Last night I dreamed that I went to Texas to visit ehowton. The drive only took four hours. When I got there, the inside of the house was dark and had tones of yellowed aging.

I walked in and we shook hands and began to visit. There were babies crawling everywhere! On the couch, on the floor…it was a nightmare. drax0r and Mrs. Drax0r were in the kitchen in the background somewhere.

I then dreamed that my family showed up…that is minus Pumblechook. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out where he was or why he wasn’t there. Whatever. I made the introductions all around.

Eric was tired. All he wanted to do was sit in one of the wooden chairs in the dining room (which was part of the living room and carpeted). He was very unresponsive. I remembered thinking “Poor Eric.”

Then I picked up one of the babies that was crawling on the table. It was Chloe (the expected). I remember that I accidentally nicked the table with her back and started thinking that I’d incur the wrath of Mr. and Mrs. Drax0r.

Then I woke up.

I swear I’ve been as sober as a judge for several weeks.

What the hell?

EDIT:

I found this image and since it fit so well with the post, I couldn’t pass up an oppurtunity to use it.

Ubuntu needs to change their slogan to “Ubuntu: Linux for the dumbest among us.” It makes idiots like me look like seasoned pros. Linux should never be this easy. In the past week, I have installed ubuntu (Dapper Drake), installed and deployed SSH and Samba, installed an internal IDE hardrive and DVD burner. The next step is to actually sift through the data and burn it off which is going to be a slightly unpleasant task given that when I completed my data transfer it was over 100 GB equally divided by programs/utilities I’ve collect over the years, documents/saved files and music. The rest was Clone CD images that I can delete if I so choose. That would be the preferred course of action, but still…

The funny thing is that all of this data came from my 300 GB SATA drive and I had no clue that I had so much junk. It wouldn’t hurt to sift through all the video files that Jesse and Stephen have given me over the years. For those of you who don’t know, these are my A/V buddies and most of the video is raw footage; the rest is the 30 second edits. I also need to sift through all the tarballs that has sent me. Most of them are music that I’ve already uncompressed and added to my collection. Currenlty, I am allowing access to my box via SSH only.

My next Linuxy task is to deploy VPN so that I can log into the box remotely and be able to pull the files to any machine I’m on via drag and drop. I might also set up VNC, but at this point I don’t see the need; that task is simply for the experience. Any suggestions on how to go about any of this or some next steps are welcome.

After I get all of my access set up the way I want it and back up my data, the next step will be to take advantage of the Linux box by learning Perl. I might even finally calm down and learn Bash scripting or something; perhaps I’ll finally conquer Java (particularly the GUI aspects) or finally learn how gcc works and create makefiles with understanding. The irony is that I’m finally adding value to myself when I’m living paycheck to paycheck and am one $500 emergency away from bankruptcy.

Honor where honor is due
The other night I dreamed I was at a film festival (presumably Sidewalk). It was like I was at the producer’s talk from last year: it was in a small room, few people were there, but we all loved film and hung on the presenter’s ever word. That was the best part–I dreamed that Sir Ridley Scott was the presenter. He was seated behind one of those six foot brown folding tables that had a white tablecloth hung over it. I don’t remember what the topic was nor do I recall him having a cigar. I just remembered being thrilled to be there in the same room as him listening to his insightful rhetoric and thinking that even I could one day learn from the Greats if I’ll hurry up and make something of myself. A very pleasant dream indeed!

Speaking of giving honor where honor is due, there is an upcoming protected post honoring someone special to me. I feel like I need to go on record and tell the world how wonderful this person is but am limited in what I am able to say, hence the need for the privacy. One day (soon, I hope) maybe I will be able to post this tribute publicly. I have thought about just posting a private post, but I want to document (even if only semi-publicly) my thoughts and feelings about this special person. So to those of you who have the luxury of being on my friends/protected list, you will be treated to a more introspective post of me. I gander that it will hearken back to the so-called “dark days”, but I assure you there will be no Primus playing in the background.

Also coming up in future ithues of this blog is the exclusive interview of me by Paige. I have so enjoyed coming up with my answers to her questions. Plus (and this is in part due to an overwhelming desire to do so since the movie came out, partly because I feel that I am finally able to describe my experience in words and partly because I am feeling inspired to write and Kate’s link to the Jung test proved to me that I am a born writer, even if I do shirk away because it feels like work) in a (not necessarily continuous) series of posts, I will review The Fountain (Amazon, IMDB) with the same precision I employed with King Kong (Amazon, IMDB).

Stay tuned.

I have a situation. Two really.

First of all, I love Red Hat/Fedora Core. I don’t know why I’m so dedicated to it because I’ve never had much luck with it, but then again, I haven’t had a dedicated bad ass machine to run Linux on either.

I’ve inherited an old HP Celeron box. I meant to check the specs before I left for work this morning, but I want to say it’s in the 2.X Ghz range. Currently it only has 128 Megs, but I can upgrade it to 1 GB for $76.

So I have two questions for the gurus out there like ehowton, drax0r, and princessleia2. First of all, I would like to run a Linux OS on x86 architecture. I don’t mind having naught but CLI, but I would be nice to have a GUI to get some things done quickly. I’ve not tried any other distros. I did have a bad experience installing Mandrake a few years ago. It looks too simple. What is the “best” x86 Linux distro that has a small footprint, few OS specific commands and a GUI that doesn’t take a mammoth to run. I’d like use this box to run Apache as well as serve as a file server. That brings me to my next topic…

As many of you know, Black Widow died from a fried motherboard. (In four years I hadn’t come up with a better name for her and I still don’t have a name for my new laptop. Maybe I’ll just pull a Strong Bad and call it Lappy.) The point is, I bought USB enclosures for both of the drives. I am going to use Sync Toy to sync the folders between the two drives and create a comprehensive back up upon the initial sync. I will do incremental back ups each time I sync. My plan was to either leave one of the drives (a 160 IDE drive) at work or hook it up to the HP Linux server so I can have access to all of my data at work and leave the other (300 SATA which will remain NTFS) sitting on my desk and for travel. At first I thought about making the 160 a FAT 32 drive so I could hook it up to a Linux box as well as Windows (for syncing and traveling.) I’m assuming that OS X understands FAT 32 as well.

I don’t like the drawback to having a FAT 32 drive. The sectors are too slow, there is no redundancy and no journaling. I considered using ext3 or whatever Linux is up to now, but then I wouldn’t be able to sync it with the other drive via Windows. I was wondering if anyone knew of a file system that Windows can read/write but would be just as accessible for Linux or, have the bugs been worked out with Linux such that reading and writing to NTFS is no longer an issue?

A battle against a number.
I join the battle.

My friends, it has been a while and with today being a double holiday (May Day and Insured Motorist Day) we have much ground to cover which means I will have to type twice as fast meaning you will have to read four times as fast. As always, it’s great to have all of you along, especially those of you joining us for the first time.

Speaking of that, you all will have to be on your best behavior because celebrities may be lurking about on the blogs. May I first introduce to you Michael Ferraro of Film Threat fame? I’ve just started reading his blog, but so far I have loved every word of what he has to say, especially this. Furthermore, I like his cartoons, namely these two:

While on the subject of celebrities, I have my own little celebrity story to tell. Ok, so I’m going to tell two. Shoot me.

Last year (that’d be 2006 for those of you in DFW) I went to my first film festival, Sidewalk. If heaven is supposed to be better then anything on earth then heaven truly is unfathomable by the human mind for I can not imagine anything better then a film festival except working on the film itself. I was working my volunteer shift tearing tickets when Allen Hunter co-founder of WorkPlay came into our venue and was making small-talk waiting for the feature to end so he could lead the Q&A. On his way out, I asked him if the awards ceremony (which was being held at WorkPlay) was open to the volunteers. He said, not usually, but you’re invited. As soon as Allen left the building, my manger came over and said “You just got a special invitation!”

The night didn’t end there. When I got to the awards ceremony, I got to meet writer/director Terry Green. His film Heavens Fall was the closing film of the festival. I can’t tell you what an honor it was to be part of that screening. You see, Heavens Fall starring Timmothy Hutton and David Strathairn is about the Scottsborough Boys. The film was screened in the Alabama Theater (click here for a brief history) and won the Audience Choice Award hands down. Also present at the dinner/awards ceremony was Azura Skye; I not only met her, I got her agent’s number. Alas, it just hasn’t been in the cards that her talents have been required.

The other celebrity story I wanted to tell you about was meeting Amanda Gusack. Her film In Memorium screened at the Birmingham Museum of Art. The film was so well put together that during the Q&A afterwards, the dialogue went something like this:

Crowd: That was a great film. When will it be in theaters?
Amanda: The distribution rights are still for sale.
Crowd: But we can buy the DVD on Amazon, right?
Amanda: The distribution rights are still for sale.
Crowd: Okay. Your car’s full of DVDs for us to buy here at the festival, right?
Amanda: The distribution rights are still for sale.
Crowd: Bummer.

After the Q&A, I shook hands with Miss Gusack and we talked shop for several minutes. She told me she shot the entire production on the DVX 100 and that the “snow” used for the webcams was actually a Photoshop image that took forever to get “just right”. She was gracious when I told her the continuity error I found in the screening. I like her. I like her work and want to see more of it and was surprised when I got this return email from where I was cleaning out my inbox the other day:

We’re still hanging on to the film, but we’re actually shooting another one this summer: (link). I can’t say much about it, but it should definately be available to view/purchase when it’s finished.

Captive is not yet listed on IMDB or even IMDB nor have any reviews been written on the project, but I assure you I will pre-order my copy the moment it becomes available. The same goes for In Memorium.

Anniversary of Anarchy
As many of you my dear duly devoted lifetime readership know, in an effort to illustrate absurdity by being absurd, last year I single-handedly invented a holiday, Insured Motorist Day. Today is the anniversary of that holiday. Many I’m sure have forgotten about this little incident and many more do not care, but WE WILL NOT FORGET! I had great plans to have a gala of sorts to mark the occasion, but now that I’m a deadbeat part of the white collar populous (translation: I stare at a computer screen all day and people call me thinking [rightfully so] that I am a computer god and thus pour out libations unto me) I did not have the time to do the fundraising nor establish the committees. However, I am confident that the five-year anniversary will contain such a gala with fundraising and committees and so forth. In lieu of fundraising and committees, I offer Drax0r’s Rant in D Minor where he discussed 7/11 convenience stores on 7/11/06.

From Blogger News Network:

Demonstrations are scheduled around the United States today as thousands of protestors are expected to take to the streets and demand a path to citizenship for the nation’s 12 million illegal immigrants. Protests are scheduled for almost every city in America with the notable exception of Atlanta where immigrants are afraid of new state law that takes affect in July. The law requires that individuals who are seeking non-emergency state benefits be in the country legally. It also penalizes employers who hire illegal immigrants, and allows police officers to check the immigration status of people that they arrest.

Remember last year how there were supposed to be millions upon millions upon millions of illegal immigrants illegal aliens people who aren’t supposed to be here undocumented workers that were going to march all across the nation in preparation for their liberation on Cinco de Mayo? TeeVee stations nation wide looked for huge crowds of illegal immigrants illegal aliens people who aren’t supposed to be here undocumented workers to photograph yet they could find NONE! because the media had over-hyped the situation.

Furthermore, what is all this happy horseshit about demand[ing] a path to citizenship for the nation’s 12 million illegal immigrants? Since when does someone who is here ILLEGALLY have the right to protest to become a citizen? I don’t get it. I’ve been hiding under my shell not paying attention to the news thinking that last yeare was a once and done thing and this is what I get? This country is becoming Mexico going to straight to hell.