TsuKata’s Org*   -   No one should be this delicious!

Space Exploration FTW!

Goodbye, MarsPhoenix!

Posted in that's how we roll in the shire | No Comments »

Pet Peeve: The “Did you see the e-mail?” e-mail

I see no point to the “Did you see my/her/his e-mail?” e-mail, nor its close cousin, the “Please respond to my/his/her e-mail,” e-mail. It is particularly vexing when received less than 24 hours after the original mail, and it’s downright annoying when received less than 8 hours after the original mail.

If I *did* see the e-mail, presumably, I’m working on responding to it. Perhaps I’m trying to gather information. Perhaps I’m waiting to confirm a piece of data. Perhaps I just want to let my thoughts settle to make sure that you get a good response. Either way, the e-mail is in progress. Sending another e-mail just means that either I have to ignore the second e-mail or spend time replying to it that could have been spent on the original task.

If I didn’t see the e-mail, there’s no guarantee that I’ll see this one. Thus, you’re better off just picking up the phone and giving me a call. This saves us both an e-mail.

The only reason I can see for this kind of e-mail is if the deadline for a needed response has been missed or has changed, or if the original e-mail wasn’t clear about who should respond (i.e., was sent to a large list, and the lead is now directing who should respond). (In the former case, I think a phone call may be warranted, just in case the original e-mail was missed or not received.)

Posted in oh what fresh hell is this, oompa loompas of science! | 2 Comments »

Productive!

Last night, I:

• Prepped and cooked rice in my brand new Sanyo fuzzy logic rice cooker! delicious!
• Programmed our Logitech Harmony 880 remote to work with the new basement setup
• Went grocery shopping for soda, rice, and breakfast food for the weekend
• Gathered dirty dishes from the basement and put them upstairs
• Vacuumed out my car (the floormats were really grody)
• Downloaded the Tomb Raider: Underworld demo and Portal: Still Alive

Posted in dowisetrepla, it's raining you!, that's how we roll in the shire, this is the face of CONSUMERISM | No Comments »

If money and resale weren’t an issue…

…here are some things I’d do to our house:

• Merge the two guest bedrooms upstairs into one larger bedroom. Make the guest bathroom larger at the same time and include space for a washer and dryer.
• Increase the size of the bathtub/shower area in the master bath.
• Bust down the walls between the two closets in the master bedroom and create one giant walk-through closet.
• Put a dumb waiter in that would go between all 3 floors (basement, main, 2nd).
• Extend our deck to 80% of the length of the house (not any deeper into the yard though) and enclose half of it with a screened room.
• Heated driveway
• Solar panels on the roof

Not too much to ask, is it?

Posted in dowisetrepla | 1 Comment »

WeeM Stuff

This year’s WeeM was pretty good. The addition of my parents was fun. I think they had a good time, especially being my TSA Agent assistants at the costume contest. I regained an appreciation for Agricola and renewed my hatred of Caylus. I did not get sloshed, for once. I did meet a few new people, so that was cool.

Oh, and there was this…

Posted in it's raining you!, mensa | 2 Comments »

Iconic Videos

Scott and I were just having a debate about which music videos are pop culture icons. This came up because he had not seen the video for Take On Me until I made him watch the literal version on YouTube.

• Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Beat It, and Bad
• Madonna’s Material Girl
• Cher’s (If I Could) Turn Back Time
• A-Ha’s Take On Me
• Robert Palmer’s Simply Irresistible

That’s our list. Any to add?

Posted in pittsburgh | 5 Comments »

Review: World of Goo (WiiWare, Windows)

On Friday night, I downloaded World of Goo from the WiiWare channel. It has consumed most available moments on the 1st floor TV ever since.

The quick explanation is that World of Goo is like Lemmings but with Goo. If you enjoyed Lemmings, you’ll enjoy World of Goo.

The game is a relatively simple physics puzzle, using the Wii remote to guide and direct goo. In each level, you are given a basic goal of getting a predetermined number of goo balls into a tube. Once a goo structure nears the tube, a suction is created that both helps to hold the goo in place and sucks any attached (but not used as part of the structure) goo balls into the tube. Goo structures are created by dragging and dropping goo balls to form trusses, ropes, balloons, and towers. Goo is not the most rigid stuff, as you might expect, so you spend a fair amount of time shoring it up through architectural means. Extra goo balls beyond the level goal get sent to your World of Goo Corporation area, where you can build them into a tower. There are hints that building a high tower will unlock some sort of minigame. Also, from the World of Goo Corporation, you should be able to see clouds representing your friends’ World of Goo Corp. structures. (I can’t vouch for this as none of my Wii friends have goo structures yet. I’m also just assuming that this will be clouds from my Wii friends and not just from the people who play the game on my console.)

Controls are all done through point and click of the Wii remote. There are no waggle controls (that I’ve found so far). It’s a one player game, and aside from comparing to others in the World of Goo Corp area, there’s no opportunity for player interaction.

Gameplay aside, the aesthetic of World of Goo is very pleasing. It’s quite Tim Burton-esque. The animations and graphics are darkly adorable. Storyline (as well as gameplay) is primarily conveyed to you via signs that animate with exclamation points until you click to read them. The signs are written by The Sign Painter, a character who continues to become more ominous as the game progresses. While signs initially give you good advice and gameplay tips, in chapter 2, the signs sometimes offer a seeming tip that will actually destroy your progress. I get the same kind of intermittent chill from The Sign Painter that I got from GlaDOS in Portal’s early stages.

I’m only just beginning chapter 3 of the game. As best as I can tell, I’m about 45% through the game, not counting the potential mini-game or completing the “OCD” (Obsessive Compulsive Distinction) challenges for each level. So, you might finish the game faster than you like. Still, I think it’s worth the download.

Posted in it's raining you! | No Comments »

High School Guy

During ThirtyCon, I had all my old yearbooks and such out on display. At one point, between games, I read through them, and it reminded me of a guy I was friends with (casually) in middle and high school…we were on senior year yearbook staff together, and we were in several AP and GT classes together. His nickname back then was…well, he didn’t like it that much (though he begrudgingly tried to “own” it after time), so I won’t repeat it…but one thing led to another and I decided to google stalk him, which led me to his myspace page.

He turned out HOT. especially all goth-halloween. I mean, not that he wasn’t hot in high school, but still…damn. Looks like he’s still in SC. Were it not for my undying hatred of MySpace, I might message him.

To make this google-able, his name (and I will say it, because it’s on his MySpace) is Kevin Neuroth. He is almost precisely my age. He’s apparently single, he’s in SC, and he was a nice guy (and a bit of a geek, in a good way) in high school…which is always a good sign of being an awesome grown-up.

Posted in pittsburgh | 1 Comment »

Colposcopy

So, in a little more than an hour, the evil doctor people will potentially be snipping away a piece of my dear cervix for testing and such.

DO. NOT. WANT.

Edited to add at 5:21pmCT: Well, I’m a big ol’ wuss is what I am. I was afraid over nothing. Granted, I took two happy pills before I went, but even so, I felt pressure and discomfort…but no actual pain. They didn’t snip anything though. Doc said my cervix looked spiffy, so there was no need to biopsy. They did a repeat swabbing to test again just to be sure, but most likely, it was an anomaly of having had mega-sex the night before my last pap. Told doc about that, btw, and that I’d never known…and she said, “Yeah, most people don’t.” and she seemed to be in a hurry, so I didn’t pester her with my question, “WHY DON’T YOU TELL THEM???” Besides, she seemed cool and was very nice to me with my terror and whinging.

Posted in shiny scalpel | 4 Comments »

Kitchen Essentials

The posting of this article over on LifeHacker has led to a healthy flood of comments. First, the article is written very poorly. It is not easy to figure out which items are the good or the bad. You have to read each description and discern the author’s intent, and his intent is sometimes unclear. Second, there’s the inevitable debate of where the author was right or wrong. In this vein, I offer up my own kitchen essentials list.

It’s worth noting that I rarely cook, and when I do cook, it’s likely to be breakfast or a fast meal. Thus, my list of kitchen essentials focuses on breakfast and speed.

THINGS TO HAVE:

• Mini Food Processor: If you have the space for a big one, more power to you. But, if you’re like me and countertop space is at a premium, get a mini. I use mine for making twice-baked cauliflower mash, latkes, and for making a very fine grate of red and green pepper for use in omelets. It’s a huge timesaver, and it doesn’t take up much room.
• Toaster: It’s the fast hot breakfast of champions. Get one with a bagel setting to have perfectly toasted bagels or to fine-tune the toasting of your pop tarts. (I prefer a true toaster to a toaster oven, but if you’re in a smaller space (e.g., dorm room), a toaster oven is a multipurpose gem.)
• The Kapoosh Universal Knife Block - Knife sets are just stupid. Most of us will never need half the knives that they give you. Give me a solid Japanese Santoku knife or two, a small paring knife, and a pair of good kitchen scissors, and I’m good to go. Problem is, most knife blocks force you to have the set that they want you to have, not the set that you need. Enter the Kapoosh. You put the knives in however you want, whatever knives you want. It’s perfect. If they’d had the red when I bought mine, I’d have the red version. Oh, and the instructions are hilarious.
• Stick Blender: I use this more than just about any other gadget in my kitchen. It makes whisking eggs a breeze. Tired of having crusty goo at the bottom of your drink mixes? Give this a spin or two, and it’s perfectly mixed. It’s great for making marinades and sauces, but I rarely use mine for that purpose. It’s a super-fast whisker for me.
• Good pans: My preference is the Calphalon Copper Tri-Ply (outer surface is copper, inside is aluminum core, interior surface is steel). I have a large cooking pan and 2 omelet pans. (And again, NEVER buy a set. A set gives you crap you don’t need that will just clutter up your kitchen. Buy just the pans you need.) Some people prefer cast iron. Some people want the easy care of a nonstick variant. It’s up to you, but this is something to blow a wad on versus going cheap. My quality-of-omelet tripled once I had a good pan.
• Grill (a Foreman-esque one for the winter and a propane one outside for the summer): Grilling is the best kind of cooking. I grill burgers, chicken, pork chops, veggies…you can grill anything. When it’s too cold outside to fire up the propane, keep an electric grill handy. I’m not a fan of the George Foreman grill line, but there are some great variants out there. (For the record, my grief with the George Foreman grills is that they do not have removable grilling surfaces. I want to be able to run the grill surface through the dishwasher.)

THINGS TO SKIP:

• Expensive corkscrew: Unless you’re into wine, you just don’t need this. If you’re like us, your wine comes in a box or with a screw-off cap anyways.
• Mortar and Pestle: I don’t care how good it tastes. Who has time to grind their own herbs?
• The ubiquitous spice rack: They tease you by making them so pretty, but you don’t need this. The spices you want to use all the time are going to be on or near your stove. Whether you like it or not, that’s where they’ll end up. The ones you use less often are better stored in a cabinet (or sometimes refrigerator) than in a rack that gathers dust in a corner.
• Fondue pots, smores makers, and the like: Yeah, I’ve fallen for this one, and I have a cabinet of them collecting dust to show for it. If it only does one thing, and you don’t do that one thing ALL THE TIME, it’s not worth it. My stick blender may mostly get used for whisking eggs, but I do that every bloody weekend…I make smores about twice a year, and guess what? I have a gas oven. I can make them right on the burner. ::sigh:: I will say though that I’ve gotten alot of use out of the little ceramic ingredient holders that came with my smores maker, as well as the smores forks.

Posted in dowisetrepla, this is the face of CONSUMERISM | 4 Comments »