LL's latest fun move

Well, guess I won't be making any sales on XStreet for a while, huh? Buyer confidence will not, I expect, be booming.

And note to self: withdraw that whopping 600L positive balance from Onrez sometime.

But go look at the gazebo, huh? Inworld also, half price for January, all the fittings, lights, cushions, prettiness and utterly amazing retractable curtain (/end weak attempt at sales patter). Just click on the link to the left. And oh, buy up the store at the same time, pretty please.

Thank you.

Now returning to grumble and mutter about LL. Half of the fun of SL, no?

Reference guide

Easy reference guide for extricating oneself from those awkward SL relationships:

- I am so busy in RL I can't log on enough for it to be worthwhile
- I am so busy with my SL business I don't have time for other stuff
- I decided I'm gay after all
- I decided I'm straight after all
- I decided I'm asexual
- I don't like you
- I like you too much
- My SL husband / wife / partner might catch us
- My RL husband / wife / partner did catch us
... and the easiest of all:
- I can't tell you why, so live with it

One girl's dream

OK, it's Monday. And I was fully intending to post some stuff intended to promote my latest creations. But then something more important came up.

Yesterday, a friend sent me an IM that send a cold shiver down my spine. Let me start from the beginning.

I met Shakti last year. She was a very young, very bright Indian girl whose dream was to recreate the Avignon Festival (a huge, huge international theatre event) on SL. One of the organisers of the festival met her in India, and was impressed enough to provide support for her out of his pocket, including paying for an Open Space sim (owned by a good friend of mine).

Shakti's dream was also to help her people in the slums of Dharavi, Mumbai. She worked in a Mumbai hotel, meaning she had access to SL. For her, SL was a window on the world, and she treasured her contacts with people there, with the western world (which she saw as a paradise).

A few of us tried to help out with her SL/RL dream.

Sadly, it didn't go well. Shakti was the sweetest person but she didn't really know SL's workings that well, and she didn't communicate what she wanted in time. The idea was to link the SL location to the month-long festival, to re-create the theatre and parts of the town of Avignon, but it was all started too late. It needed the input of scripters, PR people, and media experts to tie it into Avignon and bring it to life.

Those involved (we were builders) all drifted away in the end as things just weren't moving. In the end, I think it was a flop.

Shakti was, however, in touch a few weeks back to say that the 2009 version was going to be way better...and that this time, it would be planned far enough ahead.

And then silence.

Shakti was shot and killed in Mumbai recently. News filtered through to the Festival organisers and then to a friend of mine who owned the sim and helped with the building. She has been burned, as tradition calls for, in Dharavi.

The Festival people have said they will continue work on her dream. I have no idea what sort of financing they will get for it, or whether they will be in a position to pay builders or scripters or anyone else.

I admit freely that I was more interested in my SL 'business' to really care about this 'volunteer' work at the time. However, if the project takes off for July 2009, I'll be there. Paid or not.

I'll also be nagging and pestering in any forum I can to find other people to help.

So if you, or anyone you know, is willing to give input on the project, please let me know.

Rest in peace, Shakti.

I blog, you blog, they all blog

I've had private diaries with ancient instruments called 'pen and paper'. I've had a private blog and a 'friends only' blog. And now here I am waffling about SL because - in a nutshell, I like writing things down.

Lately, I've been doing a little othinking about 'types of bloggers', so here's a few thoughts.

Newbie (or just incompetent) blogger: full of enthusiasm and exclamation marks. Blurry pictures (often too big or too numerous). Links, what links? Possibly grammar- and spelling-challenged. Tends to come and go fairly quickly, although some get into their stride.

Competent blogger: great pictures, links in the right places. Interesting stuff to blog about. Doesn't lapse into hysteria. Is blogging for fun or to sell stuff.

Attention-getting blogger type A: controversial, often not too worried about facts. Attacks everything and everybody. Has a whole lot of time on his/her hands. Usually lacks humour. Sweeping, gratuitous hate that is so outrageous that it nevertheless sucks people in. Responds to comments by more vitriol.

Attention-getting blogger type B: can be controversial, but does his/her homework. Usually has a sense of humour. Innovative rather than dredging up the same old, same old. Takes time to actually respond to comments without resorting to vulgarity or counter-attacks.

Boring blogger: waffles about not much. Scroll-worthy. May have issues like incapacity to split a post into paragraphs, or to include useful things like verbs. May just be plain old boring despite being able to spell and punctuate, but if they're having fun, then so what. Let 'em blog.

And of course you get mixes: like the grammar- and photo-challenged yet far-from-boring newbie stuff, or beautifully written yet totally boring treatises on issues that have been done to death.

Me? Ermmm... probably boring.

OK, OK, definitely boring.

But of course I want to waffle and subject the world to my amazing insights or I wouldn't be blogging, right?

But I'm quite contented to make people exercise their scrolling fingers as long as I can kid myself that I might sell something one day thanks to using my blog as an amazing marketing tool (must take photos) or that I might make somebody (all one of you) laugh. Also, blogging delays that thing called making a living rather nicely at times. Like now.

Dear Ari

Dear Ari, how do I split up in SL?
Love,
Desolate Heartbroken Avatar

Dear DHA,

There are various alternatives, but it boils down to just two:

a) Say goodbye. Close or slam virtual doors, whichever is best for you. Mute if it helps. Block msn if appropriate. Move sims if necessary (and if you get a new place, examine banning possibilities).
Demolish things if it makes you feel better (but take copies, OK?). Buy a new dress / gizmo. Dress up, go out. Meet people. Cry in private rather than tell entire friends list. (Note: Whingers get irritating after a while)

Advantages: Shorter. Initially painful but ultimately can be satisfying.
Disadvantages: Moving can mean you lose things / money, but your real friends will still be on your list and are just a TP away.

b) Say goodbye. Then exchange dozens of notecards, offline IMs.
Mute, unmute, remove from friends list and add again. Have endless tearful online discussions about 'why'. Rehash every discussion endlessly with friends list (including vague acquaintances). Demolish things, but then rebuild them (but you forgot to take copies as you were crying and discussing). Mope around in same clothes. Haunt certain places. Rinse and repeat the IMs, discussions until... whenever

Advantages: OK, maybe it leaves the door slightly ajar. But not many ex-lovers are easily turned into 'friends'.
Oh, and could save you money on new clothes / gizmos / land / rent at least for a while.
Disadvantages: Tiring (for you and friends list). Painful for longer. Much, much longer.

Best of luck, Desolate Hearbroken Avatar. And believe me, you are not the first (or the last).

Ari

(and why yes, I'm busily scouring OnRez for a nice new dress, why do you ask?)

How to be an SL snob

I admit it - I am a snob. So shoot me. Well actually please don't as I have a lot of meals to cook for the family over the next few days.

Or maybe shooting me would be kinder because (so help me) I am not a great fan of this time of year. Tradition is nice. But it would be nicer if somebody else did the cooking. Or the decorating, the present-buying, the wrapping, and finding the decorations I packed away with glee and unseemly haste last year.

Anyway.

Pet elitist grumbles of the week:

- Please don't call me hunny. It is guaranteed to make me scrabble for the mute button.
- Please don't talk to me in SMS-speak or netspeak or whatever you call it. Why is it so hard to type 'you' instead of 'u' or 'before' instead of 'B4'? Please explain. With punctuation.
- If I have declined your group once, there is little chance I'm going to join it on your second, third, fourth or fifth request. My fault for forgetting the 'mute', I know.
- Please don't ask me to admire anything with bling. I can't. But I can give you the scrubber script if you like.
- Glow is often showy. Too showy. Think of figures starting with a zero. Like 0.05. And if you plant something glowy on your land, like a 40-foot glowy... something (usually so glowy you can't see what it is), then you should be shot. Good way of making sure all nearby parcels remain unsold, however.
- Think carefully about compulsive freebie hunting. Group gifts are nice... when they are nice (and some really are). But really... is it worth the trying-on, the eye-rolling and the inventory-sorting, braving the blingy fray, only to find a miniature... whatever filled with what turns out to be a pair of lime-green hooker boots or Yet Another Pie Frill Skirt? No, it is not. Go mad. Invest ten Real Life Dollars. Or at the very least get rid of the sense of entitlement.
- And for that matter, stop camping. Go without a coffee or beer or something and spend the time finding some designers worth their salt.
- Or spend that time studying your slide bars (unless you really, really want boobs you can eat your breakfast off).

Back to the kitchen. Not that I'm grumpy or anything :)

No, I am not going to 'check this out'.

Am I the only person who wants to wrestle that gizmo called a blog hud out of people's little mitts and trample on it?

Yes, I know I can scroll. I have a fast scrolling finger. I just don't want to scroll through the 'check this outs' with pictures of pretty disco lights or whatever ten times a day just to find anything with any content before it gets pushed off the page.

And why yes, I'm grumpy.