Date:	2009-01-26 12:37
Subject:	At least my bowels are happy.
Security:	Public
Mood:	moody

Thus begins week three. This semester is filled with fun exciting projects that threaten to hold me down, slather honey all over my skin, and drop me into a den of bears. Bears! Either this week or next (Jenness has not released the order) I'm giving a 10 minute presentation on using "make" in the development toolchain. Don't worry, I'm not sure either. In early February my team turns in our Design Document for the e-commerce site. At the moment, we have the Database design down (I did that, so yay me) but nothing else. I'm not really worried about that, which in itself worries me because I don't know if I should be worried. Graphics 2 has jumped into the homework, so I need to be coding now. Ditto for Linear Algebra; we're still in the easy stuff, but that changed really quickly last time (which may be due to me missing half the classes last time. One hopes.). Programming languages is....Dr. Su. I'm also a wee bit behind on sitebuilding for Mom, which is made more embarrassing by the day because I was paid months ago.

I would love to take my tax rebate and just quit work for a month. I haven't not worked in...frikking ages, that's when. The last time I could focus just on school and not worry about work 5 days a week was 2000, 2001? When I was still a kid. o_0

Date:	2009-01-18 09:34
Subject:	I am my own pusher.
Security:	Public
Mood:	awake
Music:	Green Grass Wave - Sungha Jung

I re-read Preacher, filling in the gaps of what I'd missed eight years ago. For a book about killing God, the ending is sort of anticlimactic.

I suppose this is officially the end of me trying to post every day. Honestly my life doesn't include enough interesting things to fill a paragraph a day, and one-sentence posts are so 2001. I'll keep posting and whatnot when things happen, but as I said...not that often. :)

Date:	2009-01-16 14:21
Subject:	This-n-that, now-n-later.
Security:	Public
Mood:	working

My parents have hi-speed internet now, apparently. I had them check their speed at speakeasy.net/speedtest and apparently they get 4% the speed on satellite I'm getting through cable. They're saying it's better than the dial-up, but man; I thought it'd be way closer than that.

The first week of classes, and my sleeping schedule is already a wet mess.

I've installed Ubuntu onto my laptop, but it's having ACPI issues (I think), so that if I leave it alone for a length of time, or if I try to suspend and then resume, the screen outputs frozen or garbage, and the internal mouse and keyboard stop working. If I plug in a USB mouse, that works, but with no keyboard and sometimes no correct screen output, I have no choice but to hard kill the computer. Every reference to this problem I've found online has been solved by the OP later installing a newer version of the kernel or the OS, but since I have the latest versions of each, I doubt that's a useful option for me. I know Ubuntu is based on the unstable branch of Debian, so I tried downloading the stable branch and installing that into a new partition, but I could never get the installer to load very far past the boot stage. I really like the Gnome desktop, and I'd like to have a Linux box, but I switch between Hobo and Daniel Jackson enough that Hobo is bound to keep freezing, and that just won't do.

The cats will be out of food by tonight.

Date:	2009-01-12 20:05
Subject:	It's already getting more difficult.
Security:	Public
Mood:	drained

If I don't post before work, I have to edit the date to keep up this daily thing. Gotta start remembering to post earlier.

First day of classes was nice.

Date:	2009-01-11 22:28
Subject:	Going baaaack, back in time!
Security:	Public
Mood:	cheerful

Spoilers for GTA to follow. I'm probably a few months late in needing to bother writing that.

I finished GTA4 a few days ago, so now I can just race around blowing stuff up for fun and not have to worry about preserving cash or ammo. Not that I have much left; the last mission freaking killed me, over and over again. I ended up blowing like $50k on rockets before I got smart and created a save file with optimum ammo I could return to after failing a couple of times. Apparently I chose (?) the ending where Kate dies, which is y'know, sad and all that, but like Nay remarked..."You're supposed to care? You dated her like, twice." I think I'm paraphrasing. Next up: shooting 98 more pigeons. Whoo!

I've also started Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions. It's my first Tactics game (and what, fourth FF game?) and it's pretty cool other than the fact that I don't know what I'm doing. I can't seem to find how to use potions or items, the camera angles seem to be actively mocking me, and each battle takes about half an hour. I'm the guy who gets bored with a battle after three minutes.

I suppose I could read the manual. But isn't that supposed to take the fun out of it or something?

Date:	2009-01-10 14:05
Subject:	Dunno if I should bother posting this.
Security:	Public
Mood:	chipper

IN a casual sense, I'm pro military. My brother is in the army, and he's getting paid to see the world, meet interesting people (and blow them up? hm. Actually referring to his battle buddies), he gets school benefits, etc. For a guy who was pretty directionless, that's a good offer, and I'm glad he took it. I also understand national defense is important, and I'm not so much of a hippie that I think the military is like, pointless, dude.

But.

In an abstract way, I really think organized military, starting at terrorist cells and all the way to national armies should be completely and permanently disarmed. No guns, bullets, grenades, bombs, jets, tanks, microwave pain guns, nothing. I'd like a return to the days of when nations have ideological differences, they're settled with mind-bending violence, with sharp sticks and rocks. If a Palestinian thinks an Israeli soldier has no right to live, he should be forced to feel the man die, not just lob a grenade and move on. If one country wants to invade another, they have to hoof it the hundreds of miles and then try to take over with sheer numbers. The invaded country can still call on their allies, of course, which can arrive quickly via planes and boats and trucks, but fighting has to be done on foot. In person. Painfully.

War should not be so easy to do that an industry is made of it.

I'm okay with citizens having guns, both for self defense in their own homes and for personal fun. Contrary to what parents tell their children for years, guns are toys for adults. When I shoot them, I don't do it to become a better aim or to become more comfortable with the idea of using one to defend against an attacker. I use it for the little spike of adrenaline and endorphins, for the loud pop and seeing something develop a hole problem. I'm not dangerous with it, I am a responsible adult, but I'm not shooting it for any reason than childlike enjoyment.

I'm aware there is no system that can disarm entire armies, nor is there a way to prevent soldiers from taking their personal guns from home to the battlefront. Like I said, this is an abstract wish of mine.

Date:	2009-01-10 03:52
Subject:	No!
Security:	Public
Mood:	groggy

I have nothing to say this day.

Date:	2009-01-09 14:50
Subject:	This was again.
Security:	Public
Mood:	blank

The second scheduled installation attempt, the second failure. Once again my parents do not yet have broadband because of poorly trained technicians. It grinds my gears because I sent them everything they need to get hooked up, so unless there's some special protocol a DOCSIS modem connected to Satellite uses that a DOCSIS modem connected to cable doesn't, the technicians are just running in circles. Blegh. IS there such a proprietary protocol?

I'm drinking too much coffee these days.

Date:	2009-01-08 22:43
Subject:	Sour Apple
Security:	Public
Mood:	awake

Oh wow, too much ground cloves in my coffee is a bad bad thing.

Date:	2009-01-07 23:04
Subject:	We break it down so it can build us up.
Security:	Public
Mood:	dorky
Music:	Digitalis from SomaFM

Date:	2009-01-06 22:57
Subject:	Count to one and then it's done.
Security:	Public
Mood:	dorky
Music:	Mario Galaxy

Finally I'm back to my normal days off, Wednesday and Thursday. I am going to sleep all day tomorrow. If I hear one alarm, that poor machine will feel some wrath. *waves fist* For tonight, I'd like to get through some missions without spending $100k to get a $10k payoff. Effcient, I ain't.

At work, half of our employees (we have 15 total) are going to be taking classes this semester. My poor boss has to fit all of our schedules into the weekly schedule, and he hates our guts. :D

Date:	2009-01-05 23:53
Subject:	Pandemonium
Security:	Public
Mood:	cold

Sharon from work loaned me the game in the title because her description of what it is confused the heck out of me. It sounded like Mario on crack.

I wasn't able to check out anything at the library today because I have fines and I didn't have time to run back and forth to pay them. Well, more than once.


Librarian: You have fines. You can pay them at the cashier window [5 minute walk through freezing cold].

Zachariah: Okay! [Goes to cashier window, waits in line ten minutes.]

Cashier: Uh, they have to fax me a sheet so I know who/what/how much to charge.

Zachariah: Okay! [goes back to library]

Librarian: Oh, I just sent that sheet 30 seconds ago!

Zachariah: ...thanks for nothing.

I finished copying the old home movies to hard disk. The quality isn't great, but there's really nothing I can do about it. It's pretty hilarious watching my 13 year old self talking about loving Jesus and singing my little heart out. Hilarious and...awkward?

Date:	2009-01-04 14:43
Subject:	Pancakes the size of my head.
Security:	Public
Mood:	full

^ breakfast.

I'm retaking two classes I did quite poorly in through prior semesters to bump up my GPA. It won't quite get me to 3.0, but it'll be closer than I am now. What's funny is I still have the textbooks for both classes, but it's been long enough I'm fairly certain they'll be using newer editions. Textbooks suck like that.

Day 1 of returning to proper sleeping patterns has been...unsuccessful. This sort of thing has an unfortunate domino effect in that if I wake up at 12:30 today, I'm not likely to go to bed before 4am tomorrow. Yet tomorrow I must go to the library, burn some CDs, mail things to my parents. Whoo hoo.

I always feel as though I've lots to say, but when I open iJournal I can't think of anything to put down. Perhaps I'll get better with practice.

Date:	2009-01-03 23:22
Subject:	On day three he wrote.
Security:	Public
Mood:	sleepy

I'd like to finish GTAIV the Game so I can have more time to play around and kill cops without feeling guilty about not going bowling with Roman. Plus I won't have time to play when classes start. (I'll still play, don't get me wrong. Zach ain't the type to learn from past mistakes.)

I don't really have anything to say today, so here's a slightly older picture of me pretending to be wolverine. You're welcome.

Date:	2009-01-02 14:43
Subject:	Done and done.
Security:	Public
Mood:	rejuvenated

My parents are having difficulty getting high-speed internet. I'm doing what I can, but being 5 hours away doesn't really help. I'll try to mail them the extra router and an extra copy of XP next week, but beyond that I'd pretty much have to be there to do anything.

Our food situation is kind of roller-coaster-y. We go from tons of food when mama Julia visits to bare cupboards any other time. That can't be good.

I'm still feeling pretty good about the new year. Not much time left before school begins anew. I'd better start trying to fix my sleeping schedule.

Date:	2009-01-01 12:09
Subject:	Continuing the nonexistant tradition of posting on the first of the year...
Security:	Public
Mood:	cheerful
Music:	Digitalis from SomaFM internet radio

One resolution for 2009 - get a job than can pay all of my bills. if I can't do that, no other thing I do this year will really help. Besides, I failed every single one of 2008's resolutions, so why pretend I'll have more self control this time around? :D

For Christmas I helped my mom get her first Mac, which was fun to watch. I got an iPod nano and Lego Star Wars for the Wii from Nay and a new programmable coffee maker from Julia, making this one of the best hauls yet. I got Nay....nothing! D: 'cause I was broke, but I did manage to get Super Mario Galaxy for her birthday, which is just as brain-spinny as I remember it being. She started her game all over and I probably will too. Maybe I can beat that and GTAIV before 2010, neh?

Had a mid-break meeting yesterday with my software engineering team to plan out our project for the semester. This "planning" thing sure puts a kink in the "sit down and code" thing. Well. Last semester in school. Lots to do this year.

Date:	2008-10-31 14:37
Subject:	Happy Halloween, folks.
Security:	Public
Mood:	determined

Subject says it all.

The car we paid out the butt to fix a few months ago has another major problem that will cost hundreds of dollars to fix. So instead of that, I'm definitely getting into bike riding cold turkey, as I wasn't clever enough to ease into it during the summer. tsk.

I'd planned to only take the last two classes I needed next semester and walk away with a 2.8 and a BA, but with a little more work and two extra classes I can break 3.0, which is flippin' chicken awesome. I hate myself for the past 6 years of sup-par mediocrity and apathy in school, but getting a B average will make up for some of it.

I woke up at 7:30 this morning and got up right away. This is pretty awesome (I am in some ways a morning person), but it's pretty much due to the fact that I went right to bed last night. I do not think this will be a trend, alas.

I've used the bike a couple of times, if I can just do it more often maybe my legs will stop burning during rides. ugh, I am old and fat. :D