Some Thoughts and Ramblings About SL

It's been a long time since I've posted a non-release post on this blog. With the advent of the fashion feeds came upset about those kinds of "non fashion" posts and so I censored my love for rambling, sharing my thoughts and my days with my friends and customers who read this blog. Perhaps I shouldn't have, but my desire to appease the masses of feed readers won out.

Today, I'm breaking that silence with something I feel very strongly about. Does it belong on the fashion feeds? Maybe. Maybe not. But it needs to be thought about and talked about and this is my blog. You're welcome to not read it if you only want the latest release. But if you're concerned about Second Life, and you love or even hate this virtual world we live in, I ask you to humor me and read on.

This morning on the XStreet scrolling "latest post" bar something caught my attention. Often something will, and I'll read it only to find it's a whine party or has turned into a troll feeding. I was happily surprised to find this instead; Reply to M Linden's Blog: An Update on the Linden Dollar posted by Servian Serevi, an obviously thoughtful and passionate resident and creator.

The thread is long, but definitely worth reading. Read it over your coffee, over your lunch break, tonight after dinner, on your iPhone in the bathroom. But, please, read it. The whole thread. As of this morning, (I make no guarantees, it is the SL forums after all) it's a fabulous discussion and one that warrants further thought.

I intended only to comment about how great the thread was, and how good it felt to see some honest and constructive communication happening. Instead, it became a heartfelt plea. It became about the amazing designers and creators that I share my days with. Those who fill my windows with laughs, frustrations, excitement, exhaustion, camaraderie, love and magic that can only happen through this amazing medium we all call our Second Lives. For some of us, it's our real life jobs. It's what feeds our kids, what puts gas in our tanks, pays the rent and the electric bill. Those are the ones I found myself speaking for, and to.

And so I share this with you, in the hope that it brings some kind of passion to the surface for you, that it activates your heart and your mind and your actions in this other world we all share.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I sincerely hope that someone in a position of authority at the Lab has read this thread and takes it to the powers-that-be. This is, without a doubt, one of the most poignant and constructive threads I've ever seen on these forums. It didn't turn into a gripe-fest but offered honest criticism and suggestions for making "Our World" a better place.

Back in my days as an LL Approved Instructor (yes, I remember the dinosaurs, too) something I used to tell my students was, "If you can dream it, it can happen here." I believed that with all my heart. I brought my brother in, and he created a skateboard/music shop, and a skate park. He brought his real life passions into Second Life and was able to build upon them and share them with others. Last month, I told a friend of mine about Second Life and what I do here. He is a fabulously creative person and does art as his living so he was naturally intrigued. He downloaded Viewer 2.0 and lasted only a few hours before he moved on to a different virtual world where he has started a *very* successful business. We long time residents have screamed from the rooftops the problems with 2.0 only to be ignored. When I asked him why he didn't stick around, he said the EXACT same things that everyone in the many 2.0 threads have said were the problems. All I could do was nod my head and agree with him. It was then that I realized "If you dream it, it can happen" had died somewhere along the way.

As someone previously stated, we are all yelling "WRONG WAY!" only to be ignored. We *are* the heart of Second Life. We know its good, its bad, and we've loved it anyway with the hope of the bad becoming less and the good continuing to grow. Sadly, it has been just the opposite. The negatives are far outweighing the positives at this point. We want things to turn around, or we wouldn't continue to log in, we wouldn't continue to put our hearts and souls into creation, expansion and exploration. As part of a unique creator's group in-world, I hear more and more the heartache of the creators who have made this world the rich and varied place SL has been. Long time residents and staple store owners are giving up, packing it in and heading out. It's disheartening and upsetting to watch this happen day after day.

The heart of Second Life is still beating, but just barely. If nothing else comes from this thread but that M reads it, I'll be satisfied with that, at least we've been heard. I don't expect miraculous changes overnight. But miracles do happen, and with all my heart I want to believe that it's not too late to say "If you can dream it, it can happen."

Out t' sea

This mornin', I woke up t' "Mommy, Kenny spilled th' box o' cat poop." Some days be better spent in bunk. Wishin' ye could ship th' rugrats ou' t' sea. Days like today, 'tis actually encouraged!

Good thin' 'tis International Talk Like a Sea dog Tide!

Thar`s a fun wee seafarin' hearty name quiz here if ye want t' find ou' yer seafarin' hearty name. I stole 't from Black Ethel Kidd, better known as Shelly Toonie o' Moonshine.

Be havin' fun wi' 't! An' share yer seafarin' hearty names!

Here`s me buccanneer name.

My pirate name is:

Captain Bess Vane

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. You tend to blend into the background occaisionally, but that's okay, because it's much easier to sneak up on people and disembowel them that way. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Kitty needs a name!

Thursday of last week, the neighbor's kitty ended up in our house over night. Our two-year-old immediately claimed it as his. I spent all day Friday finding out which neighbor it belonged to, and Friday night the rightful kitty owner came to pick him up. Our son cried like his little heart was broken, and it was so pitiful that I cried, too. Needless to say, Saturday was spent on the great kitty hunt. We hit every shelter within an hour of us in every direction, and a few of the pet stores, and this was the only one that ranked as "Mine."

But so far, we're unable to come up with a name that our (very opinionated) two-year old will accept. So here are some pics, and if you have any suggestions at all, it'd be greatly appreciated! Kitty goes to the vet for a kitty check today, and they kinda want us to have a name for him.

Everything is Borked ™

Most of you know this already.

If you have purchased something and haven't gotten it due to the borkedness™ please send another note card. You aren't the only one who is losing inventory, not getting delivered items, etc etc.

At this point, I believe to be caught up on all customer issues. So if you're expecting something and haven't gotten it, give me a holler and let me know. I'll need all the usual information again, transaction number, date, item, destination.

Please note! If the destination is Haedon Quine send the note card to her. I cannot verify purchases that went to her, and vice versa. Please contact whichever of us is listed as the destination on your transaction information. That will expedite things for you.

Customer issues aside, I have a confession. I've had zero desire to create anything for a while. I've played with the Eloh skins, and have some that you might actually be seeing sometime soon. I've spent months trying to figure out sculpties and how to make something that wasn't a phallic stand-in. I think, maybe, finally, I've got it figured out to a large degree, and I picked up some sculpt maps on SLX (who knew branches made good hair?) which also helps supplement my less than fabulous sculptistry.

I know most of you are aware of the IP rights campaign.



The content theft has really been a wet blanket to my creativity. It's really hard to want to create something when the fear of it being stolen is ever-looming. And honestly it's taken me this long to come to grips with it. Just when I think I'm okay, someone else close to me has something copied and I take a few steps back. It's really discouraging and sometimes down right depressing.

And this post has now been sitting unpublished a few days (so I'm likely behind again, lol!) because I found one of my styles stolen again. It's been duplicated and mirrored. So far I've only been able to find pictures on ads for said hair, the hair itself doesn't appear to be in the boxes. Which is strange, and maybe someone else got to them first and has filed a DMCA for their own style resulting in removal of all of them at that location. I don't know. But I've spent a fair amount of time trying to track it down so I can file DMCAs.

See what I mean? Just when you start to think "Okay, I can do this," and reach down to grab your bootstraps, someone kicks you in the behind and shoves you face first in the mud.

Anyway, I'm hopefully back to the grindstone now. I just wanted to let you guys know I hadn't been eaten by the asset server, too.

Tag I'm It!

Ryker tagged me, and I'm just now getting to it. Cause honestly I had to wait for a book to end up on my desk that wasn't a board book. So, here we go.

The Book Meme

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

The Tao of Equus

'The only way you'll be able to wake up from your own nightmare is if you start paying attention to all your feelins, in the present. In fact, I'm going to step off my soapbox now, and ask Noche to help you work on it.'
Because Joy was in such a dissociative state, I decided to let her simply groom the bay horse, hoping he still might help her gain a better understanding of how she lost contact with herself when she felt threatened.

And I'm tagging:

Arabeth Laval
Ciera Bergman
Sachi Vixen
Annyka Beckers
Shelly Toonie

I'm a donut too!

I saw this over on Berry's Blog and couldn't resist.

Krispy Kremes. Lord, had I known when they went public with their stock, I'd seriously have gotten like 100 shares. Anyway, here's my donutality. Strangely enough, it's also pretty much the only kind of donut I ever eat.

You Are a Glazed Donut

Okay, you know that you're plain - and you're cool with that. You prefer not to let anything distract from your sweetness. Your appeal is understated yet universal. Everyone digs you. And in a pinch, you'll probably get eaten.

What Donut Are You?