Insensitive & Stupid:

A female "friend" of mine remarked that SL was filled with stupid and insensitive men. I put the word friend in quotation marks, because I'm no longer on her friends list. She defriended me, but we periodically chat because we're often at the same clubs. I don't know why she defriended me. It bothers me a little, but not enough to make me ask her about it. Some information, I just don't want to know.

I don't meet many stupid people in SL. I think she must be mistaken about the stupidity. Insensitivity is far more likely to be encountered. Since we're all mostly anonymous and it requires so little effort to block someone, it's easy to be rude or abrupt with people. Plus you can't see them cry.

So be nice to each other. Those avatars are using real feelings.

Plot Twists:

I was reading today about how to create good plot twists, and then it occurred to me that SL is great for unexpected twists and turns. Think about it, what's one of the most commonly heard stories in SL? Man meets the woman of his dreams and then finds out she's not really a woman. That's an unusually cruel plot twist. Something like that could damage a guy forever.

Or how about another common SL story, a woman finds her special prince and after a torrid few weeks he disappears. A couple of days later she get's an IM from someone professing to be his friend, who informs her of prince charming's sudden demise. The plot twist? The "friend" is really an alt of  prince charming, who's simply been avoiding her.

You just never really know who's on the other side of those IMs. Could be anyone, maybe even a space alien that's using SL to study humans surreptitiously. That's my story.

RL Photos:

What's your opinion of real life photos of people in SL? Personally, I don't like them. I have a picture in my head of what you look like based on how you present yourself in SL. There's even a sound in my head of your voice. Often, a real life photo conflicts with that image and ruins my fantasy of you.

Too much real life information can destroy the fantasy too. There was a time I knew a lady that had a very pretty avatar. Then I discovered the real life person behind the avatar was a man. Now her voice in my head is deep and low and not pretty and high pitched.

She wasn't hiding anything from me. It was right there in her profile. I just didn't know what a T-girl was at that time. Now I know.

And even if you're young and beautiful in SL, I still don't to want see your real life photo. Because now I'm wondering why you would be in SL, when your real life should be so wonderful.

Isn't there information that you would rather have never learned?

Late Summer Hunting

I've been participating in a couple of hunts, the Menstuff Hunt and the Blue Man Hunt. The hunts are pretty difficult. You never know where the items are going to be hidden. I thought maybe an item was hidden under the bridge in the water, but no. Some places you have just have to skip.

A Riddle:

“My grandmother told me that her father used to ask her a riddle: What must you break apart in order to bring a family close together?

Bread, of course.”

― Jodi Picoult, The Storyteller

How to be a Neko

What you need to be a neko:

1) Cat ears, preferably the twitchy kind;
2) Giant cat feet;
3) A large swishy tail; and
4) A lack of dignity and common sense.

It's Ridiculous:

It’s ridiculous that celebrities can spend a year of my college education on like, a necklace like it’s nothing and I can’t even afford a taco.
    -Zombieland, TX

Let's Have a Drink:

Let's have a drink in celebration and talk about art awhile. For on this day, August 16, in 1920, Charles Bukowski was born. He would have been 93 years old today, and you know he would have been drinking. It's our turn now. Here's to you, Bukowski. You made it.

a good human being may save the world
so the bastards can keep creating art
if you read this after I am long dead
it means I made it
and
it's your turn now
-Bukowski, Measurements from the Creation Coffin

A Story in a Story:

Yesterday, I discovered Jodi Picoult. She's quite a writer. I like this short story in her novel. It's two sisters talking with each other. One tells a bit of a story. Then the other sister must add to it, and so on:

  “Once upon a time there were two sisters. One of them was really, really strong, and one of them wasn't." You looked at me. "Your turn."

I rolled my eyes. "The strong sister went outside into the rain and realized the reason she was strong was because she was made out of iron, but it was raining and she rusted. The end."

"No, because the sister who wasn't strong went outside into the rain when it was raining, and hugged her really tight until the sun came out again."

― Jodi Picoult, Handle With Care

You've got to take care of each other.

Why Does This Work?

Why does this story work? There's no direct conflict. I think it must be because the protagonist goes on a spiritual character arc. At the beginning, she lacks confidence and at the end she has become stronger and healed her soul:

A couple hundred years ago, a man walked the plains of North America, in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, seeking understanding from the things of nature he saw all around him. The peoples of those lands called him, in various languages, a name which meant Wind Walker.

A couple hundred years later, he came to a little girl of 4 when she needed someone stronger than she was, and accessed his memories, imprinted on her DNA, for he was her ancestor. So she found a safe place, and reaching for his memories unconsciously over the years, became stronger than she had been.

She called him Dan. So he became Dan Wind Walker and he was her “brother”, and in some ways, he was her. Then Redtail Magic recreated him for her in SL, and she walked virtually in his skin across the Native sims and something magical happened.

In SL, sometimes a soul might heal through nothing more complicated than wearing the shell of a man who lived two centuries ago.

Does anyone know where this story came from? It was in someone's profile picks, but I forgot who. I met her in a group chat in the Menstuff group.

On our land:

On our land, we listen to BOSL radio. Great news. BOSL radio is back broadcasting music. If you haven't, you should give it a listen, not just for the great tunes, but for the crazy ad spots as well.

My New Catchphrase:

If someone asks me how I am, my new reply is "trapped on the surface of a large sphere." I saw it in a comic.

I read long ago that if your shrank the earth to the diameter of a cue ball, keeping everything proportionate, the shrunken earth would actually be smoother than the cue ball. Think how small we must be relative to the earth. Like bacteria or something.

If Someone Gave You:

     What if someone gave you a car? It's an older model, but high quality. An all-wheel drive type, precision engineered for driving. When you're sitting behind the wheel, it feels like you could drive to the edge of eternity and back.
      There's only one drawback. The odometer doesn't work. You don't know how many miles are on it. The engine or transmission or both could need major repairs next week or a hundred thousand miles from now. But at the moment, it drives alright.
      What would you do with the car? Would you use it for romantic get-aways and rendezvous's and or would it always be business before pleasure? Would you save it only for emergency use in bad weather when you needed all wheel drive, just leaving it parked most days until the upholstery dried and cracked and the paint faded?
      Or would you go on excursions to the deserts and the forests, up tall mountains, down deep valleys, and ford small streams with it? Would you carefully plan and prepare before each trip or pick up and go at a moment's notice?
      Would you take good care of the car, changing the oil every three months and making sure the tires were always properly inflated? Or would you drive it until it the tires had thread bare tread with uneven wear and the engine coughed and sputtered before you gave it a care?
      Would you drive and park boldly and accumulate a few tickets? Or would you drive and park cautiously, never taking a chance?
       Now, what if someone gave you a second life?