What's important to one person is often meaningless to another, but it doesn't make it any less of a "labor of love" for person doing the creating.  Think back to something you put your heart and soul into, and then imagine someone telling you that you had to have been bored, or had months of spare time to waste, to even consider doing it.  If it's meaningful to you, that's the important thing.  And I agree with you that it must have taken an amazing amount of patience to create that ascii-art movie, but whoever did it must have enjoyed the process.  I certainly enjoyed watching the outcome of his labor.

I hadn't considered what Roger pointed out above. If this is truly an expression of art, then, although I do not understand it, I must retract my comment. However, in my experience, most such "expressions" are not rooted in art.

I do agree with you that someone truly enjoyed making this. I even understand that maybe this joy started by curiosity of learning how to do something different. However, learning is one thing; a 5+ minute long ascii movie is another.

I don't mean to come down too hard on you, but I gotta disagree, and partly because I get tired of hearing the phrase "you must have WAY too much free time!" I've heard it quite a few times myself when doing something fulfilling, enjoying, stress-relieving, or otherwise good for my own self-learning, though I never hear it if I spend too much time at the office, interestingly enough.

You are my hero. I wish I could ++ that node more than once... Telling somebody they "have WAY too much free time on their hands", is the faux-polite way of saying "I don't like it". Nobody says that when they appreciate what has been done. Nobody looks at the Sistine (sp?) Chapel and says "Wow. Michaelangelo has WAY too much time on his hands."

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