blueZhift Blog

It looks like my favorite gender bending, crossdressing, and taboo obliterating manga is set to return soon. Anime News Network reports that Yubisaki Milk Tea is set to return in Japan in October. I just hope that TokyoPop will survive long enough for the rest of the series to make it to the states. I was sure this one was dead.

I’d love to see Yubisaki Milk Tea turned into an anime, but like Kodomo no Jikan, I doubt it could ever be shown in the U.S.. There are just too many lines that get crossed for anything but a totally mangled mess to make it to U.S. television.

Another birthday is coming up soon. I reflect, lament, and celebrate. Right now though, I really wish my wife would at least take some time to get me a present. Something that shows she took some time and gave it a little thought. Now I usually end up getting things for myself and maybe taking the day off from work. But, it just doesn’t feel the same and it doesn’t heal the hurt…

This is the procedure for writing the line number of each record imported into a table from a flat file in csv format. This is for Microsoft SQL Server using SSIS and Visual Studio to create the ETL package. This assumes that you already know how to use these tools, more or less. I’m no expert, but I wanted to pass along what I’d learned because it took so long to piece this together from what was available online. Below is a diagram of my Data Flow for reference.

1. Make sure that a column to store the line numbers has already been created in the SQL Prep task.
2. Create a variable with Data Flow scope called DummyVar or anything you wish since it’s just a dummy variable to enable the next step.
3. Create a Derived Column transformation after the Data Conversion transformation. Give the derived column the same name as the column you created to hold the line numbers, such as LINENO and enter @[User::DummyVar] as the expression.
4. Create a Script Component following the Derived Column transformation. Set the derive column LINENO as its input in read/write mode. Use the following Visual Basic script in the component.

======

‘ Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services user script component
‘ This is your new script component in Microsoft Visual Basic .NET
‘ ScriptMain is the entrypoint class for script components

Imports System
Imports System.Data
Imports System.Math
Imports Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Pipeline.Wrapper
Imports Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime.Wrapper

Public Class ScriptMain
Inherits UserComponent
Private LineNumber As Integer

Public Overrides Sub Input0_ProcessInputRow(ByVal Row As Input0Buffer)

LineNumber += 1
Row.LINENO = LineNumber

End Sub

End Class

=====

Finally just make sure that the LINENO column is in your destination transformation and you’re all set. In my Data Flow I added a viewer just to check that things were working during development. Again, I’m sure that there is some more elegant way of doing this, but this seemed straight forward and simple. And I could not find a single description of doing this very simple thing online anywhere. While there is a Row Count transformation available, it does not allow you to keep a running tally of the record number as they are processed.

This feels a bit like a hack to me, so if anyone out there has a better way of doing this, please feel free to comment!

This is my message in a bottle experiment. Father Benedict Justice School was a Catholic grade school in Kansas City Missouri that I attended as a child. I still have mostly fond memories of the school and my classmates there. But as I’ve ranted about in past postings, most of my contemporaries don’t have much of a presence on the web. So how do you find them when and if they do venture forth on this digital ocean?

Throw out a message in a bottle of course. Typing Father Benedict Justice School in Google or any other search engine isn’t going to get you much right now.  So this little blog entry may just rank high enough to gain the attention of my fellow FBJ classmates eventually. If you can’t find the people you’re looking for directly, then post something that they might find instead. A strategy worthy of The Professor eh?

So if you’ve stumbled upon this looking for Father Benedict Justice alums, leave a comment. Just so there’s no confusion, Father Benedict Justice School was a small school split into two campuses. There was the FBJ Upper Campus for the middle schoolers and the FBJ Lower Campus for the lower grades. Travel between the campuses was done on an old yellow school bus that would break down half the time. Fortunately, the campuses were only a mile apart. So if we had to walk, we made a game of it, walk a block, run a block.

Ok, I guess that’s enough for now. Let’s see if anyone gets my message in a bottle!

Well another typical weekend has come and mostly gone… I start on Friday thinking about all of the fun things I want to do. Games I really want to get back into and finish or some other creative projects. Then I inevitably end up doing things for the kids, who are more often than not, not impressed and seemingly ungrateful…

Now it’s late Sunday night and all I have to look forward to is going back to work. Yeah, I’m moaning like a little bitch, but gotta let this out somewhere I suppose. This isn’t to say that there wasn’t any fun at all this weekend, just that my life is not my own and sometimes that sucks…

The last act in my con going is usually the slideshow set to some appropriate music. Finally got around to it. It took a while to decide on the music and quite honestly, I guess I didn’t really want it to end.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, well really over the last few minutes most intently. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not too wild about Facebook any more. Facebook can be a wonderful tool for building an online social network, but I am increasingly feeling the same constraints that vex me in the real world coming into the online one as well.

Many of my hobbies and interests are anything but mainstream. Nevertheless, there are many forums on the internet where I’ve enjoyed interacting with other who share the same interests. Facebook has similar interests groups as well, but because my real name is associated with my Facebook activities, I do not feel as free to express my interests in those things. On Facebook, keeping walls between your different activity groups is not an easy task. Those who fail to do so run the risk of job loss, divorce, excommunication, and a variety of other sanctions as a result of “misbehaving”.

Ironically, using my real name on Facebook means that I can’t keep it real on Facebook. So I’m pulling back from there. I had fun experimenting with Facebook, but the chains are just too heavy. I still believe that there’s no such thing as anonymity on the internet, but I’ll take even this thin veneer over the nakedness of Facebook and the tyranny of the normal.

I’ve been waiting to see Second Skin for over a year since I first heard about it at last year’s SXSW film festival. I just watched it online and it was well worth the wait! Second Skin is a documentary about people who play online games. Anyone who has ever played games online or knows someone who does should check this out!

Fanboyism aside, it is a well made film with cool music. And at the end, I really felt something for the people. Even though I’ve just watched it online, I’m definitely going to add the DVD to my collection because it’s that good and I want to support the film makers. In some ways, it’s like watching a real life version of The Guild. But you’re laughing with, and sometimes crying for, real people.