A-Hunting We Will Go

One day I came to my rental and found they had added "Gorean style" homes on all the plots which weren't sold. The place was mega-lagged. They had grown from two islands when I joined SL to about 11, mostly for RPG purposes from what it looked like.

I've been looking at the math. Yes, it's reasonable to pay about $8 a month for a 1024sqm plot on a private island. But where I stand now, if I took another 2048sqm of mainland, it would cost me only an additional $10 per month. This would mean lots of prims, more room for my 3D stuff, and wherever my creativity takes me.

I can't deny the math and the prospects a soft market offers. While it would have been NICE to have more land in Juliet where my home and combine the prim count, there's nothing more available.

I've been searching, having gotten keener since my early weeks, and already landmarked some unadvertised prospects in anticipation of payday.

No, I am not going back to Olexandrovich. :P

An interesting piece of opulence found out of place while exploring.

The problem lies with my nature. It's like RL moving. You go to every place and imagine yourself living there. Except with Second Life it means imagining what I'd live in as well. I'm thinking maybe I should make a few structures for shops, with different styles for wherever I end up. I can't go to some snowy area (for example) and plop down pools under a treehouse. It just doesn't have that cozy feel, you know?

He's Gone!

Remember my former neighbor in Olexandrovich who owned a good chunk of the region and made a slum and a swamp and a carnival and began building stores?

Well, yesterday I dropped in for a visit, only to find his land was empty. Apparently a divorce in the offing alas.

I suggested he break them up into salable lots of 512 and 1024 to sell so he could move them and drop the tier fees.

Those other people are still there, but the full bright particle thingie and the screens they used around my place are mysteriously absent. Hmmmmmmmmmm

You know, earlier this week a butt ugly adfarm tower showed up on the horizon. Yup, a full bright megaprim of a tiled ad, right there on the edge of the sim. It's gone now. Not sure if it was from neighborly retaliation or Linden Labs deleting it for disrupting the server. Well, as long as it's GONE!!!

Cyberpunk isn't Steampunk

When I was in Cybertown for those four years, something in particular really bothered me. There was an attempt to blur the line between Wicca and Celtic Pagan with the Goth movement, usually by the Goths. They had haunted stuff, dark stuff, bloody stuff, demonic stuff, pentagrams and pentacles... and they hawked altars and faithful witch and Pagan ritual items for inflated prices. As a witch once said: "Witchcraft and Wicca is about light and balance, and not about dressing up like Lily Munster."

I found this frivolous exploitation of faiths in CT reprehensible. It came to a head for me when someone from the Fae neighborhood in Inner Realms (the allegedly enlightened colony) posted a party for "witches and warlocks." Now, the fact is - and most Celtic Wiccans know this - a male witch is a witch. A warlock is a traitor. Warlock was a term used during witch trials to identify a husband or close male associate suspected of favoring an accused witch. This is a term which goes way back. It does not recognize warlock as being a term to identify anyone in their culture. By the way I should warn you: I worked for Random House one year, editing their dictionary. I had them change their definition of a Privateer, which they identified as a buccaneer; the buccaneers began a century later. Never come up to me with a "the dictionary says..." because I won't take that as gospel.

I wasn't the only one incensed about the term being used, but I was working for one of the colony's neighborhoods, and my discretely reporting it to colony officials was apparently their way to get rid of someone contrary with a false claim of insubordination.

But I digress...

I bring this up because of something similar I am seeing in Second Life with regard to exploitation of a culture...

Steampunk is a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction... The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date.

Steampunk isn't just rivets and steam and physics. It's about an era of exploration following the discovery of automation and steam power. It's about brass with wood, dials with caligraphy, finely crafted handles and lenses, moulding and metalwork. It's elegant and not post-apocalyptic.

When people drool over something presented by someone in leather with a gajillion piercings that's dingy with gears and piping and has an exhaust and call it Steampunk, I have to roll my eyes. They wish!

This is not Steampunk:

THIS is Steampunk:

Leave the punk in St Mark's Place where it belongs.

Hmmm

I may have to reconsider my position on Torley.

He gives out chocolate ice cream cones on his island.

Ketchup Entree

Whew...

I've been busy with my new land. I pretty much completed it, having tracked down a nice path and installed it last weekend. I think the place is awesome. The holodeck grid in the backyard is invisible to my neighbors, so their view is not at all obstructed.

The stargate is cool to have and very convenient. Admittedly I must upload more images for the gallery including a couple more angry animals for Barnyard Rage.

My only prob right now is someone who bought the land south of me and has no concept of property lines. They placed a structure over the border and into my stone wall, ASSuming the wall must have been put there by Governor Linden or something. It's a tricky one because it isn't showing on my list of objects, but it's blatantly there according to the lines. I'll make a screenie and AR if the second request doesn't result in him moving all to his land.

I'm having a lot of fun with 7Seas. I can't say it's better than Toontown, only different.


The fish are often realistic in species representation. LOL check out my gallery for the cocktail shrimp.

In other news, Snurky joined a group from the SL boards who descended on public landmarks last Saturday in chicken suits. The manager of the Blarney Stone in Dublin sim wasn't thrilled and threw us out, but later apologized. I guess the organizers of the event didn't do enough organizing this time around ;) Great photo op though. After contacting Pete for clearance, we ended up on the public beach at Munkie Island.

The foxes have since placed a bucket of KFC on the patio table.

For those who remember Holodoc as an eccentric who ran around Blaxxun in a scuba suit and flippers, Holocluck may not adopt exactly the same outfit, but he caught a pair of hawaiian shorts while fishing. It might result in something familair in time for this Friday's Blaxxun Reunion Partay.

More on that and other things soon!

Torley, We Hardly Knew Yeh

I've come to look forward to Torley's video tutorials. They've helped me with permissions settings on objects and land, shown me some clever little building tips and useful apps.

He sometimes makes things look too easy; when I installed an offline app to make sculpties, all I could do was stare at it.

Still, if it weren't for Torley, I wouldn't have snazzy big screens on my Juliet property featuring a movie clip, rock video, ancient commercial, or whatever I feel like featuring for a week or two. At this writing it's a rarely seen DEVO rockvideo, and it looks amazing against the holodeck grid. I can smile at the bits that reveal he's as Canadian as M&M Apple Pie. I was THE key rep for a Canadian website's support team for several years, eventually moving up to team lead and teaching all I knew about pronouncing and spelling and writing dates like a Canadian to a fledgling group, who would take over what one person had done. Anyway I can appreciate his attempts :)

But I digress...

Yes, Torley has lit my way through my emigration into Second Life. From what I see in the official forums, he was very dedicated as a Second Life resident, who joined them to moderate the boards. Don't know when his job changed and he devoted more of his SL job time to videos and blogs, but it seems clear that SL felt they needed an optimistic icon to represent them amid the throng, and Torley was it. He is Second Life's celebrity among its population. Oh the pressure...

...So when did he last post on the boards? All that talk about how involved he was with events and happenings in SL, and now he scurries like a clam when sighted. Hm. That doesn't sound right.

Have you ever been to his property in the Linden Village area? That sensory overload of magenta and green you can see from the map? Some pretty awesome stuff there, and a piano in the magenta green water you could play.

Well, you can't see it anymore. It looks as though he's left Linden Village for a bigger space. He now has an island to himself not far from other Linden islands (i-worlds, land concierge offices, and those gaggle of orientation and help islands allegedly invisible to residents on the map).

A lot of magenta and green, his latest tutorial viewable almost everywhere, examples of stuff, personal effects, giant eggs and chick chicks, the piano in an inlet. I guess with all he's offered there are a lot of examples.

The disturbing part is the big face. He has his own RL visage prominently displayed. It's kinda scary. It seems like 10m or a megaprim. I cant imagine an identifiable Linden using a megaprim, so let's assume it might be 10 high. That's a really poignant statement beside the avoiding the common folk.

Torley no longer behaves like a friend of the people off camera, and no longer lives among us in Second Life with the Lindens. He is now in his own world, possibly underground and out of sight. If it weren't for the giant self portrait, I think I would feel bad for him and his unanticipated fame, but it brings another image to mind which isn't as prone to my sympathy.

Still, it is rather sad that someone who devotes so much time in helping us become a part of Second Life society seems so alienated from it.

Holocluck Builds his Nest

I've been as busy as a little holographic bee.

Moving the gallery was easy. Remembering to re-set the prices and permissions (oof). At 500 and 600m the skies were littered with junk. At 700 I got vertigo. Fortunately at 400 it was clear.

The game plan was to have a nice Kinkadesque cottage. As many know, I had found one by accident. Now the owner of what I call "the hidden grove" is my friend. We traded advice and landmarks, and both did some searching last Fried Day and swapped more info as we made discoveries. My photo album Quest for a Home has screenshots from that evening among others.

Next was to set up Holodoc's 7Seas Fishing. I made a nice marble pond and filled it with flat orange soda (since I can't get it to fizz right). A matching marble pool to the side, seating for full size and tinies, streaming music set to the 60s and 70s. Thanks to Peter Lameth for adding poses to the freebie deck chairs and a handy stargate for easy access by distant travelers.