Steamships? Sure. Steam cars? Fine. Steam bicycles? Well, apparently yes to that too!

Also, brace yourselves: Magic: the Googling now exists. (I know. Talk about your insane Tumblr specializations!)

Four words which most of you will dread hearing: "My Little Pony MMO". I know, I feel the same way. It's not out now, that's at least one good thing. We move on.

Want to pillow-fight in style? Now you can.

I don't often refer to things I'm watching online, but I am bitterly disappointed with the Project Runway finale for this year. Bitterly, bitterly disappointed.

To get over that, I've been wandering architectural and fashion blogs, and I discovered an intriguing new alarm clock. Meng Fendi seems to be advertising it for couples, but I'm absolutely sure when it's developed, it could be sold to singles, as well.

In a similar vein, the CG Society has a fascinating concept design--which again, I'm hoping becomes reality--with their mechanical ring clock. Just a fascinating concept.

And, again in honor of the day, have some incredible--and incredibly seasonal--spooky foods.

Possibly more later, but now, off for Samhain ritualizing--and meatloaf. (Yep, this year we went there.)

Non-glare glass has been invented! I am really, really hoping this gets widely adopted, because it would absolutely revolutionize the electronics industry on a planetary scale.

Also, for anyone having problems with iDevices that play music, that ceased to play music after upgrading to iOS5...well, here's the 'unofficial' official solution. But it sucks if you have a large music library. Even worse, there also seems to be a bug in how the updated music app handles music files with variable bitrate, and...maybe it's just me, but I don't know where on the .mp3 file I'd even find variable bitrate settings!

The other problem is that the upgraded music app seems to be glitching with large album artwork. See, it didn't used to be a problem--whether it was a 100x100 or a 1024x1024 size album graphic, the app would just resize it appropriately and move on. Now? It doesn't. It wants it close to, or the exact size, that it needs the artwork to be, or it just throws up its pixilated hands and flips past the song. Argh!

Somewhat out of nowhere, because I had such trouble tracking down an online seller of this product today, have a recipe for candied winter melon. Also called wax gourd, it's popular in Singapore, but it seems fairly easy (if somewhat time-consuming) to make it yourself. For a short batch that you don't plan to be preserved for long, use the recipe as given. If you want it to be preserved long-term, then after the first batch of sugaring (and heating, and cooling), make successively stronger batches of sugar syrup, until you are left with crystallized, translucent melon sections. Good luck!

In the meantime, news from Octoberville:

[03:55] Peewee Musytari: ooh emily snuck in there....CONGRATS #274 EMILY ORR - YOU ALSO GRADUATED, PLUS ADDED CERTIFICATE FOR STEALTH FINISH hehe :))
[03:56] handyreecechalmer: Yeah. I thought she had called it a night.

I had! But then I got pulled back in for the last achievement for this year's hunt, and...well...

(from the scavenging album)

That number you can barely make out next to my name (which you can also barely make out)? Indeed, that's number 274. Used to be (back when we had wood-burning cats), the Wall of Fame capped at 250 names. This year, they hit 250, and people kept finishing the hunt. So they added another board.

Me, I'm just happy to be finished. That is a hard hunt, and pictures will be forthcoming, but in the meanwhile, I'm going to collapse somewhere. Hopefully not on a baby cobra, a burning marshmallow, or a can of gasoline. And my sincere, humble, and most effulgent thanks to everyone that helped me, which included CreamyGoodness Resident, Handyreecechalmer Resident, Dorrie Fredriksson, dante884 Reanimator, last year's Octoberville Queen, Elise Rodenberger, and this coming year's Octoberville Queen, Peewee Musytari--among others. I can't thank you enough.

There's a lot of things I'm working up to talking about--I want to do a run-through of the last-name JIRA, and I want to toss up some of the pictures I've been taking in Octoberville, but today's going to be shorter than that; this is both advice and a posting of intense gratitude towards Cherub Spectre (who co-runs Octoberville, along with Master Kaos and Nathan Oddfellow).

Last night, I wanted to get a hunt item for the Indian Summer hunt held at 22769. When I ported away from Octoberville, I had 41 groups. I really don't like maxing out my groups, in case I need one for a job slot (....notthatI'mworkingrightnowbutshhh, it's habit). So I found a store group I could leave without too much angst, and joined the 22769 store group.

I had been at 41 groups; I dropped a group, making it 40; I joined a group, bringing me back to 41. Then I ported back to Octoberville.

When I returned, I had 39 groups. And one that wasn't there? Octoberville.

Frankly, I panicked. It's bone-deep in me now--I can't leave Octoberville as a group, I lose my ranking. And in that sense, I don't blame them, because Ms. Spectre was constantly (may still be constantly) getting IMs saying, "yah I left the group 6 mos ago can I have my rank back now?"

And the answer to that, of course, obviously, is no.

But I didn't voluntarily leave the Oville group. I know that because I've never taken off the notification button for leaving groups. If I leave a group, I want to be asked if I'm leaving. The only pop-up I had was for the Ambrosia group--and I was asked if I really wanted to leave, to which I pushed the Yes button.

I wasn't asked that question about any other group. And yet, I left with 41 groups, and came back with 39.

(I still don't know which other groups I lost--everything looks like it's still there, and--after rejoining Oville last night--I'm up to 40 groups. I know I lost something, though. And yeah, it bugs me.)

But I was in panic mode, so I sent a notecard to Cherub Spectre and Master Kaos. I didn't realize until I opened Ms. Spectre's profile that she states there to contact her, or Nathan Oddfellow, with requests.

Oops.

But I hunted about in Octoberville, solving occasional quests, getting frustrated at not finding other items, until it was time for bed. Having sent the two "halp, halp" notecards, I figured that was really all I could do. The rest was up to them.

This morning, I woke up to this IM in my email:

[8:49] Cherub Spectre: This is why we have people register on the site. I was able to verify your rank and gave you your epic tag

Cue huge sigh of relief.

So yes, much gratitude and full props to Ms. Spectre, thank you thank you thank you, and for everyone else, if you're interested in maintaining rank at all, register on the website. It's www.octoberville.com, and they have forums (for those what like the chat option), a place to upload a pic of you for a little profile section, an online web HUD that tracks what you find in the game, videos, polls, Facebook updates (not that I care, but I know I'm in the minority with Facebook loathing), and more. And they're still working on making Octoberville a PC game.

For the rest, yeah, I'm pretty sure we're in another unstable portion of SL's weekly run. From the grid status site:

Ongoing Issue with Offline Regions
Posted by Status Desk on October 29th, 2011 at 02:10 pm PDT

[POSTED 10:08AM PDT, 25 October 2011] We are aware of a problem that causes regions to go offline more frequently than normal. Our developers were alerted to the issue over the weekend and continue to work around the clock towards a solution. We understand how disruptive this is to your inworld experience. If your region is offline, please go to your support portal and submit a case using the following types: "Land & Region" > "Report an Offline Region". This queue is being closely monitored to ensure the fastest turnaround possible. We will post an update as soon as we have more information on resolution.

So, did that have anything to do with losing groups on teleporting? No idea. Also, I find it odd that that paragraph was supposedly posted yesterday, yet is dated five days before.

Odd, that.

But yes, the grid's still flaky, it was flaky yesterday, it's been off-and-on flaky since the server upgrade...this really isn't anything new. What is new is losing the groups I lost...but at least one of them (and to me, the most important one) I've got back.

Sometimes, we get a simple, easy solution for things. It's always nice.

This is going to be another clip entry to dodge what I truly want to talk about, because this is a blog I've tried to keep focused on the virtual (and technologies, music and movies that support that virtuality), and what's happening in Oakland is all too real.

So, first up: have some instructions for a Jack-o-lantern flamethrower (which, by the way, the creators absolutely do not encourage anyone to make on their own). But the instructions are there, and the video on the page is pretty fun to watch in general--though if you blink, you'll miss it. (Head on over to Instructables for the technical details.)

Next, the "Not Okay" campaign--which has a valid, simple message to begin with--is (as are most things) perverted by the internet. Go us. Seriously, I think the 'parody' posters have just as much of an impact as the actual ones.

Next up, if you're the sort to favor tea or coffee (or absinthe), you tend towards wearing black and pairing it with more black, and you occasionally like to set a more formal table? Meet your new sugar cube purveyor. You can buy them decorated or plain, and you can even order a tall apothecary jar packed with delectable pale skulls to stir into things.

There's a Nyan Cat launcher on the Marketplace; apparently (at least in damage-enabled sims), it works fairly effectively (though people near the one wielding it might complain about being killed by rainbows instead of bullets).

Next, the Kickstarter campaign to "hire" Qarl Linden to fix mesh has been fully funded. Me personally, I'm not entirely sure how that's going to work--because if the Lindens won't integrate the code patches in their actual viewer releases, it's just going to be those TPVs that can get it to integrate with their own viewer code, which yet again is going to break down the grid into the "haves" (those that can see/interact properly with mesh objects/avatars/landscapes), and the "have nots" (those whose systems can't run the mesh viewers, and thus cannot properly see mesh objects/avatars/landscapes). The avatar thing is especially worrisome, still, because if you're not on a mesh viewer, and someone wearing a mesh avatar walks by, initial reports are still that you'll see them naked. Which is a reportable offense in PG areas, so...yeah. That's still kind of a big deal.

Next (and also from NWN), Will Wright is joining the Linden team. So...we seem to be moving from the hideous forced integration of FacebookLife, to the more "game-like" potential of SecondSimLife...and to be frank, well, we're already kind of there anyway. It's not so much a bad idea in my opinion, as it is a strange one. But we'll see what happens when he comes on board.

I'm wholly on board with cyberpunk; I've made my peace with steampunk; I'm even okay with dieselpunk. But "methanepunk" is going to have to prove to me it has a right to the name.

On the other hand, microbial home decor makes sense to me. We've had microbial waste reprocessing technology for some time, that takes waste material into the top of the column, and turns out oxygen and pure water at the other end of the column; it works faultlessly. (It was originally designed for the planned trip to Mars several years back that, err...never got off the ground. So to speak.) And expanding the concept to generate methane to fuel household devices, power lights, and be used to sprout hydroponic food seems like a great idea.

(Of course, on the other other hand, this is the sort of thinking that could lead to insular underground warrens, a la Vault-Tec, but mayhap I'm quibbling there.)

Finally, let's play a game of Find Your State, and then you can figure out what's coming to get you. You're welcome, and I hope it helps to avert great and monstrous catastrophe this holiday season.



Happy Halloween!

Why yes, it's another clip post. (I am trying to minimize them, I've just been scattered lately.)

But we're going to start off with a picture gallery of the world's largest pumpkin being carved. They picked a really, really impressive carver to do the deed.

Also, this is full of so much win I can barely stand it. Halloween light shows--who knew they were becoming popular? But this fellow went all out with it, stringing up thousands of LED lights on 1,144 controller channels (using the Light-O-Rama system), and a ton of song-based programming so actions mostly match up with lyrics. An incredible amount of devotion went into this.

(Amusingly, same house, completely different song and programming, and it's still cool. Oh, and if you didn't see the connection between LMFAO and Halloween? Well, their video for Party Rock Anthem features rock zombies. It also features singer and photographer Lauren Bennett, inexplicably, but hey, pretty girl in a party mix? Likely never a bad call.)

Ars Technica recently reviewed the Maylong tablet, available at the staggeringly low price of $99 from Walgreens, of all places. It's an incredibly harsh review, but from what I've been reading, also incredibly true. It seems like it would be a far better deal to take that $99 and buy several iStyle decals, a mirror, and a thick plastic frame, and glue everything in place, because it would work better than the Maylong.

Not to be outdone, though, BBYOpen's Joshua Kahn thought that Ars Technica may have been too strident about its utter uselessness, and to prove the point, came up with fourteen tried-and-true uses for the thing. I guess the end result is...do you want a mini cutting board, doorstop, and portable whiteboard enough to pay $99 for it? (Because, seriously, in that case? Chunk of wood from Lowe's and a couple pieces of sandpaper, buying a mini whiteboard, and buying a mini cutting board will cost you $20, max, and that's IF you're not shopping around for deals.)

I'm also bringing you the penguin sweater project, courtesy of Mr. Drinkwater, because I can.

And the Gutters blog brings you both the one-page explanation of the X-Men: Schism series, and the one-page superhero reaction to Occupy Wall Street. You're...welcome? (Though to be fair, I am interested in reading the X-Men book, now, and that's the first new comic book in a while I've been interested in reading.)

Someone took a clip from the second ever broadcast Doctor Who episode, wherein they address the "First Question" to brilliantly minimal effect. (What's truly interesting is that I found that mention when Mr. Allen tossed me this link, to a special Doctor Who mini-episode written by a group of schoolchildren at the Oakley Junior School. Even more impressive? The winning students were invited to the studio in Cardiff, where Matt Smith congratulated them personally. Now that's a boost to educational efforts everywhere.)

Finally, getting to Second Life-based news, Ms. Uccello Poultry takes on the next generation of SL viewers, in a fairly detailed review. Good, clear pictures are always a bonus; but for me, what she says is more important than what she shows.

Also of note: when she uses it? She's still crashing on nearly every teleport. The new beta release is that unstable, still. We're all hoping it gets better, not worse.

A new boycott of the grid begins. This time it's starting in the art world, because of the Lindens' incredible and inexcusable mis-handling of SL-to-HTML blocking. Without concrete communication and a prioritized technical issues queue, she's going to leave the grid.

And if she goes, there are a lot of artists that will follow, I have the distinct feeling.

Your grid is DYING, Lindens. Why don't you stop it?

In an update on the megaprim issue from yesterday, more information (if only on a slight amount) has been published. Including the start of a JIRA file on the issue--and a reminder, folks, WATCH, do not VOTE, the Lindens no longer respond to votes cast, only watchers watching the issues.

Keep in mind that only Crowley Avro's prims seem to be affected. Megaprim creators whose creations will NOT have been returned:

Anya Ristow
Ceera Murakami
Charles Fauna
Dawn Ireton
Gene Replacement
Moy Loon
MrsDay Oh
Research Projects
Winter Ventura
Zwagoth Klaar

But if you built with Avro's prims? Your builds are now toast. If they show up in your Lost & Found folder, again, you seem to be able to re-rez them without issue, as they've reversed the decision, but this still affects more than a few sims, and more than a few builds. This was a rash and ill-considered action, indeed.

In the meantime, this weekend the Labs are holding a land sale! Get any homestead at a $375 discount, get any full region at a $1000 discount--and that, to me, is nail-in-the-coffin time, because if they're that desperate to get new owners of sims onto the grid, then how many sims are leaving--or have left already?

I'm tasting ashes on the wind, people. This is in no way good.

First there was this:

[POSTED 10:35AM PDT, 20 October 2011] Due to a change we recently made to address a griefing problem, some megaprims were removed from the grid, which has affected users’ creations containing these megaprims.

The issue has been resolved, and the megaprim objects can be re-rezzed from your inventories at this time. If you do not have a copy of the affected build, please go to your support portal immediately and file a case.

Then there was this for (minimal) explanation:

[21:10] Txxxxx Mxxxxx: so [whose] mega prims got dumped this time?
[21:12] [axxxxxx Zxxxxxx]: Crowley Avro but they are back now

So check your builds, people, be aware there might be an issue.

Researchers at Microsoft are working on ways to turn hands into touch-screen devices. Well, not just hands, specifically--any surface. Right now, it's buggy, and the initial coding is not recognizing things efficiently, but they're working on improving it. Their concept is that it will be far easier to utilize computers if they are portable, and do not require specialized equipment to access.

And...now the painful bit. For once, I'm omitting the name of the store involved in this, because I don't think the main point is which store this happened in; for me, the main point is that it happened at all.

From Thane Woodford of Raven's Heart Sculpts:

If you were a member of Builders Brewery or the name now intrigues you …
Their bot had an issue and ejected most of their members, from 16700+ to now 434. So, to help you rejoin, here is group slurl secondlife:///app/group/04f595b0-cdc8-97f0-e710-9564824c03b2/about
Thanks Azure for getting the info on it.....Thane

Now me, I don't know what the issue was, but I wasn't one of the 434, so I logged back into the grid and re-joined. If you were a member, check your group list; rejoining is free. If you weren't, right now they have a Halloween build (the same cemetary structure from Pravda, it looks just as wonderful on their sim as in the Lunitarium haunt) where you can pick up lots of group-made freebies--if you're a group member. Plus, Builders' Brewery has a long-standing tradition of classes, instructional help, in addition to having a lot of items to build with for free, for cheap, and for reasonable prices above and beyond.

Frankly, if you build in SL, there's not many good reasons not to be in their group.

Just in time for the sacrificial season, comes the cuddle altar! No, I don't know why either, but hey, now you know there is one. It...proudly?...joins its fellow WTF builds like the sex coffins, the sex bookcase, and the bondage pickle. (I wish I were making that last one up. Thankfully, it seemed to be a hunt item, so might no longer be available.)

Miss Tateru Nino talked with Rhett Linden about the upcoming new UI, and there's some good (as well as bad) news found in that article. It's well worth the read, and does at least seem to indicate that (at least on alternate Sundays, when the third appletinis have kicked in fully along with the local intoxicants of choice) they're listening to grid residents. Well, some of the grid residents. Well, some of the time.

At any rate, Nalates Urriah took the first iteration of the build for a spin (as she put it). She also notes the laundry list of current bugs:

• The Viewer floater camera views and presets do not work.
• The Nearby Voice panel does not update to a new call or from
• nearby voice info once opened.
• Viewer crashes when updating UI size in preferences.
• The Speak button is activated when dragging and dropping between
• toolbars and/or moving back to the Tool Box.
• Viewer crash when moving the speak button from one toolbar to
• another when there is an active call request.
• Teleport history doesn't display visited locations.
• Viewer crash when double-clicking the mini-map in People & Nearby.
• Notification and conversation chiclets overlap.
• WASD controls don't move avatar while the Move floater is in focus.
• Closing voice controls while a group or p2p call also closes the
• group call/IM window
• Viewer crash after teleport
• Hitting back in the 'Create Group' panel or 'Blocked' panel requires multiple clicks for action to occur.

Bolding mine, and damn. So basically, right now, it's extraordinarily buggy and glitched all to hell. But how does it look?

Like this. And frankly--and I know, this will shock some long-term readers--I'm not disliking the look.

I know, I know, I am a fervid, avid, if not actively rabid detractor of Viewer 2, and of everyone--Linden and non-Linden alike--who had a hand in coding for it being dropped into an oubliette without internet service for the next forty years. That being said, however, this particular UI build looks clean, uncluttered, and it still looks like I can find everything.

Instead of a massive sidebar eating real estate on the right-hand side, by Ms. Urriah's description, we have individual icons tucked away on the left that open into moveable, floating windows. Along the bottom, we don't have a massive set of doubled bars with buttons, we have again, individual icons that when pressed, seem to open up what we need, only as long as we need it--the friendslist, the chat bar, help for new users, et cetera.

Also, it seems to have adopted more 'game-based' movement options--instead of walking forward with the arrow keys, now it looks like we'll have the option to click the ground ahead of us--something I got far too used to playing Runes of Magic--and we will move to that spot. I'm liking this potential, if it stays in the viewer.

Now, there's a LOT of info in Ms. Urriah's post, and it's picture-heavy--both of which are good things when talking about a new viewer. Something did pop up for me, though, that's setting off alarm bells, and it's not the crashing on almost every teleport. (Like that doesn't happen now some weeks, this is not just the new UI, it's Second Life in general.)

Here's the passage in question:

"It is fast. In my cottage I’m getting 35 to 45 FPS on my 8800 GTS Duel Core2."

Why is that a big red warning sign for me?

Listen, I know the way of the world is moving towards multiple cores in computers, I get that. I'd love to have a dual core system. One of my friends has a quad-core system, and there's talk in the works of either releasing--or possibly already have been released--an octo-core--that's eight processors in one.

But right now? Single-core. Single-core old. That's what I've got, and I'm on one of the faster computers in my house. So yeah, that's siren time for me--it may work (eventually), it may be very fast for her dual-core personage, but on my aging Pentium 4? Not even sure I'll be able to run it. Which is definitely on the depressing side.

Oh, it's been a busy couple of weeks. In between doing everything else that my RL, more game-based virtual (and occasionally SL) lives demand, I've also been trying to put together this year's haunt!

Which has crept along, very very very slowly, for two reasons:

1. I just didn't have a lot of time; and

2. I started late and frankly, was dragging my heels about finishing, because I wanted to be done already (insert whine here).

Go to Lunitarium if you wish to see it; this year, it's mostly quiet, though there is a small dollarbie hunt, per my usual, and next year, I simply must start planning earlier in the year!

Assuming SL still exists...

ANYWAY! Haunt items! They are as follows:

(from the haunts album)

This is this year's Samhain season fire: for 2011, it contains a dressform, a hatrack, some utility horses, a tablecloth, a few large logs glowing with embers, and a few other scattered odds and ends.

(from the haunts album)

A Trick-or-Treat banner. Slight glow, and it flickers!

(from the haunts album)

I know, it's not December yet; just think of this as decoration in advance. T'is the season?

(from the haunts album)

This is actually an art piece. It has a fair amount of glow, and some very odd poses, and I've been poking at it off and on, in various iterations (I think I'm up to six in inventory). This was the Second Iteration, and--barring, you know, the poses on crack--looks pretty good.

(from the haunts album)

Two haunt gifts in one! Well, no, they're in individual prizes. On the left: a grouping of three Jack o'lanterns in red-tinted skin; on the right, a grouping of three Jack o'lanterns in black-tinted skin.

(from the haunts album)

And this is one of actually four variants--they're all square (and obviously, they'll look better on earth, not wood), they all have pumpkins, but two are green vines (like the one shown above), two are dying golden vines, and in the other direction, two have scattered smooth round pumpkins (like the ones shown here), and two have scattered multi-sized pumpkins.

(from the haunts album)

And this is one of two 'Pumpkin girls' I made this year--this is the charred version, with limbs starting to collapse at the joints, and propped up on different, smaller pumpkins. There's another version with more connected limbs and a star-covered, dark red pumpkin for a head, but she's...kind of wet.

Like, skinless wet. I figured I'd keep that variant off the blog.

(from the haunts album)

The bulk of this year's build (really, it's just the cemetary and an 'upstairs' skybox) mostly comes from one phenomenal set piece created by Pravda Dark Couture. It's amazing, it's fabulous, and both it and the space to hold it has been graciously donated by Hank Rucker. I only wish I had more coherence on the build (though from now until October 31st, when it closes, I'll do my best to add things when I can to fill it out).

(from the haunts album)

And this comes courtesy of Mm. Sphynx Soliel, who helpfully informs us that the road to Hell is paved with...yeah. Exactly.

Well, I told myself no more clip entries. And at the time, I meant it. Days like today make that stance really hard, because so much happened!

We're going to start with Barnes and Noble, who's being very, very dim about digital distribution. Basically, they approached DC for digital rights to distribute their top 100 DC graphic novels (most of them Vertigo titles, originally) on the Nook Color. DC said no.

DC then said yes to Amazon Kindle Fire getting that same deal, and from everything we know, Barnes and Noble lost their minds. I do believe it is the first time that a brick-and-mortar business, to protest digital sales, has pulled physical printed books in retaliation.

And for me, that's far from a good sign.

Meanwhile, Facebook got caught in a direct lie; the problem is, it's not the first one. And the bigger problem is, they're not the only one doing the tracking.

Given ten more years, we'll have a whole new working definition of what privacy means.

It is now possible, says the New Scientist, to encode messages in bacteriological DNA. While I realize my musings on this topic reach into the realms of outer hyperbole, I'm still giggling at the mental image of some document service in the future being asked to translate a snake.

From Cute Overload (trust me, I don't anticipate linking from that blog that often) comes a walking AT-AT (Greyhound model). The pup doesn't look that comfortable, but at least it seems semi-well designed.

From the wilds of the SL Marketplace comes the Human Fish avatar! Um...I think when people say "Half fish, half girl", that is NOT what they mean.

Due to massive online (and offline) protesting, involving thousands of emails to their office, actual letters, letter-writing campaigns, petitions, and a ton of negative press, Netflix has decided to junk the whole Qwikster concept. Great idea, geniuses, but could you have done that before you made the announcements, so you wouldn't have lost 25% of all accounts and an insanely huge market share? Way to keep failing.

Some enterprising young Minecrafter wrote a program that replaced all mob spawns with Endermen. Then he sped up the day, removed sunrise and sunset, made every monster check for an action 40 times a tick instead of once, and...well. This was the result. About 200 years of Endermen-based ecological devastation.

Finally, someone found some archival footage of early motion-capture actors (wherein the actor sits and performs a scene, while being sketched; the days of dot location and greenscreening were still far, far in the future) leading up to the Alice in Wonderland animated feature, and paired it side by side with the finished reel. It's fascinating, especially as Walt Disney seems to have simply kept the audio from the test session!

And my goodness, isn't that enough for now?

Oh, wait, no...there...is one more thing...

I'll just leave this here. (That image may be NSFW, even though the lass in question is facing away from the camera. You'll see what I mean if you click it.)

Being awake and trying to return to sleep, I found mention of a notecard that arrived at my abode. I logged in to read it, and found mention of an old entry made during the Peaster's Castle hunt run:

Hi there,
i have just been reading your blog spot on Darkness Falls. You made it interesting and captured the feel of the sim well so much so i had to read it 'til the end. However, one of the creators of the sim is a personel RL friend of mine and [was] horrified to see that you are telling everyone you think the child sculpts are from Vooner. All the children, trees with faces, shrooms and monks are sculpts belonging to Lauren Bentham, and can be purchased ONLY from Bentham Manor (her mainstore). I too own a store in SL, and would be extremely annoyed and upset if a blogger did not research properly before commenting on where items can be purchased. I just thought i should bring this to your attention so you can correct it.

Thank you

Tamrielle Halderman

I checked it out; not that I don't trust either Miss Halderman or Miss Bentham, but I had made the error once, and I didn't want to do so again.

First of all, you'll want to go see Bentham anyway; I had been there, several years back, but it's changed remarkably (and for the better, I might add). However, you can find the Crying Child sculpted figure in the house (I believe it was retailing for L$275), and many of the other set pieces seen in the Bentham hunt sim are comparable, or lower. (Most do seem to be no copy, however, if you contact Miss Bentham directly, she states she's happy to sell no transfer versions instead.)

[20:09] ẔẍỷṰḧῒᾆῆ [Zxxxxxxx Wxxxxxxxxxx]: Yawns and closes.
[20:10] [Qxxxxxx Hxxxxxxx]: i never understood why ppl need to make a statement that they are closing the window lol
[20:11] [Vxxxxx Cxxxxxxxxxx]: because it doesn't make a noise otherwise??
[20:11] [Lxxxxxxxxx Lxxxxxxx]: i dunno [Qxxxxx]. maybe they think theyll make a silent point?
[20:15] [Lxxxx Mxxxxxx]: because it's not a flounce unless someone knows about it :-p
[20:15] Emilly Orr agrees with [Lxxxx]

As given in slightly more detail here, I am unfortunately driven to release my parcel of Caledon Morgaine. I have adored it there, and adore Caledon still, but without a steady income (and without my partner's steady income, as she's been released from her work as well, due to the estate company's sudden closure), I have to give up Morgaine. It is my greatest wish at this time that I do not have to give up my small island off Winterfell Laudanum, also...but I am something of a fatalist, and if it happens, I will find a way to cope.

It is a small 1024 section on the main Morgaine Bay, barriered on one side by water, and on the other by the range of mountains that lie between Caledon Wellsian and Caledon Morgaine. It is partially under Morgaine's Floating Mountain, and has a magnificent view of some very pretty builds.

I am asking L$950, solely to reimburse the week I paid so that I would not default; there are thirteen days (as of today, 7 October 2011) remaining on the tier.

However, as I want it to sell to someone who will both treasure it, and to transfer it before I have to hand it back to Desmond empty...I am entertaining all offers.

And tragically, I do mean that. Please leave a message here, or IM me in Second Life, or draft a notecard and drop it on my profile. This greatly saddens me, but I am trying to see my tragedy as a boon to some future tenant of Caledon.

Please, if you are at all serious about owning a section of Caledon, please contact me.

I am so completely confused.

[17:30] [Jiffy Wonderlube]: [Exxxx Rxxxxx] are you stupid or you are born with

That's how a chat group popped open for many of us this afternoon.

[17:31] [Nxxx Rxxxxxx]: O.o
[17:31] [Ixxxxxxxx Sxxxxxxx] blinks
[17:31] [Mxxxxxxx Gxxxxxx]: huh?
[17:31] [Fxxx Mxxxxxxxx]: excuse me
[17:31] [Mxxxxxxx Fxxxxxxx]: born with what?

And it went on that way for a while, because we were all confused.

[17:31] [Jiffy Wonderlube]: never you can eject me for nothing
[17:31] [Mxxxxxxx Fxxxxxxx]: really
[17:32] [Sxxxxxxxxxx Pxxxxxxx]: O.O???
[17:32] [Sxxxxx Nxxxxxxxx]: Good for you, sparky? xD
[17:32] [Jiffy Wonderlube]: you think you are the king of world
[17:32] [Mxxxxx Ixxxxx]: BORN WITH WHAT?!?!?!

Still a good question. Of course, what with the server updates this week, group chat is fried right now, so chat lag is transposing a lot of things.

[17:32] Emilly Orr: Whoa, whoa, whoa, this is the first line of chat I saw. What's going on?

Hence, my seeming entry into the conversation two minutes in.

[17:32] [kxxx Kxxxxx]: O.O
[17:32] [Fxxx Mxxxxxxxx]: [Jiffy]
[17:32] [Mxxxxxxx Gxxxxxx]: that's not very nice
[17:32] Emilly Orr: [Jiffy], calm it down, we don't know what's going on here
[17:32] [Mxxxxxx Dxxxx]: ...We never said anything about ejecting. You have the wrong IM you're pushing enter into

Which many other people pointed out, after. She apparently would have none of it, and kept protesting.

[17:33] [Ixxxxx Rxxxxx]: i think he or she accidently put in wrong chat
[17:33] [Jiffy Wonderlube]: you are so stupid for hear me im here for play not for war stay at home
[17:33] Emilly Orr: [Jiffy], calm DOWN.
[17:33] [cxxxxxx Cxxxxxx]: dude its a troll i am pretty sure

So at this point, we were all pretty sure she were mistaking the group chat for main chat.

[17:33] Sakito Nakamichi: And you're still tryping into the wrong chatbox, sparky. x3

Some of us even told her so.

[17:33] [Jiffy Wonderlube]: yes sorry im up set so sorry
[17:33] Emilly Orr: Just remember, [Jiffy]--group chat here.
[17:33] Emilly Orr: Not main chat.
[17:34] Emilly Orr: Which makes me wonder--what's going on at the store, people?

I still don't know, but I did feel the urge to try and talk to her directly:

[17:35] Emilly Orr: Seriously--what's going on at the store?
[17:36] [Jiffy Wonderlube]: sorry just i think eecho hera that now i use this media
[17:36] Emilly Orr: No, there's a difference between main chat, and group chat
[17:37] [Jiffy Wonderlube]: yes i know lol but if im mute i cant lol
[17:39] [Jiffy Wonderlube]: im drow and one time i visit drow castle and im ban and now ejected

And here's where my head began to seriously tilt. Unless you're dealing with a psychopathic store owner, there is no earthly reason why a polite visit once will get anyone banned.

(And if anyone's thinking I mean the lass behind Grumble, I don't--I bitched about her fashion sense, she banned me, THAT part I have no disagreement with. And I'm not saying she's a psychopath.)

But while I was trying to figure that out, she said this:

[17:39] Emilly Orr: What happened the day you were banned?
[17:40] [Jiffy Wonderlube]: from taure ru and now drow groupp
[17:40] Emilly Orr: Alia doesn't have anything to do with Taure Ru, I don't think
[17:40] [Jiffy Wonderlube]: im for the justice eecho not king of world

So...if I'm processing this properly...Alia Baroque runs Fallen Gods. (Obviously). Someone else runs the Taure Ru sim (plus their nine thousand RP groups, and that's also obvious). Why is she thinking that Alia = Taure Ru?

[17:41] Emilly Orr: Fine, but you do realize you're trying to communicate that through the Fallen Gods store group, right? Which isn't a specifically Drow group, or an RP group
[17:41] [Jiffy Wonderlube]: i lost access and many friends
[17:41] Emilly Orr sighs
[17:42] [Jiffy Wonderlube]: yes its neccessary because this shop is very good and many drow buy there

Yeah, no, it's NOT necessary, UNLESS you've actually been banned from there--and if you were banned, why aren't you out of the store group? Most people with half a brain (and Alia is very far from stupid) ban troublesome avatars from their groups AND their stores, so...?

Still very confused.

[17:42] Emilly Orr: Okay. Breaking this down.
[17:42] Emilly Orr: Alia =/= Taure Ru
[17:42] Emilly Orr: Taure Ru is its own sim and guild
[17:42] Emilly Orr: Now, you were banned from the Fallen Gods store?

And half a minute went by with no reply. Then this:

[17:42] [Jiffy Wonderlube]: but its ok now have fun all huggz and kiss
[17:43] [Jiffy Wonderlube]: you can ban me i buy other place
[17:44] [Jiffy Wonderlube]: i want only justice

Okay, HEADS UP for the slow kids in the audience, which apparently includes the Drow princess [Jiffy]: I DO NOT RUN FALLEN GODS. Who the hell did she think she was talking to?? I'm a vaguely interested bystander, at best.

I mean, look, wrong windows can be forgiven, it happens a lot--I still shake my head at the woman who openly kicked someone's chained lady bits in Rag Dollz, and it took her half an hour to figure out why her chained submissive wasn't responding!

(Not that that wasn't an amusing half hour.)

But even so, this was profoundly not a wrong window. This was someone, essentially, protesting McDonald's and doing so standing in Outback Steakhouse. The wrong place, the wrong platform, the wrong concept--and to this very moment, I don't entirely think she's smart enough to figure out what happened.

Other than she has a complaint damn it and she will be heard for justice. From someone. Who most definitely isn't me.

There's a lass I follow on Tumblr, who goes by LaurenNotJordan on YouTube, and she has some really insightful things to say about Doctor Who and about storylines in general.

Imagine my surprise when she turned out to be auditioning for season two of the Glee Project.

Personally? This would be a small-time fandom plus if one of the biggest Doctor Who fans on the net becomes part of the New Directions show choir, but...that's me, I happen to like the show.

Also? She's got a great voice. I'm looking forward to the possibility of her showing up on the fannish show of fannishness (because seriously, forget other reality shows--The Glee Project only exists because fans wanted more Glee. Period).

Continuing from yesterday's WTF entry on comics, now we have Dan DiDio commenting that no Crisis events ever happened in the new DC reboot.

What?

No, he's serious:

"For those in crisis over Crisis, let me clarify. The topic of Crisis was much discussed among the editors and talent working on The New 52. With so many characters and histories restarting, major events like Crisis are harder to place when they work for some and not for others."

So, for the uninitiated, this is what he means:

• Zero Hour: Crisis in Time: gone
• Crisis on Multiple Earths: gone (does this mean Earth-2 is also gone? If so, this affects a ton of the Flash comics.) Still, this was the first book, and people found it confusing, so it was merged in a retcon into:
• Crisis on Infinite Earths: which is now gone
• Identity Crisis: gone (even though the rape of Sue Dibny was a huge crisis moment for the comics fandom; I guess now it never happened? Does that mean she never died?)
• Infinite Crisis: gone
• Final Crisis: gone

And, as that article mentions, anything leading up to, or leading from, these events, is also gone, including:

• Batman R.I.P.
• and Batman Inc.

That's kind of a lot of comics, DC, including some that were either hotly defended or decried (both of which drive up sales) or that were fan favorites (thus driving up sales). Now, every single hero has only been "hero-ing" for five years. None of them have that much past history, at all.

I can't shake the feeling that DC is shooting themselves in the foot, repeatedly, and changing guns on occasion to get more firepower and a larger blast radius.

Do you ever look over at your collection of floppy discs and sigh, wondering what you can do with them? Are you not close enough to an ecological recycling center to just turn them in? Well, now there's hope. At least, for one disc at a time.

You can turn the best of the best floppies into USB drives. (In point of fact, he's even put up video how-to on YouTube. It's a little complicated, but a really fun rebuild.

So, first came a mention on the Gutters comic about the overt resexualization of Starfire. And I was confused, because, let's be honest here, I haven't had time to do more than follow the reboot mentions (though I have been assiduously following those). So I went looking. And a lot of things turned up, including Michele Lee's original 'open letter' to DC Comics, but the Comics Alliance article was the first one I stopped and really read thoroughly, over just skimmed for content and moved on.

It does pain me a bit to say this, but--after reading both Lee's and Laura Hudson's articles--I'm kind of on their side. Believe me, I am BEYOND tired of feminists ranting that female superheroes exist only for sexual gratification, because seriously, there are--and there have always been--tight outfits on either gender, throughout comic book history. But there is that issue of perception. The new DC reboot does seem to be saying that if you're a hero, you're a strong role model, and you don't need to do anything but be that strong role model.

But if you're a heroine...well, your main purpose seems to be posing. It's not about saving people, it's not about strong empowered women who serve and protect...No, really, it's about cheesecake poses, and that specifically arched back that pushes your breasts out to maximum advantage, and sleeping with everyone. For great justice?

Somehow I doubt.

Essentially, "hero" now seems to equal "strong empowered male" and "heroine" seems to equal "eye candy".

(from the media album)

I mean seriously, at that point you're wearing what amounts to a collar and a latex thong; just build your own dungeon and take clients, or go into lingerie modeling. Fighting crime in that kind of outfit just doesn't make sense.

(from the media album)

(But then, to be fair, putting Starfire in thigh-high boots as an interstellar teenager didn't make much sense, either.)

That costume makes me think, too. Mainly, of another comics heroine I used to follow rather religiously:

(from the media album; Vampirella in the Warren years)

This? Not exactly a good thing. Because let's be fair, in my town I was the only female who bought Vampirella as far as I could tell. Shocked the store owner for a solid year when I'd come in and grab the latest issue of OMNI, then tag on Vampirella, and Heavy Metal if I could afford it.

And, as much as I enjoyed Vampirella as a comic, it was pretty obvious she was cheesecake on parade. When she was threatened by some evil force; when she was sitting down; when she was simply taking a moment to relax and reflect.

(from the media album; Vampirella in chains...again)

Inside the comic it wasn't much better; but then, consider the character's origins. Forrest J. Ackerman wanted a vampire with go-go boots; that's pretty much what he designed, and that's pretty much what she was. Add in the bit where she's an alien fallen to Earth, and her work on the planet consisted of posing for photographs, modeling clothes, and being a showgirl magician's assistant, when she wasn't fighting her urges for blood or fighting Cthulhian horrors who forever waged war on a planetary scale. Even my favorite Vampi artist, Jose Gonzalez, drew her as a pin-up.

This wasn't a problem, per se; she was sensual, sexual, and it was one of those R-rated books that was okay with showing more skin, because her "Drakulonian fighting strap" (that still makes me giggle insanely) was so minimal to start with. And yeah, I admit, for both Vampirella and Heavy Metal I was trading on the perception that they were "just comic books" (even if magazine-sized ones) to get them at all; some stores would only sell Vampirella issues to adults. And they wouldn't have been wrong to do that in all stores, considering some of the issues.

But remember that "kind of agree with" stance I took in the beginning of this? Yeah. See, where my problem comes in is that all this exploded when a mother--one would assume, to be charitable, an elsewise responsible adult--gave a comic rated for teens and over to her seven-year-old.

Seven. I don't know about you, but when I think "teen", even if I'm thinking low-end teens, I'm thinking twelve, thirteen. NOT seven years old.

And okay, fine, her daughter really likes comic books and graphic novels, and is a huge fan of the Teen Titans, and Starfire is her favorite character. Starfire, in fact, as this child supposedly said to her mother, makes her "do good". (Which again, tells me she's thinking of comic books with fictional heroes as role models and not, oh, say, her parents. But I digress.)

What, in any of that, says "take a publication intended for a more comprehending audience and give it to a child to read"?

Because when this child thinks of Starfire? She's thinking of this:



Not this:

(from the media ablum)

And believe me, there's a big difference.

So, a long long long time ago (and I do mean that, seriously long ago), I got a comment from a former member of This Way to the Egress. At the time, I remember thinking, oh, that's wonderful, I'll just ask her...and then life happened, as it does, the love life likely exploded again, there were bits and pieces of dramadramadrama, most likely (I mean, I don't remember anything specific, but this is me we're talking about)...and that small comment from Jami Jasmine got lost in the shuffle.

For over three years.

So, okay, I'm a flake, that's nothing new; but in the meantime, what's been happening with the band?

(from the media album; image is Copyright and All Rights Reserved to M.J. McCauley [http://mjmccauley.com/].)

Well, for one thing, they've released an EP and an album, near as I can figure, and they're going to be going on a tour with Voltaire, which sounds ideal for them, frankly.

On Monday, October 3rd, the grid goes to hell. Not even kidding, people--expect chaos, sim restarts, rolling grid restarts, chaos, controversy, dogs and cats sleeping together...And it's going to last at least a week while the Lindens upgrade the server OS software.

CasperTech sent out a message to all those in their group saying that having an extra dropbox to put on a secondary sim wouldn't be the worst idea--because with the anticipated time loss and potential down times of up to (or over) an hour for some restarted regions, any sales made will not complete until the sim with the dropbox comes back up.

A week of this. Buckle in, citizens, it's going to get scary out there.

I've been reading the SL Freebie Hunters' blog for a while now; the team behind it are dedicated to both giving out solid hunt information on the hunts they choose as well as following it up with reasonably detailed pictures of each store's gift. They've been an invaluable resource for hunters.

They've now got a poll up, on what makes a good hunt? They want a lot of responses, preferably, so go and take the poll. You don't need to give out your name (though I'm sure if you want to, you can), and it won't take more than a few minutes. I'm interested in seeing the results, when they get around to going through them.

"Today’s belief in ineluctable certainty is the true innovation-killer of our age." The article calls it "innovation starvation" and says we're right in the thick of it. It's on the long side for casual reading, but it's well worth your time.

How do we push past innovation starvation? I don't have the answers for that one. But there are inventors out there, and there are still wondrous, miraculous things to come once the intangible future becomes the very tangible now.

Finally, there's a second follow-up to the mesh/size post last week on Search Engine Watch, and this week Ms. Kurmin breaks down mesh for the uninitiated, and at the same time, explains why glitch layers are still so important for attire on the grid. It comes highly recommended, especially if you don't understand the difference between rigged and unrigged mesh objects yet.

This next one's on the difficult side to write, just a bit.

Perusing the SL Freebie Hunters' blog for potential last-minute snags on the Steam hunt, I came across this image. Number 191 on the Steam 5 hunt is Steam Whimsy's offering--a teeny, rounded steampunk robot avatar.

Hmm. That sounds...awfully familiar.