The best L$423 you can spend in SL is on the Mystitools HUD. Sometimes, however, I find myself wondering why I don't turn off the 'take a break' function, since I usually ignore it. I guess it's nice to have an hourly metronome telling me that it's time to pay attention to the real world. I think what I'll do from now forward is to take the break every hour, and at least find some garbage to take out, or perhaps clean the toilet or shred some old receipts. Joy.

Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

See also:

I spent much of today making a volcano.

In school, there was always some kid that made a volcano for a science project. Well, I just helped make one for the Happy Clams in Second Life, and it was a total blast. So to speak.

They got four extra 'void sims' to go around their island. 'Void sims' are low-spec simulators that aren't quite as good as the regular ones, and you can only get void sims to attach to a sim you already own. So the clams got four, and one will be a volcano. For now. Until we blow it up into a submarine caldera, where there will be a reef, and the reef will be an exhibit dealing with the loss of reef habitat due to climate change.

So today was volcano day, and I'm pretty happy with the results. Of course, I just logged out without taking any pictures, and I'm not logging back in now. So maybe later. And anyway, the real reason for this 'blog:

The reason I asked before about 'the public good' is because there's an Annenberg grant for an SL project demonstrating a use of SL for 'the public good.' The prize is L$100,000, so basically US$400, which is supposed to be a stipend for three months of keeping the project alive. I'm interested in at least going through the proposal process, just to see how it works. I only have a vague idea about what I might do, however.

I need a quick, reasonable definition of the phrase, 'the public good.' Any approach to or attitude about this phrase is welcome, and any definition appreciated.

To get started, perhaps consider finishing these two sentences and then compare and contrast the way you finished them. 1) "The public good is of utmost importance because..." 2) "I hate it when people yammer on about 'the public good' because...."

Please offer your reaction to this phrase in comments. Thanks.

Almond.

Chocolate.

On Second Life, you meet a lot of people. But you only kind of meet them; you meet a part of them that is less ruled by convention and more ruled by fantasy. People come to SL to escape. And in my experience, meeting someone in this way is a much better view into someone's truth than most other ways.

In the real world (or the 'big simulator,' as we call it), people have a lot at stake. People need to have their guard up, need to not make waves, need to play an offensive game. The world tends to favor those who race to the bottom in their dealings with each other.

I'm not going to offer Second Life or any virtual world as wholly different, but it does take the pressure off and allow greater room for better motivations. And it's wonderful to see how this potential is used and abused.

For most people, this freedom means one thing: Release from puritanical sexual morality. They get to play fantasy sex. It's not unsafe to say that the driving force of the SL economy is sex. If you make something and sell it, and it can't be connected to sex in some way, it won't sell. Of course, there are all kinds of things going on that have nothing directly to do with sex; but there are only a few ways to actually make money in SL, and sex is one of them.

Another way this freedom leaks out is abuse. 'They're all just pixels on a screen... You shouldn't come here unless you have a thick skin...' Excuses like this. In many areas, you'll find random shootings, verbal abuse, 'caging,' 'orbiting'... Which is, by the way, perfectly fine, in the regions set aside for such behavior. So essentially, you can become anonymous and harass or even kill people if you want to. I call this 'abuse' because I don't know what else to call it; where it's consensual, it's perfectly fine. I tried to kill a friend of mine last night, and he killed me back. It was amusing. But it also leaks out into the non-consensual realm, where people are just jerks, will try anything just to see if they can do it, and so forth.

None of this is necessary to enjoy Second Life. One can enter into the place as oneself, and use these freedoms from social norms in ways that benefit more than hurt. My problem at the moment on SL is that I think I've found most of the communities where the benefit is valued above the drama. Or at least all of them that I can hold in my social life. And that's a bit constraining, because my impulse is to find more, rather than develop what exists already.

So my freedom leads me to avoid the potential I'm seeking, which is true not only in SL but in the real world as well.

Two nights ago I drove across the mountains and back, because Washington pass is open on the North Cascades Highway. But I made the loop, rather than just going across and back across; I drove across US 20, spent the night in Chelan, and then up the Methow watershed to Washington pass.

I found that I couldn't ever lose my mind. I've written about this before... I spend a while spinning my wheels verbally, and then at some point my mind quits talking and I can just enjoy myself. Not this time, however. Shadows of the things I was trying escape kept lengthening to find me. For two days, they were on repeat play in my mind.

Maybe I need a longer trip next time. I don't know.

But in Chelan... The Best Western is the place to stay for an impromptu overnighter. Chelan is a resort town, above the Columbia river valley, at the mouth of a dam lake that looks, for all the world, like a thirty-mile-long fjord back into the mountains. One day I'll rent a houseboat for a week and make my way back to Stehekin, the tiny town at the other end.

Anyway. The Best Western. There's an older, more local-flavor type hotel downtown, attached to a bar and restaurant. But for solitude, it's the Best Western in the off season. My biggest complaint was that they didn't have Comedy Central.

I woke up and got my complimentary 'continental' breakfast, which consisted of one of those cook-it-yourself waffles, some granola, strawberry yogurt, a cream cheese danish (all remarkably similar to all the continental breakfast spreads I've ever eaten at a motel), and plenty of coffee. Coffee after coffee. Hand over fist coffee.

Back in the room, I considered that I could just stay there. I could just call up the desk and say, "I want another day," and it would be done. I could get some beer and some groceries, and just sit there by the window gazing across the little public park to the point where the lake disappears into the mountains like an unfinished sentence.

But the reason for this trip was to cross the mountains, and time was wasting. Except... Sigh.

On my way... Turn off for the Methow River. Everything is for sale. Apple orchards for sale. 'Waterfront' properties for sale. 'Hilltop' properties for sale. 'Roadside' properties for sale. I had to pay attention to find any property that wasn't for sale. Did they find some toxic chemical in the river or something? Spent about three minutes considering how I'd run an apple orchard. Apples. They just grow, right?

Spent some money in Winthrop getting snacks. Hopefully the grocery store won't be for sale next time I'm there. Purchased Tree Top apple juice, to help out the local farmers. Tillamook cheese to help out the dairy farmers in Oregon. And some Planter's peanuts, to help out... Whoever makes those. (Just looked it up. Kraft. Yeck.)

Now, like I said: The shadows had been following me. I was talking and talking and talking, and screaming along with music, and listening to James' podcasts and debating him afterwards, and generally being weird. So much energy stored up there, and still I didn't burn it all. Anyone who has attended a Vipassana retreat will at this point say: Yes, of course you didn't burn it up, because it never runs out of fuel.

But there is one thing to extinguish it.

The way was overcast. I was worried about the weather. The day before was clear and blue, and when I stopped in Chelan, I thought, Geez. What if it's rainy tomorrow? Will that ruin the whole thing? If it starts snowing, will they close the pass?

Gaining in elevation, the desert turned to dry forest, which transformed into the aesthetic of snow-govered granite and evergreen. All suffuse in the gray even light. Round the corner, however, and there is the back side of Liberty Bell, framed in blue, snow blowing lightly from its edge. And all I can do is laugh. Just laugh. An overwhelming laugh. The kind of thing where I have to pull the car over to the side of the road and let the paroxysm die down. Brain totally stopped. Everything is OK. It's blue here. And that's the funniest thing ever.

FL substitute teacher loses job over accusations of wizardry.

Did a sleight-of-hand magic trick involving making a toothpick disappear. Now he's out of a job.

Welcome to the new, Christian America.

I'm so tired of finding reasons to hate Xanga the company and then having to figure out whether my connections here to people I enjoy is more important than the bullshit.

Case in point:

I don't give a flying fuck about 'points' and never have. I don't use those stupid expanded smiley things, and think less of people who do. I do not want to take a survey, I am a Lifetime member, and apparently also True. I will not hand my private information over to a third party who is not subject to the privacy agreement I have with Xanga. I have ignored this stupid 'get points for being a dipshit' ad in my 'universal inbox' because I know it comes with the territory, but DO NOT REDIRECT ME TO A FUCKING SURVEY.

Got it?

Do NOT do that. You've already got my life basically uploaded to your server, where it could be used towards just about any end. You have my billing info. You have the story about the time I almost drowned in a kayak. You have the pictures I took in Idaho. If you're not smart enough to make *that* information pay somehow, then you're really, really, REALLY stupid for inviting it from me in the first place.

I'm tired of being insulted around the edges. I'd really appreciate hearing news from an official source that whoever signed of on this redirect was canned. That's right, treat me like a 10-year-old, get fired. Good riddance.

Why does the Xanga management have to be so completely shortsighted about this? Are regular users now a liability who must be driven away with bullshit?

"Sometimes; Sometimes Not."

Regardless of what else the title of my autobiography may contain, it is imperative that there be a semicolon.
   

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