theOlster.net

“Star Wars”. Two words, everyone has heard them.

When George Lucas released the first three original Star Wars, a cult was born. Popularity for these films fell into two camps, those that loved them and those that really couldn’t care less. When I first saw Episode IV (one Christmas on TV), I was six and I knew I loved them. From then on I watched these films quite frequently (although not obsessively) with my childhood friends.

I am proud to say that when we went to see Episode I about six years ago, it was with the same bunch of friends that I was with years before. The only difference this time was that my old buddies did not enjoy the experience. In fact, one of them wanted to walk out half-way through. From the media and other friends I got similar reports. I was confused.

With the release of Episode II, I received the same experience! This time I was sure that the mistake was not mine. The main complaint seemed to be with the script and the story line. Of course I argued with them on this.
Firstly, the script… I challenged them to go back, look at Episodes IV-VI, look at other Lucas stuff like the Indiana Jones films. Really, are these scripts fantastic? Remove Harrison Ford’s humour and they are really crap. But that is George Lucas. That is what we should expect.
Secondly, the story… With Episode IV - he started in the middle. There were very good reasons for doing so (see here). This led to a very immediate association with the characters. These characters we got to know and love. Episode I had to start at the beginning. New characters, i.e. not the Han-Solo, Luke, Chewie…etc. we know and love. It’s a totally different film. I don’t blame people for not loving it in the same way, but I do blame them for feeling let down.

Last night I saw Episode III. Wow! Everyone loves it, so I’m told?! But I challenge them, why do they love it. Blah, blah, better story, blah, blah, blah. Yeah right, NO! It’s just that this time the story makes more sense. Episodes I & II actually means something. Then end of a very long bridge has been very skilfully built, that puts everything in perspective. The characters in Episodes I & II make sense. Maybe he should have released Episodes I-III in reverse order? Who Knows? Anyway, I’m glad this bitching has been put to bed. I can’t wait for Episodes I-III to be released as a box set, and then I shall do as Lucas suggests. Sit and watch one episode a week for six weeks. I can’t wait.

What A long post! I nearly feel out-of-breath!

I am so proud of myself. I know, there’s no need to boast, but I’m gonna anyway!

I have moved away from blogger.com and am now writing my own blogging software using MySQL and PHP, the first of which is this. The only problem is that there are very few features so far. But seeing as no-one currenly reads this that won’t matter much.

I know that this is more for my benefit than anyone elses but here is a brief list of intended upgrades…
1. sort out anti-spam email listing (can’t seem to get it to work with PHP)
2. Menu filtering system
3. Get visit counter sorted.
4. Search tools

Oh yeah.. another thing I have never really understood podcasting, which isn’t really going to be solved without an ipod, but check out this pocketplanetradio.com. As a newbie podcaster this guy seems pretty interesting, and I shall attempt to follow over the next few weeks. And another thing, I HATE Iran!

Right, there is something I got to mention. We recently bought the Blind Boy’s Atom Bomb album:

This is quite something! I have never really been into Gospel before, but this is really converting me. I’m more: Eels, Ben Harper, U2, etc…

But if you’re not a big gospel fan, I suggest trying the collaboration between Ben Harper & the Blind Boys:

OK, ok… Geek alert!

Well wannabe anyway. I am attempting something pretty stupid, by now it’s probably too late to do anything about it, but who cares!

I hate MS Windows! So about a couple of months ago I attempted a Linux install. I have tried this out before using Red Hat, SUSE & Mandrake, but failed dismally. I either couldn’t connect to our wireless router or my NVIDIA drivers were screwed and made the whole system hang. But I got over this with an install of Fedora 3. Life was quiet.

Now, I have just updated to Fedora 4 (test 3). I haven’t even rebooted yet (I’m writing this from WinXP). But only now can I remember how hard it was to get the system up and running those two months ago…! Not only that, but this version is only a test version, at the beginning of the install I was greeted by a splash screen advising me where to log bugs! Shit!

And so I whish myself luck, and pat myself on the back, as only a bold Linux newbie should. I hope to see you on the other side!

The Olster

Further Comments 13/05/05 :

Ok that was really stupid. I’m going back to Fedora Core 3…

Well, here we go!

My first blog posting, which I’ll try not to worry about too much.

To be honest this is just a bit of an experiment really. If you were to ask my friends and family what sort of a person I am, I’m sure most of them would say I’m quite opinionated.
So I figured I’d see if I can find an outlet for this!

I recently started reading Wil Wheaton’s blog (remember the kid from Star Trek?), and only because the Linux magazine I get mentions him a lot! Anyway that got me interested, so I thought I’d try one myself…