Deltango Vale

Historic mainland for rent in the heart of Second Life: - San Francisco Sims 2002 - Color Sims 2003 Protected waterfront, full 40/40 terraform. An exclusive address for discerning residents.

A ray of sunlight will melt the coldest heart.

Oh dear, a religious nut. My favorite is a Chinese female-Jesus cult that beat a woman to death in MacDonald's for not joining. Mind you, it's hard to compete with Jim Jones or the Moonies. I suppose in this media age, one needs more than charisma to start a religion; one needs sensationalism. To be honest, I prefer L Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer who deliberately set out to construct a religion. It worked a charm and he died rich.

Well, there's odd, weird, eccentric, crazy, bat***** crazy...and then there's serious mental illness. I've met them all. My favorite bat***** crazy was a heroin addict who'd wander in and out of coherence like an old radio with a broken antenna; polite and completely harmless, but he could fall asleep mid-sentence. Serious mental illness is another story entirely. These people can be incredibly destructive, particularly to innocents who've never encountered it before. Such people should be eliminated from SL without hesitation. They are poison in the well. Never will I forget one person in particular whose behavior was so outrageous, her language so foul and the path of her tornado so destructive that my only conclusion was that she either had rabies (as in bitten by a dog with rabies and untreated for many years) or suffered from chemical-hormonal imbalances so sever that few drugs could help her. It took years for Linden Lab to finally kick her out. While it may seem heartless, I hope she ultimately killed herself, for only then would she find peace. SL is full of oddballs, which makes it fun. SL is also full of remarkable people whose wit and intelligence is a joy to behold. I suppose SL represents the same population as the world at large. The only bias would be the large percentage of people from California, skewing the curve slightly toward bat***** crazy. ETA: This forum software auto-censored my post. Like I said, California.

@Ceka Cianci Magic, wasn't it? UC Black Legion was my fave DJ at SR. He had a knack for rolling out song after song that couldn't be resisted. There was a bunch of us that would go together, sometimes as different couples, sometimes the whole group. The guys were very cool, rarely any of the usual nonsense. Staff became family. Club Zero and Demonic were also very good and the avatars were amazing! What surprised me were the number of clubbers from the UK, France and Germany. Like me, they were on all night. I was a big fan of Emilie Autumn and Porcelain Black as well as Evanescence and Flyleaf. They rarely got played at the clubs unless I requested them. I was a big tipper, so often got a track or two. Really, it was a blast! Some of my SL memories are stronger than RL ones.

Back in 2006-2008, I used to go clubbing almost every night in SL. I'd log in at midnight my time (20:00 California/SLT), put on the headphones and head off to Sanctuary Rock or one of the Goth/EBM/Industrial clubs depending on who was DJ that night. I had 30 dances in an orb that I could switch between quickly as the songs changed. It meant memorizing the names of those dances and their code numbers (/99 play 26, for example). I was a clubber in RL, so wanted to reproduce real dancing in SL as best I could. Why go clubbing in SL, you ask? Well, I could smoke, the drinks were free, there was always an empty loo down the hall and food in the kitchen, I didn't need to get a taxi home and I could mute anyone who didn't play right. Unlike RL, I could easily spend eight hours straight on the dance floor (I think my record was 10 hours). It was hypnotic. Around 08:00 in the morning, I'd say good night to everyone, log out, take off the headphones and crash into bed. Gods, it was fun - and a wonderful counterbalance to my RL mentally-demanding work. Needless to say, it made a mess of my RL schedule and, after a couple years, was burning me out. Sigh, to be 18 again. No, I'm not the girl in the video, but I did sometimes practice at home and try new moves in front of the mirror. This video captures the mood - one of the moods - of my life in SL ten years ago.

My philosophy is simple: anything and everything is acceptable in SL and RL as long as it's consensual. Want to risk your life climbing Mount Everest? Go for it. What isn't acceptable is telling other people what's acceptable.

I've been in SL almost daily for more than ten years. I've seen the changes coming down the pike, seen them imposed (usually against strong protest from the residents) and seen the results (usually bad). Regarding mesh, I thought it was interesting. When it arrived, I tried the clothes and it was a disaster. It was as if I had gone to MANGO and the salesgirl had said I'd have to gain five pounds to try on a pair of jeans and quit the gym to fit into a tank top. Meanwhile, she's advising my friend to consider breast enhancement and liposuction before attempting to try on an evening dress. Sorry, I'm not going to visit a plastic surgeon before buying clothes - in RL or SL. Regarding Phil's point, he's right. The whole point of SL - and one of the key factors in its success - was the ability of the average person to be creative either through building or personal expression (fashion, animations, home decoration). For clothes, it meant mixing and matching, modifying prims, even creating accessories oneself. So, yes, while one needs to be able to adapt to change, not all change is good. Those who refuse to adjust to bad changes are not necessarily old and stubborn. They may be simply unwilling to give up sirloin steak for hamburger.

This week is summer in the UK. We get one week per year, so everyone is out dancing around the maypole, chanting ancient songs. Tomorrow, we kill a goat in Trafalgar Square as a sacrifice to the Sun God. Needless to say, I'm out in the park daily.

Crap Mariner, holy crap! Nice to see your name here.

Interesting that your suggestion works now. I had tried it earlier, but the quote box stubbornly remained. There was no alternative but to post inside the quote box.

What I was going to say before being snagged by the bug is that I agree with everyone about being ignored by LL. It was a bitter pill to swallow - and I railed against LL for its bad management - but all to no avail. Visions of Macbeth out on the heath, raging at the storm. The storm didn't care about Macbeth any more than LL cared about the forum or the intelligence and experience of its customers. Well, finally, exhausted, one accepts reality: denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance. I gave up and retreated to my home in SL. I guess this is one of those big lessons of life that we learn as we grow older. One can scream at a brick wall, but it's not the wall that suffers; it's you. There are times to give up and find peace in some alternative manner. That's why I feel it's pointless to discuss LL policies here. It's a waste of space. Far better to talk about cooking or cinema or favorite inworld memories. Instead of angst at our powerlessness, let's instead seek humor and goodwill. Hopefully, I can live up to my words, but I think I'm cured

Yes, awkward bug. It is a natural reflex to click Quote at the bottom of a person's post because it's where one would expect 'Reply'. The problem is that once one accidentally clicks Quote, it can't be undone. There is no way to clear/delete the resulting window. Even logging out doesn't solve the problem.

Brilliant. Thanks.

I've thought about this - and it would make a clever novel. Poof, 20 again, but can't drink and would have to get someone to forge an ID to get into the clubs. Then, of course, your CV is useless. You'd have to go to college all over again and take those crappy internships. The only guys worth dating are like 50 (even at 20 I didn't date 20-year-olds). Can't share any of those great stories you've accumulated over the past 20 years. No one will believe you've been to all those countries. So, how to enjoy being 20 again when you have to spend 20 years to age yourself to fit in. By the time it's all under control, boom, you're back to 40!

Yes, this I miss the most. I'm in the UK, but the clubs were all running hot on California time, so I'd log in around midnight my time and potter around then get dressed up and hit the clubs. I'd tumble into bed about 08:00 in the morning. Gods, those were good times. Now, I'm usually in bed at midnight and up at 08:00 in the morning. When I do log in, no one's around and I do gardening. Sad, really.

I generally bore them to death with idle conversation. I can prattle on a mile a minute about the most inane things when I have a mind to, which after 12-14 column inches in their chat window usually elicits a "Gee, great talking with you, I need to feed the dog, see ya."

I never took to SLU, not so much because of the hostility, but because of the design. Funny thing to say, huh? The posts would take up a quarter of the screen and might contain three words. I got weary of scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, next page, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling in order to get a nugget of information. Many of the big beasts of the SL forum moved to SLU when LL nerfed the GD Forum back in 2009 - and I was tempted to follow them - but I dunno, I preferred to hang around on home territory so to speak. As for the person who I admired the most, the award goes to Argent Stonecutter. He'd let people prattle on then demolish the whole lot in a single sentence like a bowling ball knocking down pins - a strike every time. It was high art. Prok was there of course, and he'd tangle with Argent on occasion, which was a delight to witness. I once got between the two of them and was royally trounced. I suppose that's why I was somewhat aggressive in the SL forum. I was so used to the cut-throat nature of discussion that, like a beaten child, I became a bit snotty myself. Ten years on, I've lost interest in those 100-page-quote-nested-arguments that could fill a phone book. Even if the topic is dear to my heart, I've learned to walk on by. Yet, upon reflection, I wonder if something is not sacrificed in order to achieve maturity. It's all well and good to be smug about my hard-won wisdom, but part of me weeps for the loss of youth - the fire, recklessness, arrogance and irresponsibility that we revel in as know-it-all kids. I'm not happy to see that fire extinguished. It's still there, smoldering dimly in my heart, but can it be fanned to life without creating a conflagration? I'm a year away from 40, childless, torn between the future and the past. Is this something we all relate to when we post here? Does the forum remind us all of a childhood we don't want to leave behind? I don't know, but Argent would have none of such reflections. His reply would probably be something like: "Go build a hut in the woods and figure it out."

Ceka, I think time and experience wears us all down. Ten years ago, I believed most people were rational and keenly interested in knowledge. I believed that the world was generally sane and that good ideas would triumph over bad ones. Now I realize all of that is nonsense - that the world is a quagmire of emotions and beliefs that have no purpose or direction other than social entropy. With age comes wisdom. One learns to enjoy the few air-pockets of joy left in the world, sighing in wonder at the freedoms of our parents and grandparents. Why waste precious breath on things that no longer matter? It's one of the reasons why I came back to this forum, because it's family of sorts disconnected from the wider world. So, three cheers to all the clever people who post here. In our own way, we can still have a bit of fun.

There was a girl, a writer, dear god, what was her name, who wrote erotica in RL and did rather well by it. She was absolutely delightful - always playfully mischievous in her posts. She'd published dozens of books and was quite miffed when 50SG came out and scooped all that cash. I wish I could remember names better. Charming woman.

Yes, it does seem lighthearted compared to the old forum and positively angelic compared to the old old forum. Anyone brave enough to post back in 2007 had to have rhinoceros skin to withstand the onslaught of poison darts. It was vicious and truly unpleasant, though I have to admit it was lively. We, of course, had our resident tin hats, ranging from snarky teenagers through militant feminists to raging psychotics, yet we also had our sages and humorists. I miss the razor-sharp minds from those days and the brilliant artistic flourishes. Whole threads evolved into glass bead games of the highest caliber. Most of the time, though, it was name-calling and eye-gouging. Maybe I'm getting old, but I kinda like the mellow nature of this new forum.

I seeeee. Yes, it's simply a like counter. Whew, and I thought I'd have to wear a shawl and avoid street lamps.

I spent a lot of time in Sanctuary Rock, which sadly and mysteriously closed, Club Zero and Demonic. Now looking for some new places.

Humph, after 10 years in SL, eight years in this forum and roughly three years in the previous forum, I see my Reputation is a miserable 27. Now, I don't mind having a bad reputation ("When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better") and I can't say I've always been kind to LL in my writings, but 27? Anyone else out there feeling a bit miffed at the rating system or is a bad reputation a badge of honor?