Astounded by Beauty and Something Else

Sometimes I wonder if my One Who Thinks She Knows remembers we have to name our Zwickies and that we are going to get a Zooby Baby. I know there are delays. I know we are bushwhacking to help us both get over our pain. Thank you Nivea et Famille. But sometimes I wonder if we'll ever go back to Stinky Stinky. We are bushwhacking productively, and sometimes bushwhacking can be just wonderful as it was on Studio Moya. We probably should make this sim one of the best. Some of the artist's creations are just so cute. I know they are supposed to be ironic, but my One thinks they are cute and beautiful too.

The ethnic drawings/sculptures on Studio Moya can be a bit inauthentic. This Aztec sun god is cute, but the Aztec preferred their deities fierce and strange. If the artist is trying to draw our stereotypes about how tourists see Mexico, he did succeed. Still this boxing ring made me think of a Maya ball court. If you lost playing Maya ball, you were the next sacrifice at the top of the pyramids.

Then there are the sims that just surprise even if they don't dazzle. Last time we went to PT Inovacao,the sim next to Universidade de Aveiro, the sim was off limits. These days PT Inovacao is open for business. My One loved this scene. It's not fancy, and the salt piles reminded her of the piles of road salt stored in giant size barns along the New York State Throughway (I-90), to keep it open all winter long. This salt, however, is not calcium chloride mixed with sand for roads. It is salt evaporated from the sea and destined for fancy dinner tables. My One had never seen a salt farm in Second Life before and neither had I.

I also got to ride around in a peddle boat on PT Inovacao. The sim has lots of waterways, but it's hard to keep the pedal boat straight. Still I did not end up in the air or flying over the land in the thing. I was sorry to run it aground and get out.

There was after all plenty to explore. PT Inovacao is a mockup of a Portugese coastal town. There is old time architecture, a beach, a salt farm, a photographer, peddle boats, and these cute and vaguely familiar prefabs. They are supposed to be beach cabanas, though I could swear that my One and I have seen them before on a sim called Christina or Cristina (both sims are gone) where we used to go dancing in an octagonal, outdoor club. Educators can put store bought goods to good use.

This white board which is photo-real, but utterly NONinteractive, adds a touch of realism to a patient's room in the never-finished big hospital on SUNY Medical Island, formerly SUNY Oneonta. The floating patients and the outdoor delivery suite have mercifully vanished, but the hospital has no roof, and you have to cam and sit or fly to get inside. Some of the rooms are empty. The furniture is modern, but you can't wash your hands and there is no patient information at all. There used to be notecards, a very long time ago.

Sometimes the builds on SUNY Medical Island display a touch of humor. The Veterinary hospital was finished enogh, and unusual enough, to make the Explores SL Spread Sheet. This is one of the patients. I guess we'll never know whether the chicken (or duck) or the egg came first. They are kind of both in the waiting room.

Besides humor, the reason the Veterinary Hospital made Explore SL Spread Sheet is the level of detail. There are office pets, an X-ray machine, a place to do laundry. Animals who stay overnight have bedding in their cages. Of course, my One does wonder how students use the Veterinary hospital. It is not interactive. Perhaps they show up with pets and talk through a scenario wearing special private HUDs. Or maybe the whole SUNY Medical Island just spends tier and gives nothing back. New York State residents pay either $3600/year or $1800/year for the island. That is a whole academic department's worth of supplies, a lot of print outs or copies etc.... If the cost for the island comes out of a single department budget, it is a sizeable budget item. My One always wonders: "Who pays for all this?" and she hates waste!

My One wonders who pays for St. Louis Island. It disappeared for a short while and now it is back. Did the sim change owners? Did Linden Labs reduce the tier, because it is a very fancy build. Alas, it is also a wasteful build. The buildings are mostly stage sets. The island includes the arch and a bridge over the Mississipi that goes nowhere, and roads and parkland. It is a fun place to walk around...

but this single arch costs someone or some organization either $1800 a year if Linden Lab is merciful or $3600 a year if they charage the full freight. Someone thought this sim important enough to keep open. And perhaps they think they get their money's worth. It is hard to tell. My One pays as she goes. We need a place to come home to, though lately, we haven't been home much. At least St. Louis Island is a somewhat successful build.

We can't say the same about VBIsland. We really do try to stay away from snark, but in the case of this sim, snark would be undeservedly merciful. The sim features a lecture hall and two interactive laboratories. Robots give directions to the labs. I followed them and ended up in conference rooms or empty spaces. Apparently the labs had never been built. I was wrong. The lab was in another building and it featured this poster. Look closely at it. My One could not believe it when she saw it. She still wonders it this is an intentional mistake left for students to catch. Any student of biology knows that malaria is a parasite!. It has a nucleus. It can differentiate and reproduce sexually. It is far more complex than either a bacteria or a virus (Kingdom difference!).

My One is not sure where to go from here. She has the name of the poster's owner and can get the creator's name. This really does call for an email. Needless to say VBIsland's pathology lab did NOT get a place on the Explore SL Spread Sheet. I told my One we need to go home and care for our Zwickies, and I think I want a Zooby. We just travel too much.

Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- July 30, 2015

Come Back Soon Pretty Orli

For a person who is somewhat conflicted and probably only half-interested in acquiring a Zooby Baby, my One Who Thinks She Knows keeps smashing obstacles to our Zooby dreams. She has solved the money issue, the land issue. Our child will be male. She is down to two choices for a name, and has good reasons for one choice. She has asked me to keep the name a secret. Now she has laid to rest the biggest obstacle yet. Pretty Orli, our 64 bit and very new computer is going away due to construction. "No problem," my One says. She has made some adjustments to Maggie Mae, and Pretty Orli will return in two weeks. We, of course can wait.

Ironically, one thing we never did, even at the height of my One's Zooby mania was take a lot of photos of Zoobys or their acoutrements. We just didn't. I think my One felt shame at her craving which at times was an obsession. I finally told her to take some photos. In fact, I insisted.

Well, we got one picture anyway, one good enough for the blog that is. This is a nonmesh, Zooby, bath tub. My One and I both think it is ugly and the brown base model is not much better. It is dull. It uses too many prims. It is modifiable into something grand or at least with personality and imagination. We'll have an unmodified copy in inventory in case we trash it. It's our next project but we will not have a Zooby to bathe for two weeks....remember what is happening to Pretty Orli.

So what have we been doing? My One has started to bushwhack her way out of her grief and anger at Nivea et famille as well as the impending loss of Pretty Orli. Here I am putting out a fire in the pathology lab on HKU Medicine Island. The last time we visited, several years ago, there were just empty buildings. This tutorial is relatively new and we learned about it in a group of links at the Yamato Memorial.

The link board on Yamato Memorial was a game changer, and that was an understatement. Suddenly our bushwhacking spilled bagfuls of beans. It still will do it, though I'll have to move more slowly when my One logs in through Maggie Mae. Where have I gone? Where have I not gone? I've been to the bottom of the sea at the recently moved, Abyss Observatory.

I've been to the fantastic, Otovan Opisto Space Station on EduFinland II, a space station with its own, rainforest and vermin control officer.

Yes, here is the Vermin Control Officer hard at work. She keeps those little pesky alien rats in line and disposes of stowaways. You can see she enjoys her work, and my One enjoyed seeing her. My One just plain enjoys animals, even sculpty animals in zoo cages.

And speaking of zoos, here are some orangutans at the Cascade Zoo. For some reason, Second Life zoos made my One happier than she has been in weeks. She said she was not sure why she felt so good. She knew the sculpty animals were not "real," but they were realistic enough that they reminded her of the real thing. Also where she lives zoo admission is $29 (multipy that by 250 to get the cost in Lindens) and other Ones who don't have avatarim say that Second Life is a waste of money.

Of course Second Life's zoo animals are also bots, which means they work and unlike breedables don't reproduce. This pands is on duty collecting donations at the Parktown Zoo. Neither my One nor I knew Second Life had two zoos!

Of course my favorite part of any bushwhacking is the rides. This is kind of ironic because usually my One Who Thinks She Knows insists I get down to work, and we are too busy... Still my One was in a good enough mood to let me take rides at both the Parktown and Oasis Zoos.

Of course sometimes my One has no choice. To get the most out of University of Hawaii HHS' Plaque Attack I had to ride a red blood cell through a clogged artery where it got stuck and bounced around quite a bit. For some reason this kind of ride did not make my One motion sick. She gets that way when rockets vibrate, like the one that took me to the Otovan Opisto Space Station.

Of course my One wanted to miss nothing, especially when exhibits were sim size like the Yamato Memorial. We walked all over the island, explored ships, looked at airplanes, climbed to and in the light house, and rode the amazing train under the sea. It was how I got my new dress wet. I always have to get my new dress wet.

As I write this blog, it is now only hours until my One loses Pretty Orli. She is coming back. We don't have to worry. The name my One wants to use for our Zooby (Sorry it's a secret because she could still change her mind) has to do with our powerlessness in the face of bigger forces. "We just kind of have to roll with it," and enjoy the ride, my One explained. I guess she kind of sees herself like the sea turtle I rode on this merry go round at the Parktown Zoo. There's a stick through her back, and she and I are both going to have to go round in circles quite a few times before we even think we're getting anywhere. That's just the way it is...for now.

Iyoba BatOni with Eileen H. Kramer and written on Pretty Orli -- July 24, 2015

Gone to Ground and Fallen to Earth

This is old news, but this is still here. On Thursday, my One Who Thinks She Knows had me return the stone bench made of corn, the Loaf Shaped Green House, and several other objects to inventory. We are taking pains to keep inventory down, but we could still find room. This empty space with the two original bee hives from 2008 is till there. My One has done as little rearranging at Stinky Stinky as possible. I'm not sure why. It feels strange that she has gotten so half-hearted about the Zooby project. Maybe when she walks up Clarendon Ave. this afternoon, she will feel inspired.

And yes, this is me inside the Not a Handsome Home now at Stinky Stinky. We are keeping the name, but we have our most ambitious house yet. Maybe that is a sign of good faith. The furniture is still outside, which is just fine with me. I'm not all that found of sleeping indoors. My One thinks she might move the Zwickies inside. They started life indoors, but needed Zelly and a few other bugs before they would breed happily. Zwickipause was a mistake, but Griderz was good enough to correct this.

"One, if you can trust Griderz with your Zwickies, and don't tell me they're grandfathered in, can't we trust Zooby. I know you have trust and dependency issues cause of the Turtles and Frogs. I know that! Isn't it time to trust someone. At least you get treated well as a paying customer, and Nivea et famille aren't going to have a change of heart. They're just not!" My One says there is more to what is slowing her down. She is wretched and she says it is for good reason. She says obsessing over Zoobies is her escape. Second Life is her coping mechanism. She's not sure we have the time. She's not sure a Zooby wouldn't upset things. She's probably fussed more than anyone over a Zooby and she's going to fuss more and more. She's going to set the world fussing record! Poor One Who Thinks She Knows!

And this is fairly recent. Yes, that is me breaking in a new dress by bouncing on the ban lines at Dumbonet. I've done it before, but look again. Really look...

Here is a better picture. This is Nivea et. Famille's land on Friday. The map shill showed their house, but on the gorund it was gone. My One was horrified. "It happened too fast," she complained. She figured the mansion on half an island would survive until around the first of the year.

My One had me do an About Land to get an object count. "They may have moved up to the sky," she explained. And they might have cared even less about landscaping than my One. They hadn't. As of Saturday this prim count became thirty-nine. Where theese prims are, we don't know, but on Saturday the ban lines were down and autoreturn for nongroup members was set to five minutes. Go figure on that. My One thinks some kind of remodeling/rebuild is in progresss with store bought goods. Not everybody has a Not a Handsome Home ready for expansion.

And not even all academic sims remodel neatly. Here is the sunken and overgrown coffee shop on Tecnologico de Monterrey, a sim with several entries in the Explore SL Spread Sheet. To say this sim is a mess, is an understatment.

USF MTSS on the other hand is totally gorgeous, with elaborate, French palaces, an Arc de Triomphe, and a French, country castle. OK, both my One and I are partial to red, but you have to admit all this detail is gorgeous.

Of course unless something changes drastically, they will be playing ice hockey in hell if anything on USF MTSS makes it to the Explore SL Spread Sheet. The reason is what you don't see in the photo. Most of these buildings have either empty rooms or furniture and little else. There is one web site on a prim pointing to Google, but there are no links to the University's library, no notecard givers, no Sploodle parlors, no art galleries or poster presentations, just big store bought or semi-stock (prefab!) buildings that are either tax or grant money hard at work...well sort of.

Perhaps one has to pay as you go to build responsibly. My One Who Thinks She Knows thinks this. Surely, whoever built the black sands sculptures on MK009 Sazanami Land, did more with his small rental than most educators do with an entire sim. The textures and sculptures are original. My One is not a big fan of steam punk, but she fell in love with the moving parts and the sand like black silk, and no, the exhibit DOEN'T charge admission.

So tonight we are trying to go back to living normal life in Second Life. I'm building and bushwhacking and my One seems fine with that. We check on our Zwickies. We avoid Zoobyville. We'll try to figure out what happened to Nivea et famille's land. I don't think my bounces on ban lines drove them off. My One suspects they were simply overextended. She hasn't figured out yet thatwe aren't ever going to know. I tell her that our Zooby child will not desert us. He'll cost us money, but my One has a kind heart and she'll pay up without complaining. My One grumbles about trust and dependency issues and time and quality of the SL connection on Maggie Mae. Suffice it to say, I'm going to have to be very patient.

Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- July 19, 2015

Pretty Orli and the Not a Handsome Home

No, Orli, is NOT the name of our Zooby Baby. We DO NOT have a Zooby Baby. This is only a Zooby Changing Table. My One bought it and we modified the you-know-what out of it in the University of Hawaii Sandbox. $2.00 has never made my One happier.

One by one every obstacle between us and a Zooby offspring has fallen. We had the Not a Handsome Home in inventory. We added a platform, stilts, stairs, and a door. My One made several textures, and the thing just came together. By taking down our Loaf Shaped Green House at Stinky Stinky and getting rid of the Boma, we will be able to put up this thirty-two prim structure, use highly modified Zooby furniture or rezz the pieces one at a time if we need to, and NOT need more land!

The new house has everything our fanciest houses have had. It takes up next to no space at ground level, leaving lots of area for a humungeous yard, and a great view. It has windows on the inside that are transparent, and obscured by blinds on outside. The patterned roof is a transparent skylight, and there is a third, large, one way window in the back.

There are only three windows inside instead of the five you see outside, but between those windows and the skylight, and the one way transparent door, there is plenty of light despite the apple, green interior. I've never had a house this color before. I'm almost afraid to move my furniture inside. Right now it is all under the house near the Zwicky feeder at Stinky Stinky. We took these pictures of the house while working on it at University of Hawaii Sandbox and CSULB.

Of course the view at Stinky Stinky is much nicer than it these dayes at CSULB. I can thank Edde for that. My One is glad she does not have to give Edde notice. I made her pay her rent to slow her down on Sunday. I almost wish she would take me to bounce on the ban lines at Dumbonet, but we've been too busy clearing obstacles.

This platypus is a reminder that we still think about Nivea et famille. Hannah, one of the offspring feared and despised platypuses. How you can go through life not liking wildlife is beyond both my One Who Thinks She Knows and me. I do want to go back and bounce on those banlines. Part of me still thinks we are moving too fast in some ways. All of me at the time we textured the Not a Handsome Home on CSULB was sure we needed to slow down.

My One was dropping obstacles to a Zooby purchase way too quickly. Even the 3500 L for a Developer Kit, did not phase, her not that she has spent the money. If you are worried about my One squandering her tax refund and birthday gift (in "real life") on a Developer Kit, remember the exchange rate for Lindens is 250 Lindens equals one dollar. Fourteen dollars is 3500 L. My One would spend more than fourteen dollars for a skirt, sweater, pair of shoes, or week's worth of groceries. Fourteen dollars is less than the cost of one Petflow, cat litter delivery. Textures, on the other hand cost 10L to upload (4 cents...for real!) Zooby outfits are about 300L each. If you sew your own clothes, you make the Developer Kit's cost back.

Alas, the Developer Kit may well be a necessity. In my One's enthusiasm, trips to Zoobyville have become an obsession. We fight our way past rigged mesh that pokes out our eyes. We've lost count of the avatarim we have derendered to be able to see. We make it to the wall. We obtain prices, information, and look at what is available. Just as the Zooby furniture is wanting, the Zooby clothing lacks imagination. Maybe some of the affiliates do better, but it is sterotypically genddered, and the male colors are dull as dirt. There are no oranges, yellows, pale greens, olive drag, moss green etc... for males. Female clothes are either pink, red, or black. Most of the clothes we saw were for older Zooby children. Of course, my One's imagination is not for everyone. Yes, that is a design of wasps on my dress. I took this picture on Bradley University in the reference hut.

Here is a better view of the same dress. I'm on the big steps at Terra Egypta. I get to do lots of travelling, and I'm concerned whether my One and I really have time for a Zooby child. We've been good to our breedables, so in some ways I know the answer, but Zoobies require a lot of interaction. My One, however, really did love feeding the turtles. We miss them, and we miss the Lily Frogs, and Zoobies do not have the kind of ongoing commitment that traditiona, feed or die, breedables have. If we get caught up in bushwhacking, we can just hold the baby or only do part of the routine. We can wait until we have money to buy her a brain booster star and move her along slowly. Do I hear more obstacles crashing?

No, I heard obstacles exploding as my very determined, One Who Thinks She Knows dynamites them. Yesterday afternoon, fate dropped the largest obstacle into the path between us and my One's Zooby dreams, fell like a meteor. At 2pm on Wednesday afternoon, my One lost Computer N, and received another, newer, and more powerful machine. Alas, she could NOT run Second Life on the newcomer. Her browsers all said that the new computer's video drivers were not good enough. My One made plans. She prepared to take vacation time and make sure she got online with Maggie Mae, a nine year old behemoth of a machine that my One keeps in extra-good repair. She consoled herself that Computer N's (It's real name is Najya. My One names all her computers.) connection was sometimes throttled. She said she would work to make the time. I can't blog a lot of what she thought. I get to hear her thoughts sometimes. She may share them, but I have to self-censor just a bit.

Then this morning, my One tried to solve her video/graphics driver issue. She checked Second Life's system requirements and checked her graphics driver. The newcomer that was going to receive a name with an O, did not have the latest driver. Fortunately, updates were available online. Unfortunately, my One needed an administrator to install them. She begged. She pleaded. She got her wish. Computer O could now reach Second Life. We could go inworld! I was thrilled.

My One Who Thinks She Knows shared my joy only briefly. Then she turned bitter. Our access to Second Life was fast, agile, and solid. Computer O put Maggie Mae to shame. "If something happens to Pretty Orli [That is Comuter O's name] I'm screwed! Yesterday, I was flexible. Today.... " And Maggie Mae is going to have to be with us until the end of the year. As beautiful as Pretty Orli is, and she is one honey of a computer, she is obsolete. On July 29, Windows 10 arrives. My One says that her new computer (Yes, Maggie Mae's replacement) will run Windows 10. That means we have to wait six to nine more months.

Anyway, suffice it to say my One Who Thinks She Knows is no longer so excited about a Zooby Baby. I'm not exactly sure why this happened. She still wants to spend time inworld. We've gotten good at clearing inventory. We will be able to build. My One has gotten good about letting me blog. I wish I could say more. It's just that my One after destroying every obstacle in her path, including the biggest of them all, has a case of cold feet. I wish I understood more. I share her thoughts, but there are limits to how much an avie like me understands about a One and her desires. One who has issues on all kinds of levels. Oh well, I tell myself we have plenty of time. We have a new house and also a new computer.

Iyoba BatOni with help from Eileen H. Kramer -- July 16, 2015

Slouching Toward Zoobyland

In "real life" there is a street called Clarendon Ave. Several Sundays in a row my One Who Thinks She Knows has walked this street from where it starts at Columbia Drive all the way to Laredo Drive. She has walked it in the rain. She has walked it in the sun. Several Sundays ago, she learned that somehow she and I had upset Shoshanna and perhaps other members of Nivea's menage. That was the beginning of the end, though it took five days more for Nivea to block my One on Facebook. My One still recalls the conversation every time she walks up Clarendon Ave. And no, we don't have the Zooby baby yet, and yes, that is me in the Zooby Store on Zoobyville. There really is such a place. They really sell babies. Welcome to the Uncanny Valley, not that it is a bad place.

And no, we are not dragging all of this out unncessarily or intentionally trying to bore our audience. My One's reasoning and some of mine is as follows: The major expense of a Zooby Baby is the land to support a bigger house that houses all its furniture and the land to support all that furniture. A Zooby baby needs a lot of equipment: a bed/crib, a changing table, a closet, and a bath tub. An avie like me needs nothing but herself. A One in "real life"...I don't even want to think about that. I'm not sure I fully understand it either. My One has figured out a way to pay for the additional land. This is a major ongoing expense. It is entertainment too and fraught with moral hazard. My One has figured out that by stopping kitty litter delivery and hauling the litter herself, she can save enough to support a bigger piece of land and pay no more than she does now. Of course, until she has "humped litter" a few times, she has no idea if this is workable over the long run. That means a wait of at least six to twelve weeks. In the meanwhile, we get to work on the house and perhaps make some custom Zooby furniture. Furniture can take up space in invetory or be boxed if we halt the project. A developer kit is a one time expense, not a commitment. I hope you see how all this works. By the way, this is the second iteration of the nursery house (formerly and still the Not A Handsome Home). My One loves alliteration. We still need to add faux windows and more decoration to the outside. The texture is the same outside and in which we didn't plan to do, but it looks great in both places. I guess the nursery is going to be apple green.

Of course there is one glaring flaw in the go-slow strategy, and it is not that you, dear reader, don't like hearing about Zoobies. Except for uploading textures, we haven't spent one red cent on a Zooby yet. This is about us, and the glaring flaw in our go-slow plan is that my One Who Thinks She Knows and therefore I tend to get caught up in process. Without a Zooby or something else crazy to do "on the rebound" we can lick our wounds for as long and as much as we want. After a time, this kind of nursing our loss takes on a life of its own. Here I am crying on Dumbonet.

And now, no new dress is fully broken in unless I have worn it to bounce on Nivea et famille's ban lines on Dumbonet. I don't mind bouncing. I really don't. I share memories with my One. She gets wretched and I get very emotional!

What perks up my poor One Who Thinks She Knows is watching the zwickies fly and schadenfreude. When she saw that Nivea et famille rented nearly one half of Dumbonet, she said: "I wonder if they will still be there in six months." Of course Nivea could be a landlord, but that is a hard business in which to stay afloat, and my One thinks Nivea is simply shelling out a lot of tier or she and her friends pass the hat. My One thinks: That mansion on Dumbonet is one out-of-pocket medical expense or car repair bill away from a trip back to inventory. This is NOT what we want happening to our Zooby's nursery.

Of course my One and I don't spend all our time on Dumbonet. We bushwhack, and we continue to explore the EduFinland Archipelago. Though most furnished spaces leave us cold, the "second floor" academic building on InnoOmnia is different. My One and I are not sure why. My One thinks it is the use of color, greens, golds, blues, and attention to detail, like this striped table runner and plenty of houseplants, that make InnoOmnia's decor such a treat. To get to the "Second Floor" find the teleport board and click.

But there is another side to InnoOmnia that my One saw immediately. The sim belongs to a vocational college, a technical school. In many states in the US this kind of community college is treated like a stepchild and considered lowly. Cornell and Stanford may have sims in Second Life, but Gerogia Piedmont Technical College DOES NOT, and InnoOmnia's build rivals that of any big name US university, and for that matter so does Keuda's, another Finnish, vocational, college. My One thinks Finnish passion for equality in education may be behind these glorious, educational sims.

By the way, because InnoOmnia's exhibits did not have any note cards or HUD givers, they did not earn a place on the Explore SL Spread Sheet. The sim is still very much worth a visit as is TuAMK. Here is Papu, the parrot. He'll talk to any one who visits the ship in the harbor. One of the great things about Finnish educational sims, is the kilometer after kilometer of temperate or boreal coastline. It is my One's favorite kind of beach.

Both my One and I are impressed at how simply and well, the TuAmk Builders retrofitted the ship. Adding the talking parrot and seating on the deck was all they needed to do to make the ship part of a promotional arcade. They also (and sorry we can't have a picture of everything) worked the ship into being part of their university's theme. The university flag flies from two masts festooned with smaller flags in two places on the sim. Oddly, Finnish Universities appear not to have mascots. There are no pirates, no Vikings, no fierce animals, and not even a seawolf or orca, and there are also no coats of arms. My One thinks this very odd and a bit sad.

TuAmk even had an tutorial that made the Explore SL Spreadsheet. The hospital offers a HUD and equipment to treat a patient afflicted with MERS. MERS stands for a particularly drug resistant strain of staphylococcus aureus. Nasty stuff. There is a reason this poor patient is in isolation. The HUD, protective equipment, and instructions are all in Finnish, so I could not quite get the tutorial to work. I also suspect it is not yet finished. I could not wash my hands. There was no lab equipment either.

Sometimes I try to picture what it will be like to bushwhack with a Zooby baby. I wonder what happens if it is not bring your prim baby to work night at the Reference Hut on Bradley University. My One is aware we are going to be doing something very weird. My One thinks she has been doing something very weird with Second Life for a long time. Right now I'm glad we're going slow. Whether we get a Zooby Baby or give up on it for one reason or another, there is time for my One to come to her senses again. We need the time. I just hope there is enough of it.

Iyoba BatOni and Eileen H. Kramer -- July 12, 2015

Cold Comfort and a Cold One

We did not go bouncing yesterday. My One thinks a throttled internet connection on one of our computers is to blame for that. I don't think we've boinged our last boing. Both my One Who Thinks She Knows and I still feel incredibly wretched and upset!

And bushwhacking did not help us feel any better. In fact it made things worse. This beautiful piece of faux stained glass is on U Wisconsin Milwaukee. It is on a part of the island that belongs to the university's art school.

Alas, the art school never finished their facility or exhibit. This is what their office looks like. The door opens, but no one has installed any art or even deposited a few freebie pieces of furniture. So it goes.

At least U Wisconsin Milwaukee still exists. By Sunday, Cybrary City II had already vanished. The sim had been circling the proverbial drain for some time. In Second Life, if you can't pay your rent...

I had to take my One Who Thinks She Knows in hand. "Look," I said. "Bushwhacking's getting you down and if you spend too much time on Dumbonet we could get reported. Let's do something that makes all this fun. Let's go bushwhacking on the Edu-Finland Archipelago!"

This was really a pretty hair-brained suggestion. First, we weren't sure all those sims with hard to pronounce Finnish names were even educational. We also had seen the Archipelago shrink during our years of map watching. And what we saw on Keuda, which we chose due to its easy-to-pronounce name, didn't seem promising. Yes, it was a fantastic, sea port/dilapidated urban build, a cut above most, but usually these are builds for role-plays or a certain kind of dance club.

What we found were" mostly very realistic, but empty buildings. There were some boxes; a cute, little, red dolly cart; a barge ready to load; several doors leading to nowhere; and yes, lots and lots of chain link fence topped by nice, shiny, barbed wire. Here I am peering through the fence. Fortunately, my One Who Thinks She Knows had the presence of mind to do an ABOUT LAND and found that the sim did belong to the Keuda Vocational College.

Like most colleges and universities in Europe, where the drinking age is eighteen, and adolescents often indulge semi-legally, Keuda College is a wet campus. In the United States, by contrast, most college campuses are dry (NO ALCOHOL!). The bar with beer we saw was par for the course, but down the hall was.... You can see it in the illustration.

Here is the back side of the brewery mechanism. Posters around the room and a HUD help you learn how to brew beer or at least get an in-depth short course in beer making. Brewery science must be one of Keuda's course offerings.

My One says that what she knows about Scandinavians in general and Finns in particular could fit under several of my lovely Neema Silk nails. The Finnish education system is considered one of the best in the world, and people from Iceland think of fruit as a luxury instead of a necessity. We've done more exploring since our visit to Keuda, and my One thinks that the Finnish, aesthetic sensibility is similar to her own because she has spent a lot of her adult life in Central New York, a land of cold winters. People who live in the cold crave color. That is her explanation, but she doesn't have a really good answer as to why Keuda Brewery is such a great build. She says she wished she knew more.

And my One still wants me to have a Zooby Baby. This is take two of the house. We raised it on stilts and built stairs up to it. The reason for this kind of architecture is it leaves more ground free for a garden. We may put our old yurt or pocket home under the house to make a second room. This would still leave plenty of room, and did any of you notice, the house is not textured? Well, that's going to slow my somewhat crazy One Who Thinks She Knows down a bit, and that is fine with me.

Iyoba BatOni and Eileen H. Kramer -- July 7, 2015

Boing, Boing, Boing, Schplatt, Zooby?

It really HURTS when you are NOT GOOD ENOUGH! It HURTS when you get left flat by a person who said she would your friend. People who are hurt do crazy things, and a One Who Thinks She Knows, who is often wretched and out of sorts does even crazier ones. This is a picture of my family such as it is, my Petable Turtles, who are now statues but still real; one of my koLis, Kaya; and a Zwicky named Protea. My One managed to get this shot by a happy accident.

But both of us are far from happy. Like my One, I too am very emotional. We have been doing a lot of "licking our wounds." We went to Bikini Bottom because it was where another family of choice had a business and was also specking land. This family dumped me because my One had technical issues with our inworld connection. It was a few months ago. It seemed like an appropriate place to go.

Another appropriate place to go is on Coral Reef, where Jurigs, one of our turtles, a Green Cosmic Starter was born and died for the first time. Jurgis died twice after that, and by being a statue, has cheated death a third time. I needed Jurgis. I needed to take him back to the place of his birth. This time, though my One noticed the land was for sale. That really means for rent. "We need more land if we are going to get a Zooby Baby," my One told me. This makes sense in a weird way. Buying a child stops the whole rejection thing and the fruitless payments of an adoption agency that is less than helpful's tier. Face it, there are worse things than being treated as a paying customer.

Of course I told my One Who Thinks She Knows the obvious. "If you go with Zooby you become a slave to someone else' server and products. You'll have to buy all that furniture. You'll be in for a huge committment. Aren't our turtles, Zwickies, and koLis enough?" Jurgis could have asked that question too. My One said she was unsure. Then she looked to see how much it would cost to rent THAT piece of land. It came out to about 6900L per month, close to three times what we were now paying. Talk about sticker shock. "You can't afford a Zooby because you can't afford the land to support one!" I told my One. My One said she could figure something out. She had some gift money. She now thinks she has a plan to economize to free up the cash she needs and then some. The gift money would only be used for initial purchases, and those would only take up a small portion of it. The problem, one of many problems, is that my One has to be sure she is comfortable economizing on a regular basis. There is not much danger our Zooby expenses will grow beyond the initial ongoing commitment. Zooby Babies do not starve, regress, or sicken. The cost of land to support them and the initial outlay for furniture and perhaps a developer kit are the major expenses. Long term, the Zwickies are more demanding. Niether the turtles nor koLis eat, and both are low prim.

And of course we had to go back to Dumbonet to see what had become of Nivea's family, if she was still there, to have a last look at the house. We figured we would stick to the public roads but there were no roads on Dumbonet. Here I am crouched in a motorcycle shop. I am glad I have Jurgis with me. His hard life and many escapes from death inspire both my One and me. Of course we did not stay at the motorcycle shop. We wanted to see Nivea's magnificient mansion. That meant we flew. Another day we swam.

Of course the family home is only for those who fit in. Everyone else is locked out with a bunch of ban lines. Ban lines, however are a box with a top. A security orb is a lot more effective. Jungle walls scream "KEEP OUT!" but Nivea et famille use ban lines, and on top of ban lines one can bounce, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing! One can bounce forever.

One can boing boing, every day and anyday and any time. One never gets hurt. One never falls. One never goes schplat. I went schpat already and so did my One. We were hurt already. Ban lines can not hurt us more. My One cries out for a Zooby Baby to heal the hurt and a project to distract her.

Not even bushwhacking derails her crazy new obsession. Of course we have been bushwhacking. It does not lift her blues. It does nto fully assauge my hurt either. Even the most beauitful places do not relieve my pain and Vanima Shee, home of Faye Faire and a huge kawaii store called Epic, are beautiful. They are stores, but they are also art and sculpture.

And this cup and saucer fountain on Vanima Shee is amazing and intricate. We wandered around the island, sat on the swing, talked to one of our friends trying to explain about virtual adoption, and the explanation was not easy. It will be no easier to talk about a Zooby baby.

We'll be travelling deep into the Uncanny Valley, but my One is not afraid of that. I did keep reminding her: "We need more land. We need a house. We need all that furniture. You don't even know what sex child you want and neither do I, and we sure as hell don't know what to name it. Yes, it's just an it at this point. My One and I have often had discussions on what to name an island if we had one. We are not going to have one. It is too expensive. My One struggles to name Zwickies and we know their sex. Most of them are female."

Still my One is determined. It is Zooby or bust, though she wants to make sure she is content with economizing to support the land a Zooby will need. A Zooby Baby also needs a house. The Not a Handsome House v0.2 pictured on Sandbox ABC is the answer to a nursery for our potential, yet unknown and unnamed offspring. You can see my One and I added a floor/platform to it and widened the door for easy access. We also added a curved piece. The next step is to put the Not a Handsome House on stilts and add stairs. A smaller structure below will serve my needs and the needs of the Zwickies. The bees have hives (not the itchy kind) or a nesting facility. The turtles live in inventory. koLis live in the garden. And yes, the house needs texturing both outside and in.

And I taunted my One: "What color will you paint the nursery?" She said, green, yellow, or orange. Shaka, our altie already has purple. You have to hand it to my One. She said she'd get brown furniture (wood finish) and paint the walls orange put up tasteful modern art or still lives. Everything would be elegant and modern. Of course, Nivea et famille had no appreciation for modern art and will probably never visit the exhibits on CUNORTE Udeg. They shared with us, and I have a new skin. Now I won't ever get to reciporcate. That's not something a Zooby Baby can replace, One. I know the search seems fun to you now, but when we get it, it will end in disappointment. Isn't that the way things always end. Of course my One has a good heart toward her Zwickies, turtles, and even koLis. She created the bees seven years ago. They are still in our garden on Stinky Stinky. How is that for a name?

Iyoba Bat Oni and Eileen H. Kramer -- July 5, 2015

Settling Up Scores

This should be a happy blog entry. I don't have to tell you it is not going to be. Wednesday, my One Who Thinks She Knows bought me the Neema Silk Skin. You'll see it soon enough. We boxed up the demos. Deleted what we definitely did not want. Got rid of a few extra items, and our inventory is again manageable.

We did all of this in the public sandbox at Sheridan College. It took ten minutes. It did not feel like much of anything.

Of course that was because I'd been wearing demo skins for several weeks, and a lot of that time out in public. Obtaining a new skin though was a time for new beginnings and tying up loose ends. This one was two weeks in coming. My One did not delete the landmark but we divesed ourselves of Never B Solo. They can find someone else to help pay their rent.

Next it was off to Antiquity Texas. Here I am waving "Hi." Of course I have a lot more to do than just wave and walk around. Antiquity Texas is as close to a sim of evil as there is in Second Life. It is a recreation of Austin Texas somewhere between the late 1700's and the Twentieth Century. That means I am either somebody's property or subject to Jim Crow laws. That means any white man can rape me because....I'm nothing. That means I can be bred like a brood mare and beaten like a dog. And there on the north side of the sim is the State House, where Jim Crow laws are created, and where a government that fought to preserve slavery as part of the Confederate States of America ruled. Even today, it is where a governor signs death warrants to have condemned poisoned with a cocktain of uncertain drugs that may put them in unspeakable agony before they succumb on the death house gurney. My One Who Thinks She Knows and with whom I share memories says all of this has happened or is still happening in "real life."

So it was time for the revolution. The year is 1822. The Hatian ships arrive bearing not only the first generation born free due to revolution, but also Jews from Eastern Europe who have escaped the Czar and are tired of the Pale of Settlement and the Congress of Vienna. Now is our time to rise. Now is our version of history. Now if only I had a machine gun. I had a giant gavel instead.

And of course there had to be an administrator watching. "No giant prims," she cautioned me. I said it was just a phot op. I really did mean no harm. I didn't think the big gavel could do much. It has its use against judges who keep prisoners in cages. Maybe we should pay that judge a call. The funniest part was when the admin said that the State House was just offices and stores. Hmmm.... She was also decorating the town square for the Fourth of July, indepndence for a country that until after the Civil War would have considered me three fifths of a human being. Too bad we deleted my machine gun when I cut back on inventory last winter.

Then it was off to the ClevelandPlus Archipelago to bushwhack and visit an old friend. The Social Responsibility Posters were still there on the ClevelandPlus VIII, where they have been since 2008/2009. This Rubik's Cube is supposed to symbolize gay pride due to its rainbow colors.

And this blimp no longer flies from the ClevelandPlus VIII, and ClevelandPlus IV, VI, and VII no longer exist.

The Virtual Worlds Library also needs a weeding and cleanup. This landmark to the old NOAA sim which this "computer" gives goes nowhere and hasn't for several years.

Of course the real reason we visited the ClevelandPlus Archipelago was to see Baby Alex who lives in a sealed up skybox low in the atmosphere above ClevelandPlus VIII. Alex is a little, badly neglected, Zooby boy who lives in a stereotypically, squalid apartment. His best friends are the little, black ratties. Ratties are OK, but the apartment's builder, Stella Costello, says via message that the place is used for social work students. Both my One and I wonder how recently it has been used. Sacrificing a Zooby Baby to education and keeping him well cherished and loved is fine. Using him for decoration and forgetting about him is akin to mistreating a Zwicky or other breedable. The line between highly interactive bot and breedable is pretty gray. Both are more independent and worthwhile than many Ones Who Think They Know think.

THEN LATE THIS MORNING THE BIG NEWS BROKE. Nivea, Nechama, and Hannah disappeared from my One Who Thinks She Knows' Facebook feed and friend list. Nivea has currently blocked my One. Nivea has a new mother. So much for all of us staying friends. My One says that site fighters (I don't really know what that is but she does) treat one another as disposible. My One says that Nivea is a flat leaver. She made my newest Second Life related photo album public. We have the Virtual Blogging group within Facebook if my One feels like staying active there. We also have Pinterest.

We may be the "losers" but life for us is going to go on. We have our own show. I have my One and she has me, and we have the Zwickies and KoLis. My One is thinking about a Zooby Baby but that is going to take more land. If we want a family, paying for it cuts through a lot of the drama. We will need more land and a way to design a larger house. Since we have some technical issues that may interfere wtih Second Life in the coming months, my One wants to sit on everything. On the other hand, why sit this out. I have a feeling what is coming next, and yes Shoshanna, we did not misappropriate the funds you gave us. Thank you for the skin.

Iyoba BatOni and Eileen H. Kramer -- July 2, 2015

More Than One Way to Skin an Avie VI
All the Colors of Neema Silk

Well, we are just about finished selecting a skin. My One Who Thinks She Knows' package of fame and fortune materials arrived this evening, and she is excited to get to work on her endless quest. Meanwhile, we tried to research about what other people said about buying a skin, but the consumeristic crowd has moved on to fitted mesh. We've crossed the Uncanny Valley, and no, we're not out of ideas. The well has not run dry. Yes, this water pump on Clemson Teacher Education is an apt illustration.

And so it was kind of OK for us to blunder along in our own silly way of endless skin and outfit tests. We did the last of those tests Monday night. And yes, this is the first time I've seen a dunce cap in Second Life. No it does not give away free ones to wear. It is there, for laughs I suppose, in the Metacognition Schoolhouse on Clemson Teacher Education.

And we did NOT do most of our color tests, our last tests on, Clemson Teacher Education, though this is me in the Sandbox on Clemson Teacher Education that turned out NOT to be public. I can't picture myself getting that pissed off (The Rock,Scisors, and Paper gestures are great for expressing anger!) in Kyxe Mocha or even Jewell Mocha. I am emotional and like to express my disappointment.

I also am blessed with more than my fair share of Zwicky kisses. That is Geronimo, my white, Luna, Starter male making a hat out of himself. He goes well with Neema Silk. And I look good in purple in Neema Silk, and blue, and just about anything else, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Stop by and see my Zwickies any time at Stinky Stinky.

And now on with the fashion show. I guess that is what this is. I haven't done a fashion shoot in years. My One helped me dig through my inventory which is starting to return to reasonable size again...very slowly. Our job was mostly to try browns, tans, and kahkis. OK, on with the show....

   

On the left, I am in my Fan Sponge Spectacular and matching Crazy Curls hair in violet. Neema Silk not only handles purple well, but also feels good even when I'm ready to give the world the bird. In the center, I am wearing my Autumn Sunflowers dress, one of my few shirt-waists, and one of my first "modern" flexi-prim dresses. On the right, I am wearing the Patty Pan Squash dress. It is a different shade of brown, and the intricate design was one my One learned to make by reading The Book of GIMP, one of two books she read to write audition reviews so she could seek out fame and fortune.

 
 

In Neema Silk the Putty Root dress' subtle rose/puce all but glowed. The Gourds Again dress was a bit of a stretch. It is a very old dress, but even this kahki did not turn Neema Silk into boiled lobster, and the off the shoulder, Safflower ensemble looked subtle and elegant with Neema Silk. Then again, nearly any skin if it were the right color could carry gourds and/or flowers. Putty root is a parasitic flower like Indian Pipes. I doubt that Kyxe Mocha or even Jewel Mocha could handle rutabegas, but there I am looking bright and lovely in Neema Silk and rutabegas.

I guess it is my One Who Thinks She Knows and also holds the purse strings' time to put her money whre my mouth is. We have the skin money hanging on my One's "real life" office wall and ready to go. We did give the Beggar King some cash for his birthday. The cash goes back in the account though with some extra from us. Then we click Buy Now. Come on One, it's time to cross the Rubicon. Remember what the rabbi in "real life" said about the "nine inch stream?" And, no the Zwickies have their plutonium. the koLis don't eat, and we don't have any cattle. Let's go!

Iyoba BatOni -- June 30, 2015

Eileen and Iyoba's Do It Better 2014 Roster
Name of Place	Why it Qualifies
TOV Korea	Ride the Witch Coaster. "Shop" in Korean stores. Visit a Korean museum and memorial. This sim vanished in March, 2015.
The Grand Canyon	So much to do in a great setting. Climb ropes, rapell, canoe, or just relax. Who knew the great outdoors could be this great, and Mt. Everest is right next door (no kidding!)
The Adventure of Ruin	Indiana Jones meets a Japanese, Second Life, orientation course, but somehow it all works and it is gorgeous, scarey, and simply great fun.
Plusia Ars Island	Music, sculpture, architecture, furniture, and romance, all on one island. Give newbies what they want...and more.
Hokkaido Japan	Where retail and entertainment meet art and stay just inches clear of kitsch. Fly it. Ride it. Walk it. Puzzle it. Enjoy this authentic introduction to a different culture on an island that welcomes visitors.
SL Israel	Israel's "official presence" in Second Life. Learn about Middle Eastern and Jewish culture and religion while visiting, museums, the sea shore, the souk, and two synagogues.
The 109 Prim Circus	High above the Drill Factory is a fantasy realm where it is always steel, grey night. You can ride the carousels, walk under crystal trees, shop, or just explore the puzzles at the bottom of the moon. This sim vanished in January, 2015.
Momo Pet Land	One sweet, peach, of a classic, Japanese amusement park. There is an onsen, an art museum, pig races, a haunted house and more.
Africa Live	Celebrate African music, culture, and textiles in a club and shopping mall. Learn about African ecology on a beach next to a mangrove forest. Swim, wind surf, or ride a flying machine.