First off, I'll echo what I said this morning. Love the broadband net access. I'm downloading an apt-get upgrade right now, with a sustained transfer rate of 384kB/s. This is way faster than my DSL was. Amazing. And it costs less too. I'm totally hooked on that.

How cool is this? I'm now surfing via the AT&T digital cable link! In style.

This is going to be much briefer than my 2 hour babble about Mulholland Drive, because I'm quite tired right now.

Mulholland Drive mussed my brain up for days after I saw it the first time. And so, naturally, I had to see it again. This time, armed with foreknowledge from my previous viewings, and having read some analysis and interpretations from many others who had viewed it, I returned to experience the insanity all over again.

Yesterday, the landline was installed as scheduled. Today, a test account grabbed from work, a few cables strung together, and Illian (the only box with a modem) connected to the phone jack, and I'm online!

[After typing the title of the rambling, Bitscape wanders away and does other stuff -- empties the dishwasher, arranges a few things, etc]

Today after another extended workday, I stopped by the Louisville Compound, and found that it is well on its way to becoming a ghost compound. Nobody was currently home. I haven't seen bouncing there since last weekend (not that I've spent a great deal of time there lately either). Mom hasn't totally moved out yet. She's going to hire some professional movers to handle her piano and other stuff.

Here I am. I type my first rambling from this, my new home, high atop the Remington Castle. Granted, it probably won't be seen by the rest of the world for a number of days yet, but it is being typed nonetheless.

Last night and this morning, I have been considering just when would be the best time to move Argo. It's been heading in the direction of "sooner is better", even if there will be no line for a few days. I want to get moved in and move on.

Truly a sign of where my "headquarters" exist. Virtually every one of my useful possessions has now been moved to the new Lair in the Castle. (I'm still playing with variations on the title; one of these days, I'll come up with something for the official canon.) The one exception, of course, is the contraption at which I now sit and type.

Pulled out my sleeping bag and slept on the couch last night. Slept relatively soundly, although I recall more than one dream in which I returned to the U-Haul headquarters to report the damage, with all sorts of different scenarios playing themselves out as I slept.

I feel like I've been hemorrhaging funds left and right like a wild man today, but taking a look at the situation in gnucash right now, I don't think it's really all that bad. This is assuming, of course, that I haven't overlooked anything terribly important (which is entirely possible, given the number of variables being juggled around in my brain). This is one of those times when having a couple of credit cards becomes highly useful.

"I think I need some boxes or something."
--Bitscape, 20 Oct 2001

The moving process theoretically begins in 10 hours or less, but taking a glance around this room, there wouldn't be a single clue to foreshadow such an event.

Like many in the office, I suspect, I have spent nearly the entire evening finding out just how awesome an awesome DVD release can be. Another additional evening or two will be required to finish the material. (Although I admit I am tempted to stay up even later than I already have because there's so much cool stuff I haven't even looked at yet!)

In this classic from the Hollywood "Golden Age", Humphrey Bogart plays the owner of "Rick's", a night spot in the city of Casablanca, which people commonly use as the last hub on an escape route to freedom from the WW2 Nazi regime. Rick is a cynical, fast witted businessman, apparently neutral and impenetrable regarding all matters (including the Nazi government), until someone he had once fallen in love with (Ingrid Bergman, in a starlit performance unparalleled in modern cinema) happens to show up.

Having concluded the semi-unannounced mass irc, which was attended by virtually every illustrious member of the undefined "club" with the exception of one (or two, if we count our dear friend TransBot), I now ponder the merits of sleep. New DSL lines, digital cameras, and life at the monestary. The wonders never cease.

Someone once said that truth is stranger than fiction. Sometimes, they can be eerily similar, at least in some aspects.

"A very baad maan. A very baad, baad maan."

[Bitscape's note: When I first started writing this, I was going to rate this movie *** 1/2 stars. Upon further reflection, which entailed much spouting and babbling below (but even more additional brain activity than I could type), I am upgrading it to **** stars. I base this on the premise that any movie that can mess with your brain this badly is really a masterpiece, whether you know it at the time or not.]

Last night, I was suddenly and rudely reminded of something that had happened several months ago: A partial download, apparently. Fifteen minutes into my Farscape episode, and bam! My feed was cut, and there was no more picture. "Wait a sec! This can't be!!!" Whine and moan as I might, there was no more. Such torture! Strange, because the filesize wasn't that different from some of the other complete episodes. Oh well. I'm sure I'll find a complete copy one of these days, or die of suspense while trying; maybe if I'm lucky, some random reader might even be able to help (episode 21 -- Bone to be Wild). ;)

Tonight, Zan Lynx and I journied to Boulder and ate at Subway on the way to BLUG at its new location on the CU campus. At BLUG, the main speaker was the developer of Pippy, the Palm version of Python. He spoke about various aspects and obstacles of porting the language to such a wildly different type of platform, some of which I understood, and some of which I was totally ignorant. Truly an amazing feat to port a modern scripting language to a machine with such a tiny memory heap capacity and totally different io system.

[Bitscape listens to selections from Strange Little Girls for the Nth time. Not even trying to quantify N this time.]

The bombing has begun. Despite prior plans to do otherwise, I've spent most of the afternoon tuned to the television, Slashdot, and the Internet trying to learn as much as possible to comprehend what is happening.

Wow. This one will blow your mind. Guaranteed.

A man spends his entire life gathering, collecting, amassing a fortune, building the world's largest castle, acquiring power, influencing the masses, creating an entire virtual universe unto himself. At the end, what is he left with? One word on his lips, as he breathes his final breath from the lonely heights of his mansion.

I watched Citizen Kane earlier tonight. What a movie! I'll probably write up a log entry for it tomorrow.

Well, so far, four days have passed since the news of "out of this house by the end of the month" hit, and I've managed to get absolutely nothing done about it. Hmmm, I did inform my parental units of my decision, looked at a few online housing ads, and got my cancel dsl order in today. (Convenient, since I happen to get it through an employee service at work. Sucks to have to lose that, cause it's been working so great since the beginnig of the year.)

Just 2 hours ago, I was informed that things are about to change. Big change.