Alright. Looks like it's going to be something along the lines of the not-so-well defined "Plan B." I just got a phone call. What looked like by far my most likely hope for employment around here has apparently fallen through.

[Note: The idea for the bulk of this essay was conceived during the night hours between August 2 and August 3 of 2002. Since there was no suitable place to record it at the time, Bitscape tucked the idea away in his tiny little brain for retrieval and transcription at a later date. Now, the thoughts have been slightly stained and refined by passage of time, but are still very much in tact, and as true as ever. Here it is.]

English, my native tongue, is a beautiful language. Though it has many quirks and exceptions bemoaned by students attempting to learn inconsistent mechanics of grammar and spelling, English possesses an immense vocabulary and range of expression. Because it provides the ability to tell and record my experiences with great clarity and precision, I literally cannot imagine living without it. I enjoy learning words, discovering how they evolve, and finding out how the language has changed over the centuries. But in one regard, the English language has failed me bitterly.

Ok gang. It's been a busy, crazy weekend, with all sorts of stuff happening, and stuff not happening, and @other_random_excuses, all of which will probably be documented during the coming days.

Went to the good old club onyx tonight. This time, it being a friday, there was a pretty decent crowd. The usual cast of characters, with a few alterations. Things have changed a bit though. Sometimes, I wonder if what I was seeing during my "tripped out mode" was not so much the present as the future.

Well, if there wasn't already ample evidence that I have way too much free time on my hands, now, for the third time in as many days, I've done another silly number on my splash screen. Yeah, ya'll better be using browsers that are up to spec. And yes, stylesheets are dangerous in the hands of silly and frivolous "designers". The usuals who populate the Content Solutions megasphere come to mind.

I just started ripping an old White Zombie cd. The first oggs to come off the line are playing in xmms right now. Classic stuff.

I was just playing a little with stylesheets. Nothing terribly fancy, but I felt sharing a little online wackiness. Enjoy it while it lasts.

I'd say John Williams is going to get a run for his money this time. Lookout, here comes the grammy! I can just smell it.

Today, I committed the cardinal sin. I bought groceries on credit. I have occassionally paid with a credit card in the past, but only when I knew there was money in my bank account to cover it. This time, I knew the checking account would be empty. But I only bought a little bit. Less than $20 worth. Heaven forgive me. Or better yet, just let me have a job.

I want to go outside for a little while today. I stayed indoors all day yesterday, and never set foot out of my apartment. Job or no job, this is not healthy.

What is a "weekend" when you're unemployed, anyway? Despite having been without a "real" job for over a month, I still find myself automatically structuring my mental plans around the concept of "weekends" and "weekdays". Tomorrow is a weekday. What does that mean to me?

For lack of a better title, I'm going to call dub the fest that is wrapping up the Unemployment Fest (or Phest), for the simple reason that 3 out of the 4 people in attendance are currently unemployed!

Jaeger, Kiesa, Zan Lynx, and myself are now underway with festing in the Castle Lair.

[This is Part 6 in the multi-part epic describing the wedding I attended at the beginning of August 2002. Previous episodes: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5]

I like it.

All members of the festing group (and maybe even some non-members) are invited to attend a fest (or phest) at Bitscape's Castle Lair on Saturday, September 21, 2002. Officially, people may begin arriving as early as 19:00 MDT, though past research reveals that festers typically show up at various intervals during the evening, up to midnight, and even beyond in some cases.

Alright. The location of that job I was going to go apply for wasn't so hot after all. I looked it up on mapquest. Northeast alright. Very east. East of DIA, in fact. Would that be better than no job? Well.... yeah. But only as a last resort.

I just returned from a journey to the Broomfield Colorado Workforce Center, where they theoretically are able to lend assistance and connect employees with appropriate employers.

Does it ever feel like your life might be on the verge of completely crumbling apart, even though things ought to be okay?

Today, Jaeger and I went to Fort Collins, where we met scottgalvin.com and went to a job fair he had discovered at the CSU campus.

Ok, that sucked.

So this morning, a few minutes ago, I got a phone call.

A very nicely done anime.

Today, a double dose of content, since yesterday there was none. Though I'm going to try to do it inside the span of 50 minutes, since I'd like to catch the Buffy Season Finale rerun.

Today, I spent the afternoon in Boulder, helping people get Linux installed on their computers. Truly, it is an invigorating activity to participate in. If the world is to be saved from Microsoft, it will happen one computer at a time, at events like this, for people who want more freedom for themselves.

I just had a really strange thought. What if Beebles the Legendary Elf ever happened to meet Tux the Mighty Penguin? Would they get along? Would they have a rivalry? Would they work together to spread world peace and good vibes to all? Or maybe they'd start up a condemn factory. The software to automate it would run on Linux, of course. But really, who's to say?

Yes, we actually watched this movie. Battlefield Earth, dubbed the worst scifi feature film ever. Well, actually it really wasn't all that bad in every regard. Mediocre would be a better word. There have been a lot of mediocre movies made, and this is among them.

I'm going to try to make this one fairly brief, because I want to get outside for a while before the afternoon is over.

[This is Part 5 in the multi-part epic describing the wedding I attended at the beginning of August 2002. Previous episodes: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4]

And so I open this terminal yet again to spew out textual representations of my ongoing thoughts. I have too many stupid thoughts. Don't people ever get bored of this? My apache logs seem to indicate otherwise. This is by no means a high traffic site, but for whatever reason, there's a batch of readers who just keep coming back to see more. A few of them post comments, but more are simply silent lurkers.

Tonight, I attended BLUG. A most worthy experience.

I have now scheduled a job interview tomorrow with the Sierra Club. According to the person I just talked to, they're currently hiring hard working people to help wage a campaign against the Bush administration policies of allowing power plants and oil companies to increase pollution, destroy the earth, oppress the poor, yadda yadda yadda.

What is it with me these days? It seems like I can never really be asleep, nor really be awake. I just sort of drift around in a daze, often too tired to concentrate when I'm awake, but when I lie down to sleep, I just lie there awake. Grrrrrr! Maybe more drugs are required. Or... something.

This afternoon, I decided it was time to get back in touch with the world, and get out of this apartment for a few hours. (It's amazing how quickly one starts to feel "out of touch" by merely spending the majority of the time alone at home for a span of several days or weeks.)

So, one year ago was the day the airplanes crashed, the buildings collapsed, and the nation went into a panic. And now, since it was one year ago, everyone is putting up memorials, and running tributes.

Waking up after my third nap this morning. Fuck, I hate this. I want a job. I want to live. I want to contribute. I want to participate in a meaningful way. But how?

Sunday, September 8, 2002. Just before 1500, having spent slightly more time than I planned writing a rambling, I made hasty preparations and departed the Castle Lair.

I will soon summarize the second half of the weekend adventures, which took place on September 8. But first, a lyric. This is a song I'm sure many people will recognize. It is a song that has been around for several years.

I have decided to resurrect this song as my anthem again for this time period of my life. It's always been a great song, but I couldn't always call it my anthem, because it didn't always fit, especially for a while. Now, it fits me again. Read the words. (Or even better, listen to them.) The first portions are especially recommended for all the unemployed programmers of the world.

I figure I had better a scribble little bit of content describing this event before more stuff happens, and it passes out of my immediate buffer. (As has occurred with a few other interesting events during the past few weeks and months.)

I really enjoyed this one. Sweet movie. Philip K. Dick was a genius. Anyway...

Despite being unemployed, my mind still manages to remember which day of the week it is. Today is Friday. In what might be slightly unusual for me on a Friday in this era, I'm sticking around home tonight.

[This is Part 4 in the multi-part epic describing the wedding I attended at the beginning of August 2002. Previous episodes: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3]

My mind has been flipping in and out of "end of the world" mode during the past couple days.

I'm taking a brief break from buildmeasite coding to write a little mindless content.

Let's go for a positive vibe tonight.

I know there are people who keep checking in to see if I have posted something. I can see the hits in my logs. (You know you're unemployed too long when you regognize IP addresses and/or user agents as they tail by in the apache log files, and think, "Ah. That must be so-and-so. And there's the unknown person who also visited yesterday.") Frankly, I just haven't felt very inspired to write for the past couple days.

Many people have said that Monty Python is absolute must-see material. Well, now I watched a full length feature. Totally absurdist humor. Lots of funny stuff, much of it idiotic. I got many good laughs.

[This is Part 3 in the multi-part epic describing the wedding I attended at the beginning of August 2002. Previous episodes: Part 1 and Part 2.]

Ok, I'm watching it again now. That footage is just plain FREAKY.

Wow. Would you believe this one sat around on my shelf for 9 months before I finally got around to watching it? What a great piece of movie making.