Homestretch to Armageddon

I want to make a point that I don't believe that any natural disaster is going to tear this planet apart.  More likely some organized terrorist group will prey on our fears and coordinate some massive detonation.  If you have faith in your country's defense and security networks then 12/21/12 will be a great day.

That said, this past weekend had its mixed results, with DJing for a very nice person's rezday, attending a little of Treet TV's The Blackened Mirror ball at Club Seraph, DJing 3 times at Dat's Place, and...

...well, because those kids were gunned down in Connecticut, the Avie Choice Awards was rescheduled from Friday evening to opposite me and my friends' tribute show Sunday morning. Makes a lot of sense I know.

Anyway, there went our long desired chance to do something special for RFL during the holiday season.

I already had strong opinions about news coverage (America is so well-programmed, if our election and an obvious con having a chance at running our country were indications), disgusted with hyper-religious platitudes and imagery swamping Facebook over the school shooting.

Remember a shooting in the midwest earlier this year?  Sikhs.  Men and women.  Did you see anywhere this level of outrage?  Of course not. I tweeted as much at the time. The fact is they weren't cute little rich white kids.  That IS the bottom line. Middle American TV Perfect.

All life isn't so precious to them really.  Not if non-Christian or non-White life carries a diminished value.  I don't see most Christians as good Christians, not if I base their behavior on the missionary hype the rest of us are subjected to constantly.  They lie, steal, cheat, exploit, slander and discriminate.  Then they blame somebody else or their victims rather than take responsibility. Is that what Jesus would like done in his name?  From my understanding of their documentation - since he doesn't appear in mine - he didn't want to be praised.  Maybe he knew human nature and what would happen.  And he was right.  Those were good people who were killed that day in the Midwest, peacefully preparing a luncheon for their families. The children in the building could have been killed too. Never know what a psycho with a gun will do.

There is continued mania over Newtown CT to the point of a feeding frenzy.  People seeing it as some Lifetime Movie Network drama are moved in such a way that they're trying to access the survivors.  Their having to be sensitive and considerate to real people's tragedies and needs is getting in the way of their fandom. People who don't know them from adam.

It's a bit disgusting actually.

The atrocities our own troops have performed in the Middle East... The atrocities people perform here on kids and pets every day, to their spouses... Start with your town, your community, your home, your family and friends. It was a terrible thing what happened to those people in Connecticut. There's no doubt about that. But for the loudest wailers and bleedingest hearts from those not associated with these families there may have been something terrible which happened around the corner from them which they've chosen to overlook. It wouldn't be the first time. Just don't compromise me with it.  People rescheduling their event for the reasons they did (I checked. Nobody was related to any of the victims) and flinging our fundraiser intended to help fight cancer into oblivion will always have a special place in my heart.


btw if someone comments that I'm heartless and soulless, they're clearly not reading this post right. It's not that people are upset about what happened, it's how they're selective in what bothers them when this is NOTHING new and perhaps similar or worse things have happened which they haven't fed their attention and money into.

It's Holoday Season!

Me so horny...

Been a while eh?  Health, money, the Fall Fishing Festival... I was one of like 5 people with new stuff there.

Siri, what does it take for the idiot over there not to annoy people with his phone's walkie talkie?

I got this iPad Mini with help from selling my Nexus7.  So I've either been reading Shada or playing Chicken Invaders 3 during my commutes (now need Chicken Invaders 4) rather than blogging.

Events, events... I want to do something for 12/12/12 but I can't do it at 12. But I may do it at 7:15pm SLT. Look for my tweets and - if you belong to the group Cartoon World & Beyond - notices later today (Tuesday).

The first of holiday cheer was held in Radio Riel's Clarendon Conservatory in New Babbage by Duke Edward Pearse. I can always count on him to come up with an amazing repertoire for any occasion.

This Sunday morning will see our full edition of The Dave Edmunds Show at the RFL Holiday Expo.  Still assembling the band (not easy between battling timezones and holiday shopping).  Well... 10:30am SLT is 1:30pm for me, so morning is relative...

On 21 December I'm sure to have something. Look for that :)

December 22 is a big London Village Christmas celebration which I'll be part of. They're good people and always know how to throw a party.


And of course the diner has its annual East Coast Countdown party on December 31st from 8:30pm SLT. Mark your calendars for that!

Deselecting in GIMP and Other Sordid Tales

Photoshop expired. They have a monthly rental plan but it's for an entire suite and it's not like a car payment towards permanent ownership.

The last one I owned was to have been permanent, so apparently this concept must escape someone somewhere in the process.

Windows 8 (which is clearly not a Windows OS at all) is sure to drive masses to Mac.  Had to have been intentional.  Who owns mucho stock in Apple I wonder? That would mean a heckuva lot to invest in for new software, and that's after the high cost of a computer.

Rumor is for no extra cost you can still opt to have your PC ship with Windows7 from most big outlets like HP or Dell.

The 7Seas Fall Fishing Festival has been postponed and will commence on Friday 30 November. This gives me time to sort out some alternatives in making a build smaller and simulating an effect for catches. I completed eleven sets of shirts prior to Photoshop's expiration.

This time around I'm opting for modified prefab for the fishing spot.  I've learned people really come for the catches and a decent place to sit if they don't feel like riding a boat or balloon.

It's likely I'll ride Grey Nacht's Ducky Boat a lot.

This does inspire me.  I may make my first salvage item (catch a blueprint & parts to assemble). There's the whole scripting shebang I need to work out of course.  Once I've made the thing itself I can work out the parts.

A new rod or two, this time with flexi line.

AR: Griefer Object in Pandorus

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pandorus/32/27/84 Summary: Griefer object encroaching property & causing lag

Land Encroachment: Objects/Textures
Unfair use of region resources
Disturbing the Peace: Object Littering
Disturbing the Peace: Excessive Scripted Object

What else do you need? I say it's a griefer object.

I IMed them and no answer. But this thing is growing and not only going into my land and being a monstrous eyesore, but it crosses regions and imacts sim performance.  Please get rid of this. Or at least move it for them well into their parcel.

Good-bye Big Weekend, Hello Crazy Week

A big weekend of goals out of the way. 

All DJ gigs were a success.  Almost.  The stream deteriorated about 50 minutes into my 2-hour set at Burning Man.  When it was unable to reconnect at all I changed to my stream, which wasn't as bad but not much better until about 10 minutes before the end of my set.  During that hour of constant skips and break ups, other DJs checked into the access group chat over the same thing.  My using an alternate stream ruled out their stream provider and since the disconnects were showing on my software we could 't blame it on Second life. It's unlikely we all used the same ISP so the Internet itself is left and its routing of certain ports.  It came back at any rate...

The London Village show was a success. I've been asked to host the Saturday prior to Guy Fawkes Day (aka on Guy Fawkes Weekend), which I've accepted.

Now it's time to look forward.  I have ten days left with this trial of CS6 (I definitely like the CS5 I use at work better) before precise graphics become impossible.  This means by the end of next weekend all my 7Seas FFF and Cartoon World re-opening work must be complete.

New problem on the horizon.  Well, possibly closer.  Someone in Pandorus got some scripted pumpkin which steadily grows.  It's now a megaprim which has encroached into our properties in Hydrangea.  The lag in our region is tremendous and a common side effect of megaprims residing along a region crossing.  If you're in the neighborhood and feel the drag, make a point to give credit where due and file an AR on the megapumpkin.  You can't miss it.

You can see the SW one is encroaching into 3 other sims

Time to look ahead.

Something Dat had been anticipating for months finally happened: the landlords are selling Kittyland 5 and the nightly event is leaving Bacchus.  Tonight Dallas and I host the first prime time fishing contest at Dat's Place.  It's a nice beach rental with a spectacular view.  Here's to new beginnings with old friends.

The psychos who were banned will be getting another chance, but only one. Any ventriloquism, intentional pushing or surrounding and they're gone.  It all depends on how important fishing is to them over griefing that they want to be there.

What grew on this year's Burn2 Sculpture

Here is a guide to all the influences which sprouted forth from my campsite Stream of Consciousness currently on display at Burning Man in Second Life...

Style Branch

	Art Deco Inspired by the architects of Ancient Egypt. This angular and asymmetrical style was an attempt to lend a modern eye to elegance during the 20s.
	Googie and Atomic Age Following Art Deco came Streamline Moderne, which took the soul out of its line and often gave buildings a "submarine" look. After WWII signs and structures tried to define themselves for the future with geometric shapes and odd color schemes, mostly pastel and primary. Some say this post-deco look was inspired in part by Disneyland and the conceptual art of Mary Blair. Others by the proliferation of prefab diners. Applying this to homes, drive-ins, restaurants, hotels, etc. went on well into the 1960s, where it set the style for the New York World's Fair. My builds on Hydrangea reflect this style, as well as my fishing marina The Retro Metro in Nova Albion.
	Tiki USA's involvement in the Pacific also introduced a Polynesian influence. Mix that with Googie and you get a campy cult, which also manifested its own genre of musical styles.
	Framed Storybook Cottages Something I saw a lot of when visiting my mother's side in Alsace-Lorraine. Strasbourg and Obernai in particular. I'd never seen such detail, not even in Big Ben jigsaw puzzles.

Movie Branch

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans First soundtrack-on-film feature (versus playing a record in sync). Directed by Fritz "Nosferatu" Lang about true love reborn. You WILL weep I don't care who you are.
Back to the Future Trilogy After Buster Keaton's The Cameraman - a perfect comedy - comes the perfect epic adventure trilogy, in which everything happens for a reason and everything falls into place by the end.
Singin' in the Rain A perfect account of Hollywood at the dawn of the talkies. This has a little bit of everything in it, and beats American in Paris by a long mile.
A Matter of Life and Death Brilliant and clever tale of an RAF airman who survives his jump from a burning plane in a way no one would expect. It's refreshing to see foreigners depict American stereotypes.
Jean Cocteau He had a way of making Orpheus look like a waking dream and La Belle et La Bête like a walking Doré engraving. The moment the poet plunges into the mirror is nothing which has been replicated on film in that way before or since. Not even Eddy Grant...
Flesh and the Devil Two performers fall in love while shooting a movie about forbidden romance and scandal. You don't think that shows up on film? Hell yeah!
Random Harvest Okay so this nurse falls in love with an amnesic soldier at the end of WWI and they fall in love, start a life, live in one of those storybook cottages... until one day he remembers who he is and forgets his new life. ARRRGH!
The Forbidden Zone Danny Elfman's brother made this low budget softcore cult film with Hervé Villechaize, Susan Tyrrell, Oingo Boingo, The Kipper Kids, an obsession with Max Fleischer cartoons, old 78s, chickens, and hardly any budget, The result was a very bizarre but intriguing concoction with surprisingly successful special effects.
North by NortwestWhat do you mean you've never seen this?!

Music Branch

	The Beatles *watching Ed Sullivan* Mommy Mommy why are those girls screaming? They can't hear the music!" "Because they're crazy Dear." Even today there are very few music acts from any genre who were not even indirectly influenced by The Beatles. Which was your Beatle? Mine's always been Paul McCartney. I heard the Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey and thus started my listening the radio. He was big stuff at the time with his band Wings, and less interested in making social statements than putting out appealing pop tunes. On a trip to the UK in 1977 I acquired the single "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" which we'd never heard in the States.
	The Carpenters Sick at home and stir crazy I listened to a LOT of pop hits in the summer of 1971 when pursuing the radio, and it was a big year for The Carpenters and their multi-layered sound, which was great in headphones at my friend's house. My parents were pleased that I'd taken to someone they liked as well, and we included a concert as part of a road trip through Pennsylvania.
	Electric Light Orchestra Influences come and influences go, but I always come back to ELO. Still doing AM Radio in 1973 I caught the syndicated weekly AT40 where I got to hear Can't Get It Out of My Head once a week. By 1976 and having owned each single of theirs since AND listened to all their B-sides, I figured it was time to move on to albums. Simply this: Electric Light Orchestra picked up where The Beatles left off. And Jeff Lynne is God.
	DEVO i didn't think much of them until Oh No! It's DEVO! In 1982. That and a dream set a short distance from an atomic test site.
	Dave Edmunds High octane rockabilly strait ouda Cardiff.
	Paul Whiteman Orchestra You've got your kind of Jazz and I've got mine. It's just that most of mine are Foxtrot with Vocal Refrain

Art & Animation Branch

Looney Tunes Who doesn't love Looney Tunes? Funny imagery for kids and shrewd humor for adults.
Thomas Kinkade There are those framed cottages again, only mostly English. But still that cozy light inside. This man's work was always one step away from total kitsche, but he always maintained that distance.
Disney moment in Cinderella I knew I was going to be an artist, at least a cartoonist, but a moment of a scene from Cinderella in which the character ran into a darkened room so realistic had me hooked into majoring in animation while in High School. Yeah so what if the character was rotoscoped in the shot. This was my destiny and I had to follow.
Busby Berkley As you may suspect, Busby Berkley was in fact a drill sergeant at some point. Then coming back to the states after WWI he found work on Broadway choreographing reviews. It made sense to move on to movies, where his formations and patterns became legendary. Try the formulaic "Dames" for some of the best musical sequences.
Osamu Tezuka My earliest recollection of anime - at the time called Japanimation - was that of Astroboy aka Atom. From there was Kimba aka Leo the Lion. And Amazing Three, about aliens disguised as animals riding in a tire. Picking up my first manga in 1971 found me a host of new characters to follow, but opening a Yochiyen got me all my Tezuka favorites plus MamaChan, Magma, Black Jack, and more. He had the first anime studio and was a pioneer to Japan akin to Walt Disney.
Go Nagai Don't think I'd ever seen naked characters in a kids comic before then. He got parents in Japan furious in the 60s and 70s. But truly he did some amazing work. His original Devilman series was very sophisticated.
Ishinomori Shotaro For action, adventure, and again cyborgs and robots with hearts of gold. Much of my timing in comics came from him. At a time when I found American comics cluttered and messy, I found an appeal with simple character design yet perfect poses and amazing embellishments in manga (explosions, etc), mostly from this artist. Kamen Rider, Wild, Cyborg 009, Kikaida... these practically became a part of me.
Speed Racer Who would have thought? An animated series without talking animals or aliens etc? It was an animated version of an adventure spy thriller, and for the time it worked. When you grow up with Trans Lux' low budget dubbing you can't see it any other way and you wouldn't want to.
John Romita Sr A clean simple line, perfect poses... these are what I liked about Johnny Romita when he took over Daredevil. The only reason he left was to cover for Ditko on Spider-man. Thus a legend was born.
Gene Colan My key American inspiration stands right beside Go Nagai and Ishinomori Shotaro with yet another unique storytelling style. A man with a knack for realism straight from the hand with cinematic angles. He was like I am: see things in tones and very difficult to ink. I had resolved to pursue inking in mainstream comics as a result. We were eventually on a first-name basis but I never expressed to him my desire to ink is art and work on a project with him. I suppose somewhere up there he now knows.
Brian Bolland His inking style is unsurpassed. I wish I could do what he did, and he did it with a brush.
James Montgomery Flagg An amazing illustrator and cartoonist from early 20th century. What he could do with a few lines was just incredible. While he is known for his Uncle Sam Wants YOU poster it's the black & white cartoons and spot illustrations from an earlier time that I admire most.

Shordurpersavs
Shordurpersav is SubGenius for "Short Duration Personal Savior". It's those things which hit you hard with influence and advance you into a new phase of your life until the next one comes along.

	Tin Man Fascinating. An empty structure with a soul. I felt he had the most heart...
	Speed Racer I saw this during a visit in 1967 to NYC. I obsessed over it once back in Chicago and had to keep drawing it and singing the theme song so I wouldn't forget. Two years later we'd be moving to NYC and that's all I could think of.
	Dr Strange As long as one can go, there's always a path to redemption. I was impressed to learn that in the 60s there were college courses analyzing this Marvel comic series. I boast an impressive collection of original Dr Strange page art, and always wanted to do a piece for Marvel.
	Captain Hook There comes that moment reading the book that you realize that he wasn't the bad guy. In the original version he gets so sick of being tormented by Peter Pan that he climbs down from the ship to kneel in the water before the crocodile.
	Eddie Cantor The original King of All Media. Started impoverished in an immigrant family and became one of the greatest celebrities of his time and a great philanthropist. He also founded the Actors Guild.
	Buster Keaton Easily the best filmmaker. Director and producer AND screenplays. His Rube Goldberg engineering skills were also how he approached his plots.
	Danny Elfman Is he the devil? Is he a manic lead singer? Is he a soundtrack composer? I know him for more than Jack Skellington.
	Errol Flynn He might not have reached his full potential. Flynn was a dysfunctional genius with a great skill for the written word. He also had rage issues which turned him into a monster under the influence. Admitted that he wondered how his life would have been if he weren't so pretty and gotten away with so much. Looked 80 when he died at 50, but lived three times that. Was inspiration for the Tasmanian Devil. Many things written about him since his passing were not true.
	The EMH My adoptive persona since 2000 has been the Emergency Medical Hologram or Holographic Doctor. To interact realistically with people in a medical environment the EMH was configured with heuristic subroutines which resulted in a sentient lifeform. The story of the EMH is not just a study of an aware creature finding his place in society but ultimately the story of humanity's future and the question of whether we have truly evolved when mankind creates simulated scenarios for killing and war on the holodeck. People online don't always get that they are ALWAYS evaluated based on whether their values off the computer remain when they interact with strangers online.
	Doctor Who Damn I hated that show in the 70s. It was some crummy low-budget thing on before wrestling Saturday mornings (in NYC it wasn't on PBS). There's a different first impression between being a 3 yr old hiding behind the couch or being regarded by a film major (case in point Speed Racer, which appears on two branches of my sculpture). My first roomate made me watch it a decade later and it was painful. Something happened along the way, and now it's the best show on TV anywhere. I jumped on with series 5 in 2010, when most of that year's episodes could hold up in the movie theatre over anything out at the time.

Burn2 Draws Nigh, but first: Press Day

Done!  Save for the freebies.  I also plan to list who and what are on images in a blog post.  Except for the dead beets. 

Snurky is done as well.  She went political for her first ever virtual piece, "Venus in Peril."

Tonight before and after DJing it's prep and place gifts.

Tomorrow is press day.  I'll be loitering around my campsite to answer questions in the evening.  I suspect Snurky may get asked a few, so we may have to be on at once & not move lol.

Unless... Isn't there a decent Android app that does Second Life?  That might be the way she needs to go (I have a credit with Google Play that I haven't touched since I got the Nexus7).

The lucky girl has a name for hers...

Playing Artist

Productive weekend but only the backdrop of the main presentation of my piece is up.  Just need to launch the shordurpersavs and the influences are complete.  I have 2 deadbeats as well; watch where you step.

Animating textures is the big challenge for this.  The plasma carrying my subroutines from the memory storage unit will be routed through the build's foundation.  Right now the flow is restricted so as not to cause a distraction.

RL SL 1 2 3

Did you know that a Metrocard can deactivate?

I took a bus and subway to the doctor on Monday using my card, however both buses back they waved me thru because the card wouldn't work.

I should have hit the terminal when I was halfway home but my thought was I'd have to consult the website about mailing in a replacement.

The website said if the token booth clerks could read the card they could transfer the balance to a new card. 

So this morning I went to the token booth clerk and he said he could see the balance but that the card had deactivated. He said swipe it at a turnstyle until it lets me go in, then at the station gong out have them transfer the balance over.  I told him given what's on the card and there are no clerks where I'm going that it would be worth the fare just to do it there.

With one swipe it worked.  I rotated the turnstile to use up the ride, had the clerk transfer the balance, and he let me thru the gate.

Deactivated?

Snurky is almost done with her parcel at Burn2.  A tech at work suggested I trial Photoshop C3, which downloaded upgrades to Windows as part of its installation which has slowed my computer somewhat. But it DID install, which supports my conspiracy theory about Adobe planting a hidden timer in the registry.

I cant say I like this overblown version but it gets the job done.  I haven't had time to sit with it and may not get to for weeks, but I've got something I can use for Burn2, Cartoon World's imminent grand re-opening and the 7Seas FFF.  I've also offered to make some customs for Bacchus.

It's an interesting time, when upgrading to Office360 at work has affected a key maneuver in my Photoshop C3 there.  Wed night IT installed C5, so it's reviewing new Photoshops all around.

Last Monday while sitting in the waiting room instead of being at work, I spent time drawing out specific plans for my Burn2 campsite on the playa.  I've since taken the first step by feeding my campsite with my thoughts.  It's a small device but very significant to the build, taking its cues from a copy of my program.  Very soon will see some faint impressions.  Don't worry. Not breaking any rules.  It's just finding spots in the cracks from which to grow.

Thought I'd see things a little differently w/o
them on. If anything it all looks much flatter.

 It's now the next weekend and roots have formed. So far everything is going to plan. 

When I do these things I meet people I haven't seen in some time. I guess that's why I do it in a way :) to get back in touch with the artist colony, the folks I used to see at Show n Tell, the nice folks who volunteer year after year...

Me and Timelady Viv steppin' out at the Bluebird in New Toulouse

I had a momentary panic on the playa today.  I LOST my spare mobile emitter!  After checking and recalibrating the memory unit, I noticed the emitter had detached from the top of the device. Eventually I found it in the dust on the road nearby. whew...

Up from the Ashes: a Burn2 Surprise

It happened once before on my older PC: Photoshop suddenly stopped working. Nothing had changed or updated since the time it worked. It just stopped. With a new scanner at the time came a newer version, and that installed and ran.

Now with the VISTA suddenly it stopped again. Likewise after uninstalling I couldn't reinstall. It's not proceeding after I click Allow.  Everything else works on the computer.

I believe Adobe has set some sort of timer to these bundled versions so they discretely expire.

I've installed GIMP which certainly takes some getting used to until I can afford my own new version of Photoshop - or use the one at work? At any rate I can scan in GIMP if it comes to that. It looks about as precise in selecting as Paintshop Pro, which is not very. It won't even give me options for targa format; for all I know they all output 32bit and huge for the non-alphas.

So here I was getting ready to put the first things with textures into SL for my parcel, when I couldn't make them and my 512 was  occupied by someone else. I asked for help and as it turned out I was upgraded to what must be a campsite: 2048sqm. I'd only planned for the 512, but it will be easier not having to be too clever to meet a strict limitation.

As usual these revelations come 2 weeks before the deadline. Thanks just the same!

The carpal tunnel op has been postponed.

Eat our dust