kershe

Once at a RL party, a guy told me, "If I'm talking to someone online, and I'm not sure if they're a woman in RL, I have an infallible test to find out: I ask them what they do for a yeast infection." He was so pleased with himself that he didn't notice I was speechless. After a while I managed to say, "So if they get pissed off and leave, does that prove they're a woman?" He scoffed. Then I pointed out that his test would prove that he is a woman in RL. That was too much. He scowled, walked off, and wouldn't speak to me again.

There is a RL version of what I was talking about - there are people who stand way too close and ask question after question. I was watching The Assassination of Gianni Versace and the guy who played Andrew Cunanan was exactly like that. Talking with someone like that is like experiencing an relentless step-after-step invasion, the point of which you cannot see.

And you are knee-deep in it with me. Also, I revealed knowledge hidden from the masses.

@Ethan Paslong For some reason this popped up on my "Unread Content" page today.

@Lindal Kidd Yes

I think about the last name thing a lot. Having a more-or-less crappy username that you can't get away from is less than optimal. If we can get a first name, last name on signup, I'm sure I'm going to create a new account and buy or find everything all over again.

There is a trick to setting your home to pretty much anyplace, but you can only do it once. When you first create an account, your home will be the first place you teleport to. So if you do your homework *before* you teleport out of the new-resident area, and find a nice place to call home, you can teleport to that place and you'll find you've set your home position. You won't see the message "Home position set," but when you teleport home, that's where you'll find yourself.

I woke up this morning with The Who's 905 in my head, but when I actually played it, it was way slower than I remember. So I moved on to this one:

Yeah, he was like that. I think if he could have cut notches on it, he would have. He was much much older than me, so for that, and other reasons related to how we met, he saw me less as a collectible and more like a daughter or a friend-that-was-somehow-female. Once I had to do a RL Ctrl-Q on him, but luckily we reconciled before he kicked.

Dear god, I never heard that one. I had a friend who had names for everything, even different aspects of his personality ("the philosopher", "the dharma bum", "the collector"). It used to make me feel inadequate and disorganized that I hadn't cataloged myself like that. I never asked if he had a name for his man part, but I'm sure he did. At least one.

Thanks, that was pretty interesting. Actually, just last night I had a hour-long conversation with a guy I had only just met, and he wanted to talk about the sim he was trying to start, and after reading your comment, I realize he told me absolutely nothing about his life and asked me nothing about mine. There was so much to say, and all of it SL. Like you, I am not a "DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT RL" either. I think it was an attitude that bothered me more than the questions themselves.

I've had a couple of experiences that I wanted to unload. The theme is generally too many RL questions. I don't have a problem telling my age/sex/location - it doesn't matter; no one is going to find me with that information. Often a guy will follow up with more questions, but they're usually harmless. But there were two times when the follow-ups really irked me. The first time, the guy was very polite and friendly and we talked for a good while until he asked my RL name, just my first name. My first name is very common, especially in the city I live in, so I told him. Then he started calling me by my RL first name. A lot. Like in every sentence. And for some reason it pissed me off incredibly, so I made an excuse for logging out, and next time I logged in, I dropped him off my friend list. (I even said BOOM! as I did it.) The other time was just two nights ago. After some small talk this guy started asking me questions. How tall am I? What color hair? What size shoes do I wear? What's my build? What size bra do I wear? At first, cause I was a little tired, I was just answering him without thinking, but then I thought, what the hell is this? I moved to another sim, which he didn't seem to notice, and I said, "Why are you asking me all this stuff?" And he said, "Just answer the questions." It turned out that the answer to his next question was Ctrl-Q. It didn't make me angry or anything like that. He wasn't exactly rude (except for the last bit). The reason I'm writing is that I'm a little confused about why these things bothered me. I mean, I don't give away anything that would let someone identify me in RL -- I'm very careful about that after an incident a couple years ago. And it's not that I mind talking about my appearance. And I don't think it mattered that it was a guy doing this. It was about the attitude behind the questions. I don't know... it's kind of like, I feel, I'm here, we're here, in this SL world, but you want to talk about this other world. My RL isn't a secret I need to keep - I mean, except insofar as not wanting some SL person to knock on my RL door unbidden. I think what it is, is that I feel like my SL avatar isn't being taken seriously. That the little me on the screen is not being respected. Does that make any sense to anyone else?

I was going to post Shakira's Gypsy but the video made me laugh too much - seeing a woman dressed in silks, walking down a dusty road, playing the harmonica, ... I just couldn't.

I can't believe this was actually on TV anywhere, but there it is. You can also find a studio version on youtube where the sound is a lot cleaner, but you don't get the visuals.

HOW HARD CAN IT BE I used to work with a man who would say in all his tech-naive sincerity: "It's a computer! Can't you just push a button!?" Anyone who's watched any TV at all knows that you could hire a hacker to write a worm that would go in and do it in a couple of seconds, and you could re-route power from the auxiliary (and life-support, if necessary) to make it go even faster.

I don't like most of Courtney Love/Hole's music, but the few I like I like a lot.

Oh, carp! Never mind. I just found it, and I'm at 62. That's like an average of one per day. So by the middle of next year, then...

And how does one find out one's post count?

(the worst eight hours of his life)

True - and great example.

DON'T WATCH THIS VIDEO - just listen to it. Whoever put up the pictures had no idea what the song was about. I was just listening to covers of Laura Nyro's Stoney End, and most of the people sing it like it's some happy bouncy tune, which misses the point completely. This was the best sung version I heard, but seventeen big thumbs down on the video:

Oh hey - some more tips: About modifying shapes: Make a copy of it first, and label it so you know it's the original. It's important to be able to back out of your changes even after you've saved them. Over time, little tweaks to your shape can add up to something nicer than one marathon session in which you try to fix everything at once About inventory: it helps to be organized don't delete clothes that are designed for a mesh body you don't own. You might get that body in the future and you'll wish you'd kept them