Whew. That's a lot of new stuph. And I'm not even sure I've covered everything!
Plus, Spiders can now climb, Creepers are sneakier, and there are Pine trees and Birch trees along with generic Tree trees--which I believe are now called Oak. Oof. Biomes seem to work better and, miracle of miracles, when you cut a tree trunk down, the leaves die off. Not all at once, but that's still okay; that feels more 'natural', anyway (assuming the land of cubes is representational of nature), and it means you won't have leaf cubes you can't reach for a few days hovering in mid-air, taunting your futile lack of sand. Or whatever.
In sadder news, for those who don't know, an artist and sculptor of some note has passed on. In Second Life his name was Theo Republic, and, though I was far from a close friend, I shall miss him and his work on the grid.
I am very thankful to the 25LT crew for giving me the opportunity to know him at all. The first night I went to his shop, he was trying to get everything out for sale for that Tuesday's discount, and was up very late (Australian time) trying to do it. He apologized for not having the item out, decided to take the vendor back and start over--and the walls of his store disappeared.
He'd taken back his store by accident.
I couldn't help it; I giggled at the irony, then stayed to make sure it was adjusted properly--not that he couldn't have done it without my help, but he was overtired, and, as he later said, he appreciated the second pair of eyes. I related the tale of how I'd finally had a landlord put out his copy of the same treehouse I had, just so I couldn't accidentally return it while walking across the floor!
That started my at least weekly trip to Theo's sculpt shop. If I needed a specific project, I'd check his shop first, just in case. While I was never a close friend, I was friendly, and I looked forward to his IMs going on on one sculpt or another--what worked, what didn't, what occasionally needed to be replaced because again, he'd been up too late and had forgotten all the proper permissions. He was a little scattered, but he had wonderful, rustic ideas for low-prim medieval/Gorean furnishing and decor.
Theo was someone who managed, inexplicably, to touch people he'd never even met--for just one example, this blog entry on SLDiscovery.com.
For his sculpts, for his sense of humor, for his warm heart, he will be missed deeply. My sincere condolences to his family, and to his friends.
(Edited to add a paragraph I discovered tonight when I logged in, from the 25LT weekly list:
SPECIAL NOTE:
We are deeply saddened to share that a member of our 25LT Merchant Family has passed away. Our condolences go all of Theo Republic's friends and family. A memorial has been established where his store was located. Please join us in extending a note of appreciation and visiting the memorial. We will miss you, Theo.)
2 comments:
I never met him, but I often visited his shop for sculpties and he had a lot of good deals. I always thought it was sort of odd for a sculpty shop to be on the gorean discount list, but I wasn't complaining. I'm glad to see that they will try to keep his store open. I always wonder when I hear a message like this, if the person was old, if they had been sick or if it was something sudden. Of course many in SL don't give out info like their age or health so it's possible that even if his real life family had some warning it's sudden to most in SL.
It's disturbing when I think about how I would have trouble finding out if most of my SL friends had died, or just quit the game. Even the ones whos messenger or email contacts I have. One good friend of mine who I had known online for years and talked to every day, disappeared one day and didn't respond to emails which I sent once a month or every other month. She has cancer and I thought at first that she had gone back to the hospital. But after nine months I figured, well we already knew things weren't going that well, she's probably died. Nearly a year later she logs back in and tells me she did go back to the hospital at first, but then just took a break from the internet all together. Now I have her phone number and emails of two people who know her in real life, but really it could happen to anyone.
Seriously I'm tempted to play now just because of 'cake dispensers' and 'Squid' <3
And I didn't know the owner of Theo Republic but I did know of the store. It's sad that he's passed on but at least there was someone who told the people. Sometimes I wonder how many people who disappear are actually passed away and we never know. x_x
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