Carnivale Time!

Partying & fishing in Maison Bleu for Mardi Gras

 

Mardi Gras morning.  I took off a long weekend as I do each year.  In New Orleans everyone is off from work today.  Either you join the throng or watch coverage on TV.  It's like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade but all day.

Rogue ride through New Toulouse - image by Robin Sprocket

Second Life is Second Life.  As great the spirit is in New Toulouse, no one gets that Mardi Gras in New Orleans bears little resemblance to Carnivale in Rio.

Rogue ride through New Toulouse - image by Robin Sprocket

In Brasil the elabourate costumes and scantily clad dancers are iconic.  Just as with the Macy's parade the people on the float are incidental in New Orleans.  They almost always wear harlequin style or French Revolution with color and scheme to complement the floats' designs.  They are faceless individuals behind masks who throw beads and trinkets. The float is the thing and up for an award.

Rogue ride through New Toulouse - image by Robin Sprocket

Mardi Gras runs for several weeks to give all the Krewes their chance to make their routes.  Many krewes consist of several subgroups or "inner krewes" (if only one team with one float paraded it would very short :P).  The krewe declares a theme and their inner krewes run with it.

Collision with the streetcar - image by Panza Eilde

This is all very layman. For a better understanding of krewes and New Orleans during Mardi Gras visit this website: http://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/schedule/parade-info/parades.html

Yes, there is even a Krewe of Chewbacchus for SciFi fans!

Want to say here that I don't object in any way for incorporating Carnivale practises with Mardi Gras tradition. It's great and what makes Second Life special. Here we create our own culture unique to anyone else.

My annual Mardi Gras party w/a final fishing contest in NT

I can imagine had I never left that I would be in Krew Delusion; I'm acquainted with some members via Second Life.  Through them I've learned that being in a krewe is a year-round thing, from marching in the local St Patricks Day parade to raising money for charity.  Krewes are very special.

Partying in Maison Bleu

New Toulouse was party central for the long weekend. The Mardi Gras parade was a challenge last Saturday but a lot of fun.  We had some technical incidents which defied logic, like inexplicably landing hundreds of meters north on a sandbar in another sim. Carter DJed for the estate stream, which no one can top. I got to hear Carter 3 times :) with Nawlins and Chinese New Year stuff. I had two events, today my annual Mardi Gras party. Later several hopped on the float and I took them around the city. Thanks go out to Robin Sprocket and Panza Eilde for the snapshots in this post.

Petunia's Crawfish Dumpling Wingding for MG & CNY w/DJ Carter

With Mardi Gras out of the way, it's all about Relay For Life with some preliminary planning for SL10B and 7Seas Fishiversary's Wood-themed anniversary. I've become co-captain with the Aether Chrononauts which give New Toulouse a reliable connection to resources and a definite Relay presence.  Bay City is on board too with its own contacts. Steampunk and Dieselpunk will share a presence together (I suppose we're in between). Too soon to tell whether Skybeam will join the team this year.

It's never Mardi Gras without Carter's celebration at Madhu's Café

This Thursday: World Tunes during Fishing!

I've always wanted to do a "world" set at one of my places.  The International Hour during last year's RFL weekend was very well received and I shouldn't hesitate now that I run my own biweekly events AND run an establishment with a French name.

Soooo...

Thursday the 31st's Fishing in New Toulouse will feature a set of song sung in anything but English.

Tunes will include:

Old Jazz classics
Electro Swing
Alternate takes of top 40 hits by their original artists
Covers
Cajun
An excuse to play something by Kyare Pamyu Pamyu

Languages will include:
French
German
Spanish
Italian
Swedish
Portuguese
Japanese
Klingon
Hindi

How about that? And all danceable.

They're wondering whether I'll play anything in Korean...

I'd include Chinese but it's impossible to rip my 80's Leslie cassette.

Will I see you at Maison Bleu tomorrow night?

Bullies and Bums

What a difference two weeks makes in Second Life.

It's now springtime on Skybeam. Beautiful. I always whine and say that winter is too short, then I look and say "Ahhhh"

Cordova Level Griefing at Dat's Placezzzz

We were griefed last week at the beach.  For some time this jerk in an insultingly stereotypical gay cruiser avvie would shove between a hetero avvie couple and lean against the male and start sweet talking during fishing contests around the grid.  He seems to have gotten away with it enough (thanks to incompetent fishing hosts, who think that they're being paid JUST to click a START button).  First time this happened I contacted the site's owner, who was shocked & considered giving his hosts banhammer access.  I told its victims that the snert wouldn't last long at Dat's or my places. 

Finally he came to Dat's last week when I hosted. I IMed him immediately that if he approaches them he would be gone.  He did his usual shove routine and went up against the guy. I froze him, then kickbanned him. Then he replied to my IM that he was done and he'd be good.  I told it that he sure will - from 45m away.  The result was an accumulation of self-replicating griefer balls outside the property, raining  down "Yif off, fur fags" posters on a quarter of the beach. Yeah I know: infohub noob griefer shit.  I just let everyone know how to turn off particles.

He then started to sweet talk in group chat, something 7seas Sass had been waiting for.  They were careful up until then about keeping antics out of 7Seas' jurisdiction. After that evening he was never seen or heard from again in 7Seas Social... Btw I think it's a female and I think I know who it may be. Obviously nothing better to do with themselves.

Witchwoods... New Toulouse... Musical Sims...

It is winter in Gabrielle Riel's new community.  For a week Carter's World Music show was practically lag free before more renters came on the sim.

One of my friends has a cottage by the sea w/cable

My discombobulated friend left New Toulouse last week with little word. Rumor is she expected an estate manager position and took her toys and left when it didn't happen.  Sigh... Illusory power... Thought New Toulouse meant more to her as a community. Guess I was mistaken.

I know from unqualified estate managers.  As I was looking around last week at witchwoods to see where assorted friends landed, I was accosted via IM in a manner not unlike from a territorial redneck.  Clearly someone didn't want my kind there.  Note that I said managers and not owners. Owners: nepotism only goes so far sometimes.

7Seas' Women Under Siege?

So what is it about females who are being victimized in the 7Seas community?  Second friend in a year told me that a lunatic tried to bully her from out of the blue to be his sextoy.  Could it be the same one who chased a mother of two from Second Life in 2012?  For sure the wrong one left Second Life! 

Remember when there was a G-Team?  Remember when a Linden Lab CEO cared?  Wtf is this "be my sex slave or I'll hack your account" shit?  A crime's a crime and this person needs to be taken offline and either into an institution or behind bars.  I told her you should have said you were an over-65 grandma and your husband just saw his chat." She laughed. We haven't lost HER yet at least.

New Toulouse en Fluxe

New Toulouse in its recent incarnation

Change can be tough, no doubt about it.

When you're steeped in commitment but have lost the spirit, what do you do?

You may plod on as best you can with what you have and hope it doesn't show. Perhaps you get your friends to take on some of the tasks which once energized you and which now feel like a dead weight on your back. Suddenly there's gravity in a virtual environment. Once you thought it was doable with everything else in your life.
Hey, it happens.

But say you've become attracted to something else. Another genre perhaps? You begin to feel that old magic again. If only you could unload the current project and start this one.  With all that you've learned and all that's going on in your life, you're confident it could all work out if things were done on a much smaller scale.

But no, you can't let people down. They rely on you. They look to you not just as a landlord or landlady but for guidance and the occasional dance party. This project is sustaining itself, so why break what doesn't need fixing?

Of course I'm projecting.  I couldn't begin to guess Gabrielle Riel's RL beyond what she's shared with us as her residents, and that's already a considerable hand dealt.  Add to that the virtual: running a series of web-based radio stations out of RadioRiel.org and the New Toulouse estate. This includes coordinating the past few years of Mardi Gras and hurricanes and monthly soirees and then some.

New Toulouse is an oddball theme in the great scheme of things Second Life.  It is presently 1912 there, which is post-Victorian and pre-Jazz Age.  It doesn't really fit it into Edwardian because it isn't British.  I'd call it early 20th Century Americana, only a lowdown Cajun-Immigrant corner of it. No illusions within the illusion.

Many residents like myself were attracted to it by way of a RL connection.  I was born in New Orleans.  A neighbor is into all eras of Jazz and hosts live talents regularly.  There have been Ann Rice fans establishing another kind of nightlife in line with her novels, and they've maintained a full residence in their cemeteries.

Radio Riel provides the soundtrack for many Second Life genres with a gamut of musical styles, among them Baroque, Dieselpunk (between the World Wars), gothic and experimental (aka Steampunk channel), and more.  The Steamlands appear to be Gabrielle Riel's affinity, with a presence each in Caledon, Steelhead and New Babbage, as well as sidetrips to Winterfell and Seraph City. 

Many years back when the owner put the estate up for sale, she took the plunge and saved the day.  New Toulouse had not only a dance hall for Radio Riel, it was Gabrielle Riel's domain.  A stream was added to RR's repertoire, the only stream named for an estate; it has been the perfect soundtrack.

Did I see signs?  Of course. Several on many levels. The most prominent of them was her decision to turn a discarded NT sim into the epitomê of gothic New England for an HP Lovecraft festival.  I knew the sim would remain beyond the festival and Halloween.  In November there were plans to rename it to Witchport, open it up to rentals and attach it to New Toulouse via a homestead water sim.  Many Taloosters and post-Lovecraftians expressed interest in moving over to early 20th century New England with options to visit via boat.

Witchport on a chilly winter morning

About three weeks ago came the news that she would be putting the estate up for sale.  Witchport would continue as a separate entity from New Toulouse: a much smaller project and better suitable to work harmoniously with her other projects and RL. If nobody took the estate over by the first of the year, the sims would be sold off one by one.

Naturally there was panic. I think we all looked around for an alternative, but we already knew that there was nothing like New Toulouse on the grid. Anything claiming any resemblance to New Orleans looked like a Linden Labs sim with stuff plopped on it. New Toulouse has a look and vibe which instantly transports you to a place, and no one's come close to that with this theme.

I got to thinking: If nobody stepped forward - not just anybody of course - there would be no Mardi Gras, no hurricane, no Madhu's Café. The latter would continue somewhere else; I frequented Carter's place before NT so that will live on wherever it ends up.

I asked one of the vampires. When New Toulouse Jardin (what became the Lovecraft sim. This was previously NT's upscale garden district) was decommissioned over the spring/summer, they moved off-theme to Skybeam. I've never warmed up to Seraph City and don't know of any other 1920s themed sims with lax rules on dress code.

With the holidays came word that about three potential buyers were in discussion with Gabrielle Riel. An original resident had been notified and stepped forward and would take over two sims: New Toulouse and New Toulouse Bayou. NT Ponchartrain and NT Bourbon would be sold off; one has since been claimed. New Toulouse Algiers would be renamed Witchwood and join Witchport to the south. Two friends will be making the transition there, one of them Carter.

With so many people interested in staying and others having departed, there has been a fair exchange in parcel ownership. The new owners won't be lacking renters once they install new meters. There were many times NT as a whole would have no vacancies. Most of the time one or two parcels showed yellow on the map, maybe an occasional cemetery plot.

Naturally change affects people differently.  With word of the changes I was pleased. We had answers and saw a future. With word of Gabrielle Riel finding closure with New Toulouse and friends riding a landmass to her new world I'm happy.  She's handled this fairly and been helping the new owners as best she can. Gotta give her kudos.

I'm a little concerned though for a neighbor who seemingly expected everyone from four dense sims to want to squeeze into our two, so much so that she asked those not associated with New Toulouse whether they found their new parcel yet.  She hasn't spoken to me since that day.  The neurotic in me suspects that she interprets my laid back behavior as non-allegiance. We had previously discussed the pros and cons of places we had both escaped from before coming to NT.  I don't want to see her turn into another "us vs them" type, and I'm aware she may be in shock and just need some time. Hopefully she'll snap out of it and get back to her old self, welcoming residents and visitors (including ex-pats) with equal enthusiasm.

IMHO nobody should be judged because they choose to keep their parcel in favor of relocation. They weren't any more or less of a resident. Everyone has their reasons for being where they are, and if somewhere else suits them or they came to NT because of Gabrielle Riel and her events, so be it. She's a very good landlady and maybe some want to continue being somewhere she's in charge. At any rate they're all welcome to my place. Nobody switches off an interest in music or art because they've moved. If Gabrielle Riel wants to hang out when I play 20s tunes that's just fine.  And she knows I'll continue to show up wherever she has a party going. If Madhu's is in Witchwood then you'll find me there on World Music night.

The only thing likely to deter me from continuing in the revised New Toulouse is how the estate is run. Naturally a certain estate buttinski would be grounds to leave if he were added as a manager. While this is far from their genre of interest, power IS a genre of interest unto itself and he'd be attracted to with claims of experience. Happily he hasn't been in evidence.

I was invited to groups these past two days. K.I.S.S. I always say.  People sometimes think an event or place needs a group for each minutia of topic (RFL SLB and Burn2 all suffer from Group Diarrhea). I've only ever belonged to one group for New Toulouse: The residents group. They have a website with an events section anyone can see. If they officially choose to keep the NT renters group apart from a social group and we're no longer allowed to comiserate in group chat, I can understand the change. If all non-residents are effectively ousted from the rental group and expats benefit from a social group, I'll join ONE of them. UPDATE: The latter is the case, and all former residents should join Gens de New Toulouse ;) .

But for now, New Toulouse is saved, new owners are experiencing a steep learning curve while Gabrielle Riel brings them up to speed while the map will remain in flux just a little while longer.

New Toulouse as of this morning.

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.