Amanda Crisp

My typing took a turn for the worst after my stroke, cognitive and physical therapy aside 🙂 If someone can put up with my (sometimes hysterically funny) letter transpositions, I’m prepared to be good with their own grammatical crochets 🙂 How embarrassing can my typos be? I once meant to send a message (shortly after making it back to “full duty status” )at work related to “powdered Duck meal” and managed to substitute an “I” for the “U” in “duck”. Say that quietly to yourself…”powdered D*ck meal” and try not to cringe or laugh…. I managed that three times in one paragraph. I worry about my subconscious biases now….. I am absolutely unqualified to be a spelling critic 😉

I’m running Firestorm on an M1 Mac Mini with the 16g chip (I made myself wait for it) over a zippy-fast fiber network. General performance with FS is quite good, but I was encountering some falloff when graphics went above “High” in a render-intense sim. As I do a bit of photography, I generally use my RAM-crammed Intel iMac for shooting out “in the wilds of SL”, but the M1 has done well enough in a pinch and for “exploring and hanging out in SL”. I switched to Mac about 2 years ago, so my opinion is not coming from an O.G. Mac-user 🙂 That said; I can’t envision ever going back to MicroSatan…..

But that way I miss meeting people 🙂 Especially the ones asking, “why is your car stuck through the wall and lodged in my bed?”

SL is huge, but driving sim-to-sim is STILL the struggle……. If Sl is the biggest or not….at my rate I’ll never know……

OK…….get ready to “ewwwwwww”… Home-made kosher dill-pickle spears are my favorite “writing” or “at the computer” snack…. They know I’m “in my creative zone” when they hear pickle-crunching coming from my nook… My REALLY GUILTY pleasure is even more pedestrian…. A garlic Ritz cracker with a pat of freshly-churned butter…. I can let myself have about 4 of those a day 🙂 Teaching my children how to churn butter had absolutely NO practical use in our daily lives (I grew up ranching/farming but those days are past), but its a fun memory from their childhood and that particular snack always channels it for me.

I think your concern is admirable! Its not “all the way legal”but a middle ground would be to at least make sure all the music one uses *was* purchased from a source that will pay the Artist their percentage of that sale. That does nothing about residual payments for air-plays, but its slightly less dodgy than ripping everything off a streaming service and re-playing something one paid nothing for. Also, the audio quality tends to be better……. ….and the folks who fail to pre-screen and edit out “music video” dialogue can really be distracting 🙂 If your information-dive produces anything that will result in better/fair compensation to the artist, please feel free to direct message me here or inworld. Go you!

Garum or Nuoc Mam, because it’s all Fish Sauce at heart…

I love that sim 🙂 Its one of my fave photo spots 🙂

Oops

I was surprised to find out that some people claim not to have an inner monologue 🙂 When I started studying meditation, so much attention was spent on reconciling with that “chattering monkey” in our heads that it seems a common situation… The sum total of what I’ve gathered over the years is to; “Ignore the chattering monkey - all it can do is either react too late to be relevant, be a mouthpiece for the less savory parts of you - or upset you by borrowing *possible* trouble from tomorrow” Now ask me how much effort that takes 🙂

It would be almost impossible to generalize globally.. My personal theory about the place I live leans heavily on the several generations we’ve spent teaching people to be Individualists as opposed to members of a culture that they owe loyalty to as a group. When you enshrine “you can’t tell me what to do” as a lifestyle and take it to the hinterlands of Sense; you get a society that can’t agree on much. ”News as Entertainment” also did damage by sensationalizing itselt to the point where it damaged confidence in our journalistic institutions. *That* impaired their ability to be a positive influence. *both* those things predate COVID…… *I* don’t want news to be served up to sell advertising space; I want it to inform me *what* happened and not how some commentator feels about it. The cynic in me says that Darwin tossed us a relative softball and we still flubbed it because of structural gaps in our society and culture. It could have been much worse, with all due sympathy to everyone COVID touched. Losing someone to a “less lethal” pandemic does nothing to ease the pain their absence causes.

I’ve had both my Moderna jabs and no major issues outside of feeling like a truck hit me for about 12 hours. Most likely I was spared any major discomfort because the meds I take to appear “fake normal” and hide another chronic condition also do wonders against inflammation of other types. Hey, those horse-pills HAD to have an upside somewhere 🙂 My only regret is that I didn’t bring my zombie mask to the second injection. By hook or crook, I was the first one injected that morning (I went there right after 3rd shift so I got there early). I was also the first one in the little “cool off and see if you react” room and sat there for about 5 minutes by myself. If the second person placed there had walked in on me wearing a zombie mask and hissing “braaiinnzz”, I probably would have gotten myself arrested. People who work nights are “different” and I embrace that 🙂

OK, I’ll stop handing out the landmarks…. 🙂

Speaking for myself, its not hard to get anxious about how well the audience is receiving what you’re streaming. SL social norms differ in subtle ways from RL and this is complicated by the lack of involuntary physical subtext (body language). You can’t just look out from the DJ station and see who is engaged and who isn’t. [[ just counting noses on the dancefloor is not as valuable as one might think. Many clubs have “contest guests” who are there to participate in a Linden$ contest and have zero interest in the music. I’m big into music and as someone who is there to entertain; I focus on the sono-philes. Even using the “active listeners” counter is fraught these days as people have Privacy concerns and have latched onto the ability to see details about listeners as a concern. ]] So people making requests is a form of affirmation 🙂 I’m generally a social person and from a region that has a rep for “hospitality”; it never occurred to me that saying hello and asking someone if they had anything they wanted to hear would be creepy 🙂. I don’t ask new arrivals SPECIFICALLY if they have requests, but I actively ask the entire room and reinforce that I consider requests a valuable gift from the audience. Also, if can inspire a shy avatar to make that romantic song request their their loved-one really likes; I may have done them a small favor. Small gestures COUNT! So I try to interact with the guests in local chat and in IM. Its not (for me) about how to more effectively fleece someone. I never actually do numbers on how much I clear after paying for a stream, music (I buy all mine), event clothing, avatar updates and prize $$ for contests. I KNOW its a money-pit every month even with decent traffic and if Sl does not kill the event by glitching. I DJ because I like it I’m an entertainer; I need to make sure I’m entertaining.

I can answer that 🙂 The Host is most valuable at busy events by freeing the DJ up to focus on the music and fulfilling requests. My Host stays engaged by; -Greeting people as they appear, -Talking about upcoming events and club offerings like Live Music or New Resident resources. -Fielding requests when I am semi-away from keyboard looking at another screen to acquire music that was already requested. -Answering questions from the New Residents who show up (how to dance, how the contests work, questions about SL) and being a good SL citizen. -Trying to delicately handle the occasional guest who is not playing well with others or actively looking to cause drama. This is what a small segment finds amusing, but in many cases a good Host can resolve any honest misunderstandings before we hit the Ban/Mute stage. -Answering TP requests in group chat and beaming Guests who request it to the club. Also fielding chat from people trying to get into the sim when things are full. -Keeping the DJ calm when things get stressful 🙂 This is a short list, but at the level of a busy event - Hosts earn their money. I have Hosted and DJ’d; hosting was harder.

Catching up on “Debris” and slowly binging Ray Donovan.

Also, apologies for not placing this in Pet Peeves. I TRY not to complain much, but yeah - this is a pet peeve. Moderators, feel free to relocate !

My creeped out feeling only happens when I am coming to an arrival point far from the dance floor and out of visual range of the Host. When I DJ or fill in as a host, I do my best to greet new arrivals -when they hit the dance floor- . IMHO - Making people feel welcome and remembered us what Hosting is all about.

I'm normally understanding of things that clubs have to do to serve customers and stay alive; but I have to admit that one particular thing just creeps me out.... Its when the club has an arrival point that's far from the dance floor, but they have a notifier tell the Host when you land there - so you can get this creepy long-distance "Hello X" from someone who's out of chat range. I'm not sure WHY that bugs me.... Maybe it feels a little stalky. When I work at places that use it, I've had more than one guest complain that; "Your host busted me while I was seeing if my Ex was there." (I explain about the virtues of Block/Mute/De-Render then normally) I guess everyone has one "thing" and this is mine 🙂

1973 AMC Javelin - Several major life-events happened in that car 🙂 This one was not mine (none of the original pics of mine are digital and I need to fix that) - mine was candy-apple red and the rims were not that pretty. I loved that car - because of it, I was lucky that my grandfather was a well-respected county sheriff (then-retired). Trivia - I bought that car with cows. This was the first car I ever OWNED. My first personal transportation was a mare named Sugar my grandfather gave me. I learned to *drive* on a Red Belly Ford tractor and a 1963 (beat to crap) Ford Bronco. Yes, I am from out in the wilds of Oklahoma 🙂

There is a reason that Tralala appears in so many of my pics 🙂

I smile....my Head's HUD cycles two different smiles out of every 5 facial animations when its on auto loop. My congeniality is automated 🙂 I also have my "snarky smile" for photography.

Nothing they say is **untrue** but they failed to say three very important things; #1..Second Life is not any one thing. It can be a game, it can be a social network or it can be something else as you decide. The important thing to remember is that there *are* no Non-Player-Characters; so treat others like the Real People they are. #2..Second Life is like Real Life; it is what you make of it (you just look younger/better/furrier here). Talk to people and use Search to discover things to do, because if you wait for someone to lead you by the hand; you may get lonely. #3..Second Life is the realm of imagination. No one here is under any compulsion to resemble their Real Life appearance or demographics. That being said; we have some of the most beautiful minds and most-liberated spirits you will find on the Interweb.

Its better for your skin that way 🙂 Unfortunately, since I insist on exercising a lot (I need it as I am at that point in life) and I work in an industry that “encourages” a daily dunking - I get a minimum of one shower/bath a day and usually 2. My skincare program is almost my religion.

We have the sort of the opposite problem; we have a *lot* of non-potable water due to contamination in the Karst water table. (Mining residue) I haven't drunk or cooked with tap- water since before my son was born, and due to the "treatment" tapwater relieves here, I bathed him in bottled water when he was a baby because the stuff from the tap turned his skin red. We had a straight-up "water crisis" going when he was born and I remember seeing the Army Reserve and Guard setting up their Reverse Osmosis water purification system and handing out gallon jugs of "safe" water as I was bringing him home for the first time. I have a "water service" to handle cooking/drinking now that its just me and the tap-water is safe for bathing. So I can afford the water for baths and showers and washing the car; it's not good for much else.