Dillon Levenque

Nimue, I can only assume your SL account has been mostly dormant—you joined eight years ago. Your post sounds like it's from someone who has just barely bumped the edges of SL, so my response is geared to that. First things first: your RL gender, appearance, health, wealth, etc. mean nothing in SL. Obviously they mean plenty to you, but you needn't share any of that unless you want to. This is our virtual world here; we can be virtually whoever and whatever we want. As for friends....I think actively seeking friends is a hopeless and self-defeating thing. I didn't seek friends, and the handful of people I consider my closest friends didn't either. Instead, we just spent our time exploring and learning how things work. One of my friends (not around much these days—RL keeps her busy) told me she spent almost a year wandering the world before she started really talking to people. After a while you find places you like and you visit them often. You might notice that you'll see some of the same people there frequently. It is quite likely one or more will say "Hello" to you, or you could even throw caution to the winds and speak to them first. If you're not careful the next thing you know you'll be having a conversation. I 'met' some of my friends on the Forum, including the wanderer I mentioned earlier. We just got to liking each other from reading each other's words. I've made other friendships on the Forum, too. The woman I was just talking about and I are both close friends with another well-known Forumite (this one's really a hottie, if you get my drift ;-). The three of us spent a great deal of time together in SL. You can take from that what you will. I hope it helps. Either way, I hope your Second Life improves.

I'm glad you saw the Aquarium and shame on me for not mentioning it. I haven't been for several years; probably due for another visit myself.

Sea otters are delightful. They use their tummies as a table-top while breaking open those shellfish.

When I read this earlier I didn't notice that Lil was heading for Monterey. I can actually see the western portion of the Monterey Peninsula from here, off in the distance. Unfortunately the weather is the absolute pits right now. We have fog, as is so often the case this time of year. Comes in off the ocean. Today it's in the form of overcast with a solid layer starting a few hundred feet above the water. Gray and gloomy and probably some drizzle close to the shore. High temp for the day expected to be around sixty degrees. It's still an interesting and beautiful area with lots to see, but I hope she brought a few sweaters with her. Today would be a good day to drive over to San Juan Bautista, an easy thirty mile drive. It'll be about seventy there, and there are lots of little shops and eateries plus of course the Mission (bonus points if she's a Hitchcock fan—it's the one featured in "Vertigo".

... life is on your tilt-a-whirl.

It's good to be home. Not to recycle the theme but I've been away from my headphones for a bit, and I have to hear 'em tp play 'em. As it happens...

For a craft like that priced at $60, I'd suspect the phrase "Needs Work" might qualify as the Mother of all Understatements. I think pictures are in order, so we can share your progress. You're probably gonna need a new outfit, too. Something like the old "Seamstress of Gor" only with power tools and caulking and such instead of needles and thread.

Mais oui.

I wasn't grinning.

Done, and Curator of Chaos is running away with it.

I think only a truly Dutch/English bilingual person* could have composed that paragraph. An unadorned copy/paste to Google translate yields: "In the sandbox of the Amsterdam sim there is always a group of Dutch people around - regulars who come to chat daily in Dutch via Voice. There are only a handful. Furthermore, I remember a fixed group of visitors on the dance floor of the location Mambo Beach. That place now looks pretty deserted. I suspect that these (small) communities mainly consist of people who speak little or no English. The Dutch I know here all speak fine English and do not look for these groups." Perfectly phrased in English; not even an oddly missing or incorrect definite/indefinite article. I, and I suspect a lot of SL users (particularly the frequent contributors to this forum) enjoy meeting people across a language barrier. There used to be translators you could wear, but all the reports I got from people who spoke English as well as whatever language my translator was set for told me it did a horrible job. I've had better luck with Google Translate. Thanks for posting that. :-) *I would not be in the least surprised to learn you are fluent in other languages as well; I only said 'bilingual' in reference to Dutch/English.

Or it might be the person was an unevolved relic from the old "A/S/L" days; either way the answer is pretty much "nunya". I think this was the first computer I actually had my hands on (although only to play text games). The awesome Commodore 64. It belonged to a friend; he didn't have the joysticks or that extra floppy drive, just the single-sided one on the top: 180K scintillating bytes of information. It's where I first saw the words, "It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue."

Ruth? Is that you?

Rhonda, while that particular boyo would bring out the worst in anyone, that was maybe a little strong. It was a long time ago; is it worth dragging that link around just to remind yourself of having done it? Let it go.

It definitely would NOT work on the ground. I live on a Linden road and a tiny sliver of something of mine was intruding onto the reserved shoulder (not the 'paved' road, just the border). The thing was returned. I agree with Phil that you could probably get away with it in the sky. But it would be a real bummer if it got noticed and returned after you'd gotten comfortable in it.

Musical accompaniment for the thread. Chorus lyrics are a bit nonsensical, but y'all are doing that to the thread anyway. :-)

Wait—there are shoes in this picture? Somehow I missed them altogether!

I think some people (Jeny and Aislin) are talking about what in the Netherlands is called "drop". Licorice that comes in a variety of types but almost all, I believe, are both black and salty. Somewhere I read in some novel about a character with a passion for drop, and I thought it sounded interesting. I remembered seeing a place that advertised Dutch foods up in the Bay Area (as in San Francisco Bay), so I drove up there one Saturday. Sure enough, there was a big long aisle of drop, all different. I told the clerk (a very beautiful woman somewhere between 35 and 45, I'd guess) that I wanted to try salted licorice and she picked out a bag for me. I actually sort of liked it, although not enough to go buy more. I took the bag to work, where cookies and candy left on the coffee counter tends to vaporize quickly. I finally had to throw the bag in the trash after a week or so. One or two people were able to choke it down frowning, a few took one bite and spit it into the nearest wastebasket, gagging and yelling at me, and the rest were too chicken to try it. :-)

Please use caution here, folks. It is against the rules to be officially admonished about one thread's comments and then bring it all up again in a different thread. Lots of us are having some fun with this thread; I'd hate to see it get locked.

'Ichabod Crane' is odd? Pfft!

Forgot the pic I still have. I'd made an egg for Torley; he never claimed it, but I did get a bear! ETA: this was supposed to be an edit but I biffed it. Oh well.

One year LL actually did give us a present about this time of year. I can't recall if it was a Premium Gift or for everyone but it was definitely an LL deal. We got...an Easter Egg! A well formed moddable egg-shaped prim. Code monkeys having fun. :-) I got one, sized it the way I wanted, and set it to wear on head. I then spent a goodly time one night making colored eggs with Paintshop. I even wrote friend's names on a bunch with that horrible invisible wax pencil, just like RL. Next night there was a get-together and I gave out the eggs. I only have one picture left (chunks of my Photostream went south a couple of years ago) but my friend Quinn Morani who in addition to being an absolute sweetheart always took a zillion pictures, has several. Here's one. Someone else brought the wearable cows.

ordered at the Crossroads Cafe

I couldn't find the picture with Rhonda posed so fetchingly on the front tire (Google seems to have lost it somewhere) but this is what she means about the bonnet: the whole front sheet-metal of the car just unclips and pivots forward.

I've had both convertibles and cars with sunroofs; convertibles were better. I'm not as crazy as Maddy and the Wisconsoners but for a Californian I probably get close. I spent a lot of time driving a Fiat 850 which belonged to a girlfriend. I remember once driving up into the hills with a friend one winter day—probably in the mid-fifties—with the top down. It was a roadster; you only put the top up on a roadster when it's raining hard. I was so enjoying the nimble handling, the sun in my face, the wind whipping around, that I said, "Isn't this great?". I got expletives for an answer and looked over to see him trying to get more of his face into his jacket. He didn't seem to appreciate the moment. These days my ride only has a sunroof but I do use it often. Better than nothing. Her Fiat wasn't quite this prettied up (it did not have chromed wheels, for instance) but it was structurally the same as this.