Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Yes, that's how I feel now. Very relieved.

I live in an interesting area of Mainland, rich with history and culture, flanked by longtime residents on three sides and the SL Railroad. Originally someone had their paradise in the sky in back of the house, but they put it up for sale for cheap and the Jewish Neighborhood bought it. Some misguided teen made a couple of quickie profiles and plopped a swatika flag on the other side where someone had an unrestricted parcel. I ARed it and it's gone.

The ground texture might not be lush but everything else makes up for it. The final parcel in Juliet sold about two days after the previous blog entry.

Meanwhile, adding a coupla pools for Halloween has made Holodoc's Pool & Surf Shop over in Angler look pretty nice. I got more planned. Sorry, no guarantees of reproducing my Turkey Tureen Tub in Lindenese.

I've spent a good portion of my solo time in SL the past week working on an avatar I've wanted to have since Cybertown days. Someone there was very good with character construction and character animation for VRML, and I almost asked them to make it. I knew who was behind their name and a good idea of the terms they'd set for doing it, so I never approached them. But now in Second Life, this is possible. The series was broadcast in B+W, but having collected the comic I know the true colors of the character. I will debut it in Show & Tell this Sunday in a big (for me) production.

Can I Callem or Can I Callem?

Yesterday late afternoon, the sound of ~Kaching!~ and the blue window came down. It happened four times.

That mean lady she snapped up most of the Juliet land!


What did I tell you??? Now do you think I'm paranoid? Meh.

I set the remaining 512 to show in search. I figure pretty soon it will be bought up and repriced by some noodnick wannabe land baron.

An entry about the new place later ;)

I Know Things Happen For a Reason, But...

My brain is still recovering from the latest tumult of land juggling.

There was the matter of some spare 460sqm entitlement from a contribution if I were to go that route. Long story. Just when this was being researched, I got an IM from someone near the Jewish Neighborhood whom I befriended that her neighbor with the big office building set the whole corner for sale. I thought wow, because I could have had a little plot over by her.

I contacted the owner and asked if she was willing to break it up. We got to talking and it seemed she had a bigger project in mind and keeping this would kill her with tier fees in October, which was just days away at the time. She asked what did I need of it and I said I'd get back to her once I was ready.

It's funny how things work, because Someone who owned a big chunk of the sim to the southeast of me in Juliet had snapped up the land south of my place overnight. Instead of putting some one-way leaf canopy over her land, her idea of privacy was to build deliberate walls up against mine and a neighbor's land. Now instead of looking out at the sea on the horizon in my backyard, I couldnt even see the sky.

The bickering commenced in 12 hr intervals. She had sounds not restricted to her parcel; I didn't care to hear a cuckoo while I had the Oldies playing on my land, why does it have to be so high JUST to block a view below, etc.

The Jewish Neighborhood was looking better. I started thinking: "Okay, I can sell 1024 and either move the fishing where the cottage is, or keep the cottage there and put the pool and videos down in the Jewish neighborhood." I would need more land in Anilis. I left a message with my probable new neighbor asking whether the fishing rods would disturb her. Being Rosh Hashanah eve I didn't know how observant she was or whether she would come to the computer.
Somewhere during all this I realized something: I could turn the place from flat generic land into a Kinkade dream painting. Wherever I would go I would turn the property into what it had to be. It wasn't Juliet at all but me.

I left the evening with a message to the lady about needing a little over 3000sqm in all and whether she would go easy on me since I would be jumping a tier for October. But in the night, I thought a thought: If she trusted me and sold me everything in that corner for a low cost right away so she didnt have to deal with HER tier and I could give her a balance of Lindens when I either sold off some of my Juliet land back or reached a date which coincided with a midmonth paycheck...

Throughout the day this counter proposal simmered in my head. Meanwhile I met by IM the owner of the Jewish Neighborhood, who used to live in NYC. We talked a lot about art and being tragically misunderstood (I had asked if I could join her group), and we hit it off and befriended. Soon - if no one snapped the land up in the interim - we could be neighbors.

The suspense killed me all day I won't lie to you. Meanwhile, our friend in Juliet had lowered the wall by like 2m *insert rolling eyes emoticon here* and said she had put it there to block her uphill view of my holodeck walls (which is silly since she wouldnt see them with a minimum of wall there, and it still didn't justify making them opaque on my side). They had been brought into the conversation for being clear on the other side so the neighbors did not have an obstructed view - which she now caused them as well.

Her reasonings were starting to get absurd. It was then that I found she had a rental apartment business in the next region in addition to her pre-existing home. It seems to me that no matter how much land you have, someone is gonna wanna crowd you out.


Further suspense while attending a family gathering of 5 hours. This was last night. When I came home there was news. The lady wanted to get rid of all of it and quoted me the price I was going to propose as a down payment. I met her and we made the transaction. She insisted I didn't need to give her any more. We friended and I met her partner. Apparently some scripting elements she needed for her store didn't work in the region.

Some things just happen for a reason.

Pondering the phrase from my previous entry while I carefully packed up my things in Juliet, I came to realize that in the end, I was meant to have tropical for the pools and then live among culture - and by the SLRR. I guess it took some shuffling around of my scenario, and all these things moved me to where I am now.

The place is in Heterocera, the second-oldest continent in Second Life. I live by the railroad. It's a real fixer upper, but I can make it into anything.

Angling for Angler

Sorry - RL Work's been getting in the way of my goofing off and blogging here...

I saw it all in my searches: suspiciously reasonable for an old region but oddly shaped and beside adfarms and/or glowing particles, suspiciously priced but surrounded by banlines, reasonably priced but on a ledge (which means you need to spend prims making a platform and a means to prevent visitors from falling off), and one place where it would be perfect once the sale signs were returned to the seller but the vibes were "funny."

After checking hundreds of sale plots, I found myself coming back to four:

1 - One in the snow but it lagged. There were ad towers and sale signs but the purplish glow of the snow at night just seemed nice to me. Except how could I sell pools there?


2 - A hill overlooking a marina. It seemed half the sim was for sale for cheap in 1024 plots. I had a good feeling about the place from a vantage point southeast of the harbor. This was in Corsica somewhere.


3 - A perfect 2048 plot only a few parcels from a shore, the land would be sand if lowered just a touch. It wasn't terribly priced for what it was - 10kL - but it was on Gaeta, which I found to be a laggy and unstable continent after my time there previously.

4 - A place in Heterocera not too far from Flo and at the northern border of a region owned by a Jewish group which focused on culture and the arts. It has that gravel-vegetation mix for terrain, and the available land bordered the SLRR. The other side had Adfarms, but the side of the resident and Jewish sim beyond were still pristine. I referred to this as the "Jewish Neighborhood," as its only resident in that nook also had Jewish cultural references in her profile. She also had spiritual and healing refs, and her place was a welcome locale for people to enjoy themselves. I liked the Michigan J Frog she had dancing around the steps. This wasn't a pretty place but it had good vibes.

I had to wait for payday. When it came, the marina choice was obscured by some clueless lout who bought the land on the hill just in front of my target areas. They made an ugly build on a platform and backed it with a huge opaque prim. Asshole didn't think to make the back of it transparent. Looking at their profile, it was pretty laughable. It wasn't just someone into fetishism, but someone who didn't know anything else existed. "This is so and so my sister. We have so much fun together and she's always there for me - AND SHE BEATS ME!" lol mustn't forget that part or you'll leave a paragraph about getting beaten out of your profile. Well, someone should beat some aesthetic sense into her head between her cat ears. Did I forget to mention she likes to get beaten every three frames? Sorry, Japanimation joke...

since then row houses replace the back wall

I really couldnt bring myself to take the snow one. If I had lots of money I could have done something totally different with it than a pool shop, but eh no thanks. And something else settled nearby with huge laggy glowing particles; no chance for aesthetics in such a place.

This left the Gaeta sand and Jewish neighborhood. The Gaeta sand one had "Make an offer" on it so I IMed the sales person whether they'd be game to go down to 9k. I thought I'd wait another day since both of these went unnoticed before I showed up, and I had seen them untouched for about 8 days already.

RL intervened. The next morning I got a call to accompany Dad to take Mom to ER. She's fine now, but at the time we had to wait 6 hours to get her in and we would finally have lunch and he'd drive me home. When I got home both places were bought and a belated message from the salesperson of the Gaeta one was "well it's bought already." Well what's the fucking point of putting that? To mess with people? If it just had the price I might have taken it. The poor Jewish Neighborhood... while I was in ER someone snapped up the land and it now has this eyesore behemoth of an office building (I guess it's going to be a mall?) which offers no harmony with its surroundings.



But hey, things happen for a reason. Labor Day was the next day, and I spent the morning searching anew, shaking my head on some repeats, but - what's this? - a pristine region in Nautilus, all sand and most of it shoreline or islets. I met someone in the sim just west of it, who was also new and setting up a little tiki style shop. I would already have her and her SL husband for acquaintances. Suffice it to say I took one of the elevated 2048 parcels in Angler which were priced lower (hey I dont need a beach - I am selling POOLS, right?) one 2048 east of the sim border but right on the border of Seahorse region to my north. I over looked the rows of islands with their piers and torches.

My artistic instincts took over. I could not bring myself to make it tiki. I had California Surf in my head. That was what the vibes gave me. Beach Party and 60s music. The start of it is wood and tropical deco, which had further inspired me to make a line of shirts sold in posters. Suffice it to say more pools are forthcoming, but for now I am working to complete the last of the series of posters/tees and enjoying a renaissance of creativity.

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.