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Dillon Levenque

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Posts posted by Dillon Levenque

  1. This looks like as good a place as any to say this:

    I think I've mentioned in this forum that over the years my favorite day of all has become the Winter Solstice. I start looking forward to it as the days grow alarmingly short in early November, and when by mid-December it seems like the poor Sun hardly has the strength to get out of bed in the morning (a problem with which I can fully sympathize) I can hardly wait. That day when the cycle reverses and I get just a tiny bit more light each day is finally upon us once again.

    Turns out Solstice is on Saturday this year, and Saturdays tend to be quiet in the Forum so I reasoned that my Solstice Card should arrive on Friday which would at least be in keeping with the Follies tradition. Folly may not my middle name, but it would have been an apt choice.

    I was thinking the other day about all the people I've met here and how some of the things I've learned or talked about or laughed about are part of the fabric of my life.  I'll remember a factoid or a story or just a feeling and am amazed each time at how much I've gotten from so many people I've never actually met face to face. There are a lot of things the Internet brings us that, at least in my opinion, we'd be better off without, but this wonderful web of people makes up for all of that. 

    Rejoice that once again a new cycle has begun, and enjoy those extra minutes of sunlight as the days go forward. To all the people with whom I have shared a conversation or a smile or a virtual hug, have a wonderful and happy Solstice or Christmas or Hanukkah or any other holiday/season you wish. I never stop thinking about you and, (like it or not) I never really go away :-).

    ps: Some of you south of the equator could probably do with a whole lot less sun right now and while your days will shorten it's obviously not enough to matter right away. I'll just hope things don't get any worse, especially the fires, and you can still enjoy some white wine in the sun at Christmas.

    • Like 5
    • Thanks 3
  2. On 8/7/2019 at 6:26 PM, animats said:

    It's not that bad.

    narrowbridgecorsica1.thumb.jpg.79337e46bcf74d4d5e72046ac0422cfa.jpg

    Sumi's dune buggy fits fine. One of the cars available in the Burns area. It's not hard to get this car across this bridge.

    (The water area here is mostly privately owned with a narrow and irregular Linden-owned strip for the bridge. Hence the difficult bridge.)

     

    narrowbridgecorsica2.thumb.jpg.a53fe94ad3dfb289b3d5c6473c6d2e7e.jpg

    A tighter fit. Axtel's Autos is no more; this car was free when he was shutting down last year. This race car is for drifting, not for road trips. It is too hard to control to drive across this bridge without banging into the obstacles.This is what you don't want for driving on Linden roads. It belongs on a track.

     

    Yes. Sansara and Zindra have very few Linden-sponsored rez zones on roads.

    Agreed. I have crossed that #%&$@!* bridge dozens of times in my ancient Lotus 7 knock-off. Fortunately I have a supply of spare fenders on  hand.

  3. 18 hours ago, BelindaN said:

    Saturday is my busiest RL day, so getting in world at 09.00SLT is a problem.

    Fogbound is also superlaggy. What's wrong with the Hangout? Just asking....

    Er, he did say 9 PM SLT;  written in that 24 hour format that EVERYBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD BUT US USES that would be 21:00 SLT.

  4. On 7/16/2019 at 8:35 AM, kali Wylder said:

    Nobody I know in world these days seems to know about the forums any more. 

    My first av made many of her best friends in SL from first knowing them from the forums. That was back when you used to see the top 3 threads latest entries on the first page of the dashboard.  Without that I wouldn't have known the forums existed. I've often wondered why they stopped doing that. 

    I got here via that very same path, Kali (and at about the same time, too). I kept seeing these snippets of interesting conversations and finally I had to go look. I spent a long time listening before I started talking, as we all did. Well, all except Maddy and maybe Scylla. 

    Like you, I never understood why they dropped that feature when the format changed.

    Was  nice to read all the comments in this thread and to see all the people, too. I have not disappeared, I just don't get by as often as I should. That's not permanent.

    • Like 7
  5. 6 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

    One of the greatest advantages of living in a large country that spans several climatic zones is that there's someplace for everyone to feel comfortable.  Even if you don't live in a spot that matches your climate preference perfectly, you get to visit one without crossing national borders.  As I grow older and travel to more parts of the country, I'm softening some of my early biases about what's "perfect."  Yes, I still roll my eyes at snowbirds who leave town at the first signs of winter.  When I was young, though, my idea of Hell was a place that is hot, dry, and sandy  -- sadly an image that also fits much of the Southwest.  My opinion of Hell hasn't changed much, but I've been in some very pretty parts of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. And I've met some fine people who choose to live there -- and not in a place where Hell freezes over.

    The first time I ever saw real desert up close and personal I was sixteen. We'd driven down to a place on the Colorado River not far from Lake Havasu to try and find the gold mine my father and several partners had worked back in the early thirties. We were out in a rented boat one late afternoon watching the sunset color the rocks on the Arizona side, and I was changed for life.  I couldn't get enough of that country. It seemed so pure—no weeds, no scrub,  no trees. Just the rock, as if all the leftover material from the making of the Earth had been dumped there and forgotten.

    Nowadays I don't often get into country that pure, but I still gravitate to the wide open arid spaces between the Sierras/Cascades and the Rocky Mountains.

    As for the snow; I did my tour. Minnesota, October through February. I liked it fine for as long as it went. It's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there ;-).

     

    • Like 3
  6. Getting back to the question asked in the OP, I think SL is based on American culture (for want of a better word). It was created by an American company, after all. It make sense there'd be a good many Americans taking part in putting it together. That hasn't seemed to stop people from all over the globe finding ways to thrive in SL. In Second Life, there is no reason whatever to worry about 'fitting in'. There isn't a norm. It's true, English is our lingua franca, but that's not unusual; the same holds true for most of the world.

    The Americans don't call themselves Americans thing has already been beaten senseless (and rightfully so). I always say I'm an American, if asked. When people ask where I live I just say California, one because I really do love my state and two because it's so well known (thanks mostly to Hollywood) that it supersedes having to name the country. I am sure the same thing is true of Texas, and for the same reason (although you'd probably not get a Texan to admit that).

    • Like 1
  7. Figures Maddy'd be on a run just when I decide to play something. I heard this today. Not sure what to call the style but I'm sure it has a name: they all do. To me it sounds like a somewhat hip hop style lyric done really melodic over a bunch of blues chords. It even has a modern jazz feel to it, yet with that insistent beat it can still qualify as rock and roll. I liked it a lot.

     

     

  8. 5 minutes ago, Ivanova Shostakovich said:

       Just everyone else will.

    She cleaned up nice, too. I danced with her at a get-together party for a 1940's group (which Scylla either started or was involved with, I think). She had a nice dress and heels and everything, but I think the bandana was still part of the outfit :-).

    • Like 4
  9. On 2/25/2019 at 11:45 AM, Whirly Fizzle said:

    It sounds like your hair got "ghosted" on teleport/region change.
    This is a known bug & most often happens to attachments that share an attachment point with other attachments.

    When this attachment "ghosting" happens, the attachment is still locally attached as far as the viewer is concerned, and you see the attachment on your own screen.
    However the region thinks you are not wearing the attachment & so no observers can see it.
    Because the attachment isn't worn as far as the region is concerned, scripts in the attachment will not function.

    You cannot detach the ghosted attachment because when you tell the viewer to detach it, the viewer sends a detach request to the region.
    The region comes back & says "Nope!  Can't detach that because it's not worn".

    If you happen to use Firestorm viewer, going to the top menu bar: Avatar -> Avatar Health -> Refresh Attachments will fix the state of the ghosted attachment.

    Sooo, ghosting has not in fact stopped altogether; it still haunts (intended) the grid? I'm not at all sure I like this version. Instead of your entire avatar/persona being trapped in some region you forgot you even visited, now bits of you are. That's kinda creepy.

  10. 46 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

    Brussels sprouts are gifts from god. Slice them in half, pan fry some bacon then the sprouts with some garlic, add in a little apple cider and simmer till thickened.. Perfection on a plate. 

    Okay, you sold me. I have to admit that sounds mostly edible (although using that recipe I reckon you could cook golf balls and it wouldn't be too bad).

    • Haha 1
  11. I haven't ever used a gacha machine and almost certainly never will. I didn't know what a lootbox was until I googled it. Why then (you might be asking yourself) did I bother to read this thread at all? What possible benefit could I gain from doing so? What could I learn that could be of any use to me?

    That question can be answered with one word: Belgium

    I've long suspected something of the sort was true. I mean come on. Jean Claude Van Damme? And my God, who thought of those horrible sprouts? Thank you, @Zeta Vandyke, for shining that beacon of truth into our lives :-).

    • Like 1
  12. On 2/20/2019 at 11:17 PM, Zeta Vandyke said:

    If I drive for 2 hours, any direction, I either left the country, or drove my car into the North Sea...

    Can't imagine having to drive 4 hours every day just to get to work and back. I drive 5 minutes to work, 6 if its rainy :)

    I can drive two hours at any speed under about 300 kph in any direction other than west and still be in California!  If I go west, though, I'd be joining you under the sea.

     

    ETA: I may have overstated that slightly. At an average speed of 300 kph/186 mph, I could reach Stateline at the south shore of Lake Tahoe in around an hour and forty five minutes. Whether I'd be capable of negotiating Highway 50 at that speed is another question, one to which I'm pretty sure I know the answer.

  13. Found it! I was right, it was Keith Laumer and Nile Green was the color. How long has that been hiding in my brain?. "Night of Delusions" is the title of the novel. I took a flyer on my recollection and googled 'keith laumer nile green'; found it right away. Even better, the fourth entry on the page was a link back to my post in this thread :-).

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 1
  14. 4 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

    Dill, are you thinking of Trace of Memory?  I wouldn't have said that Legion was quite like Marlowe, but the novel has that familiar, dark undertone. As the story unfolds and Legion's identity become clearer, it really does have the feel of a detective novel. 

    The Star Trek writers did several episodes in which they picked up on Laumer's Bolo theme, but without Laumer's knack for seeing the world through Bolo's eyes.  I could sympathize with Bolo -- not so much with the Star Trek versions.

    I suppose I have Laumer to thank for my name.  One of his Retief stories is set on a silly mudball planet that he named Roolit, which is a phonetic mangling of the Swedish word rolig, meaning humorous.  Laumer was posted in Stockholm for part of his diplomatic career, so it makes sense that Norse themes, language, and landscapes kept cropping up in his writing.  By an odd quirk of linguistic history, the word rolig takes a somewhat different meaning in Danish (where it means "calm").  I've always wished I could be both funny and calm and have never quite managed either.  Laumer's Roolit appealed to my sense of imagination when I read it back in the 60s sometime, and it rattled around in my head until I found SL.

    I don't know if that's the one or not; I'll have to dig around. As I said in my edit, I'm not even sure right now that it was Laumer that I'm thinking of, I just recalled it that way when his name came up in the thread.

    I purely love that part about your name :-).

     

    • Like 3
  15. On 2/22/2019 at 10:57 AM, Selene Gregoire said:

    So you are saying they are "absolute must reads" in the sense that they are considered classics and not because you, personally, believe everyone should read them even if they are not the kind of scifi others enjoy?

     

    Yes, that is exactly what I meant.

     

    • Thanks 2
  16. 42 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

    I'm just pleased to see Keith Laumer's name on Lindal's list. I've read everything he wrote, I think.  As much as I enjoyed the Retief stories and the Lafayette O'Leary ones, and the Dinochrome Brigade series, I think some of his best writing was in one-off short stories like End As A Hero.  Laumer had an unparalleled sense of humor and irony, and a Dickensian flair for colorful names. His plots were fairly linear, but usually with a twist that caught me by surprise.   

    There's a Laumer story (title escapes me as usual) that I loved. Can't recall whether it was a novel or a short story, but the hook was the hero. It was written first person like most of Laumer's stuff, but in this case that person was a dead ringer for Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's famous private detective. He goes through the whole story dropping Chandleresque lines right and left; it's so much fun to read. I do remember that for some reason the baddies in the story were associated with a color that I remember as being described as Nile Green, although that makes no sense whatever.

    Mr. Marlowe at work, as portrayed by a fairly well-known actor of years gone by ;-):

    ETA: Now that I've thought about it, I'm not even sure if it was Laumer that wrote that story; might have been someone else. I think I'm right just because Laumer injected a fair amount of humor in his stories; it'd be the kind of thing I'd expect from him.

    By the way, this whole Science Fiction thing is a hella long derail. We've been on topic for more than a page!

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