08 May, 2009

once upon a century, wistful oceans calm and red

A lovely cyborg avatar was seen on the Not Possible in Real Life blog. I must remember to link that in the blogroll somewhere...and take Miss Neome to see the av.

Miss Oriana Pooley sent out a missive to more than one of the groups to which I belong, giving out a SLUrl along with the staggering "information" that the Red Hot Chili Peppers were playing, live, at the Gothic Fair.

As Fawkes is a fan, and couldn't be in world, I set off to find out what this was, and exactly what she meant when she said "live in world".

What I found? A mall. And above that mall was the convention center where the so-called "Gothic Fair" was exhibiting.

Queen was playing on the land stream. And all I found was lag.

I was understandably irked:

[19:29] Emilly Orr: Oriana, that was a very crude marketing ploy, in addition to being very annoying. I'm not impressed, and I'm not happy about the loss of fifteen minutes' build time to run down something that was lagged into the next century, featuring a music stream that was not only *not* live, but nothing remotely "gothic" in nature. I'm disappointed.

Some few hours later, her response arrived:

[20:42] Oriana Pooley: (Saved Fri May 08 20:33:39 2009) ok.. sorry

I want to storm back to the IM box and say that's not good enough, but, as I get the marked feeling she has no idea what she did wrong, it would be a waste of pixilated outrage, at the least.

Photobucket

Caught at Herbalys, or at least their satellite store in the Red Queen sim, the curious specimen of Narcissus Cathodis. I'm fascinated by how this plant developed; I may have to purchase a seedling and look into its care and feeding.

Mr. Albert Beerbaum is quite the botanist with previously unknown grid-based plants; you can find his main store in Ratin, with examples shown of his entire botanical line. (Also a few candles and mad science flasks to round things out.)

I had a feeling I should organize, as the dress was not, in any way, ceasing to fight me. I turned to my tags as a--I thought--handy distraction.

I soon realized, how'ver, that as much as I may have wanted to kill every tag with five or fewer entries, some of those really fit that category. So I dropped my sights to four. Then three. Then two.

Absinthe was a category that had two, and I sighed, admitting defeat. All right, let's target posts that, after all this time, just have one entry they tag.

Surely that will work, right?

Bling for example. The one entry under that title fit equally well under "shopping and offensive so I let it go.

Duchamp only had one entry as well, this one. As Duchamp has been renamed at this point, I'm removing it, and letting love and loss guide as tags.

In this mostly photographic entry, I realized I could replace Burning Life with art and build, with no effort whatsoever.

The Edison tag I'm keeping; ditto the one for Evocative--not the least of which is I need to go back and edit that post, but also, I want to add in more trips to the Evocative sim at some point.

Fishing also will likely get more entries. I miss fishing.

I removed Lovelace as a tag because I couldn't figure out where, exactly, I mentioned Lovelace in the post that used to reference it. Lunitarium is going to be added to; and I can't think of a better descriptive tag for the one Mondserrat tag than...Mondserrat. And the post on orbiting really needs an orbiting tag...in fact, I still need to answer that question.

I am fail at tag organizing.

I managed to remove poetry; Sector 7 stays but will likely only ever have that one post; and I want to do more shoes posts because they're fun.

I took out Sleepy Hollow, even though it really deserves at least two of the haunted-house posts at this point.

I took out Southend, Tombstone (I replaced it with the roleplay tag), I want to keep the Tusk tag, but I eliminated updates.

Oh, and the cookies tag? Damn it, I have to keep that one. Because it relates back to this entry, which is important for me to read back on, if only once in a while.

So I can at least make it two: here's another recipe.

Pumpkin Cookies Recipe

These cookies are soft and moist. Be sure to let them cool completely and to store them in single layers separated by wax paper, or they will stick together in one large cookie mound.

Ingredients:

* 1 cup butter, room temperature (225 grams)
* 1 cup packed brown sugar (225 grams)
* 1 cup granulated sugar (225 grams)
* 1 cup pumpkin puree (225 grams)
* 1 large egg
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (5 ml)
* 2 cups all-purpose flour (450 grams)
* 1 1/3 cups quick or old-fashioned oats (275 grams)
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup of pumpkin seeds (225 grams)
* 1 cup dried currants (225 grams)

Instructions:

1 Preheat the oven to 350° F. (Gas mark 4, 180 C, Circotherm 160--pick what works for you.)

2 Beat the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

3 Add the egg, vanilla, and pumpkin puree and beat for another 3 minutes.

4 In a separate bowl combine the flour, oats, baking soda, salt, cardamom and cinnamon and whisk together. Slowly add it to the butter mixture until just combined, being sure to scrape down the sides and bottom once or twice to ensure even mixing.

5 Fold in the pumpkin seeds and currants. Drop spoonfuls of dough on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake for 13-15 minutes. Allow to cool on the tray for a minute or two to set, then move to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Makes 4 dozen cookies.


You're welcome.

All in all, after a few hours, I managed to only eliminate nine tags. Still...it's a start.

6 comments:

Sphynx Soleil said...

I'll take Queen over screaming death metal, honestly. I've gotten so used to running winamp and using my own playlists, I never noticed what they had for a stream.

Still.... really lousy marketing ploy. Doesn't speak well of the staff at all.

Emilly Orr said...

Yes, but you and I both know that 'goth' is far more now than death metal; it encompasses everything from darkly sweet cello studies to crunchy industrial beats.

But that's beside the point: neither Queen (on the stream) nor the Red Hot Chili Peppers (touted as playing) were 'gothic' for the Gothic Fair. Moreover, what was the point of trying to hit random groups to get people to a fair that was ill-advertised in the first place, and left out several well-known makers of gothic attire, anyway?

I'm halfway tempted to mute her on general principle. And you know how often I don't mute people.

Sphynx Soleil said...

hehehehe, yea, I don't blame ya for that one bit.

And yes, WE know goth is more than death metal, but I've run into a lot of club DJ's who *dont'* know that. Sad, but true.

And also, try here for the cyborg parts.

Emilly Orr said...

Well, yes, there's an amazing diversity to goth at this point, both in community and in orchestration.

That is truly sad to hear, but then--come on, SL club DJs. You're lucky it's not all Cradle of Filth and Danzig!

Also, hee for more cyborg parts!

Sphynx Soleil said...

Cradle of Filth and Danzig can at least carry a tune without a bucket... :-)

Emilly Orr said...

This is true. Also, it's always a source of fun that Dani Filth is pintsize. He's very nearly a death metal shoulder pet!

Okay, then, and this is something I've actually heard DJs say in world--they could be playing those classicists of emo...Nickelback.

:D

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...