For Gucissa

Got me a little outfit together for Sunday's performance at Linri's Palace. In honor of our dear friend Guc, we are renaming (temporarily) the show to "Crimson Glory - Celebrating the life of Gucissa". Hence the red. In case you didn't know Crimson (Guc's last name) is a particular shade of red. Somewhere in between vermilion and carmine. Damn hard to match! Luckily my white tux from Blaze is tintable. The frog is of course in memory of Joshua and Guc and while not mandatory for attendance, it's highly appreciated if you wear one too. My sister Emyly will be handing them out at the door.

To a dear friend...

In early September I wrote about a friend that gave me a frog. In memory of a 9 year old boy named Joshua, that frog was. I wrote about how she herself (my friend that gave me the frog) was battling cancer. In that blog-post I wrote:

..."Take some time out of your busy schedule. Remember there are marvelous things to see and do every day. Miracles happen in your life on a daily basis, really! Just take the time to watch them."

Then a few short weeks later my frog-handling friend slipped into a coma. I think it was a coma anyway, the details are blurry. But she snapped out of it, and on September 28, 2009 I wrote in another blog-post how happy I was to see her back in this crazy world we call SL. I even joked how much I hate Jimmy Buffet, and how she surely would request me playing some upon her return. We didn't see each other much after that. Once she was a transformer like avatar for a Halloween event. When we did talk, it was mostly about her wigs. Not the SL kind, the real ones that kept her from showing her bald head to the world. I tried to be lighthearted, that wasn't always easy. And where previously we would have been joking up a storm, trying to not be outdone by the other with our witty one-liners, the conversation would often have these lengthy, awkward pauses. I don't think I even said goodbye the last time we talked.

I am not going to beat myself up over that, in SL those things happen. You know, you are busy, or your connection drops for the umpteenth time and you just decide to give up for the day... But I do wish I would have had a chance to say goodbye one last time.

When I logged on today, not having been on much because I have a pretty bad case of the flu, I found a saved IM from another good friend. My lady in Antarctica, who sends me pictures from her ice-diving adventures. She and my frog-toting friend are family (well sort of) in the real world. "Gucissa Crimson lost her battle with cancer".

That's pretty much all it said. I am devastated! Gucissa is/was one of those people to look up to. An amazing lady with an amazing outlook on life. An outlook that I can no longer share with her or quiz her about, but that I will continue (I will try at least) to carry forward. In time, you will, if you hang around me long enough, learn about her legacy.

Sleep well my dear friend, and sweet dreams. Oh, I heard there is a beach house for rent. On the moon!

Shove it down my throat, why don't you?

Judging by my accent, which is an odd mix of Kansan, Oklahoman, Dutch, Brummie and a touch of deep-southern US thrown together, you would never guess that I am not from the United States. I call that country, for the time being at least, my home, but it's not my home (so to speak). When you first set foot in SL, you probably weren't thinking too much about the fact that you were about to meet people from all walks, many different generations, and all corners of the globe (the latter being technically speaking impossible since a globe doesn't have any corners).

The other day I was at an event at Linri's Palace. I was probably not in the best of moods to start with, and poor DJ Winston got to carry to the burden of me becoming violently upset over something that, in hindsight, probably wasn't all that important. Looking back on it I realize that I should not have attacked him like I did. It did however (once I calmed down) give me a chance to reflect on some of the intricate intercultural socialization (wow that was a mouth full!) that happens in SL.

Even though Second Life brings together the planet in a way that was previously unheard of, the celebrations that we share seem to be heavily biased towards the North American calendar. At least, that's how it seems to be, but in all honesty that could be because I like to spend my time with people who I have a language in common with and the fact that I am in the same time zone (roughly anyway). But let us for a moment just use my observation as the working assumption... For the sake of argument.

There are two American celebrations that I, for reasons entirely personal, have a big problem with. Those two are Veterans Day (the cause of my argument with Winston) and Thanksgiving. There are others that don't have any meaning to me whatsoever, but they simply don't bother me as much. Veterans Day celebrates the lives (and losses) of US soldiers. It is my firm believe that none of the conflicts, starting after WWII, the Unites States engaged itself in, were warranted. So to honor the soldiers fighting in those theaters, is awkward for me to say the least. I fully understand that not everyone is going to agree with me on that, and if you want to honor your (fallen) "heroes", be my guest. But please do it in a way that actually honors them. Closing the post office and sticking toy flags in your lawn is not the way to go about it! If 80 percent of the nation goes about their business as if nothing ever happened, you are not properly (as a nation) celebrating those that "fight for your freedom".

But let's get back to SL. If the crowd is so international, how come the celebrations are so one-sided? Why is it that a club, with a Japanese decor even celebrates Veterans Day? Doesn't that just seem a little bit ironic? We honor the service men of WWII in a setting that borrows its decorations from a culture that attacked the US in Pearl Harbor?

So I am very vocal about what I think is right (or not). You probably don't agree, and that is good! But all of a sudden I understand how people must feel when they get something rammed down their esophagus. You know, the Jewish kid who, every December is made to listen to the stories about Jesus Christ... The pacifist that is made to observe 11 minutes of silence at work, even though he (or she) is against the violence that goes on in wars...

If, as an international, intercultural society, which is SL we want to have a future, we have to be more thoughtful of the people around us. That maybe means we have to let go of certain rituals and embrace others. Maybe we have to stop celebrating Christmas and instead adopt Kwanzaa. Better yet, we need to create our own celebrations. Those that are not tied to a certain nation or a certain belief, but instead celebrate the life, the culture, the people that make up the new society that we are part of. We owe it to the (in)world that we inhabit.

I win I win I win!!

Feenix is having a possitive affect/effect on me. Today I won the "race that stops the nation". Had I betted I would have been 120 dollars and 59 cents richer then I was before.

The Melbourne cup is the biggest horse race in Australia. People go goo-goo over it. To me it's just a bunch of animals that would be better served being in front of a plow, but ever since we mechanized those things I guess that the only way for a horse to not end up on a sandwich is to... RUN!!! I know nothing about horse racing, absolutely NOTHING. So when someone asked me which horses I'd pick I jokingly said: Shocking

Then they asked me to pick another name, for the long shot. I looked over the list and "Nothing Leica Cat" was already out of the race, so instead I (randomly) picked "Crime Scene". I thought it was kinda fitting that if Shocking was my number one pick, Crime Scene would be second. Well today whatever God you subscribe to smiled on me. In the order above, my picks came in. Shocking won and Crime Scene came in second.

Should have placed a bet, but... I win the race! My picks came in First and Second. Take that that you fools! Next year I will bet on "Purple Toothpaste".

Technology, or lack thereof...

This post was entitled "Crap!" but at the last moment I changed my mind.

I love it when technology just works. I just successfully sat here and watched my PC clock flip from 1.59 AM to 1.00 AM. Simultaneously my Mac did the same thing. All I had to do was sit there! It was a thing of geekly beauty. What bothers me then to no end, is that with all the machinery in the world, we can't seem to create an SL experience that is seamless.

Linden Labs has a few data centers that aren't anything to sneeze at. Yet, as 1.59 is quickly approaching a second time (an event that can only be witnessed once a year) in one hour, my AV has not fully rezzed yet. Oh and I already did three rebakes!

From a technical perspective, although I don't claim to understand how the SL viewer works, it shouldn't be that difficult. It is of course highly likely that me thinking it shouldn't be that difficult is exactly because I don't understand how the SL viewer works. But it occurs to me that the rendering engine of SL needs some work. Say... my upper body is gray, it stays that way until I change my shirt, in which case my torso is all of a sudden, as if by magic, rezzed in...

Again, I don't know the innards of the SL viewer, but I do happen to understand how data-communication works. And from that little experience I would have to conclude that somehow a message traveling between LL and my computer got dropped and neither machine is any the wiser. That being the case, I would have to conclude poor error handling. The other day, I saw Linri's boobs! She swears she had a shirt on and none of the other patrons at the Palace corroborated my experience. Mind you I am not complaining, the lady in question is not entirely unattractive so there is an upshot to all these glitches at times.

But lets think about this. Linri's computer sends a message to LL. The message being "I am wearing a shirt". LL responds "OK, you are wearing a shirt". Then my computer comes in and asks LL a question. That question being "What is Linri wearing?"

The computer sitting in the LL data center is a) ignoring my question or b) giving me the wrong answer! Before you ask, this wasn't a case of clothes not being rezzed yet, I actually saw boobage! The litmus test for this one is always "Do you see nipples?" And why is it, while we are at it, that the minimum configuration for running SL are so insanely high? Specifically, the graphics card!

SL uses a graphics rendering engine that is fairly unsophisticated. When I say unsophisticated, I don't mean bad, but's let's face it, it's nothing compared to some video games, which incidentally run fine on machines that the SL viewer can't even be started on. In my current household I am running FOUR different versions of the SL viewer. My netbook runs the Cool SL Viewer, on my laptop I run the SnowGlobe release, on my desktop PC I run the official release, and on my Mini I run the official Mac release.

Not surprisingly, the Mac does best... It has a wicked video card! On the Windows side, the two machines that do best run unofficial releases. One (Cool SL viewer) not even produced by LL! It's pretty sad that a third party can create a better experience than LL themselves, On less hardware no less...

Am I good or what?

The answer is: Or what!

I am sitting here this morning reflecting on what should have been the perfect evening in SL. Mind you it doesn't help that I have a headache, but I am left feeling slightly uneasy. I hadn't done a DJ gig in six weeks due to RL issues, so this was somewhat of a comeback-event. Maybe I was feeling slightly too cocky, or maybe six weeks is simply not long enough to be away, who knows... But the gig surely wasn't the material that makes say, Elvis's Las Vegas TV special.

First of all, it was a Halloween themed event. I picked a costume that was ultra-cool. To look at that is... I had hardly any control over my movement, so that left me with a serious lack of control of the room. The lag last night didn't help, but as an MC I need to be able to "pan" to see who is coming and going. I was in a blind spot! I had the distinct feeling that my song selection was way off. Sure people liked the music, but to me... It didn't seem to flow as nicely as I had hoped. I am gonna let the cat out the bag, the genie out of the bottle... I think that I have awesome timing. My announcements are always perfectly timed to the intro of a song. That is because I practice . I listen to each song, look for cue points, and when I am satisfied that I know the flow of the song I test talking over it. Sometimes I am reciting a grocery list for lack of anything useful to say but the point is that my speech should end right before one of those cue points. My sister Emy heard me do it last night before the show when we had an impromptu dress-rehearsal.

I had never used Rockwell's "Somebody's watching me" (which is one of those Halloween only songs) but in rehearsal I aced it at the first try. Not so during the gig. I crashed that intro completely! As I did with many others... I don't know what was up with me... Maybe being away for six weeks killed my skills?

Normally on Thursday's at Linri's I have no event's following me. I am it! The last event of the day, the head-liner if you will. I always jokingly call BBall's show my "warm-up act" Unbeknownst to me, yesterday there was an event scheduled following me... OOPS! I had selected a play-list that was slightly longer than my allotted two hour slot. I found myself having to cut songs from my set-list. I don't think I made the right choices. All in all, I was less than impressed with myself last night.

And people think that all DJ'ing is, is playing a tune and talking in between. Damn this is hard work!

About (virtual) money...

Unlike my RL, in SL I am pretty well to do... I never have to scramble to pay my rent and buy 500/1000 L$ outfits on a whim. If I did that in the real world, well lets just say I'd be walking everywhere... As long as I have a good internet connection, I can run a pretty successful business playing music (some call that DJ-ing) and it actually pays my bills. Now, mind you, even the biggest house in SL costs less than a case of beer RL.

I just teleported away from a very dissatisfying negotiation about a fee for doing a two hour gig. Mostly I play music in SL for fun... Having said that, there is cost associated with doing so, not to mention the time involvement. I ask a minimum of 500 L$ for two hours. In the real world, that doesn't even buy me a pack of cigarettes. If Walmart could get away with paying their cashiers like that the American economy would be even worse than it is now!

Still there are club owners in SL not willing to commit to beer money. I just had a conversation with one... Their argument is that they provide me a venue to perform at and access to their "clientele". I am putting the word clientele in quote marks here, because the notion is ludicrous!

Let's face it... What is a club in SL? It's a place for people to talk to other people. So it' a chat room? No wait this chat room has decor! Ah! It's a chat room while staring at a painting? Close, but... They play music in a club! So it's a chat room while staring at a painting amidst listening to the radio? BINGO!! In an SL club you can't even get drunk! Now don't get me wrong, the social aspect of these clubs is priceless. But having me spend two hours out of my day to entertain your guests without compensation, sorry that's not flying with me. Why not you ask? Let me explain!

As I said, your club is nothing but a chat room. A chat room with trees, but still... Are your guests really your guests, or are they there because you are throwing on an event? One that I am at the epicenter of. I can easily argue that most clubs are utterly and completely dead until a performer shows up. Go to any club, do it right now, where no performer is scheduled and tell me what you find... So is the club in business because I am there? Or am I in business because the club is there??

Like George Carlin said "A house is place to put your stuff while you are out looking for more stuff". If you own a club, and you keep paying the rent (or the tier, as the case may be) that club will remain. What you own is a building. A virtual one at that! People will not come to your shack unless you do something special. That something special is me...

Your patrons are there to see/hear the show, not to stand around in a nicely feng shui-ed virtual hangar. So having those patrons pay the performer... NO!!

If you tell me that most performers make 750 (plus) Lindens in tips and I ask you to back that up by a guarantee... Ask you to pay the difference if your "clientele" somehow do not tip me as expected... If you are unwilling to do so, all I can say is... You are bluffing! In other parts of the world we call that "liar liar pants on fire". All you have to do as a club owner is, put me on your calendar and maybe advertise me on the SL event list, a time investment of all but 15 minutes. On the other hand I am expected to entertain your chat room buddies for 2 (plus) hours.

Bottom line: You don't pay, I don't play!