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Madelaine McMasters

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Posts posted by Madelaine McMasters

    Viewer privacy options

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

    The current privacy options are adequate, except for one thing: when they're enabled, I still get the DING! and flashing tab of an incoming IM. I have been conditioned by decades of telephone calls to be unable to ignore this sort of thing. Whether I choose to respond or not, my concentration has still been broken.

    Now, if the Firestorm devs could provide an option to turn OFF that annoying DING and the flashing IM tab, I could get back to work in peace.

    I rarely have sound turned on, even when at music venues. Silence is golden.

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    Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    42 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

    Speaking of smart meters. The stupidest thing Ontario Canada has done, and I don't know if the rest of Canada or other countries followed suit. Is On Peak, Mid Peak, and Off-Peak hours. Like seriously, they expect us to use electricity and water in the wee hours of the morning or really late at night, to save money. I mean yeah it would be great for night owls. But what about the people who aren't night owls. We have to use Mid Peak and spend a fortune on Electric and water. 

    The bulk of my electricity usage happens at night naturally. I get plenty of natural light during the day and my washing machine and dishwasher are both set to do their work while I'm sleeping. My central air conditioner cools my house to 70F during off-peak evenings so that it needn't run as much during the day, when it's set to 74F. When I get an electric car, I'll have it charge overnight. I installed a temperature controlled mixing valve on my emergency backup kid's electric water heater, so it can heat to 150F in the evening without scalding him during his morning shower. The heater rarely, if ever, runs during peak hours, when the thermostat drops to 120F.

    These measures were easy to implement and save considerable money, They also reduce the need for my power company to invest in additional generation capacity and the greenhouse gas emissions that would result.

    I think my electric bills are lower now than they were 10 years ago, before demand rates were implemented.

     

    • Like 2

    If you use an avatar of a gender you are not, are you good at portraying that gender?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    4 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

    I don't giggle.  I "heh" or I "hehe", which feels more like a cackle when I type it.  On rare occasions, I will "Lol" and even more rarely "Har".  I don't recall ever letting loose with a "Teehee" or a "Snort". As far as I'm concerned, it's not a gender thing. I'm just too self-conscious to like making loud or silly noises.

    It's very rare that I laugh while at the keyboard. When I do, I'll usually say "Oh, that made me chuckle." Away from my keyboard, my RL days are filled with laughter. SL is my quiet place.

    • Like 3

    If you use an avatar of a gender you are not, are you good at portraying that gender?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    When there's nobody in my life, I wear the same outfit day after day. I'm the only one who notices and I don't care. This is also true of RL, where I'll wear the same paint stained jeans and sweatshirt until they need washing, then I toss them in the hamper and grab new paint stained jeans and a sweatshirt. You're most likely to find me wearing steel toed work boots around the house.

    In the early months of my marriage, I found a pair of high heels that were classy, sexy, and most importantly, comfy. Because I hate shopping, I bought two dozen pairs in a rainbow of colors. I simultaneously bought a rainbow of clip on bows. By mixing and matching, I was able go weeks without repeating. At holidays, I'd often wear two different colored shoes (ex: purple and pink for Easter, green and red for Xmas, red and blue with white bows for July 4).

    I had a pilot's license, I have a ham radio license, my driver's license is rated for motorcycle. I'm an engineer, I own and drive a tractor with a front end loader, I corner my new Miata tighter than my emergency backup kid (a 28yr old ripped male) corners the old one I gave him, because he's a 'fraidy cat. I have a MIG/TIG stick welder, a wire welder, and gas welder. I have a milling machine and a very well equipped woodworking shop.

    I can sew, which I did mostly in my childhood to make big kites (largest 15ft across) and little parachutes for my Barbie dolls, which I hurled into the sky on a homemade trebuchet. I broke a garage window during a chemistry experiment gone wrong. I hit my emergency backup kid in the groin with a fastball after he dared me to play catch with him while wearing the high heels I'd put on for a client appointment. I did at least have the good sense to stay on the driveway while he was on the lawn.

    I sometimes use black jelly beans in spaghetti sauce to counter tart tomatoes from the farmer's market, add the taste of fennel, and thicken the sauce so I needn't boil off as much liquid. If a see a spider in the range hood, I'm likely to sweep it into the pot. I make my much younger cousins blush while playing "Crimes Against Humanity". I routinely hear "How did you do that?". I sometimes hear "Why did you do that?". Because I'm nefarious, I rarely hear "Did you do that?", especially when I did.

    Here in SL, regardless of avi, I'd make no effort to present as anything other than myself, which by most accounts is as "weird".

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    If you use an avatar of a gender you are not, are you good at portraying that gender?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    6 minutes ago, cunomar said:

    Obviously i'm a guy , which makes me very different from a girl , which in my view is neither a good or bad thing - it just is .

    My gf could do everything i do if she wanted to and some of it better I'm sure , visa versa . But unquestionably men and women tackle the same chores/go about things with a completely different mindset .

    As a teen i shacked up with a woman who was heckled insane and almost housebound by her 3 wild kids , so i sent her out to go visit her mother or whatever she wanted to do and enlisted the kids help in making the house spotless before mum gets home .

    They loved it , while at the same time earning a new appreciation of all mum does for them .

    A single day changed her life after 9 years of despair trying her absolute best to be the perfect mother .

    That's got far less to do with gender than a host of other factors. Most parents have less short term sway over their children than new people in their lives. My ex-hubby's daughter spent one weekend with me last year. He's still trying to exorcise the devil I seeded in her.

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    If you use an avatar of a gender you are not, are you good at portraying that gender?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    31 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

    I take exception to that, because at least until very recently, I still had my sizable hand puppet collection! Nightmare fuel, most of them.

    I still have many of mine in the attic. Animal (from Sesame Street) went through grad school with me and took up residence in my office when I started my career. He's currently draped over the headboard in my guest bedroom, ready to terrorize anyone who dares a visit. There's a lever above his mouth which, when squeezed, closes his eyes. Just the right squeeze can produce a nightmare inducing beady eyed squint.

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    If you use an avatar of a gender you are not, are you good at portraying that gender?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    3 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:
    31 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

    I've heard that liking The Three Stooges is a male "tell". I love them!

    I could never watch them as a cub, way too violent for me!

    You'd never have survived the McMasters family hand puppet theater. By the end of our little plays, one of the characters had invariably been gobbled up by another.

    • Haha 2

    If you use an avatar of a gender you are not, are you good at portraying that gender?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    1 minute ago, Maitimo said:

    I remember years ago being at a gay mens club, and there was some speculation about which guys were actually women in RL. So a bunch of us were chilling out by the campfire and a few of the guys started with some childish fart jokes and I IM'd my friend and said "okay, well they are not women in RL."

    I've heard that liking The Three Stooges is a male "tell". I love them! @Scylla Rhiadra and I have agreed to split the Howard twins. She took Trevor, I took Curly.

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    If you use an avatar of a gender you are not, are you good at portraying that gender?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Cate Foulsbane said:
    8 hours ago, Amina Sopwith said:

    and has never been prepared for menopause.

    I was intellectually prepared for menopause but, damn, when it became reality it shocked the living crap out of me! Mood swings? Yeah, but men have those, too. 

    Menopause came overnight for me, as the result of an oophorectomy that accompanied my lumpectomy (2-for-1 discount FTW!). The following radiation and chemo masked the worst of the menopause transition by making everything horrible for months, and five years of estrogen blocking oral chemo brought their own unwanted side effects. If I can keep my bones from disintegrating, I'll be a generally happy camper.

    • Like 5

    If you use an avatar of a gender you are not, are you good at portraying that gender?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    19 hours ago, Gopi Passiflora said:

    I'm a straight male in real life but I often use female avatars. I don't act that different as my female avis or even try to do so. However, if people want to know my real gender I do not reveal it, I just say my avi's gender - female.

    People usually don't suspect I'm male in real life (or they don't comment), so I guess I'm good at it?

    During my grad school days, I went out to a bar with friends. We didn't realize it was a LGBTQ hangout. I ended up sitting at the bar next to a trans woman (or CD/TV, I'm not sure). She was warm, intelligent, and hilarious. She analyzed my skin tone, and recommended an appropriate palette of colors for both makeup and wardrobe. She looked at my body type and recommended clothing styles to make me look taller, slimmer, and more professional/in command. She gave me dating tips. She was enjoying a femininity I'd always taken for granted. She fought for what I was given at birth. I walked away from that encounter with a shifted perspective.

    Those people in the forums who've admitted to presenting differently here in SL are no less attractive in their SL persona than anyone else. @Katherine Heartsongis a sufficiently heartfelt woman to me. I take people here at face value. If their RL presentation is different, and the intent behind their SL presentation is acceptable, I'll respect the face they show me. I am not the only one in SL that contains multitudes.

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    If you use an avatar of a gender you are not, are you good at portraying that gender?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted · Edited by Madelaine McMasters
    The endless quest for correct spelling.

    7 hours ago, Cate Foulsbane said:

    Age related..hmm. Interesting. My parents, Americans raised between 1920 and 1940, lived their lives in what I consider to be a narrow cultural bind. Mom did woman things,, Dad did man things. Women shopped,, men paid for the shopping but didn't like doing it, etc. My generation, raised between 1940 and 1960, seem to be a bit more diverse...step outside the lines a bit more so to speak. My partner, in his mid sixties now, loves to shop. I know other men of the more modern generation who love to shop. I love to shop in SL but despise it in RL.. I dunno...gender roles are stupid and confining and I don't like them.

    Curiously, my parents are from that same era. Dad was born in 1920, Mom in 1928. Mom was one of 14 kids. The 10 girls were divided into two crews, the house crew (4) and the barn crew (6). Mom was a barn girl doing barn stuff, like welding back parts that fell off things, digging (by hand and with machines), and taking cows (on which she placed huge pretty bows) to date bulls. You get the idea.

    Dad grew up with his widowed grandfather. He cooked, washed and repaired clothing, fixed anything that broke around the house, and did whatever was necessary to make sure grandpa could focus on his job, which put food (which Dad shopped for) on the table for both of them. Dad went off to the Navy at age 16, Mom moved to the city when she was 18. Each then took roles more associated with their genders.

    By the time they finally figured out how to have a kid, in 1970, they'd pretty much erased any hint of gender specific roles. Because I was a little terror, they ended up home schooling me. I weld, sew, garden, cook, shop, fix whatever breaks. I wear pretty sundresses with steel toed work boots, because that's both practical (a flowy sundress is almost a wheel barrow) and comfy. I do this all with zero consideration for society's expectations for my gender. I did glam up during my adolescence and early adulthood, wearing high heels, trying lipstick, and marrying a boy. That didn't stick.

    I was raised in a world where who I am isn't determined by how I look or act so much as what I do. To paraphrase Whitman, I contain multitudes, I do everything.

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    What are you watching today?

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    On 9/27/2022 at 8:45 PM, Ceka Cianci said:

    This was kind of neat.. Now this guy thinks he seen an angel or using it as click bait to get people to see the video..

    He's wanting to catch a lightning strike or something so he can sell the video to weather stations..  If he's looking for lightning strike, he really should have kept focus on that white pole.. 

    Keep an eye on the second rung down on the white pole at around 1:15 in the video.. I'm pretty sure it just got scanned for a possible lightning strike.. I don't know if anyone has ever been scanned before, but what happens is all the hairs stand up on your body and it feels really strange..

    The way this little bulb of light went up in the air, I'm willing to bet there was a leg combing that pole.. Maddy will know..

    @ Madelaine McMasters  

    I can't get it to work.

    How do you guys do that thing where it gets someones attention anyways?

    I see a small plasma discharge off the top of the power pole just before the swooping effect. That's St. Elmo's fire..

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo's_fire

    Plasma is conductive, so it will warp the electromagnetic field lines in the area. That might have produced enough potential for the discharge to follow a field line for few seconds. Ball lighthing is another rare and poorly understood phenomena, but this is not that. Let's just add this to the "What the hell was that? It's so cool!" list.

    To "mention" someone, no space after the @. Just start typing the name and an auto complete pull down will appear.

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    Oh Em Gee! Totally Unofficial Thankful and Grateful Thread! Share your smiles Yes! SL SMILES!

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted · Edited by Madelaine McMasters

    9 minutes ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

    Thats a REAL interesting take on Queen Mab's habit of turning folks to stone and arranging them in her garden :)

     

    (it is usually a bad idea to peeve the queen of the unseelie court)

    Different court. Not Unseelie, not Seelie, Disunseelie.

    Gardens invite weeds and I like to keep my peeps with me.

    • Like 1
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    Oh Em Gee! Totally Unofficial Thankful and Grateful Thread! Share your smiles Yes! SL SMILES!

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    On 9/18/2022 at 8:28 PM, Robin Kiyori said:

    I am very greatful fot lovely fourm users that are supportive and sweet to all.

    I've been on some rather dark and troubled spots lately. But the fourms users have a unquie way of making things bright. [Or firey in certain maddy ways]  💛💜🤍🖤

    …sets you on fire, mixes your ashes with root beer to make the sweetest of modeling clays, sculpts a miniature you, brings you back to life, and offers you a home in her purse

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