beautifulwolf asks: "So I wonder.... is there something analogous to The Nature Conservancy in SL? Where land is donated and thus "saved" as open areas?"

There are 'nature' groups, which are really just land management groups, and they have ideas about how land should look or whatever. But really if you have a parcel with many many trees and natural features, your neighbor could still flatten his terrain and build just about anything.

So the Nature Conservancy is really the only model that works: Ownership is all that matters when it comes to the land. For instance, there are a number of sims which are mostly owned by a guy called Salazar Jack. He obtained them and turned them into the Forest of Kharuvel, for which there is a whole back-story about the time before The Second Great Erasure. He claims his family lived there before SL opened, and when he first logged in he started finding evidence of his ancestry there. Which is fun in and of itself, but the end result is that it's a whole sim with nothing but trees and waterfalls and the occasional excavated ancient ruin. A number of such builds exist, which makes me happy.

Also there are rights-of-way set up by the Lindens. Many of these have roads and railroads, but many more do not. The north end of the continent of Heterocea, for instance, is criss-crossed by pathways that look like ancient roadbeds that have been grown over. These areas are set-aside areas with a natural flavor, and perfect for aimlessly simboarding for a few hours at a time... They were originally going to be developed with roadbeds and railroads, but somehow the Lindens' interest waned. A number of groups have designs on them though, with the railroad people wanting to put rail lines, and the driving people wanting to put roads, and the developers wanting to parcel it all off for sale.

I love the roadways, and the idea of public access by ground-level travel. It's so anachronistic in a world where you can teleport and fly.

Before:

After:

You can see my neighbor's sign in the distance in both pictures. The parcel started about the size of that yellow square in the first picture. Patience has its own rewards. Properties near me went up for auction and I got them for a steal. Extortion parcels decided to sell out, so I picked those up, too. So what did I do with the land? Soon to be a strip mall.

Learning a little about traditional Japanese stuff led to this:

Which led to this:

More Yoshida Brothers (without rock band... if you only want to watch one of these, this is the one):

And because it's just fun:

Stupid, stupid question.

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Bud Cort already did it. I'm glad it was a farce.
   

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I logged in to Second Life today to discover two things: 1) My auction bid on the land in Farstone won, which means good things, and 2) Sugar Seville clued me in to a conceptual performance piece by an avatar called MGhandi Chakrabarti, driven around by an artist called Joseph Delappe.

MGhandi was commemorating the real Ghandi's famous walk to the sea to harvest salt. He was doing it by walking the equivalent distance on Second Life, using a treadmill hooked to his computer. Walking on the treadmill made his avatar move forward. And of course he 'blogged about it.

To me, this sort of thing has tremendous appeal. I've been simboarding the length of roads and rights-of-way all over mainland just to see where they go. MGhandi had been walking for weeks on Second Life, and today was to be his final 7 miles.

When I showed up on Eyebeam Island at the start, many were there. We hiked around that island a little bit, and then off to Paris 1900 island, where we re-enacted Ghandi's famous base jump from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Then it was time for me to go take care of some other stuff, so I left the group.

Later, I found MGhandi all alone in a far-flung corner of the universe, and shortly after we were joined by Qyxxql Merlin, who writes about his experience in his livejournal.

We found a virtual Kaaba, which Qyxxql was keen on visiting with Ghandi. Because we all know the story. So we went there. Nearby was a Palestinian Holocaust Museum, which was apparently still under construction. After this, I suggested we visit virtual Gitmo, in keeping with the oppression theme.

Virtual Gitmo is on a series of islands owned by the Annenberg Foundation, and as yet contain many big open spaces. And hiking through these open spaces, MGhandi said: That's the final mile!

So we stood for pictures (I'm on the left):

I was glad to have an opportunity to walk around with virtual Ghandi, and even to reach the sea with him.

And now, I'm reading about one of Joseph Delappe's other projects, called dead-in-iraq. Which is a little heavy for this happy 'blog entry. Please go look, though.

It might be sad that the reason I'm inspired to write this is that Second Life is down. It could be sad for many different reasons.

Or it might not be. Maybe it's just the way it is. Maybe some things happen, and then other things happen as a result, and trying to say it's all a question of sad or not-sad is incredibly shortsighted.

A couple days ago, I got fed up. I drove to Wenatchee and stayed in a motel and then drove back again.

I realized that this was the gesture I'd been wanting to make for maybe nine or ten months. That I got in the car thinking I'd go get a burger at a drive-thru and ended up driving all night because part of me had been waiting patiently to do that.

Sometimes I think that the impetus to do things like go get a burger at a drive-thru is just a ruse to get me in the car to drive all night. Or the impetus to write a book is just a ruse to allow me to put off other things. So on and so forth.

I drove back from Wenatchee in a state of finally waking up from being annoyed by the world and starting to be entranced by it. Icicle River Road was snowed in at the end of the pavement. FS Road 65 wasn't, however. It had been plowed all the way up to the pass, which I didn't cross because... Well, I don't know why I didn't cross it. Maybe leaving some moments to look forward to.

I sat at the top and ate the last of the peanuts from the convenience store and drank the last of my water and put some snow in the bottle to melt.

And here's another story: This car I've been driving, it's a Honda Element. That trip up a snow-slush-covered dirt road was 'testing' the all-wheel drive and anti-lock brakes, which are just fine. But the story goes like this...

It was bought from a dealer in Texas. The dealer promised to register it and send me the license plates when they came in. As in mail them to me from the dealership. "Are you sure it works that way?" "Oh, yes absolutely." Promised within 20 business days.

Called in a week: Plates in? No. Another week: No returned call. Another week: No returned call. A month later, temporary plates were about to expire: No returned call. Call again, quit sounding nice: Returned call, which sounded like this: "I understand and we're doing everything we can, and I don't know what went wrong and..." "Wait wait wait wait... Why don't you find out what went wrong?" "I'm not in charge of...." Sigh.

Talked to someone at 'corporate.' 'Corporate' is a code word for 'people who know stuff, as opposed to the mendacious assholes that sell you the car.' Corporate said: "I talked to the people at WA DOL two weeks ago, and they said they'd sent you a letter." "Two weeks ago?" "Yes, two weeks ago." "Did you not think to call me?" "Sir, I am trying to help you. You don't need to take that tone."

Let me back up in the storytelling process for a moment here. As part of the car-buying process at a dealership, there is a salesperson who sells you on the car. Then there is another salesperson who sells you on the financing. You have to talk to the latter because he is ostensibly an accountant or something, but really he's another salesman. Anyway, the first salesman says they can register my car out of state. The second salesman.....

The second salesman sits behind his desk with a 'trainee' next to him. The trainee is not really a trainee. The trainee is really another salesman there to double-team the customer. The second salesman sits behind his desk. He has a digital photo frame on his desk, pointing straight at the customer. It shows pictures of the second salesman's family. Such a nice family. Picture after picture of pre-teens and grandparents and vacations on the family ranch. BBQ dinner and Christmas trees with gifts and little children. A stunning photo of a mestizo grandmother in a porch swing in the hill country. My heart, it shatters.

And then, at some point, the trainee says, "Do we need to notarize this signature, since it's out of state?" And the second salesman says, "Naw. It'll be fine."

Turns out it's not fine. I'd been sitting on my ass for two weeks because two salesmen got it wrong. If only they'd listened to the 'trainee.' Not only must Form 2358u205987305928345jvoiapt87a/q be notarized, there is no provision for sending the license plates back to the dealer. I went to the county office downtown. The overworked, spirit-of-a-saint woman working there told me all this. She then looked at the title document and frowned.

Frowns are bad.

She told me that they hadn't signed the title over to me. "Is there a lein?" she asks. No, there isn't. She notices it's signed on the back, but not the front. Is that good enough? She asks her manager.

Returning, she tells me, "I'm going to approve this, but you might hear about it from Olympia...." meaning the capital of the state. What will I have to do if Olympia complains? "Get in touch with Honda and..." etc.

So please, please pray that it's good enough, won't you?

Have I mentioned before that I like Bjork?

Also: Live streaming audio from beneath the polar icecap. As alien a sound as you'll find on Earth. Even moreso than Bjork.

Update: Did we hose the Bjork video? Well, here's the youtube version. It's a little too grainy to see all the beautiful detail, but maybe you get the idea.

Chuck Mangione, 'Feels So Good.' Followed shortly by the 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' soundtrack. After that, I discovered AOR, that long-forgotten and fondly-missed radio format. And I bought The Police and Genesis ('Ghost in the Machine' and 'Duke').

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Schmap wants me to license them the use of a photo that's on my flickr account.

See, this is Web 2.0. Invite people to add value to your web site, and then profit from their effort for free. Yay! I love being used.... twice. (I'm lookin' at you, Xanga....)

Anyway. I said yes. It's a nice photo, it's a non-exclusive use, and it's to promote one of my favorite places on the planet, the Edith L. Moore Nature Sanctuary. Memorial Bend REPRESENT!