I believe the the correct technical term is "futon".

After spending much of the morning fiddling around with Dagobah in an attempt to get a boot floppy going with 2.4, I made a really stupid goof which wiped out the one working boot floppy I had made during the Woody installation. However, the system was up from the last boot, leaving me one chance to make a good boot floppy before having to revert to the rescue disks.

Feeling rather tired of fighting it, I decided to back off for a bit, and come back to do it right with a fresh brain later. I took a nap, and went shopping. I foolishly made a trip to the Den of Temptation (also called Best Buy by some), to see if they had the GameCube, as /. had been reporting.

Well, they had a shelf. A big, empty shelf. Had the shelf not been empty, I can't say that I wouldn't have bought one, but I can't say that I would have either. Probably best that it wasn't an option, given that I've already spent more than enough money on non-essential entertainment items lately, and it would really be a good idea for me to reign that in. (Hmmmm... As a hypothetical question, what would I choose if I were down to $100, no savings or credit available, and had to wait a week until another paycheck? Would I buy food, DVDs, or video games? It might be best not to think too hard about what that answer would be, since it might not agree with common sense.)

Entertainment Addddiicctt! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Ahem. In truth, I am a fiscally responsible, socially conscientious, upstanding individual of great moral character. Fitter, happier, more productive. Truly.

Where was I?

Although Best Buy had no GameCubes left in stock, they did have a playable demo unit available. Luigi's Mansion. I watched some other people play, and then took a crack at it myself. Very impressive rendering. Getting closer to the Toy Story benchmark every day. The controllers had a really smooth feel too. Yes, a very good thing none were in stock. Nintendo games... mmmm... temptation.

(And yes, they did have an XBox demo up as well. I obviously have a long standing bias against Microsoft, but I would be interested in seeing its capabilities. Unfortunately, the demo game they had running on the XBox was some generic football game. Very realistically rendered. I was impressed by that. But the content was not nearly as interesting and pretty as Luigi's Mansion.)

After that, I went to the recycling bin to dump a huge pile of newspapers. Did I mention this? The Denver Post has been leaving papers at my door every day, despite the fact that I never asked for a subscription, and really don't want more dead tree pulp. I've been reluctantly picking them up and throwing them in the house as I leave each morning. This resulted in a gradually accumulating pile in the entryway, which eventually crossed the threshold of unbearable.

I've decided that in the future, I'm not going to dispose of their garbage for them. I will simply kick the papers aside on the way out, and let the pile accumulate outside my apartment, instead of inside. Hopefully, their drone will get the message. Even if that doesn't happen, at least I won't have the interior clutter bugging me all the time.

Getting to the title of this rambling. As is probably evident, I did go furniture shopping. Couch shopping, specifically. I set a figure in my mind of $300 as the maximum I would be willing to pay for a couch. Not being completely aware of market values (I don't go looking for couches every day), I had no idea whether this was a reasonable figure to set or not. But I was going to find out. If I could find nothing suitable for under $300, I wouldn't buy this month.

My first stop was at a "Bankruptcy Liquidation" not far from my residence. My mom warned me about this place, but I decided to at least give it a look anyway. They've been having the "Bankruptcy Liquidation" (a huge sign outside the store) for at least the past 6 months. According to mom, their furniture was actually quite expensive. The "original" prices quoted are absolutely astronomical, while the "everything must go" prices are on the high side. I confirmed my mom's findings.

The cheapest couch I could find was in the $600 neighborhood. Yes, that's the so-called going out of business sale price. Someone ought to investigate that store for fraud. Anyway, moving on...

I might have checked out American Furniture Warehouse, but I refuse to shop at a store which owes my mom money they still haven't paid. (Long story short: A couple months ago, before moving out of the Louisville Compound was even on the radar, my mom ordered a bed from them. It turned out the bed couldn't be delivered because it wouldn't fit through the hallway, so they had to take it back. The service people assured my mom she would be given a refund, but it never arrived, nor was it credited to her account. She's been querying them about it regularly ever since, and has always gotten the bureaucratic runaround. (Customer service rep: "It's not my responsibility, and I only do what my computer terminal tells me.") I think she should take them to court, but understandably, she would rather exhaust all other options first. Hence, my refusal to shop there.)

My next stop: Futon Connection. (This paragraph, combined with the first sentence of the rambling, is a literary device. We like to call it "unsubtle foreshadowing". And when I say "This paragraph", I also include this parenthetical statement in that classification, because referring to what I write as "unsubtle foreshadowing" helps to make the foreshadowing even more unsubtle.)

Ahem, the above is a perfect demonstration of why it is a bad idea for Bitscape to take a big long vacation which involves a lot of hanging out at home. It's only Sunday evening, and already the loopy brainwaves have begun to assert themselves. But now I'm really digressing.

[Bitscape eats a taco.]

At Futon Connection, conveniently located only about a block plus a parking lot length away from my place, I looked at the couches. Much closer to my price range. I sat down on a couple. Comfy too. The proprietor of the place (ya, a small store) was talking to a couple of other customers while I looked around. I was thinking about going on to look at the next store on my list, when he finished with them and proceeded to tell me about the wares.

I was fairly impressed with what I saw, how confortable it felt to sit in, and the price. I asked if they delivered. He said that yes, they do, but in many cases, it's not necassary. You actually buy an unassembled version, which comes in a box that will fit in the back of many cars, so a huge truck is not necessary. He showed me the storage room in the back where the boxes are kept. Maybe, just maybe, one of those would fit in Tobias. Maybe.

Now I was interested. I took another look around at the selection, sat on a few more, and pondered. No waiting around for delivery guys, no extra charges, no hassle. A very appealing thought.

The little 3 inche high inner comparison shopper popped out of a puff of dust, took a place on my shoulder, and and advised that I should go look at more stores before making a purchasing decision. Then I happened upon a nice big black futon with a metal frame, and a "Sale: $199" tag next to it.

"Screw it! This easily fits within my price criteria, it's comfy, and I could bring one home today." I flicked the little comparison shopping angel away.

I waited while the man did business with another customer. Another thing that probably influenced me was that I liked his style. No high pressure tactics, hype, or flakey sales tricks. He would just tell people upfront what he had available, what the prices were, and answer any questions about the products. Then leave the customers alone until they initiate something further.

I ran out to Tobias and performed my patented analog measuring-without-a-tape-measure technique. Would it fit? I returned to the warehouse, and checked the size of the boxes. If it had been the size of one of the larger boxes, it wouldn't have worked. Fortunately, the one I wanted was in a slightly smaller size box. My patented analog guessing told me that it might fit. If not, I could probably drive a quick block with the trunk open and a box hanging out the back.

For an extra $30, I elected to upgrade the cushioning to the thicker, softer style. The Happy Bank Account Depletion Card made a quick strike, I pulled my car up to the curb next to the store, the store guy came out with the box on a dolly, and I put it into Tobias. For the first time ever, I made use of Tobias's collapsing backseat. Put the box in, and needed a bit more room before the trunk would close. I slid both of the front seats (including driver's seat) as far forward as they would go. Pushed the box in, closed the trunk, with less than a centimeter to spare.

The store man returned with the cushioning. (Luckily, he had my most preferred color in stock. Black, black, black, all the way.) It fit snugly in the back seat.

After I closed the car door, he shook his head, amazed that it had managed to fit in such a small car, and I was off.

Somehow, I managed to squeeze myself into that driver's seat. With my chest scrunched up against the steering wheel, and my head tilted forward and to the side, I navigated through the falling snow across the parking lot, around the block, and into the Castle Lair.

Hauled both loads up the 3 flights of stairs, shut the door and reveled in the warmth of the snug Lair. (Winter weather has finally arrived.)

The 3 hours between 1600 and 1900 were spent putting the beast together. Screwes to tighten, horrendously misspelled instructions full of typos to decipher, and at times, I wished I had eight arms. But by the time The Simpsons began, my couch was a couch! I laid back and watched, my dream of becoming a real couch potato finally realized!

After a silly Simpson's, I became aware that I had worked up a healthy appitite, and the Castle Lair's food supply has been dwindling, so I braved the elements, and drove 3 blocks to the Taco Bell for nourishment. (Yes, I am becoming increasingly aware that I managed to score an awesomely convenient location to live. The recurring theme of "a block or two away" is so cool. I could walk to all these places easily, except the habit of driving has burrowed its way into my daily living.)

I dined in luxury on nachos, burritos, and tacos, and then dimmed the lights to watch the new Xena^H^H^H Files episode. I dunno man. The plot they're developing seems so stereotypically X Files-ish that it almost feels stale, even though it is totally in line with what the X Files is about. There's just nothing daring about it anymore. Every conspiratorial twist is expected. It just not the thrill it was 3 or 4 years ago. The absence of that great Mulder/Scully chemistry doesn't help anything either. But yet, I tune in. It's still kind of fun to watch. Go figure.

Now, I look forward to the week ahead. I had sort of intended to spend the weekend getting things setup, putting in the nuts and bolts so to speak (with Dagobah and all that). Then, once the the "real vacation" gets underway, the plan has been to go fully into coding mode.

Now, I'm torn between the "get Dagobah into shape" part, and the "get coding" part. I definitely want to do coding, but I'd like to do at least some of it while sitting at Dagobah's console. So...

I think right now I'll go spend some time trying to convince Dagobah to boot the new kernel, and then we'll see what happens with the network drivers. If getting my 100base network up require a significant amount of hackery, I may just postpone that bit and keep running on 10 for a while.

The plan: Hell or high water, by the end of tomorrow, the Collective Code (the live version running in production on rage) will have some new stuff.

I'm off!