Just reading over some other people's reviews on Illuminata. A wildly (probably inaccurate) guess, and I'd say 2/3 of those posting did not like it. Well, aren't I the oddball? lol.

Nothing if not.... different.

Um.... Trying to think how to describe this one. A movie about a struggling playwrite, all sorts of wacky characters in the cast, sprinkled very generously with humorous references to Shakespeare, as well as a variety of other classic and modern works. Gee, we haven't seen anything along those lines in recent times, now, have we? ;)

But still, this one is... different.

The cinematography in this one was quite stunning. Many, many shots that one can just fall in love with. Certainly no shortage there.

What really adds to the fun are the continuous cross-references made by the characters/playwrite between their real lives in the movie, and the play within it. But really, the whole thing is pretty much choreographed, written, and acted in the style of a theatrical play, so you get this sense of doubly fun irony about the entire matter.

I'm sorry if that last paragraph made absolutely no sense. I tried to explain. I really did! These things just have too much of a recursive avant-garde funkiness in them to really be able to explain the situation to a satisfactory degree in a movielog entry.

Place on top of that all the romantic twists, some really dark, quizzical humor (Ok, I was laughing. Maybe nobody else who say this movie was. Or maybe they were. I haven't gotten around to reading other people's reviews yet.), and some top notch acting performances (Rufus Sewell, Dark City man, yeah! Of course, Christopher Walken is always a treat)... It translates to a good couple hours of entertainment.

I'll leave it to others to ponder the deeper, sappier meanings. I'm sure there's some there too, but I don't feel like trying to figure them out right now. (Although I will say I was affected.)

A worthy viewing for anyone interested in something a little out of the ordinary.

Holy fsck! Now I come home again, and my.... errrr, should I say.. ahem, some strange character whose handle happens to be a name out of Wheel of Time, has been mod'ed up to 5! Yes! My lifelong goal has now been reached, and I can die in peace. lol.

Not the first, nor probably the last time I do a little quoting of Tori Amos in the title. ;)

I just had a rambling underway, but then the power decided to go out for five straight seconds, taking everything down. Bzzzt! Thunder. Lightning.

This morning I woke up surprisingly early, considering the time I finally hit the sack last night. Did a little surfing around, and decided on the spur of the moment to take a stab at an old pastime: The time honored art of karma whoring. Looks like I haven't completely lost my touch. ;)

Ok, first: I have quite a lot to ramble about, but I must admit I am uncertain as to just how far this one is going to go, due to somewhat intoxicated state, sleepiness, and... well, basicly just intoxicated sleepiness.

As was contemplated last night, Shadowkiller did spend a significant portion of the evening tonight in pursuit of the almighty frag. (Although it has been used recently for other purposes, some might recall that the first time I ever used the handle of Shadowkiller was in the original Quake deathmatches). Beat Klask, which meant completion of Tier 3 on the Hurt Me Plenty level. After playing around a bit on the Tier 4 levels, it was time to try a change of pace.

[Bitscape puts on his Tori cd -- From The Choirgirl Hotel... removes shoes, continues.]

Which I don't seem to have much of right now.

Ok, I swear I am nuts. Playing Q3 for over the last hour when I should've been in bed ages ago. That game becomes more addictive by the day. Make that by the hour.

This weekend, this month, this year is just going by way too damn fast. Sunday, August 20, 2000. Crazy. Yeah.

Ok, it's tomorrow. :)

Feelin pretty tired when I got home from work today, I went down and slept for.... two hours? Something like that.

Hey, Mr. Superstar
I'll do anything for you
I'm your number one fan
Hey Mr. Porno star,
I, I, I, I want you
Hey, Mr. Sickly star,
I want to get sick from you
Hey, Mr. Fallen star,
Don't you know I worship you?
Hey, Mr. Big Rock Star,
I wanna grow up JUST LIKE YOU

Well, ya know that mini-rant I did the other day about Linux games being hard to obtain? This morning, I was really beginning to wonder if my LinuxMall order was ever going to come. So I sent an email. Got a response fairly quickly stating that they were no longer backordered, and had indeed shipped my stuff on the 11th. It would've been nice to recieve an email when the shipment had actually been made, but I was happy to hear that it was on the way.

Went to the UPS page, checked my tracking number, and their data told me that it was scheduled for delivery on.... August 16! Today. Woohoo! (Also got a nice little display of the route it had gone to get here, which showed that as of this morning, it was in the Denver area.)

So naturally, when I arrived home, I wasn't at all surprised to find a box addressed to me sitting on the table. And inside, a tin box containing the hallowed game of Quake III, and a cardboard one with Railroad Tycoon II, penguin portrayals prominently affixed to the front of each. Excellent, Smithers.

I'm sure Argo is going to have a ball tonight. (And, in a slight change of plans, Tobias will not be getting a bath tonight. Instead, he has been getting a shower for most of the afternoon. A cold one. The bath will have to wait.)

But before we commence with the installation of these newly obtained time sinks (as if I really have lots of time to be throwing away these days, but that's beside the point). Before we commence, I would like to commemorate an important event.

I am pleased to announce that today, for the first time in history, this web site -- Bitscape's Lounge -- was given the unique distinction and honor of being compared to a porn site. (In the generic sense, not any specific porn site. Sorry, no links. ;)

Of course, you can imagine what went through my mind when I heard this. "Oh, yes! I've made it! All my life, I've wanted to run -- if not an actual porn site -- something which [somebody claims] is very similar to a porn site in many ways."

Now, my career as as web content provider is complete, and I shall retire, content with that knowledge. lol.

Ok, it all started while we were on the way to lunch. Me and a couple of co-workers were having a discussion. The topic, oddly enough, was this very web site. (We must've been hitting the bottom of the barrel in conversation fodder.) The two people in the car with me expressed something of a disbelief that I would write to put so many personal thoughts on a web site which could literally be read by anybody.

One person asked how many readers/hits I get, and I replied that I really have no clue, because these days, I make it a point not to look at the logs. Then, out of the blue, the other:

(Disclaimer: This is a paraphrase, and may not reflect the exact wording.) "You know, I was watching this show on the Discovery channel featuring a person who wrote a book about the psychology of the Internet. In a lot of ways, your site is very similar to these homegrown PORN sites some people have been making. The psychology really works the same way!"

Oookkkkaaaay..... I was... flattered? Amused? Dumbstruck? Well... I now have the honer. rotfl.

I admit, I may have, in passing, mentioned the thought of putting up a webcam in my room, but never seriously. (Not that there's anyone in this... web circle thing... who has ever... erected.. such a setup. Never. ;) Ok, bad use of words. Bad, bad, bad!

Ok, fine, all ye perverts, here's your link. (Disclaimer: I will neither confirm nor deny whether I make or have ever made visits to any site linked to or not linked to from here or anywhere else. Further, I take no responsibility for anyone else clicks, nor do I take responsibility for anything that may happen as a result of those clicks.) Now, go surfing like good little children. As for myself? I have some supper to eat, and some games to install. Bye.

So, last night (in between compiling drivers and reconfiguring X servers), I decided it was high time for Tobias to get an oil change. I contemplated going to the dealer to have it done, so called and asked about it. They're backed up for at least the next week, and besides, this is something I've sort of wanted to learn to do myself. (I think I would classify myself as worse than a dummy when it comes to auto mechanics.)

Well, tonight I had more fun getting things working. Grabbed a monster load of source code for DRI drivers out of CVS, watched an X Files episode ("Fire") while the compiler messages went flashing by. Midway through the third act, the compile was finished. I don't even want to know how long that would've taken on Dagobah.

Woody. Linux 2.4.0-test5. XFree86 4.0.1.

I've owned this movie on DVD for several months now, viewed all the commentary tracks, special features, and seen the main feature multiple times, but it would seem I have yet to make an official movielog entry for this one. Time to rectify that.

Did indeed go to the mountains with the family this afternoon. We went up to Branaird (sic?) Lake, hiked in the trails surrounding the area for a few hours, and bouncing stopped every now and then to take pictures. I think I needed the fresh air after this morning. lol.

I'm at home now. In my comfy, horribly messy lair. Feels good.

Alright, I'm sure it was already apparent before, but this is really bumming me out. Why, oh why did I agree to be a part of this? I can't really blame anyone else, cause it's not like I couldn't have just said, "No" when the request was made. I guess I figured if we all are gonna pull our share, I may as well do my part, but this.... this... this is just bullshit.

Well, this is certainly a first. I normally make it a policy to leave this place alone when I'm at work, aside from occassionally checking into the little discussion chatter under an alter ego. For obvious reasons, typing long protracted ramblings probably wouldn't be the best for productivity. :)

So, I installed the Caldera technology preview on Argo. Not a bad little bundle for $0. :)

[Bitscape munches merrily on fries and mcnuggets. bbq sauce.... mmmmm...]

So anyway, I get off work today -- I think it's the latest I've ever worked at this job -- and arrive home at about 18:50. After roughly 9.5 hours of coding php like a madman, I was feeling quite exhausted. Pooped,

Alright, so yes, tonight I downloaded the Quake 3 demo and played it for a while. (I still haven't received word from LinuxMall since last week about when my someday-to-be-ordered copy of the full version will ship.) I suck at that game. I really suck. Horribly.

Well, at least I got little a nap this evening.

Well, I'm sure some readers might rightly criticize that I'm not very well qualified to review this movie, due to an obvious potential conflict of interest. To them I say: This is my web page, and I can write what I want. If you don't like it, you can take it with a grain of salt, or go surf somewhere else.

The DSL line for the Louisville Compound has been restored. The problem was reportedly a broken/disconnected wire in one of the boxes down the block.

Humility is mine. This evening, I decided to tackle the sound mixer issue. Compiled the cvs snapshot driver I had downloaded over Jaeger's line. Followed the installation instructions, or actions I knew to be equivilant thereof.

Ah, fixed it again. I gotta put that into my X startup scripts, so I can quit having to do it each time I login. For those who have no clue what I'm talking about, it was the following command:

Silence abounds. Except, that is, for the Beethoven Concerto coming from the Dynamic Duo's speakers, recently retrieved from Ziyal's repository. The bounce meister has departed, along with Festery.

I'm typing now from Jaeger's Alcove. The former web content provider currently known as bouncing is sitting directly across the table from me, our monitors adjecent, but facing in opposite directions.

Well, I reinstalled Mandrake on Argo this afternoon. Better partitioning scheme this time. Plenty of space left for a Debian partition, which I plan to install when Potato is officially released. (After that, I might just go ahead and move on to Woody, but I wanna start with a fresh stable.)

I just got off the phone with rmi tech support again. Covad has indeed done another loop test. There appears to be line damage. People from US Pest will need to be sent out to repair the problem. No scheduled date just yet.

Although saying I'm typing it "from" Argo seems a little silly, since I'm sitting in the same place, using the same keyboard, and looking at the same monitor as before. And I'm telneting into Dagobah, since I obviously don't have my web database stuff set up on Argo at all yet. But still, this is definitely going through Argo. :)

In about another 16 hours, it will be my 1-week anniversary of being DSL-less. Covad and US Pest (or whatever they're calling themselves now) had better get their act together very soon. Otherwise, I might just give up and move to another place, and let them -- along with their broken lines -- go screw themselves. I mean, a few days to get a repair done, I can understand, but this.... this is getting ridiculous.

I woke up about 45 minutes ago, and am finding myself utterly unable to get back to sleep. I just can't stop thinking about the possible contingencies... Argo, Argo, Argo. Should I stop at the store tomorrow, and pay way more than I normallly would for a more modern distro cd just so I can have it working now? Or should I wait until Saturday night, to see if Jaeger and/or bouncing are in possession of such an item? Either way, I'll probably just be doing a total wipe again when the much anticipated Potato cds come out (very very soon, if sources are to be believed), and/or my DSL line returns to working status.

After last night's No Sleep rambling, where I stated all that crap I was about to do, guess what I actually did? Absolutely nothing!

(Note: This one could just as easily be titled "Obsessive Naming and Christening.")

Sung to the tune of The Beasty Boys. Or something like that.

As promised, here I am, taking a timeout from the PC building fun and excitement to comment on...

Today, when I went to the post office during my lunch hour, I learned a very important lesson: Whether or not you get your package depends very heavily upon which clerk you happen to deal with. Today, I got a good clerk. Efficient, helpful, and quite apologetic when I explained the whole ordeal. Brought the box out immediately, said it had been right where it was supposed to, and attempted to muse how somebody could have missed it. I left that post office with big box in my arms and a very big smile on my face. :)