I'm glad I haven't had to add money into SL, considering the medical bills and being two months back on rent. Last week was epic for DJing from Sunday to Sunday. Can things really be turning around for me for specialty genres and ecclectic segues? I think I'll just enjoy this for as long as it is and not read too deep into it...
My friends have settled back into the best of both worlds for their homestead: seaside Britannia at ground level and a Classic Doctor Who rpg space station way up. Not a single TARDIS landed on a fisher during Sunday's contest.
A friend of mine has moved in next door in hydrangea, which is pretty cool.
Friends and blog followers know what was planned. I'd like to think in a parallel universe out there the same planner meeting took place and it all worked out. It should have been in this universe, but these are strange times and it spawns people driven by a strange set of values. For those who came to support us, thank you, especially if you enjoyed what little we were permitted to do. A special "thank you" to Gabrielle Riel for hosting the Dark Masquerade Ball, which was amazing and added a touch of elegance to the weekend. Also as captain of Hearts and Souls a big thank you to my team for their efforts, creations, participation inworld and offgrid... everything you do counts!
The weekend ended Monday night with a St John's Eve celebration in New Toulouse Bayou. It was a spiritual cleansing with the Voodoo community, for which I played a set entirely of Cajun, Zydeco, gospel, regional jazz and blues.
Next gigs after Wed fishing are the annual Bay City party on location at SL11B Friday evening and Electro-Swing on the SL11B Cake Stage Sunday morning.
In Jackson Heights it is impossible to get away from World Cup Fever. Half the neighborhood sports their country's official football jersey. It's amusing to see entire families in matching tops.
Restaurants bakeries and bars all have a myriad of flags outside for Colombia Ecuador Brasil and many others. The dominant shirts in order of descending popularity are Colombia, Spain and Mexico. I imagine one sees more for Mexico over on Roosevelt Avenue, but overall it's Colombia worn enmasse.
A mess of flags outside a bakery
I'm sitting in a Colombia bakery for breakfast. Someone stares at me as though I'm eating my arepa wrong, or possibly because I'm wearing an Old Navy surf tee. Heh. More colors have since arrived and I have no idea whom they represent (looking them up later on the Adidas site I see they're variations of the top three: home vs away). I only saw a couple of people wearing the green and yellow for Brasil.
The people I know online get "funny" during football finals, so I keep my distance. I'd prefer to steer clear of their blind, all-or-nothing mindset until the fever passes and someone gets stupid and insults me for no coherent reason other than they don't like my country's football team. Someone tried to do that shit to me once over American football - I don't know who it was over the Giants or the Jets. IMHO New York State doesn't have a gridiron football team since they're both based in New Jersey. Anyway I'm staying away from people who are temporarily insane from my perspective until their eyes take on human coloration once again.
Which reminds me... I wonder what this month's theme for Breakfast in Babbage could be?
I have a message for your kind when you find this post.
You think you're so great, that you're above common courtesy because "this is SL," but you're not and you're not. You're just another spoiled brat who grew up in the Internet Age and we're all NPC's to you: a bunch of text on the screen. We're fodder, a body count for your whim. Press a button and see what proportion of them come running. The rest? Eh! Who cares, right? God knows why you even bother pursuing Relay For Life. You certainly have no regard for anyone else's life but your own. Running around Playing Charity will not redeem you.
Oh was it someone you knew offline?
We're different? We don't count because we're text?
Well guess what? Each line of text denoting an avatar has a story, a history, a life you're incapable of acknowledging. They could be sick, poor, in debt, healthy, busy, rich and privileged - like yourself, or maybe so pathetic they just sit inworld wondering: "gee, I wonder who will teleport me to something cool this hour?"
I'll say it again: when you pay for my Second Life. you can pluck me from whatever I'm doing to whatever you're doing. But you won't get the chance. You should have thought about the consequences of your actions when you thought I had the audacity to object to your rude behavior. You REALLY should have done since your only association is a cooperative project among two groups and your behavior impacts on your group's reputation.
Taking responsbility for one's actions. It isn't just for the other guy you know.
You think you're so hot, but you're nothing more than a toxic cloud now. Yes, no more a person to me than I was to you. You may garner favoritism and sympathy from friends because I'm male and you're female, and they may choose to believe your embellished account (as you conceal your actual role in this incident, your rude, unremorseful superiority and penchant for burning bridges) because you're their friend and you have such a cutesy way of typing your name out with extended characters. I'm sure you figured I had more to lose if I said anything so you took the initiative to do whatever you wanted. You were mistaken.
Anyway you had your chance to pardon yourself on the spot for your rudeness and you blew it.
Well, scratch Fashion For Life this year. I was ready to sign up but there's been no time to prep for it. Next year.
I have some more talents in mind for the Sizzlin' Halloween Weekend stream schedule, and notecards for them go out tonight. Whatever slots are left the members of Harmony of Hope team can fill them in. Notecards are going out tonight since I'm not getting answers via IM. The promo poster looks good; anything with the right mood and can be read from a distance is good. Someone on their team wants to do PR. Fine with me given everything I have to do this month :)
Anyway I've been working on my SL11B build during breaks at work. As often is the case, the bulk of it involves texturing. Lots of Sharpie this year.
It's now time to reserve the RFL campsite space. I know whom I'd like to be near and whom I wouldn't want to be in the same parsec with (the latter of course would be unavoidable). I checked with one of my fave designers and she will in fact be doing something for the track again. Hooray!
We had a dumbass griefer at fishing Wed night. Bottom line: you're a guest on someone's property. Fishing is not a public event and nobody owes you a thing. I do it to give back to the best community in Second Life. I use my own money to do it, which gives me discretion over who is welcome to it. Anyone who causes trouble or sits beyond banlines is stealing IMHO. Fishing in its heyday wasn't about the prize pot, even when some like Razzap had one out. It was about the special catches and trophies, the people, and fun.
Neville wearing a Neville-inspired Go Relay! shirt
Anyway I asked in IM if they could cool it with the gun humor (said "I'm going to shoot you" to someone ahead of them in the game, someone I had just said we were happy to see her back and with us [following her ordeal with chemo]). Holy crap talk about clueless. They went on and on amd riled themselves up with very little coaxing. A day later I hear he's muted by many people and has had alts on banlists. Every eject is a difficult move, but I don't feel so bad about this one now.
What made it poignant was that no sooner had I ousted him from the property with a flurry of idiotic rhetoric coming back in via IM than the scene shook and we had a sim restart countdown. The contest ended well before then but with 37ish to go it went back up to the 200s in the countdown. That's when I went to the stability of Livingtree sim to make an AR. I have a screenshot of the Hydrangea scene but there's no means to submit it. If it weren't for the "reset countdown" I would have assumed this was part of the rolling restarts. Anyway if it's a viewer or sim bug then LL can toss it and we'll rest easy that he is a harmless little sociopath.
Which brings me to pursue what I can do to disable this shaking nonsense. Whomever came up with that was on drugs.
Tonight the final SciFi Convention fishing contest. While I can't really stop freakeh from fishing there, I can give the con security team a heads up in case he tries anything.
When I was in Jr High
On Auditorium Day...
A Wednesday...
We saw a film.
It began with a family picnic, then zoomed out exponentially
Until we were in space
Far, far away from Earth
From even our solar system or galaxy.
Then the view came crashing back
and into one of the picnickers
Zoomed in, again exponentially
The film left us at the subatomic level.
It was a very disconcerting end.
I bring this up
because this film has served as a unit of measure for me
The Big Bang is like this film, and with it all existence.
Society works the same way.
Regard if you will why De-evolution makes sense...
From the big bang
to a cohesive galaxy
to a system
to a planet to forming an atmosphere after having broken free from the sun
to settle into an orbit
to cool down
to form life
to freeeeeeezeannnndtoooooo
yesIknowitwasfromamassivemeteorhit but indulge me
and then a thaw
reconstituting materials for life
forming civilizations,
developing, progressing, annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd
we've hit our peak havent we?
We're falling backwards.
Our civilizations are falling away faster than we can progress,
the climate is crumbling
we're moving minutely towards the sun
(not the biggest reason for climate change, I learned about direct rays in school too)
The direction our planet takes seems to have an effect on us.
Like Power of Ten.
We are de-evolving.
We passed the tipping point.
We are DEVO
Where will humanity
or what humanity finally becomes
finds itself in the end?
Will it be lost in a sea of viscous, chaotic material?
Will we lose our cohesion?
Only the next Big Bang would tell
But that's another film entirely.
