Dodgeguy and Damian

Written 27 December, 2006

Dodgeguy and Damian

At about the same time I bought my property in Forsaken, a home went up across the river from East Beach (of course, it wasn’t East Beach then, as it was someone else’s property).

It was a small house on a smallish lot, but the house was nicely decorated and the grounds were beautiful.

I introduced myself to the owner, a young man named Dodgeguy Woodward. He showed me his house, which was equipped with a great dance floor, and I told him my plans for the not-yet-named Pele. We’ve been friends ever since.

Before long, Dodge had hooked up with Damian Marseille, who bought the 4096 square meter lot next door. Dodgeguy’s house disappeared, to be replaced with a beautiful, co-owned log cabin that spanned both lots.

Before long, D&D had acquired additional lots, including one which they use exclusively for building. I’ve jokingly accused them of being land barons.

The two guys are really fast learners in SL. Dodgeguy is a builder (and a good one!) and Damian is (as he calls himself) a texture whore. Damian’s remark caused my good friend Exuberance (who is herself an aficionado of textures, mostly of glass) to ROFL.

At the time, we were standing in the guys’ new store, where Dodgeguy’s wares are for sale. These include beautiful sofas and chairs (Dodge, a generous man, gave me one of each when he first built them), a computer table with a glass top, a dining table and chairs, and a charcoal grill—the sort you see in parks, on a stand. I promptly bought one for East Beach. Great store; I recommend it. It’s at Gilum 141, 238, 50.

Dodgeguy doesn’t build only small things. He has hung a nightclub high over his and Damian’s land in Forsaken. He’s even given me a key to the executive suite. (I always seem to be busy when he has parties, but I hope to remedy that soon). And he now tinkers with script. When I complained that my free white marble fireplace (check your library; if you’re in SL, you have one, too) made no sound, he gave me a tiny wooden ball to hide in the flames. Now the fire crackles as it blazes, which makes for pleasant nights on the rug on the floor with my sweetie.

I’ve not spent as much time with Damian as I have with Dodgeguy, but I hope to remedy that. For now, I have several DG stories to share.

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Photo 1: Damian

Photo 2: Dodgeguy

Photo 3: D&D’s house

Photo 4: The lagoon

Photo 5: A touch of class: Sunken boats in the lagoon

Photo 6: No class at all: Chey has stuck an old tire in the river at Pele. She did, however, in the interest of the environment, remove the dead helicopter from the waters, as after four days, the tail rotor was still turning, posing a hazard to the endangered tropical fauna.

Going Splat!

Written 27 December, 2006

Breaking and Entering in Second Life

II. Going Splat

It occurred to Exuberance and myself that perhaps virgins wouldn’t be eager to sacrifice themselves to Pele.

Maybe we would need to lure them into the boiling lava.

To that end, we lowered the skybox (since renamed the Dragon Skybar) from 550 meters to the minimum 250 meters allowed by the land’s covenant, positioned the balcony directly over the caldera, and cut a circular hole in the floor.

I won’t mention accidentally nudging the corner of the Skybar onto Artik Crimson’s property and watching it dematerialize because his prim count had been exceeded.

Or maybe I will.

Artik, like me, has an allotment of more than 1400 prims. The Skybar has 18, and that was too many for his prim limit. Does that tell you he’s pushing his limits?

After I had re-rezzed the skybox, we aligned the hole in the balcony floor by positioning it so a beacon I had placed in the center of the lava floor shone through it. We knew we were directly over the caldera.

So we walked into the hole and let ourselves fall.

We landed with a splat, but not in the lava. We found ourselves at various times on the side of the mountain, on top of Artik’s house, on East Beach, not at all where we had thought we would land.

And then I bumped Xubi onto the hole in the platform, and she fell straight down into the caldera

This meant that in one respect, falling objects act as they do on Earth.

When I was in high school, my physics teacher demonstrated that objects traveling laterally—things like bullets fired horizontally from a gun—fall at the same rate as objects that are dropped. He did so by firing a rubber ball from a gun. It hit the floor at the same instant as a ball he had dropped at the same time and from the same height.

We now knew that just as in real life, we continued to move laterally as we fell. But why did Xubi fall straight down when I bumped her? I had moved her laterally, after all.

Why? Because according to the physics of SL, she, having been bumped, wasn’t moving laterally. When we walked into the hole, we  had lateral movement, and it continued as we fell-- so we continued to move  in the same direction we had been walking.

Another validation of earthly physics.

Go figure.

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Photo: Hole for virgin drop

Breaking and Entering in Second Life

Written 27 December, 2006

Breaking and Entering In Second Life

I’ve already noted that the physics are different in Second Life.

Yet sometimes, they’re much the same.

Examples follow.

I. Breaking and Entering

One of my friends—I won’t mention him by name, but I’ve written about him in this blog—taught me a great housebreaking trick. Thanks, you!

Locked out of your place? Want to get into a friend’s place, but can’t? Or just want to snoop around?

You probably already know that if you disable camera constraints and play with Camera Control, there’s not much you can’t do. You can, for instance, click on the wall of a dwelling, zoom in, and, by rotating the view, look about inside.

Last night, after my lover picked up her (remember, for the sake of language, we selected a gender here, and the dice came up female) things and went home to prepare for a long week on the road with bad internet connections (Oh, how I will miss her!), I lay upstairs on the rug at the House of 1000 Pleasures (pleasures of which I have now experienced quite a few). Idly, I rotated my view to the landing platform outside the front door, which I had wrecked earlier in the evening by scrambling its textures.

I right-clicked on the platform, selected edit, unlinked the three-part structure, repaired the texture densities, re-linked and renamed it, and saved a copy to inventory—all without moving a muscle.

How great was that! I was inside and naked, yet working outside!

With that in mind, here’s the trick my friend taught me.

If you rotate your view inside a structure—even one with a locked door—and select an object and sit on it, you will instantly materialize on the object, inside the structure. Stand up, and you are free to explore.

You have now broken and entered.

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Photo: If you try the B&E trick, this will be your new outfit

Where Goest Love?

Written 27 December, 2006

Where Goeth Love?

Where goeth a successful relationship in Second Life?

I don’t know.

I do know some SL relationships have transcended the simulation, growing into real-life dating and even marriages.

And I know some SL relationships will always remain in SL.

And where goeth our relationship?

I don’t know.

And I’m not sure if it’s really important if it even crosses over into real life.

It may, of course, and I would be lying if I were to say the thought of that happening doesn’t excite me.

Statistically, it’s not likely.

Geographically, it’s not likely.

Age-wise, it’s not likely.

And perhaps for other reasons, it’s not likely.

I do know, after knowing my lover for more than a month (that’s three years in Second Life time), and being with her for a week, that both in RL and SL she (let’s just pick a gender and stick to it, shall we?) appeals to me on all levels. I find her endearing—plucky, vulnerable, fierce, confident, bold, shy, talented, loving, giving, and, most of all, and perhaps best of all, irreverent and funny. She just rocks, and I am happy to rock with her, wherever that rocking might take place.

On Pele, in Second Life, or in the United States, on Earth.

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Photo: Sunset at Pele

Sex and Love

Written 27 December, 2006

Sex and Love

I won’t say who my new love is or what we do with and to one another, for that’s private.

But I will talk about the way I’m feeling, and what love and sex mean to me.

Sex

For me—and my ** Sheri Baby** days only served to confirm it—casual sex has been meaningless and unsatisfying.

Consequently, I’ve always been able to take it or leave it. Usually, I have left it, although occasionally I have indulged. It’s sort of like poking an infected finger to see if it still hurts. It does.

When I care about a person, however, and especially if I love them, sex is a spiritual thing. It is glorious.

With someone you love-- or at least like and respect-- love is a growing experience. You learn about one another in new ways, and about yourself. You engage in mutual exploration of not only your lover’s body, but her mind, his sense of humor, her likes and dislikes, his moods, her erotic map. It can be, should be, and usually is, wonderful.

Alas, it’s a rare thing for two people—or for that matter, two avatars—to thoroughly make such an exploration. More often than not, there’s no real connection, and even when there is, things get off track, and the relationship becomes a matter of rote, of repetition, of falling into repetitive and often unpleasant and harmful patterns in which both people are trapped. Codependency, in other words.

But oh, when it works!

Love

When you’re in love, and especially when your love is in its initial phases, you feel giddy,
and excited, and more than a little silly. You can’t get enough of your lover’s presence, or of her body.

But as love matures, you gain knowledge of your lover’s likes and dislikes, his boundaries, the way her mind works. This births—or can birth—a deeper love, a comfortable love, an enduring love that will transcend the biological imperative, remaining strong after the pheromones have dissipated. (And if you’re lucky, they won’t dissipate.)

So love is a process, a journey, a voyage with no embarkation point or destination. It’s simply a state of being, an ever-changing, ever-wonderful way of connecting with another human being, of cherishing her, or nourishing him.

That’s what I’m feeling. And it makes sex—the hot, passionate sex and the langourous, comfortable sex—an exalted thing.

Ah, youth! Ah, love! Ah, pose balls.

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Photo: Love nest at House of 1000 Pleasures.

Cheyenne in Love

Written 27 December, 2006

Cheyenne in Love

Ah, youth! Ah, love! Ah, pose balls!

I’m in love!

My ** Sheri Baby** days satisfied any itch I might have had about cybersex for cybersex’ sake. My encounters were brief and for the most part unexciting. I did not, could not, considering the interface, develop a relationship with the keyboards with which I was trysting.

It’s different in Second Life.

I came to SL not expecting to hook up, in fact wanting not to. And I didn’t, except for, in the early days, a brief fling with a crazy furry and one visit to the Isle of Lesbos. (Well, it had been a long time since the Comp-U-Serve days! So sue me!)

And it was a good thing I had those affairs, or maybe Pele would have taken me for a sacrifice.

I had a long talk with the volcano goddess when I bought the island.

Standing precariously on the lip of the caldera, I told her she could take me if she wanted.

But I wasn’t sure if I qualified as a virgin.

“Because of that thing I did that time,” I told her.

It must have counted, for Pele allows me to bathe in her lava. She has, in fact, asked me to bring her a virgin, but so far, I’ve been unsuccessful.

We all know there are no virgins on the adult grid.

Pele is happy that I have a new love.

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Photo: Pose Balls

The Holidays

Written 27 December, 2006

The Holidays

Cheyenne’s human had four blissful days at home for her Christmas holiday. Guess where she spent most of her time?

Hint: She wasn’t visiting relatives.

Winter is a cozy time to be at home. With the mercury falling outside, we are snug and warm in our houses. There’s so much we can do. We can cook, read, take a hot bath, watch television or play spades with family members, and use the telephone to catch up with our friends.

But for Cheyenne, the cathode ray tube (no flat screens for this grrl, response times too slow) beckoned. She spent her Christmas holidays on Pele, with quick trips to the mainland to shop.

Pele is beginning to shape up. The property has several distinct areas, about which I will soon be writing. The island and the volcano are lovely, even if the Dreamland authorities did make a unilateral decision to cover the lovely sand with four inches of snow. That doesn’t make one hell of a lot of sense in the tropics, but—well, read the covenant. They can do whatever they want.

Chey spent the bulk of her time with her new love.

Yes, Cheyenne has taken a lover. Or perhaps the lover has taken her. Or they have taken one another.

Chey, who was never really on the market, now isn’t! For sure!

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Photo: Snow at Pele

M&M: Melissa & Mordecai

Written 14 December, 2006

M & M: Melissa & Mordecai

Melissa

Melissa Yeuxdoux is one of my great friends in Second Life. I met her at the Ahern welcome area. I arrived there determined to pass on the kindnesses bestowed on me by Bill and Pam Havercamp. I offered to take her and other new citizens shopping—my treat.

Melissa has written most charmingly about that experience in her blog. (

http://vidasegunda.blogspot.com/, Sunday 29 October).

It was M.’s blog post, by the way, that led to me being in this blogspace. It’s my first weblogging experience, and I’m still learning the features of the software. I’m sure you can tell that I’m fumble-fingered with my layouts.

Melissa is a beauty with pale skin, the greenest eyes, and long red hair. I’ve watched her as she has refined her look and wardrobe, growing from beautiful and classy to even more beautiful and classy. The last time we talked, she told me she had become intrigued with the sexy walk scripts.

Unlike many SL women, Melissa is a lady. She dresses elegantly but modestly and behaves with decorum. I’ve never seen her in the skimpy outfits so many female avs seem so fond of. Her tastes—in clothing, in music, all the way ‘round—are impeccable.

In her first life, Melissa is a musician and a Unix and Linux geek (great combination, what?) and her technical knowledge has helped this poor girl more times than you can imagine. “To set up a blog, Chey, you just...” “Considering your opinion of Bill Gates, have you considered making a bootable Linux disk?” “I think it works this way...” “That outfit makes your butt look big.” No, sorry, that last one was from Pam Havercamp.

Melissa has a knowledge base of trivia bits that surpasses mine, and a rapier wit. She’s a repository of useless and not-so-useless information. Her knowledge of music is encyclopedic.

M. is a great friend. She and I do a lot of things together, although usually for only brief times, as her RL intrudes (and we all know about that). We’re both fans of the live streaming music here in Second Life, and we’ve been to many concerts together. I introduced her to Bill and Pam Havercamp’s sets, and she has introduced me in turn to other musicians. We’ve teleported each other to our favorite shopping sites (usually, she’s showing me) and to our favorite scenic spots. We hang out together when she’s online and not with her honey Mordecai.

Mordecai Scaggs

One day (I don’t remember the date, but I’d been in SL for less than two weeks, and Melissa, I believe, for less time than that), Melissa gave me a teleport assist. I materialized in a beautiful rose garden. Unfortunately, I materialized inside a prim (or so it seemed) and it took me an embarrassing couple of minutes to extricate myself.

Melissa introduced me to her man, Mordecai Scaggs.

Mordecai is a handsome Englishman with long blonde dreadlocks and a gentle, sensitive soul. He is ever bit a gentleman, a romantic man, and it was as easy to see why Melissa had fallen for Mordecai as Mordecai had fallen for Melissa. They are very much an item in SL.

Mordecai is a builder. His most recent endeavor is a concert hall for the arts. I’ve not seen it yet, but I’ve seen his work, and I’m sure it’s beautiful. But what really impresses me about him is his commitment to social causes.

Mordecai has become an advocate of environmentally-friendly energy sources, as evidenced by his involvement with Clean Energy, Now! In second Life. His beautiful teahouse (I’ve linked to his blog, or search Yeuxdoux) is in sight of a windmill—and Mordecai uses only non-treated lumber for his prims.

Mordecai’s latest adventure is building a giant chain that leads up from the ground and goes to—who know? He is aided in his building by his quaint airship Muse.

Mordecai and Melissa are great friends, and I love it that their romance is blossoming.

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Photo: M&M at Chey's first Place in Lion Sands

Xubi

Written 11 December, 2006

Exuberance Lafleur

I met my friend Exuberance (Xubi) while flying around Dreamland Asia. I introduced myself and she was gracious to a newbie and a stranger.

I contracted with Xubi’s partner Aaron to build a house for my new property, but Xubi soon took over the project, as the shared permissions of the items they were creating were making things difficult for them to work together, and as Aaron had a dozen new endeavors underway.

Xubi build a fabulous house which is now sitting cater-cornered on Pele, with ocean views of the westering sun. It blends Island and Asian themes, for instance kanji and shoji screens and cocoa mats and tropical woods in a harmonious, elegant manner.

Somewhere along the line Xubi became my friend as well as my builder. I took her to a Bill and Pam concert, we went shopping together, we hung out at Pele together. I love spending time with her. She’s funny, smart, and fiercely independent, a woman who fits in perfectly at Pele, as she once lived very near Mount St. Helens.

Xubi is a natural builder. It’s more than just skill at manipulating primitives and textures and dabbling in script writing, it’s the thematic elements that dance in her head. The house she built for me is not a replica of an upscale condo in Atlanta, nor an all-glass pomo monstrosity, nor a tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright or a Medieval castle. It’s a Xubi Special. I’ve learned a lot from her, and I hope to enjoy her friendship for a very long time.

Xubi rocks! I’m so glad we met!

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Photo 1: Xubi and Chey with kanji friendship necklaces.

Photo 2: Xubi Special in position in Pele-- No, wait! That's my house in RL

Photo 3: Moon over Pele, house in Foreground

Photo 4: Detail: Window with Kanji decoration