Well, my last (and primary) Christmas gift from my dear, dear Mother arrived today. What is it you ask? A synthesizer. I've always loved playing with software synthesizers (ahh, Rebirth. I miss you so!) and for some reason since about a year ago, I've been pining to get a real hardware synthesizer to play with. Not that I'm all that musical, it's just fun as hell.

So, having no idea what else I would want for Christmas, I as like, "Hey! I can get a synth." And so, I researched. It came down to a choice between two nice, low-end systems: the Korg Microkorg and the Alesis Micron. The synthesis capabilities were pretty close, but the Micron has a step sequencer (think drum machine programming, etc.) and the Microkorg didn't. So, despite the fact that the Microkorg has a much cooler old-school look, I went with the Micron.

And it rocks! It's so cool! I really haven't figured out all of the features yet, but I've gotten down filter cutoff frequency sweeps and I've messed around with the REALLY cool vocoder effects. Just plug in a microphone, and go to town with some mad robot vocals. Wee!!!

I'm such a nerd. :)

Cold weather + shiny presents = good times.

Wishing you and yours a horry, jorry Christmas. (Note the A Christmas Story reference!)

- Zach.

Aaagh. Stop the nose running. I'm having snot overload. It's irritating.

Well, Semester 7 is finished. A's in my classes. Was kind of concerned about that German class, because I skipped that class about 1/4 of the time.

Currently sitting here at the house enjoying some downtime before I head home for the holidays. Have to wash the dishes so that disgusting mold things don't grow in the sink while I'm gone.

On a totally unrelated note: Blue Collar TV on Comedy Central is an absolutely terrible show. If I weren't posting this, I'd go find the remote and change it. Alack. Whatever happened to Comedy Central playing old episodes of SNL? Well, after the 30th time, it starts to wear thin, but it's better than Mad TV or this tripe. Urf.

Well, I have 2/3 of my finals finished. PHI 320 (Symbolic Logic) went well. Finished in 20 minutes. CS 463 (Artificial Intelligence) went well enough. It was pretty tough, and it took me almost the full 2 hours, but I think I did okay. German 102 exam here in about 2 hours. I'm cramming for it now. Shouldn't be too bad. But I haven't even looked at German since Dead Week and I'm a little rusty with some vocabulary stuff. Not too worried though.

Currently Listening To: Slouvaki by Slowdive. I think I've probably talked about Galaxie 500, My Bloody Valentine, and other such bands before. Well, Slowdive is a lot like them. More Galaxie 500 than MBV, but same idea: swirly, spacey rock music. I love this stuff. Shoegaze forever.

See above.

Furthermore, apologies to any readers I might have left. Last few weeks have been less than pleasant for me. I'm feeling in a better mood right now. And blog posts tend to be inversely proportional to how bad my depression is. So, hopefully, you'll see some more posts over the next few weeks while I'm off from school. Hopefully.

I had a most bizarre dream last night. I was sitting around on some park bench. It was dark, and a little chilly. A man comes over to me, and sits down. It's none other than VP Dick Cheney. Weird. We go on to talk about his frustrations with George W.'s complete ineptness, and I reassure him that he really is the man in charge over in Washington. That's all I remember, but damn. That's a weird dream.

Fell asleep this afternoon and didn't feel like getting out to go see Strangelove etc. I sort of wanted to go, but just didn't feel like it. Tim and I grilled out on the porch. It was good. And PHI 320 went pretty well. As I expected, it looks to be a fairly straightforward, if slightly boring, class. Nothing to worry about. Stay tuned for reviews of tomorrow's classes, CS 463 and PHI 260!

So, having purchased a blender/food-processor for the apartment, I decided to try to make salsa. I do love fresh salsa. So, I chopped up some tomato, onions, peppers, and cilantro and laid the blade to it. Heh. I'm so witty. Anyway, I must not have had the proportions right, because it turned out absolutely terrible. I'm not sure what was wrong. Perhaps too much cilantro. Also, the peppers I bought were far too mild. I definitely need something hotter to make an acceptable salsa. Expect further updates pending future excursions into salsa production.

It's been a busy time here at the Sector. Tim, Ben, and I moved in a few days ago to our apartment. We're in the first floor (including the vast front porch, complete with nigh-unobstructed view of the sorority house across the street) of this big, old house right next to campus. It has its quirks (I have no built-in lights in my room, for example) but it's really cool. Plus, there's the Bonus Room, an add-on/covered back-porch thing. Right now we have a table back there, and not much else. But it's all cool, because it's a bonus room!!

Also exciting is our current internet situation: while waiting the two weeks for the cable company to come and hook up our broadband, we still have wireless access to UK's network. It's pretty cool, and the bandwidth I use to upload this very post is courtesy the university. Heh heh. :)

Many apologies to my loyal readers for the utter negligence I've displayed towards your internet experience the past week+. Look forward to at least one more blog delivered on the university's dollar today, and continued regular posts as we approach the start of the new semester.

So, it looks like, for the second time this week, I'm going to be pulling an all-nighter. This one was pretty much unintentional. Preface: Yet Another Lab Report is due at 8 am this morning. So, at about 8 pm Wednesday, Tim calls saying everyone is getting together at Logan's to do some homework. Of course, I realize that "doing homework" means goofing off and getting about 5% of the intended work actually complete, yet I go anyway.

I manage to actually finish about 25% of the report while (a) kicking ass at Trivial Pursuit, (b) partaking in a bit of Bacchanalian Excess, and (c) generally goofing off with Tim and the boys. So I had a good time, but got little work done.

I get back around 1 am, finish up the lab report by 2:30, but by then, I couldn't really get to sleep. So around 4:00 am, I just get up and start doing laundry, blogging this very blog, and working on some "avatars" for the blog. I'm going to be very sleepy...

Perhaps it's the lack of sleep (I managed a meager 4 hours last night. Damn physics lab.), but I have to say there seem to be a few select words and phrases that I really enjoy, and probably overuse. I'm going to update this post as I think of more, but here's a few to start with:

• in the context of ...
• rationally
• In the context of IMs (doh!): heh heh
• Also in the context of IMs: yeah

What a geek.

Took a trip to Lexington today. Had a nice day, running some errands in the big city. Until the car broke down. AAA had no clue what the problem was. And pretty much all the garages were closed. It was like 5:15. Grr. Eventually, Amy came around and we spent some time with the baby, which was pretty cool. They think he can talk. I'm not so sure. I think he's just yelling in my ear.

Just got finished with a few hours of work for Dr. Truszczynski, and I thought "this would be a good time to write a blog." So I am.

I've had some hosting issues recently, but by the time they got resolved, I was well enveloped in the whole dead-week/finals-week mess that blogging wasn't high on the priority list. But here I am.

This summer is going to be kind of a drag. This first month, I have generally off. I'll just be working for Dr. Truszczynski, doing website stuff and then working on improvements to WSATCC, a local-search satisfiability solver. That should be fun! Other than that, I just plan on playing lots of video games:

• I need to get through the last five seasons of my NHL 2004 dynasty (in that universe, the reborn Winnipeg Jets have won 12 Stanley Cups in a row. And I've won the Selke trophy once. :)
• Lots of Tod's SNES games. I have to finish FF3, and I'm about 2/3 through Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. That leaves Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and maybe Secret of Evermore. We'll see.
• Magic Online! I've got two pretty decent decks built out of overpriced digital cards. They're good for beating up on scrubs in the beginner room. Perhaps if I pump a few more tickets into singles, the elf deck I've got might get competitive. Who knows. I also have a draft set waiting to be played. Wee.

So, yes. Lots of games. I had considered going all in and picking up Final Fantasy XI et al., but I have plenty to play anyway. After this first month off, it's off to summer school. Wee. This way, I'll be able to graduate on time with a pretty much wide-open senior year. That's not to say easy classes, but just like 13 hours a semester instead of 16.

In other Magic news, the next set, Fifth Dawn, looks absolutely fantastic, based on the previews and leaked cards I've seen. There's an interesting five-color theme, and continuation of the rest of the Mirrodin block themes. Verily, this is shaping up to be my favorite block of all time.

Anyway, that's it for right now. But in like 30 seconds, I'm going to do a post about some musical type things.

My friends and I here at UK are rabid Settlers of Catan players. So, it was with unbridled excitement that we broke open Seafarers of Catan on Saturday night. The additions to the game are really pretty minor, but they give the game quite a bit more depth and make it even more entertaining.

Playing the basic scenario forces players to re-value the Wool resource, which was probably the least-valued resource in the game from our experience. The need to build ships to get off the mainland for extra victory points and access to gold probably balances out the resources. With the addition of ships, each resource except Ore and Brick are needed to build 3 of the 5 units in the game, Ore and Brick only 2. However, the importance of roads and settlements in the early game counterbalance this for Brick. Likewise, the importance of cities in the end game counterbalance this for Ore.

In general, we had a hell of a time playing Seafarers. We even fudged a bit and played a massive totally random 5 player game of Settlers/Seafarers, with player 5's pieces being made of well-crafted... paper. It was extremely fun, with Brandon absolutely slaughtering the rest of us. We ended up playing like 5 games, until roughly 10 a.m., when we hit up breakfast at the K-Lair. Mmm.

Well, after a good week+ of doing absolutely nothing, I'm about to head back to Lexington, for spring break is over. I'm sad. Really.

The week was good. Hung out with Blake a couple of times. Made it through more of Tad's copy of Final Fantasy III than I thought I would. Oh how much fun that game is. I remembered it fondly from childhood, but I appreciate it much more now. This time around, for example, I think the overwhelming emotion when Rachel left Locke was sadness, not utter thrill over getting a new piece of Magicite (although Esper-Lust is still rampant! :)

Well, I still need to pack up. Stay tuned later for my thoughts on The Passion of the Christ and also probably me complaining about how terrible CS 405 homework is.

I'll be the first to admit that I went to perhaps two basketball games my whole high school career. However, my old school's basketball team actually made it to the State tournament this year. Big excitement in my hometown, let me tell you. There was even an article in the Lexington newspaper (well, not to mention, the weekly local paper was practically dedicated to the Morgan County Cougar basketball team.)

So, it was pretty exciting. The game was Thursday night, and disappointingly we lost by about twenty to Perry Co. Central. Our guys made about 1000 too many turovers. Can't win games that way, no sir.

Anyway, that's my local sports blog of the year. Thank you.