Saving Someone to Save Yourself:

What if you had to save someone to save yourself? Maybe you were shipwrecked with a doctor that was seriously injured and you had to save the doctor because you had appendicitis and needed surgery?

But what if it was something less urgent? Maybe you needed a reason to live. Deep down, you felt it necessary to have a justification for your continued existence. Even though you didn't consciously realize it, helping someone was the justification. Perhaps it was essential for you to forget yourself for awhile and believe you were someone else, someone good.

And when you stopped believing, you died.

Simulating RL

In SL, a block of land on the grid is known as a "sim". That's an abbreviation for the word "simulation" because the servers simulate some aspects of the real world, such as gravity and wind and so forth. Most of the simulation isn't accurate. For example, in the real world, we can't teleport or fly and we actually float in water, rather than sinking like a stone.

But the simulation is a pretty good representation of the real world when it comes to the economy. In SL, just like in RL, most jobs pay so little for the time required that they just aren't worth the effort. To get ahead, you need to an equity interest in something scalable.

Boat Pron

I've been following Orca's blog. It's mostly about sailing and she encourages everyone to post a photo of their sailboat. So here's a photo of my sailboat docked at my shop. There are three sims of open water in front of my shop. It's not the Blake Sea. It's more like a great lake.

There is barely enough room on this plot to fit everything. I have the shop at sea level, another shop in the sky for vending sky domes and my Sky Bubble, and another Sky Bubble where I live. When the boat is rezzed, I have only 19 prims left. Sometimes I have to go to a sandbox to unpack if it's a fancy box that takes up a lot of prims.

Dance Invitations:

One of my friends was asking why the guys at Franks go there, but do not ask any of the ladies to dance. Faith Huet inadvertently provided the answer in her blog post the The Dance Invitation. It's this line in her post (emphasis added): Let's see if we're even compatible before we spend an hour dancing. 

Us guys don't want to get stuck dancing with someone for an hour. We're bored after ten minutes. That's pretty much the reason right there.

Faith was also complaining about guys that just IM "hi" and after she responds with "hello", she doesn't hear from them for five minutes. My suggestion is to spice the conversation up a bit by lying (the lies are shown in italics):

Guy: Hi
Gal: Hello, I was waiting for you to IM me.
Guy: Really?
Gal: Yes, I'm psychic. Do you want me to tell you what you're thinking now?
Guy: Sure.
Gal: You're thinking about asking me to dance.
Guy: You're good.
Gal: Okay, let's dance.

Conversations are a dance too. You don't always have to follow, sometimes you can lead.

J. Peterman:

Have you heard of The J. Peterman Company? In the description of a product, the company tells a story about it. Here's an example of how a striped shirt is described in the current J. Peterman catalogue, the Picasso at Vallauris:

The greatest artist of the 20th century is trim and muscular at the age of 70. Daily swims off the Côte d'Azur help keep him vigorous.

When he's not at the pottery in Vallauris, reinventing the art of ceramics, or working furiously on his latest mural, you might see him presiding at the bullring, wearing this shirt.

It's a favorite of his. He borrowed it from the local fishermen (there's an almost identical shirt in his Night Fishing at Antibes). I can't promise you this shirt will increase your creative output. But as the man himself once said, “Everything you can imagine is real.”

What if items for sale in the SL marketplace were described in the same style? Here's my attempt with one of my products, the Sky Bubble:

There once lived a littled girl that dreamed of touching the sky. Depending on her mood, her touch changed the color from blue to pink or from night to day. If she was sad, the sky wept and washed her tears away with rain. If it was winter, the sky shed fluffy snow flakes to kiss her softly until she forgot her troubles. She grew up as little girls do and forgot her childhood dreams, but the sky never forgot her.

Do you remember your childhood dreams? Have you ever wanted to touch the sky? To paint it with a different color? With the Sky Bubble you can. It's your personal world. Color the sky, change the earth or make it rain and snow with a wave of your hand. It won't make you a god, but it might make you feel like one.

Does my description make you want to buy one?

My Favorite Part:

Some people write for the masses. They try to make that one blog post that will go viral and be read by millions. I don't do that. My writing is specialized. It's for a smaller audience. An audience of one: you. Only you. The Internet doesn't need another person writing for most everyone. There are already too many bloggers like that.

What the Internet needs is someone writing for you. My writing is never going to change the world. I know that. But there is a possibility I could write something that in some small way may change your world. And by changing your world, maybe I can change mine.

I know that you don't visit everyday to see what I've posted. Most times, you're busy or have better things to do and that's okay. Sometimes you don't visit for weeks or months, and that's okay too. Because I'm going to keep writing and my posts will be here for you when you return. Like a long letter sealed in an envelope with all the hope and peace I can find.

Sometimes I don't post for weeks. I'm sorry for that. My faith is weak. It deserts me and leaves me powerless. I am ashamed of how long it has taken me to post this. You deserved to read this much sooner.

But no matter how long it may be between my posts, remember one thing. My favorite part about blogging will always be you.

The Great Desperation:

In October 1929, the US stock market crashed.The ensuing decade became known as the Great Depression because prices kept falling, i.e., prices were depressed. The unemployment rate was about 25% and poverty was widespread. There were huge camps known as Hoovervilles, where homeless people lived.

I'm wondering though, if it was called the Great Depression because of the falling prices or if because so many people were depressed emotionally at not being able to find work. That's the way I feel in the current economy, depressed and also desperate. Maybe the decade following the stock market crash of 2008 will become known as the Great Desperation.

I doubt it, though. Historians have no sense of humor. They'll just mark it down as the Second Great Depression.