these are hard times to fall in love

The CEO of Blizzard Entertainment backed down; and a large part of why was covered over on Atomic PC and What You Did There: I See It. RealID will still be implemented in-game, and as many players have said, they're not at all averse to one forum identity tied to one particular avatar name.

And I get that, believe me--whenever I post in the Runes of Magic forums, I post under the overarching name of the account, not as my individual character names. And I'm fine with that.

I just don't want it to be my real name. And neither do most of Blizzard's paying users.

Auto-translators amuse me greatly some days:

[18:11] cesar Korpov: bien
[18:11] cesar Korpov: "well well",[["noun","good","sake","welfare","benefit"],["adjective","well","nice"],["adverb","well","good","right","properly","alright","nicely","rightly","true","amply","decently","prettily","tidily","thank you"]]

Good to know, I'm sure, but I'd go out on that metaphoric limb and claim with reasonable accuracy he meant "good".

Winterfell is having to close some sims--these days, isn't everyone?--but it's always refreshing to hear people enthused about new plans, rather than griping and complaining about potential moves and sim losses.

Did you know owls transform? Or at least that one does--it's a South African beastie, called the Southern White-Faced Scops Owl. They're not endangered by any means, but they're very hard to see--even with their white-feathered stomachs (the stomach feathers cannot be used in camouflage techniques) and their intense orange eyes, they can change their shape to be viewed as a younger bird, a larger bird, a thinner predator bird, or even a tree branch!

Club Mermaid is offering free mermaid AOs plus some simple tails at their NARITA location--but while I was there I found something I just couldn't stand to live without:



This is called the Goby Mer, which apparently is based on an actual fish, the Court Jester Goby.



The only thing I don't like on this mer is the fin, or, more precisely, the elongated oval sphere that attaches to the fin. It can be modified, but I'm nearly tempted to hire someone to make a fin-tail sculpted attachment that can then be sent to this creator with the instructions that I get one, textured to match the rest of the mer!



In the end, though, for L$300, it can't be beat. It's ideal with the scaled, attached top; the top blends perfectly with the rest of the fins, and many mer retreats and oceans on the grid are still PG, so that works out. Very little of the prim attachments need adjusting; some will, but it's dead easy to do. And it's kind of an all-in one--go to Club Mer, and even if you don't want to buy the Goby Mer, you've got a shot at a free mer AO, plus three or four free mer tails! Astounding.

All pictures were taken in my favorite sea, Rua, which is back to being multi-sim, decorated, and dreamy. They even have a mer dance club now! (Just remember, with the slow-fin dances and the cuddly sits, it is a PG environment. Proper behavior--and modest tops--rule in Rua.)