The Cool and the Clunky

How do you describe a place you frequent like second nature? It's a club. It doesn't crash your browser. It has no dress code. The bouncers are polite. It is also beautiful and trendy with mesh furniture, matte walls, shadows, white rocks.... It is just there. It is friendly, but imagine you have never been to Club Energy.

I could tell you it plays house music, different styles some hard and full of base, some with female voices, some melodic. I could tell you that all kinds of avies dance there. There are three dance floors, two outdoors, one indoors.

The architecture is not just your average prefab. This is a gazebo away from the main dance floor. It is a dignified place, no poles, no lap dancing, couches for a quiet talk. Use your imagination. The architects used theirs!

Energy is also a very well made sim. Details count, especially when taking blog photographs, but my One Who Thinks She Knows takes these pictures because she notices. The fact is, that it is hard to pull off a well furnished, realistic, modern style build that doesn't look like it popped out of a prefab box or that doesn't lag to pieces. The closest build that has this style and does it well is NASP, a Japanese sim next to the now long gone, Niseko Hirafu that was once Second Life's best ski area.

Energy, however, is American (or international), and its little objects and details offer an insight into the minds of the Ones Who Think They Know whose money pays for and whose avies help build Second Life. Amid all the modrenity, are streaks of nostalgia for a world that has been gone for nearly forty years if not longer. These are hat boxes. If you are a middle aged or older One, your grandmother may have had one of these that she no longer used and which she stuck in the attic. My One remembers seeing adds for colorful, vinyl covered, ones with handles in magazines. These are even older.

And if you are a One of a certain age, you either read or watched the story of the Lorax who speaks for the trees, and you cried for all the animals driven away by Onceler's wanton destruction of the land. Here he is selling boots and high fashion gear. Energy is also a working sim. My One likes working sims though she would never buy the clothes here. She makes my clothes.

And My One was so happy to take this picture inside the empty indoor club. We'll move back in there for dancing this winter. DJ booths are almost always retro things with vinyl, turntables, and boxes of records. This one has two turntables, an old fashioned control board with gears and nobs, and an analog display, and a very patient One behind the camera.

So, do we include Energy in the Do It Better 2013 roster? Not yet. There are only two spaces left, and it went first. On a more nuanced level, Energy does not have ecological integrity. It's cold! My One has often wondered if the sugar colored sand was water or ice crystals. When I walked off the white stones, prepared to get wet, we had our answer. No, I'm not flying. I'm walking on water, or rather ice. Brrrrr....... Also the dance balls are hard to find, and while the sim doesn't crash my One's browser, she had issues with a music stream cutting in and out. On the plus side, Energy is open 24/7, and newbies can always find people. It's beautiful. The music is popular. There is no dress code. And one last negative, we all ready have two club sites on the roster. Maybe you can't have too many clubs?

Sex museums and court rooms are a lot less common then clubs. We were going to visit one on IAVANTE, but first I ended up on the info hub that for some reason was under the stairs. We tried again elsewhere on the island, and went to visit that building where I'd been trapped. That is how we found the ban lines. How do you say "nuiscence!" and "hostile!" You add lots of exclamation points!!!!!!! And don't forget to click on the images with borders to view them in full size.

And this is the famous court room. Yes, I was here to complain about a young male bot in the medical area adjacent to the forbidden lecture hall. He is lying out in the open, stark naked without a blanket for warmth, or bit of privacy. Poor bot! I wanted to tell the judge to give the poor bot justice. Bots after all have feelings too, but she was nowhere to be found. And there was construction in the court room. That web site on a prim was a raw board with no web site. We added this blog from our last visit, so the board with no web site showed a picture of the court room itself and of the poor, naked, boy bot. (Just his face of course.).

Actually there was a lot of construction on IAVANTE. Here is a shot taken through the Agora's pillars. A board floats in the air. It does not have a web site on it. My One added one. Half finished projects like this make a sim look sloppy and sad!

That, however, is not why we are not including IAVANTE in the Do It Better 2013 roster. My One was shocked and saddened by the exhibit on sex chromosome and developmental anomalies in the Sex Museum. My One will not put the naked bots on this blog, but this is a poster describing Turner syndrome. The symptoms are real, but not every woman born with a 45 XO karyotype has all of them. Many Turner syndrome individuals don't receive their diagosis until adolescence or adulthood. If you look at the pictures in this article or even the naked bots in the museum, My One says that in clothes out in the world, none of these individuals would be worth a second glance. In other words, most people with a sex chromosome abnormality "pass" for normal, and live more or less normal lives. Ones, are after all "under a doctor's care" for all sorts of conditions, and my One says that being "under a doctor's care" is a private matter. Putting people with sex chromosome and developmental abnormalities on display as naked bots with old charts detailing their symptoms as if every child born with these disorders had every one, is weirdly creepy and exploitive. Sorry, maybe in Spain attitudes are different, but my One said she felt like she was travelling back to the 1970's. Second Life nostalgia any one? She also said that just because it is Second Life, is no reason to sacrifice accurate content. Sorry, IAVANTE is out of the running.

Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- October 31, 2013

And my One Sang the Scenery
Doing it Better in 2013 IV

We found it! My One Who Thinks She Knows Remembered it from when we went bushwhacking, when we went dancing, and we just knew the place, but it was half finished. It was just a mall....not any more. Builds mature, and Portugal Porto had the architecture my One wanted so badly.

Here is another view of the Portugal Porto's old city. You can walk behind and in front of and sort of above all these houses. Like Dobbs Ferry and Ardsley, New York, this city is vertical, only instead of reaching down to a river it borders the sea. My One thinks of Portugal as New Jersey turned backward and attached to the west coast of Spain instead of the east side of Pennsylvania. She had no idea where Porto was. She, however, knew where Lisbon was. She's a real geography geek that way.

She even looked up on Wikipedia and saw that the old city...well you can see for yourself. The boat is pure invention, and strictly old school. You can't climb the crow's nest and it looks like it sails on bats' wings instead of canvas.

Of course not all of Portugal Porto is the Old City. My One was experimenting with images in mouselook. She grew up with brutalist architecture, so it makes her nostalgic. She thinks designs in concrete are wonderful.

I got to dance instead to a live singer! Portugal Porto is home not just to one club and a few stores, but to four clubs of different sizes, atmospheres, and genres. There are nearly always people here in the afternoon and early evening. Remember, Brazil, where most Portuguese is spoken is on Eastern or Atlantic time. My One Who Thinks She Knows is on Eastern time too.

People, stores, four clubs, and architecture that my One adores. Who could ask for more. We were lucky. My One was happy. How often is my One happy. If you read this blog, then you know.

And here are some very, tasteful Halloween decorations inside the Porto Dream Club. I've danced here, and yes, on top of everything Porto Portugal has no dress code, and is turtle safe! I remind my One when it's time to take our Petable Turtles on the road. I think this makes my One feel better. I can barely look at the boxes of our sleeping, Lily Frogs, and the eggs that will never hatch. Dragoness Rage was online briefly on October 17. She has not been on since. We both fear she is gone forever. I have tried to keep my One from completing the Frobbies. It's disrespctful! So faor the Do It Better Project has kept her distracted.

Of course there's one mistake in Portugal Porto's design. The wine barrels in the disco don't hold port. They hold something called Chateau Indigo. Oh well, someone had to cut corners.

Let's take a look at our current Do It Better 2013 Roster

Eileen and Iyoba's Do It Better List 2013
Name of Place	Why it Qualifies
The State Fair at Morrill	It has great rides; fun games; a huge, educational, archipelago nearby and also the Avatar Fitness Club near by with hard, house music and a crowd.
Mirai Amusement Park	Amazing architecture, an entry to Japanese sims with many attractions, inventive rides, a sense of humor, and the best roller coaster in Second Life.
Shinrei Ueno Hospital	This is a unique build with shadows, darkness, urban exploration, and ghosts. It also is an abandoned mental hospital with all the assocations this brings.
Fiteiro Cultural	Two clubs, art exhibits, innovative builds and architecture, sculpture, an old Dutch village and more!
Towson Innovation Lab	Art that comes alive and is always updated plus a well run, public, sandbox.
Soho New York	Home of the Cyclone and gateway to a variety of museums and galleries, temperate nature walks, the largest train on estate land, and the second longest ski run in Second Life. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Portugal Porto	Enter the Old City to see a Southern European fishing port as old as the Roman Empire. Visit four clubs. Shop in the stores, or just go for a walk. Unlike most of Second Life, this sim is populated but almost never crowded enough to crash or lag.

Of course you probably wonder what happens next. We have seven out of nine slots in the Do It Better 2013 roster filled with some fantastic sites. There are probably twenty or so more. Alas, we have only two sites left. One strong candidate from last year is Arab Land by Axxo Errin. This build made my One cry last year. I'd love to see her again, but, there is just so much competition.

Fortunately, my One sorted it all out. Suffice it to say, we have a lot of travelling to do before we even think of Frobbies. That is a good thing. Click on the image to see it in full size and enjoy.

Iyoba BatOni and Elieen H. Kramer -- October 29, 2013

Following My One's Heart
Doing it Better in 2013 III

My One Who Thinks She Knows had a thousand reasons (well maybe not a thousand but good ones even if it was a smaller number) for NOT including any site within the HealthLink New York archipelago in our Do It Better 2013 project. The sims were too empty. The good stuff, is too spread out. It's too far to walk.

There was just one problem, my One Who Thinks She Knows and I really love these sims. We went to Soho New York to give both of us a break and a chance to give some of our turtles an outing in an environment that is safe or them. It did not help matters that our draw distance was set to some crazy number. My One eventually fixed it, but not before we nearly bumped into these old, lady bots in the supermarket in Soho New York. This was different. This supermarket was so well made. My One was hooked.

It also helped that there was a roller coaster at the end of the sim. It was called the Cyclone, which meant it was named after a real life roller coaster that was just demolished or is soon-to-be demolished in Coney Island. My One was spellbound and of course Damien, the turtle on my back, and I could ride the roller coaster.

We rode the rollercoaster three times, and not just so we could get pictures. My One loved how it feels. The legendary Dead Coaster on Mirai may be the craziest coaster in Second Life because it violates the laws of physics, but the Cyclone on Soho New York is more stomach wrenching and bone jarring because it feels like the reel thing. It is rickety and wooden and the cars rattle on the tracks. When they plummet, my One says she can feel her gorge rise. She is thrilled! She wants to go back soon.

Of course we had more of the archipelago to explore. My One really wanted us to see the whole thing. She was thrilled by the ecological integrity of LISound New York and Montauk New York. There is just not a lot of temperate beach in Second Life...except here.

Then my One had a "great minds think alike moment" when she discovered these lobster traps. My One uses a lobster trap motif in a lot of my clothes. I have a lobster trap dashiki, I have a lobster trap winter dress, and a lobster bouy summer dress, and a lobster winter dress. What can I say. My One was no longer out of sorts. Miracles happen.

Then of course my One suggested that I ride the train to the North Country. Yes, there is a sim called NorthCountry New York which sometimes has snow and always has a ski lift. Maybe the snow was there and I could try out my new skis. I was up for it. I love skiing more than I love roller coasters.

I got to ski down the hill twice using my cross country animation and my new sport skis. They really are streamlined and the animation makes them work, though there is a bit of an issue at the sim crossing. The lift and slopes traverse two sims. That make sthe ski run in NorthCountry New York the second largest in Second Life, and the train I took to reach it is the second or third largest rail road, certainly it is th e largest on estate land.

You know what I had to ask my One. "If you love this place and we would really come here again and again, just to see more, and also to do what we love.... Please.... The avatarim and their ones can ride the trains. They can ride the boats. They can walk around. I know it's overextended. Most of the rentals sit empty, but for while it's here....You love this place...can't you show that love?" My One has a good heart most days. She remembered how good the New York HealthLink Sims made her feel. Suffice it to say we have a new recommendation for the Do It Better 2013 Project.

Eileen and Iyoba's Do It Better List 2013
Name of Place	Why it Qualifies
The State Fair at Morrill	It has great rides; fun games; a huge, educational, archipelago nearby and also the Avatar Fitness Club near by with hard, house music and a crowd.
Mirai Amusement Park	Amazing architecture, an entry to Japanese sims with many attractions, inventive rides, a sense of humor, and the best roller coaster in Second Life.
Shinrei Ueno Hospital	This is a unique build with shadows, darkness, urban exploration, and ghosts. It also is an abandoned mental hospital with all the assocations this brings.
Fiteiro Cultural	Two clubs, art exhibits, innovative builds and architecture, sculpture, an old Dutch village and more!
Towson Innovation Lab	Art that comes alive and is always updated plus a well run, public, sandbox.
Soho New York	Home of the Cyclone and gateway to a variety of museums and galleries, temperate nature walks, the largest train on estate land, and the second longest ski run in Second Life. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- October 27, 2013

Art, Dancing, Music, and Memories
Doing It Better in 2013 II

Here I am in the Cal State Northridge Sandbox in a new dress. I know I am going somewhere exciting and fun. It is going to be a sim with a club. It is going to have lovely Brazilian (Neocolonial ??) or Portuguese style architecture. It may even have lots of people, since my One Who Thinks She Knows decided that empty sims are not what newbie Ones and their avies want and...

...Our first destination Rio Brasil (It is spelled that way and it has no link) seemed to bring back memories. It had the right architecture, was full of people, and my One and I both remembered street dances there. We did not know that the place had been overrun. In the more crowded areas I could barely move, and twice it crashed my One's browser. Browser crashing, my One decided, was an absolute nuiscence.

Copacabana Rio proved a better bet, or at least it looked the part. This is what my One Who Thinks She Knows calls neoColonial architecture. There used to be a lot of it on Portuguese and Brazilian sims. There isn't much of it around any more. My One feels sad about this. She'd like it back.

Of course there was just one problem with the sim. It wasn't empty. It was not full of ban lines, but the people, were up in the sky. We ran around the island a full three times and tried every desntination on the teleport board, which worked for nearly all of them. Ones often fix sims and forget to fix teleport boards.

We realized we would have to fly but at about five hundred meters above the ground we ran into this, a huge collection of megaprims that acts as a sim-size cover over the whole island. Any one trying to casually fly up to the club at 2500 meters, gets bonked and has to go far out of his/her way to get around this huge thing. I did that. There was only one problem, no teleport back down. My One said that people can think up nuiscences that require great imagination. I didn't really feel welcome having to break into the secret club in the sky either. Beauty is as beauty does.

And Atlantic Beach is beautiful. The flowers and tea set come from there, and here I am in the hall behind the Cruisin Cotton Club. Oh yes, this was one gergous art deco/Harlem Renaissance sim, but my One didn't like it. First, the sim was empty. Second, my One was very upset by the lack of ecological integrity. The sufnlowers and orchid are fine as potted plants, but there were/are both tulips and palm trees, and it is October in "real life." Tulips are a spring flower!

Worse yet, my One felt intimidated by the place. It turned out to have a crew of bots or employees just hanging out at the club and not dancing while the radio played. One was a cigar girl. There was champagne everywhere and overstuffed couches and no dress code, but that didn't matter. Between the large building and the aura of faux luxury, my One felt intimidated. Me, I don't scare. I like clubs. I like music, but my One did not like this place. "The problem," she told me was "I would never come here." If we wouldn't go to a place, we can't recommend it to newbies.

My One and I both remembered that many Brazilian DJ's played at clubs on Fiteiro Cultural, and that there was more there than just the Helio Club or the main stage. Sure enough there was more than we bargained for. Everywhere we turned there was something to look at or try. These blue mushrooms hidden in a log were a great example.

The Dutch village complete with irrigation ditch and this windmill, which is no admittance (You can't climb the steps to go in. they're soft!). It's still a beautiful village. There is also a port with oil tankers and containers made into a "love motel." Any newbie who wants to try a bed or other furniture is free to sample the seedy, surroundings.

Just north of the oil port, we found a derelict tanker, on the deck of which, was a house music club called Code Openstage. The club does not have a dance ball, but even newbies can obtain free dances fairly easily. Also, there are chairs if a newbie forgets his/her dance. These chairs don't ask you to watch a pole dance or have ten different animations. The place has no dress code because it is way too scuzzy, but there is a porta-potty in case you need to relieve yourself. We avies do go you know.

The club my One and I remember is Club Helio which is on top of a mountain. You have to walk through a transparent pink sculpture tunnel to reach it these days. It too does not have a dance ball but it has a pool with water chairs in it and interesting posters on the walls. I'm not sure which DJ's play there any more. I hope they do.

And my One really liked this house even though it did not have a club in it and was not neocolonial as she calls it. She said, she should have explored this build long ago and come back more often. Yes, she would come here. Yes, we would come here. Yes, we had a winner for a Do it Better 2013 Recommendation!

Of course I needed a new dress, and Monday night, my avie took me to Towson Innovation Lab where the sandbox is quiet and well maintained, and where there is art everywhere! Here I am staring at my mismatched shoes. Very often your shoes don't match when you make a dress. On the other side of the sandbox fence, a class was in progress...yes newbies! No, this sim is not always empty!

After I got done with my dress, my One took me around to see the art. It is student art, and in some ways it has more spirit than the professional creations one sometimes sees. These wreathes are based on two devil-faced monsters named Troy and Lisa. The are a student's installation in one of many gallery buildings.

And my One said she had never had as much fun watching PowerPoints as she did on Towson Innovation Lab. Some of the PowerPoints were by students in a graphic design class. They explained their sculptures including this necklace which is designed to remind every one that if you do injectable, street drugs, you will ruin your hair and skin! My One thought that was an incredible statement and a great use for art! Do I have to say we are recommending Towson Innovation Lab as part of the 2013 Do It Better Project!

And now the moment you are all waiting for.

Eileen and Iyoba's Do It Better List 2013
Name of Place	Why it Qualifies
The State Fair at Morrill	It has great rides; fun games; a huge, educational, archipelago nearby and also the Avatar Fitness Club near by with hard, house music and a crowd.
Mirai Amusement Park	Amazing architecture, an entry to Japanese sims with many attractions, inventive rides, a sense of humor, and the best roller coaster in Second Life.
Shinrei Ueno Hospital	This is a unique build with shadows, darkness, urban exploration, and ghosts. It also is an abandoned mental hospital with all the assocations this brings.
Fiteiro Cultural	Two clubs, art exhibits, innovative builds and architecture, sculpture, an old Dutch village and more!
Towson Innovation Lab	Art that comes alive and is always updated plus a well run, public, sandbox.

Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- October 23, 2013

Laughter in Dark Places
Doing It Better in 2013 I

This title makes my One Who Thinks She Knows Happy, and when my One, who is nearly always out of sorts, is happy, I am happy. Night photography also makes my One happy, and of course the Doing It Better Project gives my One satisfaction. Fortunately, we got to combine all three at the Shinrei Ueno Hospital on Hakata.

Shinrei Ueno Hospital was part of last year's Do It Better Project. We had to make sure it was still there. Attractions in Second Life don't last forever. Of course this was going to be a quick inspection tour.

But you know that didn't happen. Shinrei Ueno Hospital is supposed to be haunted, and indeed there are ghosts, but they are not the main attraction. What makes Shinrei Ueno Hospital special is the darkness and the abandoned feel, and that the rooms are not cookie cutter. My One says that Shinrei Ueno Hospital is one of the few, fairly authentic urban exploration sites in Second Life. It also makes her think of Assylum and The Lives They Left Behind. Books about old time, abandoned, mental hospitals and their patients are topics of fascination in the "real world" United States. My One is not sure this is true in Japan. I guess she could find out.

And as my One has said before one of the great things about Shinrei Ueno Hospital is that you don't have to follow the rules. You can jump over or use cam and sit to get past obstacles. You can even get up onto the roof, though the last jump is tricky. Reaching a roof and sitting under the stars feels like a great triumph. I sat in the night, and my One thought....

...My One thought: "We need more night photography? Iyoba, how would you like to visit The State Fair at Morrill at night and actually try out some of the rides. As much as I wanted to try the rides (something I never get a chance to do when we bushwhack), I had migivings. "You're going to replace Mirai with The State Fair?" I asked. My One said she wanted to see if Mirai was still there and she also wanted to see if The State Fair at Morrill offered serious or meaningful competition. Since I'd never ridden any rides there, we were not sure if they even worked or how long they lasted, or how they felt. Well, the Scrambler did not leave my One sick to her stomach.

My One tends to get motion sick on certain amusement park rides in "real life" that she once enjoyed when she was younger. She feels awful about this, and the Pirate Ship did leave her queasey. Poor, sick, sensitive One!

My One really liked the white water rafting ride at the the State Fair. We've both been on our share of white water rafting rides that were not ready for prime time. For some reason this kind of a ride is difficult to script. This one worked. It also has a lot of atmosphere and free life preservers.

And for those who don't like rides, The State Fair at Morrill offers games such as this juggling booth. My One could not resist taking this picture. Of course the attractions you don't see is the Avatar Fitness Club on Morrill3. This club not only plays hard house music, but it also is full of other avies and their Ones. Ones are always looking for people. It is hard to believe the Morrill archipelago is an educational setting. Educational settings after all can't be popular or can they?

Mirai of course is Mag Tokyo SL's Orientation Island, but it is also home of some of the best rides in Second Life. The rides are clever, challenging, and original like this jeep I could not drive. For someone who likes vehicles, this ride is probably just their thing.

The Tower of Horror, a haunted house with a special surprise, is a new addition to the sim. I hope it stays around after Halloween. It comes with free safety equipment that I was too brazen and cocky to take. It works just fine without it.

There are also special touches in the Mirai Amusement Park. This picture makes the climbing wall with its warning sign (cute huh??) look deceptively easy. Fortunately, avies can fly, so I only got hurt once, and of course one comes to Mirai to ride the legendary, Dead Coaster (see below!). This roller coaster not only delivers a good, long ride (many don't. It also stays on the track and doesn't get stuck.), it breaks the laws of physics, riding where there is no track, upside down, inside out, and even under water.

Of course the one thing that the Mirai Amusement Park lacks is other avies. This bothered my One, but I begged her not to replace it. She of course listened. These pictures tell you why. She said "You know, Iyoba, it's a tie. The students don't like cold or lonely places. Let's replace Wengen with The State Fair at Morrill. True the Wengen ski country is beautiful, bare, and evocative, and skiing is fun, but a lot of avatarim and their Ones don't like cold, and they surely don't like emptiness either. It was the people, my One said that pushed The State Fair at Morrill on to the Do It Better 2013 roster.

And here is that roster:

Eileen and Iyoba's Do It Better List 2013
Name of Place	Why it Qualifies
The State Fair at Morrill	It has great rides; fun games; a huge, educational, archipelago nearby and also the Avatar Fitness Club near by with hard, house music and a crowd.
Mirai Amusement Park	Amazing architecture, an entry to Japanese sims with many attractions, inventive rides, a sense of humor, and the best roller coaster in Second Life.
Shinrei Ueno Hospital	This is a unique build with shadows, darkness, urban exploration, and ghosts. It also is an abandoned mental hospital with all the assocations this brings.

We have three sites for one night's work. Our next travels will be in day light of course. I hope my One is not out of sorts again when this project is over.

Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- October 18, 2013

Only a Little Snark on Stark

My One Who Thinks She Knows loves peacocks and peahens, though I don't think we have ever seen any of the latter. This leaves the poor male birds all frustrated. Also a male pea fowl is more than just a pile of feathers at his rear end. He can be quite beautiful with his tail feathers furled.

And here is a white peacock looking for imaginary bugs. We photographed both these birds in the orientation area on Vstarkstate sponsored by Stark State College, community college, in Ohio. build.

In some ways this is a fantastic build. The break out spaces are elegantly furnished like this townhouse on the hill. The townhouse by the way, gives something back through its browsing library. That it offers a canned list of Project Gutenberg Links and is repeated twice over, really dosen't matter. The links are there, and there are enough for the "browsing collection" to make the Explore SL Spreadsheet.

There is also a Museum of Prejudice in the "town" portion of the sim. You can see various images of stereotyping and discrimination from the last couple of centuries and different countries and regions all jumbled together. For example, jumping the broom really does happen (still does!) and so it's not really a stereotype. Saying "No Hippies Allowed" is akin to "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service." Content is still content, even when you put it in Second Life.

Still, my One loved taking pictures of all the little touches that made walking around VStarkState such a pleasure. We both found these lady's slipper orchids utterly fascinating. I have ha lady's slipper orchid dress, but the orchid in the pattern is yellow not pink.

And if you look carefully, you will see a seahorse in this fish bowl as well as elegant carvings and a rich pattern on the hassacks. This lovely furniture waits for a seminar right outside the town house near the island's center. It also looks both very appropriate and not one bit institutional!

Unfortunately, my One feels that VStarkState's creators often are far more willing to add little touches and beauty than they are to put the substance of content behind it. The book store is a case in point. Two floors of books link to NOTHING. Somehow, my One feels that there really should be more here. It's too small for a maze and links are easy to add even if they link to Google Books or the college's library.

And you remember this place from a year ago. It's the Virtual Travel Agency. Last year, this place made my One very angry!. "I can do it so much better!" she told me. This year, she had me test out the links. So far:

Virtual Bucharest
The Great Wall of China
Virtual Africa
Mexico

are all dead links. Of the remaining five links, Romanum is part of a role play archipelago though it welcomes guests. Virtual Ability is mostly a facility with one or two small exhibits, and my One feels there are better choices than the the US Holocaust Museum. As for 1920's Berlin and the Anglican Cathedral on Epiphany, my One thinks that the first is a fraught choice and the second a dull one, though she is not sure. She has heard that 1920's Berlin has a dress code and she wonders why any one would pick an Anglican Cathedral out of all of Second Life's attractions.

And yes, we are going to do it better again this year. We have all ready started putting our bucket list together again. We'll see if we can find replacements for some of VStarkState's dead links and some substitutes for uncomfortable situations like being a guest at someone else' role play or just not finding much content beside an admirable name. We also want a sim's message to be understandable to those who do not have an extensive background in history or geography. Geography, my One says, has not been taught in schools for more than fifty years.

Needless to say, my One and I have a project. This is not quite a return to old times before our Petable Turtles became statues or before we lost our Lily Frogs. We can't ever go back, but my One lit up when she was behind the camera, and she looks forward to this project. It is like sun breaking through the clouds when my One Who Thinks She Knows is NOT out of sorts. I'll do whatever I can to keep her happy.

Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- October 13, 2013

Filling in the Empty Space

I don't like space sims and neither does my One Who Thinks She Knows. My One and I don't like them for different reasons. My One says they make her sad. I know, everything makes my One Who Thinks She Knows sad. We all know that, but space sims make my One sad for a reason. She says she saw a man walk on the moon when she was seven. She saw it a few more times after that, and then they stopped sending Ones to the moon. She saw the space shuttle blow up. She also said that many times the space shuttle did not blow up. The space shuttle only got as far as the International Space Station. Now the Ones who go there, have to ride a Russian rocket. She is sad because Ones no longer travel into space on her own country's rockets. I guess that is reason to feel sad. She also says there is no money to go to the Moon or to Mars, except with unmanned ships, and maybe that money will run out soon. Space is what you don't get.

And my One is right! There is nothing in space, here in Second Life. There are no other planets with the exception of Mars on one of the the Mars Base above Huffman Prairie Sigma and the gold plated toilet seat of a space station on Huffman Prarie Omega. Space above Second Life is empty. There is a lot in the sky, but the sky ends at 4096 meters. That's it. There is no space when you really think about it.

Still there was one really good exhibit on Spindrift. There was the Mayflower, a replica of the Seventeenth Century ship that carried the Pilgrims to the New World. Did you know that ships in the early 1600's did not have ships' wheels. The pilot steered the ship from below deck. Go figure.

And here is the view below decks. This is called the gun deck. The hold and really dark, steerage, decks (On a ship this old the whip staff which takes the place of a wheel is in the steerage. Steerage came to have a different meaning later on.) you think of when you think of Nineteenth Century ships were too dark and dank for passengers, or else they did not really exist. Nearly all the males except the future colony leaders slept here in semi-open, crowded, quarters. The women and children slept behind me in even smaller and more crowded quarters. The store rooms on the ship was packed to the gills. There was almost no furniture. It was crowded and probably quite squalid.

Here is the stove that cooked food for dozens of people. It's made of bricks to protect the wooden ship from fire. My One really liked this galley. She loves stoves. I'm not sure why.

And of course my One had to take a picture of Jurgis and me in the crow's nest. I did not mind being up here, even though I had to fly to get here. There are no scripted ladders and netting. I liked the view. My One compared this slave ship on Wise CAU Westside, only the Mayflower is a lot older, and there is no blood or sad slave bots lying on shelves. You can just imagine the crowding and suffering, but none of that was there in the crow's nest where just a few sailors went, and where it was peaceful and the fresh sea breezes made you feel clean and new.

Of course Jurgis and I still had work to do; for my One and I had both made Jurgis a promise when we statued him and started taking other turtles out touring. Jurgis asked to go back to the first place he remembered. It was the sim where he was hatched along with many other Cosmic Starters, Earths, etc... to produce Cosmic babies. When Petable Turtles made Cosmics reasonably scarce (If they had been common, the bottom would have fallen out of the market), a lot of breeders bailed. Jurgis' breeder let his stock starve. I saw this. I cried. I begged my One to do something. We could only afford one turtle and we bought the dead Jurgis for our own breeding program which sort of failed. We resurrected Jurgis with the elixir of life. For the first of four times he cheated death. He was supposed to mate with Shamayith, our Cosmic Earth, to produce Cosmic Luna babies. It didn't happen. He mated with Shamayith, but never produced cosmic babies. In fact, he never fathered a cosmic in his whole life. That is fine. He had many good looking offspring, and after resurrecting him a second time, my One learned to appreciate Jurgis for who he was, and he became her favorite turtle.

My One often looked back to the place where she knew Jurgis was born. It was a palm shaded beach on the north shore of a sim called Coral Reef. At the time I landmarked the place it was called Soulshine Turtles. What made our return there fraught was that the place had changed hands numerous times since the fall of 2010. There was a good chance it was a residence and our stay there would be brief due to a security orb. There are ways around a security orb, none of them illegal or requiring too much technical expertise. Mostly they take persistence. I feared we were going to have to give poor Jurgis a lesson in home invasions.

Unfortunately, we did not have to invade someone's home; for no one lived on the spot of land where the egg that became Jurgis hatched. There was an empty store and a for-rent sign in the locator bar. We stood by the sea wall and pondered our situation. We both expected the proprietor of Soulshine Turtles to be long gone, but time had absolutely obliterated the place we remembered. There was not even Soulshine's successor or an "oh yeah they used to be here...don't know what happened to them" etc... There was not a new owner staunchly defending his/her parcel and dreams, and pretending nothing else had ever been here before. There was just this empty store and our memories.

Of course it is futile to chase the past, even if the past is important to Jurgis and me. Of course Jurigs is important to noone but my One Who Thinks She Knows and me. He is a stock creature, a clone like so many others, thousands of other Cosmic Starters that Petable Sold. His history though and our memories make him special. Time gave Jurgis a life. Love and faith continue to give him a life. An empty parcel though tests and tries one's faith in the worst way.

Of course we needed to go somewhere and do something. The parcel next to the one that once held Soulshine Turtles looked developed. Our locator bar read Controtionists Club. We both thought that was interesting, especially since there was a gym that we could compare to the one on Morrill3. In we went.

There were mats on the floor and a dance pole, but there were no animations that would let me twist myself into pretzels or do the wonderful splits that this, pretty, Russian ballarina is doing in this poster, one of several that covered the walls. Whoever owns the Contortionists Club is into stretchy, female flexibility which my One thought was original and fun. Most people in Second Life are just not that original. Seeing the ladies doing amazing stretches and splits in the posters made my One feel a bit better. She said if I put Jurgis in inventory, she'd make me some hair. My back was sore, and I was not sure where we would go next, so I agreed. I'll get you some photographs of my new hair in another post. Thankfully, my One Who Thinks She Knows is not ready for the Frobbies yet.

Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- October 11, 2013

No Turtles on Morrill

To her credit, My One Who Thinks She Knows has not yet either textured or released the "frobbies" as she calls them. She is not ready, and you know how I feel. We have gone back to bushwhacking, going to good places to find ourselves and try and put our Second Lives back together because we have no options. This is the roller coaster train at the State Fair on Morrill.

Morrill belongs to New York State Cooperative Extension which has its "real life" headquaraters at the New York State College of Agriculture and Life Science at Cornell University. Morrill is named after the State Senator or Legislator who sponsored the Morrill Act, which funded land grant universities such as CALS Cornell in New York State. The first building erected on the Cornell Campus was and still is Morrill Hall. The Morrill archipelago is an example of an academic sim hiding its sponsorship in plain sight, but not out of my One's sight.

We started going to the Morrill Archipelago less than six months after I rezzed (late 2008). Back then the sim was under construction and acted as a huge sand box. Soon the owners tightened it down and we moved elsewhere to build but we returned countless times to enjoy the attractions.

The four sim archipelago functions as a gigantic public service announcement. There is help with all kinds of domestic issues, perserving food, saving energy, taking good care of children, and avoiding germs through food safety. This image is on the outside of the House of Germs at the State Fair..

Agriculture is the other big subject. There are pastures, tractor exhibits, and more than one garden. There are even exhibits on entomology, saving water, and feral hogs. I think wild pigs are kind of cute. Other people think they are pests though.

That was why we could not bring any turtles to Morrill. How do you explain to Petable Turtles that have only lived in Second Life that in real life Ones kill sweet, little ratties? Not only do they kill them, but also as you can see in this picture, if the trap does not get them, they die a long, slow, painful death. The trap only has to mortally wound them. The Ones call killing sweet, little ratties "pest control" in the same way that they call letting Petable Turtles starve in inventory "retiring" them. Ones Who Think They Know have a very, ruthless side. You can see this mouse trap and much more about "pest control" in the IPM Warehouse on Morrill3.

Similarly the Ant Detective exhibit at the State Fair lets Ones and their avies hunt for ants by following a binary key through a maze in the sky. It says nothing about what the Ones will do once they identify the ants. The Ones just smile and act real smug. Of course I know that little, bitty anties are no less sweet and innocent than little, bitty ratties, or flying zwickies or our boxed up Lily Frogs. No, we were not taking the turtles to exhibits about killing animals! No way!

After walking around the Morrill Archipelago with my poor One I wonder about the mental state of Ones Who Think They Know in general. I know my One can get moody and emotional and of course out of sorts. Maybe all Ones do. She took endless pictures of this blue plastic barrel. She sung songs over it.

Oh little playmate
Come out and play with me
And bring your dollies three
Climb up my apple tree
Slide down my rain barrel
Into my cellar door,
And we'll be jolly friends
Forever more 1-2-3-4!

Over and over she sang that song. Then she fell in love with the kitchen in the drought exhibit at the State Fair. She had to take lots of photos of that too. She said it was "so retro."

Of course none of this singing and picture taking is what made me doubt my One's sanity and intelligence or that of Ones in general. Instead, I decided Ones were not as smart or sane as they claimed to be when I visited the Avatar Fitness Club on Morrill3. OK, I've worked out on gym equipment before, but this place really made me bust my tail, and then the club hands me a note that says Ones get thinner when they lose weight with an avie. I hate to tell you this, but the club was wall to wall avatarim working their little not-too-round rear ends off while their Ones were sat in chairs back in "real life." How we can make our Ones a little less round by exercising is beyond me, but the Ones think we can lose weight for them. I share knowledge with my One and I know that just can't be so.

Oh well, I've moved on to Spindrift. Nobody kills turtles there or tries to use avies to help their Ones lose weight...and I'm bringing Jurgis. We've got a special event planned for him, but it's a surprise.

Iyoba BatOni with help from her somewhat deluded One Who Thinks She Knows -- October 9, 2013

Does Closure Exist, and Then What?

It's no secret, I've been avoiding this blog, and Iyoba and I have been avoiding clubs, bushwhacking, contentment etc... for weeks on end. Anticipatory grief does strange things, and even when the dust cleared as it did late last week, I had that awful empty feeling of not knowing where to go next. Yes, I'm glad I'm not waiting for the end any more. It came. It went. It's over for now. Death in Second Life always carries with it the whiff of resurrection or a new way of life. Hope never goes away completely.

That and our grief is why our boxed up Lily Frogs will stay on the land along with the last of their progeny who are all those eggs in a rack. A day may come when Dragoness Rage returns or a successor takes over. There may be Lily Frog food and supplies again, but a new beginning may be months or years away.

There is a world of difference between trust and forgiveness. I can understand when real life intervenes. I can not deal with getting betrayed or let down (most likely the latter) by someone new. I know that I need to let Dragoness Rage know my feelings. I also know that it useless to ask or wonder what happened. It doesn't matter. It never mattered. What matters is what we both do now. The eggs will live forever, and even if I destroy those in the rack, there are hundreds more in Iyoba's inventory. I'm not ready to give up yet. Here then is my message to the future:

Dear Dragoness:

Let me start off by thanking you for two great years of frogs. I miss the sight of them hopping around, and the surprises the females left when they laid eggs, like Easter eggs. Thank you for the summer's worth of free food. Thank you for putting out boxes of supplies on Raven's Writing Desk so I could pick up supplies. That surplus of supplies let me keep packaging eggs long after the store had disappeared.

On August 3, around one in the morning Eastern Time, I had to retire my last generation of frogs, due to running out of food, but I have more than enough eggs to start over. The eggs will last forever. When you return, please think of me. I can wait as long as both of us need. I'm willing to work with you to restart whenever you are ready. If you read this note, I'll know you are inworld and ready to start again. I have that much faith. I also think I have enough patience. I don't think I forget that easily.

When you return, I will be glad to see you back. When I hatch out my first frogs again, I will think of you. Please accept my image of eggs in a rack as a token of the fact that I have not forgotten. It takes an act of faith to remember. It also takes faith to pick up where we both left off. I still think I have my faith, and I probably will still have it when you read this note. Just IM me to let me know your plans.

Eileen H. Kramer and Iyoba BatOni

That is it for now, but this letter, no letter, walking away and dusting off our hands, walking away and not looking back all leaves an empty space that screams out the question: "What now?" There really isn't an answer yet. Clubs, bushwhacking, breedables, including the Zwickies all look different. This kind of loss just bleeds into everything, including this blog. I know that Iyoba and I should bushwhack. This morning we got thrown out of a DJ's fan group for inactivity. Yes, we were inactive. We just had other things to do, not even other clubs. This morning Iyoba and I went to Energy, a very nice club that even managed to play a more maudlin brand of house music for a Sunday morning show.

And Tuesday morning, before we had to retire the Lily Frogs, Geronimo gave birth to this gorgeous hybrid Zwicky, a male that I named Tantalus. We can't take him out of stasis due to food and prim costs. Still, normally I would have been thrilled. We knew what was happening to our frogs and what had happened to our turtles. Zwickies are still wonderfully supported, but we both know that nothing lasts forever and an end can come badly when it comes.

I still want to believe it is not really over, or that it can begin again, that I can find good times again in Second Life, and that Dragoness will return, or I will be able to trust some other breedable creator. None of that is going to happen tonight or any time soon. Iyoba and I are going to be searching for a way to go on, and it can't be the same as before. We've lost our innocence with breedables this summer. I wish that would just stay compartmentalized but it's not going to. That's just not the way I think or how I feel. I wish I had closure, but closure is somewhere in the next county or maybe always tomorrow, or maybe it's next door to paradise or perfection. All I know is it's a long way off.

Eileen H. Kramer and Iyoba BatOni -- October 6, 2013