 5? It graces the Dreamcast, GameBoy Advance, and PS2 with its funktified presence. Ulala, the main character (yes, it's pronounced ooh-la-la), has to mimic dance moves PaRappa-style (minus the helpful rhythmic graphics) to shoot invading aliens. Fun, but moderately difficult.

Finally, after about four years, Lady Miss Kier of Deee-lite is suing Sega for unlicensed usage of her likeness.

Aaron and I called this way back in '99 or 2000, when the game was released (can't remember if he bought the domestic or the import). You be the judge:

Valentine's Day

Today at work, I was surprized to have the receptionist give me a call and inform me that I had a delivery. Today, that could only mean one thing: for the first time in my life, I was among the ranks of those whose sweethearts bought them flowers and had them sent to their workplace. (awww...) So, I got to spend the day with a dozen red carnations on my desk, their vase tied with ribbon and anchoring a red heart-shaped foil balloon. Not bad.

Now, on to the daily rant: Macs. As in, Macintosh computers. I consider myself to have turned from an exclusively Macintosh user to a bit of a Macintosh agnostic. Not that I have doubts about the actual existence of the Mac, but that I have doubts about my previous proselyting (sp?) of the platform as The Best Computing Platform.

The ideal Mac user has enough money to actually purchase a new model, along with all the software he or she might need. This would require me either to be independently wealthy or to take out a loan nearly akin to my recent car loan. I've recently moved up from a 7600/80 to a 6500/275 (yes, it is a move upward), neither of which have a G3 processor. I'm living in 1994 here. Most of the software I own is not current, having been purchased legally from thrift stores and eBay vendors. I do have some pirated Mac software living on my 6500 (mainly Photoshop 5.5), but Office 2000 and PageMaker 6.0 and all my internet software is legal.

I didn't use my old 7600 or my newer 6500 for several months (no, make that over a year) thanks to Sheryl coming to my rescue. My piddly 80 MHz processor (after I upgraded the motherboard!) and 28K modem weren't cutting it, so she let me kind of rent-to-own her extra PII 333MHz with monitor. For a shade under $200 (she knocked off a little since I bought my own monitor later), I had a pretty kickass computer. At least, for what I use it for. Don't get me wrong: I'd love to edit audio and video on my computer, and to barely think about opening an application before it's launched and ready... but that's just not in the scope of things right now.

My PC is more upgradeable than my Mac. I got a 16X CD-R drive for Christmas, and Aaron and I installed it, no problem. I've added RAM to beef this bad boy up to 90MB. (w00t!) Sheryl helped us add a NIC so we could get cable internet. I installed and partitioned a 60GB HD to make a second and third drive for storage. And, I do admit, I have hundreds if not thousands of dollars of pirated software on my machine. Oh, yeah, and mp3's. (Hit me with your best shot, RIAA...)

My 6500 hasn't been totally neglected, though. I installed a NIC in it, too, and would have installed a Radius Thunder video card, had the card not been too damned long to fit in my funky-ass case in amongst the cable-age. I also purchased a video switchbox and high-quality cables so I can see my Mac in 17 inches of glory.

I'm just wondering... is it just my knowledge of the MacOS that made me such a Mac person before? I can zap the PRAM, rebuild the desktop, troubleshoot the network, use dozens of keyboard shortcuts, produce almost any punctuation mark imaginable, search for a valid system disk, et cetera, et cetera. Windows? Um... run winipcfg? Release and Renew? Reboot?

Since I've been using Windows exclusively for some time now, I find that I like the faster mouse. I find myself looking to the bottom right for the time. I find my thumb instinctively seeking out the Control key when I'm starting a keystroke shortcut. I really like the QuickLaunch bar and the taskbar and minimizing windows and clicking quickly between apps. It's just a different feel... but when I get back on my Mac, once I get used to the slower mouse, it's just like old home week.

Maybe I've just reached a happy medium, finally. I own both platforms, and I have no intention of eliminating one of them. I like them both. I'm not platform-monogamous, but I don't feel like I'm cheating. :-)

P.S. - Oh, yeah... and my laser printer only works with my Mac.

The Sky Is Falling...

Be sure to visit your local hardware store soon, because supplies of duct tape and plastic sheeting are going fast! After all, you don't want to be the only one in the country without an Disaster Supply Kit.

Because you know that Al Qaeda's first target will be [insert your hometown here], U.S.A.

Call me a cynic. Call me a typical apathetic Gen-Xer. I just don't think that the biological weaponry, whatever it may be, will end up here in Bowling Green, Ohio. If the assailants are dumb enough to release some sort of something-or-other that will propagate all the way here from wherever they dump it, something tells me that a.) duct tape on the windows won't help, and b.) it'll get them eventually, too.

I just refuse to get sucked into a panic before the situation warrants.

And now for something completely different... I'm very proud of myself. Last week, I received my shipment from fixyourownprinter.com, including a new pickup roller and installation video CD-ROM. In only, oh, an hour and a half, I managed to disassemble my LaserWriter II NT, change the pickup roller, clean the registration roller, install some new felt pads in the electronics of the printer, and reassemble it... in working order. :-) My printer will now be happy and will print pretty wedding announcements.

Finally, An Ohayocon Post!

The first of a series of posts about this most interesting of experiences. I don't have my own pictures developed yet, but I do have some I downloaded online. Here we have the joy of CosPlay: dressing up like your favorite fictional character. Left = weirdo in costume, Right = who they're supposed to look like:

 
Jareth, the Goblin King (played by David Bowie) in the 1986 film Labyrinth

 
Lain, from the anime series Serial Experiments Lain

 
Vash the Stampede from the anime series Trigun

 
Cloud from the Playstation game Final Fantasy VII

 
Seres Victoria from the anime series Hellsing

 
Pepsiman, Japanese mascot for Pepsi-Cola

Zankoku na Tenchi no Southpark

So, I found this fun Southpark Character Generator on the web from surfing off of one of Aaron's favorite anime message boards. Now, after trying to make a Southpark character that looks like me, I understand why people think Donna Davies and I look alike. No matter how hard I tried to make me, I ended up making Donna. Nothing against either of us... it's just how it worked out.

The entire point of going there, though, was to create one of my favorite anime characters, Ayanami Rei from Evangelion. This required only minimal post-Flash Photoshop touch-ups (I added the red stripes and Eva 00 on the plugsuit, and the interfaces on her head). If you want to know why this is funny, you need to watch Evangelion.

Blog Begins

I'm just getting my new personal site up and running, and figured what the hell. Might as well hop on the blogging bandwagon. I mean, I knew about these crazy insano people who felt like they needed to update the world on their life's progress, but until Sheryl pointed me toward her page, I didn't know it had a name. Then it occured to me that the few people who would actually read this page might give a damn about what's going on in my life. So, I'm devoting my blog to weird, random shit that goes on that doesn't fall into one of my other categories.

Just as a general update: as of 5:15pm or so today, the only functioning sections of the.details are the wedding info and the blog. I'm hoping to get some more going before long, but I've still gotta do laundry with Aaron and do some general cleaning today. Working 12-hour days kinda puts a cramp in my webbing style during the week, although this new cable internet is making me awfully happy.

Today's music clip: Candy Ass by The Dirtbombs [4.3MB]

7 May 2001

Dan informs me that the reason I couldn't access this account to update my little ol' personal page for the last month is that my account was "hosed." The nature of this hosing is unknown, but Dan also informs me that I am the only person who can hose my account. So, I done it, but I don't know how...

The good news is: 1.) I'm moving out of the dorms forever on Friday; 2.) I now have a Power Macintosh 7100 with 15" monitor to play with (instead of my IIsi with 13" monitor); and 3.) I'm almost done with my incredible amounts of final projects.

Which means that I'll soon be able to play with my personal page, and my new Super 8 toys. Until then, check out my photo portfolio. It's pretty swank.

8 March 2001

Dan says I was showing too much tongue in this picture, so I've changed the photo today so Dan won't have to go get an RSAC rating for my site...

Soon I hope to have some asp running on the site, so I don't have to actually change the rant and photo daily (or whenever I get around to it). Instead, I can just add some content to a file or directory somewhere and the content will magically update itself...

But not this week. Starting Friday, I'm on Spring Break. Booyah.

PS - If you're looking at this page using Netscape on a Mac right now... it sucks to be you. Seriously, go turn off stylesheets or go under View->Increase Font Size. It'll all be better someday. Promise.

7 March 2001

This is the first edition of my new and improved personal website. I'm hoping to have some pics, some rants, and some miscellaneous
wackiness.

For now, check out what's in my CD player (to the right), my daily rant (to the left), and my spiffalicious mint green color scheme and stylesheets.

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Today's Rant: Patenting Genes

There's a company in California (I think) that owns the patent to the two known genes for breast cancer. Actually, according to an article in Wired, they don't own only the gene itself... they must also own the method of isolating it and using it.

This little snag in my research complicates my rant. See, I had been going to bitch about owning a part of nature -- it's like trying to patent a left thumb. However... owning the method of determining the gene's existence still throws a monkey wrench into the whole works of science. I know for a fact that breast cancer research in some parts of the country has had to be halted due to this patent. There's just something not right about this...

As far as my little research snafu:

A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring,
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain
And drinking largely sobers us again.

-Author unknown

(PS - If you're a "religious" person, check out this reference where I found the text of the poem I was looking for. Interesting stuff.)