[Just Ignore and let this one die]

You are not alone. I've been here for close to 90% of a decade and since I got slightly skin savvy I've changed skins once. So three in all: whatever I started with plus two more. People kept saying things about how much better the current skins were and I kept trying demos but although I liked the body parts well enough (although to be honest I couldn't see how they were all that much of an improvement) I hated what they did to my face. I don't WANT that look. It's not me. I realize I'm a bit of an outlier, but I wanted the ability to have a face that while hopefully looking feminine, did not have extremely female attributes, most especially the lips. I never found a skin that didn't accentuate those, and I don't want to accentuate.

I've read posts from Maddy, and talked about it with her also, and she's not a skin shopper either. She may have worn even fewer than me and she's not bound by gender mismatches. She's just okay with herself. I'm okay with herself, too. Especially since when I finally got a good enough graphics card so I could stay on Ultra with ambient occlusion. That allowed me to see her in what she PUBLICLY ON THIS FORUM called, "...the full measure of my cuteness." :-)

[This topic is about SL: Forum crushes?]

2 hours ago, Ivanova Shostakovich said:

   Maybe it'll come back to you, like a boomerang.

They can do that. Just when you have it least in mind, WHAM!

[You know you're an SL addict when:]

8 hours ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

Sometimes Second Life is like a Walmart at Mardi Gras.

Nonsense. I've never even BEEN to Walmart. My outfit was from the famous Hot *****wear Cute Outfits For Mardi Gras store!

This is so old, I'm pretty sure it's before Mesh was even a thing.

 

ETA: LOL, I used a non-permitted word! For those who can't guess, it starts with "S", ends with "T" and the letters in between are "L" and "U", respectively. I stole the term from an absolutely hilariously funny line in a great book called, if you can believe it, "Little League Confidential" and yes, it really was about Little League. Read it and you'll understand. You'll also be glad you took the time to read such a fun, and very funny, book.

 

[This topic is about SL: Forum crushes?]

4 hours ago, Snugs McMasters said:

You just couldn't resist, could you?

I know! It's like she just said, "Cue Tennessee Ernie Ford!"

 

 

/me stays close to tall buildings and keeps an eye on the sky.

[This topic is about SL: Forum crushes?]

Nice to see you back here, Tex. Like everyone else (well, almost everyone; the trolls didn't care for you) I enjoyed your participation in the prior forum incarnation. Stick around, won't you? This go-round is doing quite well, so far.

[Does anybody from the Forum Cartel use these forums any more?]

On ‎5‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 7:19 AM, Madelaine McMasters said:

Here's the Hangout on St. Paddy's Day 2011...

I couldn't begin to identify everybody in those pics. I do see Mo and Ant dancing on the shelf in the second shot. Dillon's in the bib overalls with big hat, Keli Kyriei's wearing the shamrock antennae and big blonde hair (and perhaps dancing with Celestiall, who's bum looks familiar). DQ Darwin's in the green dress with straight red hair. Mags Indigo's in a green shirt, sitting on the right most stool. I'm tending bar in the second shot and I'm just to the right of the avatar cloud in the first. That might be Quinn Morani between Dil and DQ in the second shot. I can't be sure, but that might be Chris Norse dancing with someone in a green ball gown.

I can't understand how I missed seeing this thread had been updated: I POSTED in it earlier, even. That was such a great party. It's definitely Quinn to my left, btw. Mags was the DJ and she was awesome. For those that didn't/don't know her (haven't seen her in SL for years) she lived in Liverpool but she was a transplant from Eire. Since the DJ gig announced in Voice, we had her lovely lilt introducing every song. She played a great deal of songs done by Irish musicians, too, including I think every single song The Commitments ever made. Given the fact that was one of my all-time favorite movies, I was loving it. And I gotta admit, that hat might have been a little too big, Maddy. As I recall you told me I looked like The Cat in the Hat. :-)

[Where do you live?]

On ‎7‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 8:14 PM, Rolig Loon said:

Austin, Minnesota, the headquarters of Hormel Foods and the home of Hormel's world famous SPAM museum.  (Spam, spam, spam, spam....)

One of the girls (they were girls when I met them; can't change how I think of them) I danced with at the one High School reunion I've gone too (20th, I think) said she was living in Austin, Minn. I'd actually spent the better part of a winter in Minnesota a year or two earlier and because I tend to explore I had been through Austin (I was based in the Twin Cities), so I said, "I've been to Austin! Been to Houston, too!" (and there's one of those in Minnesota, a bit west of La Crosse) and on one of my trips which got as far south as Iowa I'd been there, too. She just smiled, probably thinking, "Probably didn't even hear the "Minnesota" thing; idiot thinks I was talking about Texas."

[I forgot how toxic this community can be!]

On ‎7‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 7:44 AM, BilliJo Aldrin said:

And yet... there's guys with a partner and a declaration of undying love and affection to their one and only, totally committed to, sexually exclusive wife, constantly showing up at the escort sim I work at, looking for sex.

I always say "Hi there, there looking for a present to bring home for the wife?"

One married guy that said he was too poor to pay my rates, I told him his wife needs to give him a bigger allowance.

In my admittedly somewhat limited experience, this is the case with partnered SL males possibly more often than not. I do recall one very memorable night out dancing when the exact opposite was happening. A partnered couple came to the gig, none of us knew them. His profile was almost a love poem to his partner. He was also a total sweetheart of a guy. By the end of the night every female in the club—transgender, straight, even the lesbians—was hitting on him shamelessly. His partner just laughingly let it go right on. Easily one of the most enjoyable nights I've spent in SL.

[Where do you live?]

1 hour ago, AmandaKeen said:

I live very close to there currently (work). I agree on the local drivers, and it became even more apparent when I recently road-tripped to San Antonio, Texas.

It was amazing, once I hit the Texas border - the maniac drivers vanished. I was there in Metro San Antonio for a whole week and drove home and saw 1 (one) crazy driver who local law enforcement were "talking to" a few miles down the road.

The drive home was the reverse, Arkansas was OK but when I reached Memphis - the maniacs were waiting.

I'm about to retire (for good this time) and I'm seriously giving thought to moving back to Texas or my birth state of Oklahoma.

The good roads is not a new thing. Drove or rode (it was a shared driving trip) through at least the Texas panhandle many years ago, going between New Mexico and Kansas. My father suggested the excellent roads (well paved, shoulders cleared, etc.) were probably a result of LBJ being Speaker of the House for such a long time.

I'm glad they've kept them up. I'm not as lucky: once upon a time there were excellent roads in California. These days you need patience, good tires, and even better shocks. 

[Just Ignore and let this one die]

Well look who else is mushy. :-) I never woulda guessed.

 

[Where are all my friends? Come on in and lets get comfy by the fire!]

Some snacks for the Root Beer Kid there, and the rest (just keep putting out cups, it's falling like rain).

 

 

[Where do you live?]

3 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

I learned to drive in Boston about 55 years ago and have heard that claim about Boston's drivers being "the worst" most of my life.  That criticism deserves a little clarification.  Boston is one of the nation's oldest cities.  It has a street system that was laid out initially along cow paths that snaked around the hills that define the city's landscape -- except for a more logical, rectilinear chunk that was laid out in the 1880s when Bostonians filled in the Back Bay with dirt lugged in from the suburbs.  Many of those streets are narrow, one-way roads, thanks to the perennial high value of real estate.  People north of the Charles River can cross it to the south (and vice- versa) at only seven bridges, which are always bottlenecks. Starting after WWII, the city and the state made major "improvements" that resulted in opening up parts of the core city -- leveling Scully Square and parts of Chinatown -- and adding major arteries.  They pioneered the introduction of some sensible changes like roundabouts (locally, "traffic circles") that are finally becoming common across the US.  Some of those changes actually helped traffic.  Others simply dumped people into the city faster and increased its parking problem.

Boston's drivers cope with the roadways in logical ways.  Where parking is scarce, they improvise by double parking, which of course makes narrow streets narrower.  They ignore traffic lights that often do little more than slow down the flow more.  They change lanes (where there are lanes) randomly to get around obstacles, including each other.  And they curse at visitors who are easily lost or confused, and who make matters worse by stopping to figure out what to do next.  I think it's still true that Boston has the highest rate of "fender-bender" accidents in the country. On the other hand, the rate of major, life threatening accidents is among the lowest.  You simply can't get going fast enough to do much serious damage.

I visit Boston rarely these days, having spent the past 40+ years in the Midwest. When I do visit, it takes me a day or two to relearn the shifting geography and attune myself to the traffic flow.  I have never had as much as a scratch on a bumper in all these years, however, and even have successfully pulled a trailer through the maze of downtown traffic more than once.  I have friends who eschew public transportation and have driven into the city daily for most of their lives -- cursing out-of-towners all the while but navigating easily.  Are they part of the problem, or have they simply learned how to be successful drivers in a confusing tangle of roads?  Are the "bad" drivers really just the ones who haven't learned to cope yet?

Interesting. The bulk of my Boston driving was downtown, which I suppose means some of the  most tangled and odd-angled streets, downtowns typically being the oldest part of a city. Virtually the entire rest of the time I was in and around Boston (2 weeks) I was on the plentiful public transit. I'd rented a car and since we used a primitive navigational aid called "Maps" in those days (lines printed on big sheets of paper, if you can even imagine such a thing) I'd decided to visit the AAA office to score a few before starting my motor tour of the area (I always added time to work trips so I could get in exploration).

Thus all the rest of my "Boston Drivers" experience was visual. I suppose a lot of what I saw could have been caused by visitors rather than locals. But my experience just getting the maps and getting out was harrowing, to say the least. Parking, as I am sure you know, was a delight. There weren't even any double-park spaces left (seriously: there were double parked cars all over the place, further narrowing the already narrow streets. And the bulk of my bad experiences were a result of driving by cabdrivers, who presumably knew the way around just fine.

I was never so happy as when I finally got on the Masspike heading west, even though the radio promised me a line of thunderstorms ahead (delivered as promised, too). I never drove on the Boston streets again. After I finished my big loop. Vermont, central New York, Pennsylvania, Arlington VA, then up the New Jersey Turnpike to Manhattan (where I didn't even THINK about driving: I spent the night on the Jersey side and used the bus to get downtown), up the Hudson River, through Connecticut, on the Beltway around Boston and on to Salem where I spent the night before taxiing to Logan for the trip home. Fun.

[Where do you live?]

Rural northern Monterey County, California. Nearest town that's likely on a map is Moss Landing, a couple of miles due west.

I purely love this thread; what a cool idea. It highlights something I and probably all of us love about SL: the internationality of it all. Where worlds don't collide, they dance together.

Things I've learned.

Tem is a Fork Snob

Drake lives in the state that includes the city of Boston and has the incredible nerve to yell at the rest of us to learn to drive before visiting. Boston has the second-worst drivers on the freaking continent! Only place that can top them is Manhattan Island.

Rolig believes there is a "safe distance" from Maddy & Snugs. Snugs, maybe. Maddy? As if.

I got sucked into that Grand Rapids video again, and watched it again from start to finish. That really is fabulous.

NEVER let Aislin, Maddy, and Snugs sit together.

Ivanova just noticed what Maddy used for Tommygun target practice.

[I forgot how toxic this community can be!]

1 hour ago, Gadget Portal said:

I often wonder if smartphones are making people less and less able to communicate effectively.

I am actually beginning to get a little worried about stuff like that. I think you're right about it. I mean, smartphone tech is incredible and there's more capability being added all the time, but: living in your phone is kinda weird and that's pretty much what's going on.

I happen to live in what is probably thought of as "a destination". On Monterey Bay in California. I mean, I don't actually live on the beach or anything but I'm a couple miles from the beach and when I go from home to other places I frequently am almost ON the beach. As in for instance, Monterey, a city that is on the edge of the Bay. There's a walk/bike trail that runs for miles parallel to the coastline all the way around the whole populated arc of Monterey Bay. It's paved, and wide enough for two walkers or cyclists to pass two other walkers or cyclists traveling in the opposite direction. Very cool. As it approaches Monterey it runs right ON the beach, then through the historic Custom House Plaza, on past the entrance to Fisherman's Wharf and out onto Cannery Row, where it runs right through the center. It's a treasure.

And every single time I look, I see a couple of people walking along with the waves foaming just a few feet to the side, boats anchored in the harbor, birds all around, and the walkers are staring straight into their god damned smartphones. They aren't even talking to each other, much less absorbing the life around them.

How the hell can anyone LIVE like that?

[Where are all my friends? Come on in and lets get comfy by the fire!]

13 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Well, I don't think you needed to delete the pictures. I was teasing, though it would be interesting to see the forum reaction to the locking of this thread.

 

[Just Ignore and let this one die]

We have three in the books, HoneyBear. Only two to go. We can DO this!

I think.

 

I'm upbeat right now, though. They sent me a new credit card since the old one was about to expire. Just had to order something online and needed the CCV number (on the back).

Before I go on, I should make it clear that although I appear to be a happy-go-lucky transgendered girl, I have a long and rather devious past.

I am, in fact, a Secret Agent. To be honest I guess I have been ever since I was about sixteen years old and read my first James Bond novel. Ever since then I've watched my mirrors when driving—Wait. Is that a real Mission Linen Supply truck passing me? Or is it SMERSH!?

I actually talked to someone long after the fact who had been a girlfriend back then. She told me that I made up stories about the traffic around me being SMERSH or SPECRE in letters I sent way back when. What a maroon, eh?

But in Second Life, I lived it. I started a 'photo story' thread once that was a spy story. I was, no I AM, an agent of the Ministry for Intelligence, Second Life. MISL. Yeah, that's right. I'm a Measlie. Wanna make something of it?

If you aren't one of the four or five brave souls who actually followed that interminable thread you have no idea what I'm talking about. Fear not. You're not crazy or ill-informed. I, on the other hand.....

If you're still with me you get that I like to be a secret agent. And that's why I got so stoked when I turned my new credit card over to read the CCV number.

Double Oh Six. YEAH! Move over, James!

[This topic is about SL: Forum crushes?]

Well jeez, Ivanova. If you insist on prying it out of me, okay. I've actually described it as a "crush" once, inworld. I invited her to a DJ gig to dance, and as we were dancing, the DJ (one of my first and oldest friends in SL) asked, "Any romance here?". I actually posted once before about this and said about the DJ—Naz Fride—"she's worse than your mom." which is totally true. She'd ALWAYS want to know if I was 'involved' with anyone she saw me with. In any case, I played it very cool on account of like, I am very cool. I said, "Maybe a crush." and left it at that.

It's an enduring crush, given it started when I first became a regular forum reader/lurker in 2009. I forget who mentioned Dee (DQ Darwin) earlier but she has teased me about it often. For those who don't already know, I have a crush on Maddy. Madelaine McMasters.

It'll never go anywhere because circumstances. That doesn't change things. It is, as they say, what it is.

[Why Do The Lindens Tolerate This Kind of Griefing?]

I don't know nearly as much about the inside nuts, bolts, and bits (as in ones and zeroes) of SL as the bulk of people in this thread. I have, however, been reading the various forae (I get all proper Latin now and then; usually I just call 'em forums) for about nine years. So I've read a great deal, from many sides, about the discussion at hand.

I find I am in the VERY uncomfortable position of saying something that conflicts with something Innula said above. Having read a great many of Innula's posts both here and elsewhere, I suspect I'm probably wrong. Nevertheless, I want to say this. Of all the comments about this I've seen, a single line from a post by Pixieplumb goes straight to the heart of the matter.

"I'm absolutely sure that until you change something that you do this isn't going away."

I've read lots of posts in which Prok's tenants past and present have praised his behavior as a landlord. Unfortunately, being a great landlord is never going to deter griefers. BTW I know you've all been referencing Prok in the feminine and apparently she's made it RL clear that she's female, but unless things have changed the SL avatar is male. Hence, I use the masculine. I am of course RL male but in SL I greatly prefer the feminine pronouns.

Pixieplumb's right. Until Prok changes something he does, it won't change. I do not know what that is, but then I am not involved.

[This topic is now closed to further replies.]

Okay enough with the serious discussion. ChinRey, I absolutely loved you pointing out SL's total lack of cats. And BDSM. As to where any 'putative' giant BDSM cats (nah, can't be) might be found—I think Amanda asked that question, for a friend—the Kzinti Hegenomy. Loaded with 'em, sources say.

I have yet to stumble across it in SL, but I would be very, very, surprised if it did not exist.

[This topic is now closed to further replies.]

Just in case nobody else noticed I started a thread about this very topic down in Forum Feedback (AND got a 'like' from Whirly!). I asked for a return to the previous version of the GD, in which there was no SL restriction.

As with the cats/BDSM thread: though the article in question was totally based on RL observations, virtually every single post in that thread referenced Second Life; many referenced nothing but Second Life.

That of course makes purrfect* sense. The reason we're all ON this forum is because we are part of Second Life. Some active both Inworld and out, some more of one than the other, but all of us have Second Life in common; it is what brings us here and it is what lets us understand each other's language.

*Sorry. After my re-read I just could not resist the edit.

[A Change in the New Forum I'd Missed]

In the previous incarnation of the SL Forum (I believe in the previous two, but I am only certain of the most recent) either the General Discussion section or one similarly named was for topics related to SL and Other Things.

That last bit is now not the case (as the description for General Discussion clearly states: I'd just not bothered to read it). I just found that out when a thread I'd been enjoying and participating in was locked by Tommy Linden. The thread, while including a great many posts dealing with things we'd done in SL, was in fact started about a topic not directly related to Second Life.

I has a sad. I just want to state the case that I would very much like to see that particular 'condition' revised for the General Discussion forum; that it once again allow topics of SL and of RL. Those almost inevitably intermingle in any case.

[Should nudity, sex and adult sims only be for premium members?]

5 hours ago, Skell Dagger said:

By my own admission? I don't see where I was actually denying anything that you appear to think I am now admitting.

And yes, I have met the kind of mainlander that you are talking about. In fact, I've met precisely three of them in a total of nine years. That's one every 1000 days, or a 0.1% occurrence, which is not exactly the hotbed of misery and awfulness that your posts are implying.

Since I don't expect my world - either SL or RL - to be 100% sweetness and light with everyone being perfectly pleasant to me (because people are people), I am quite capable of handling those rare occurrences with humour and irony instead of letting bitterness fester inside me to the point where I'm insulting every person who lives on mainland.

And therein lies what I actually took umbrage at: you calling me, my partner, and everyone else who lives on the mainland educationally sub-normal, self-entitled, arrogant, ignorant, whiny premi-Nazis who live in a hovel in a hateful place. I also took umbrage at you implying that I am (and my partner and everyone else who lives on mainland is) insane, by your constant sneering dismissal of us as madlanders.

Your lack of addressing in your response my clear dislike of those insults can only mean one thing: you meant them. Either that, or you were so caught up in proving your point that you simply forgot to apologise for calling me, my partner, and a very large number of other people educationally sub-normal, self-entitled, arrogant, ignorant, whiny premi-Nazis who live in a hovel in a hateful place.

Regardless, I won't hold my breath waiting for that apology, mainly because I'm busy getting a load of tar out of my damn hair. Have a care with how you wield that brush in future.

You know, Mr. Dagger, I do not recall you at all from the other two versions of the SLForums in which I've participated: Jive and then Lithium. I assure you that you are gonna be 'appointment reading' for me from this point forward (actually you  have been since the first post of yours I saw).

That's good stuff. Also, toss me the bottle of thinner when you're done, if you would. :-)

[Should nudity, sex and adult sims only be for premium members?]

5 hours ago, Klytyna said:

It's not how long you've been in SL or if you LIVE on the mainland that determines what you see, it's how much attention you pay.
 

I'll not take issue with all your tales of woe back there even though I personally take them with a grain of salt. I do take issue with the statement I have left quoted, which seems to imply that I haven't 'paid attention' to my Mainland experience, that of my neighbors (in all the different places I've lived) or for that matter the SL forums.

Take your implication and......(remember to fold it three ways first).

[Just Ignore and let this one die]

35 minutes ago, Xerxes Kingstop said:

dilditos

Bueno, Senor. Mui bueno.

[Should nudity, sex and adult sims only be for premium members?]

15 hours ago, Klytyna said:

 

Ah! I wondered when the classic "Madlander Max the Prim Warrior" battle cry would crop up in the Premium Propaganda.

Many of us AVOID the Madlands as much as possible because of that whole "No Rulz" thing, with every self entitled madlander asshat spamming lag tech griefer orbs to stop 'peasants' looking at their parcels, or rezzing hunk prims on their neighbors land because the neighbor hasn't set 'auto return' on the basis that it's ok to fill your neighbours land with junk to remind them to protect YOU from griefers.

Too many Madlanders are still fighting the Parcel Wars, playing 'piss on thy neighbour' to force sales or abandonment, so they can have their rinky-dink 512 prim hovel in the middle of an abandoned sim.

Sorry, but as long as the Madlands are a hateful place to visit never mind live, I'll continue to hate being there.

 

You're quite welcome to avoid Mainland, if you wish. You're also quite welcome to enjoy SL without becoming a premium member; I'd guess the majority of my friends do the same. Many of them draw a fair amount of income from SL, too, as DJ's or entertainers or creators. And as has been suggested, they pump a fair amount of that back into SL and thus to LL.

You're also quite welcome to think of Mainland as "a hateful place". Just as I am welcome to think you are totally wrong. I've been here since late in 2008. I don't recall when I selected my first plot and placed my first prefab house but it would have been early 2009 at the latest. I've never lived anywhere but on Mainland. It has been an education, a way to meet some people I'll never forget and think fondly of always (as well as a tiny few whose names I've forgotten and will endeavor not to think of again) and all in all, an experience. I now live on a plot that straddles a Linden Road and am still reluctant to sell the part across the road, even though I've removed all the structures and things I had there and no longer use it (I should get rid of it.  No sense paying extra tier: with a little strategic pruning if I got rid of that empty part I'd drop from 4096 to 2048; its dumb not to).

In the more than eight years I've been a resident of the mainland, I have witnessed exactly ONE incident such as you describe in your third paragraph, talking about "piss on your neighbors", etc. One. And since, btw, I LIVE ON MAINLAND, I do believe that makes me the more credible witness here. The incident in question was definitely not something you describe anyway; it was a store with a horribly garish vertical sign. I was asked by both of my neighbors at the time to please take it down (the sign was right up against my property line) and had to explain I had nada to do with it. All three of us IM'd the store's owner repeatedly; it was clearly a derelict since we almost never saw anyone visiting. Finally we all just planted trees and went on with our SLives.