This morning, after a spoil-myself-rotten Saturday morning sleep-in, Mallrats commentary viewing (at least Mewes was awake during this one), I showered and proceeded to do as planned last night. I journied to the mythical land of Pearl Street in search of the Free Dmitry contingent, fighting for the rights of citizens of all nations.

I found them in short order. (Even before I could read any of the signs, one look at the assembled group from a distance, and my instincts were alerted, "Those are the geeks.") As I approached the group, one person started explaining how Dmitry had been unjustly imprisoned under a law called the DMCA. Then he saw my EFF shirt, smiled, and said "You probably already know all about this, don't you?"

For some reason, after reading the web page, I was under the impression that there would be a meatspace petition to sign (as in scribble on with ink). They told me that the online petition was the place to go for that.

[Bitscape added his name to it just moments ago.]

I decided to just hang out there for a bit. The friendly and hospitable protesters offered me some bottled water and a chair, so we sat and chatted randomly about the DMCA, the EFF's handling of the situation, civil rights, and other issues for a while. Whenever anyone walking the streets stopped, they were offered some bottled water from the cooler, a flyer about the plight of Dmitry, and any information or discussion about the DMCA, Dmitry, and fair use rights. (The bottled water was quite an effective ploy to get people interested, and usually after accepting a cold bottle of water, they were willing to take a flyer and learn a little more about what we were protesting.)

Well, a few minutes quickly turned into a couple hours, during which I handed out flyers, attempted to explain the issue in terms non-geek people could understand. (Quite a challenge. I like to think that I got at least slightly better at it after a few tries.)

Even when one is trying to explain things cleairly face-to-face, without the hinderence of any biased media filters or other distractions, it's very easy for people to get the misconception that someone who opposes the draconian measures the draconian measures of the DMCA thereby opposes the rights of authors to hold a copyright. In most cases, if people are patient enough (and ask questions) for you to clarify, they eventually get the basic idea across that an access control circumvention device != copying somebody else's content. Interestingly, it's often the ones that are the most critical that lead to the most enlightened and informative discussion.

Oh yes, and we got the support of the street hippies. The homeless kids. The bums. "Damn, you mean they can just do that to somebody? That sucks!" I think they liked the water too. :)

At one point, the guy who had brought the signs in had to leave. He queried us to see who lived closest to Boulder. I won. Since he had to go, he left his email address, and entrusted the signs to me, so he didn't have to take them away. He intends to pick them up sometime in the not too far future.

Oh, and time traveling back a bit. At one point, somebody I recognized wandered by our little gathering. A former coworker I hadn't seen for quite a while. He happened to be in the area today, and decided to stop by and see what was happening with the protesters. We talked for a bit before wandering by his way.

(Later on in the day, I saw somebody walking by who I was certain I recognized from my acting class last year. I considered saying hi, but they appeeared to be preoccupied, and in a bit of a hurry, so I didn't bother.)

At 1500, our water supply exhausted, those of us who remained decided to disperse. I took the signs and a big stack of flyers. The guy who owned the table and remaining chair took his stuff, and everyone was on their way.

As I exited the parking garage in Tobias, I noted what a convenient time it was. Initially, I had planned a brief stop at the booth, to be followed by a 12:45 viewing of Moulin Rouge, but it had been way too much fun hanging out there, so that plan had been quickly scrapped. Now, there was a nice cushon of time to be early for the 15:45 showing. I considered giving Tobias a quick bath, but when I found the car wash full to capacity, I headed straight to the theater.

Why Moulin Rouge? Well, bouncing strongly recommended it, so after his description, I decided I needed to see it. This does not mean that I always trust bouncing's judgement when it comes to movies. Quite the contrary, we frequently have disagreements. But bouncing's movie recommendations are similar reading Salon movie reviews: bouncing often gives false negatives (i.e. he hated The Matrix), but he very rarely gives false positives.

Therefore, I know that if bouncing says, "Such-and-such movie sucks", it means absolutely nothing. But if he says, "that's a good movie", then it probably has at least some merit. As is evident by my movielog entry, he lived up to his record in this case.

After the movie, with big posterboard signs and flyers as cargo, I returned to the car wash, and gave Tobias a nice pre-fest bath before returning to the Louisville Compound.

I suspect another journey to the land of Boulder will be in order before long. I shall now commence with preliminary preparations for Argo. (And I just realized I have yet to eat any food since waking up this morning. Well, I did have those 2am nachos from 7-11 to sustain me. But I think more will be required before long.)

Festing is imminent. Reports to follow later.