Merry Rezzday, Jurin Juran!

Today is Jurin's rezzday. Like the terrible friend that I am, I did not get her a present nor organize any kind of celebration. If I see her inworld (or IM her) I'd send her a 'happy rezzday', but that is like sending a generic birthday card to someone in real life. It's more a 'hey I'm still alive and you are still alive and this is an acknowledgment of that fact' reminder rather than an honest gift between two friends.

Oh, I could rationalize myself. I'm poor (which is too true, I'm not a good vendor) and thus can't buy anything spectacular. I'm busy in real life and so cannot find the time to do or get something special (not even a prim birthday cake? :O). I'm forgetful (lame!). I'm lazy (double lame!). Surely this post is enough? Triple lame!

So, this will be Jurin's second year in Second Life. You read that right. For two long years, this person has slogged through thick and thin and never went AFK permanently. For two years, she endured copybot, closing of ad farms, horrible sim and viewer upgrades and downgrades, and countless waves of spammers and newbies. And the occasional griefer. And me.

If you do the calculations, one year in real life translates to six years in Second Life. I believe the Lindens stated that there are 6 days in a single day, 6 days times 365 is equal to 6 times one year equals 6 years. By this measure, Jurin is 12 years old with respect to Second Life. She's just about to become a teenager!

Jurin wastes a lot of time. Making sure the sim is ok, making sure the artists are ok, helping the occasional newbie, discussing the effects of global warming upon the production of Dr. Pepper plants in North Dakota and the effect upon the boiling point of hydrogen. And that's not counting the half million independent projects she starts or joins. And social networking, which she loves to do.

It is an incredible work ethic that unfortunately wears upon her real life to some degree. Jurin, today or tomorrow I want you to do nothing. You hear me? NOTHING. You need just a day off to goof off, explore Second Life, watch a sunset, or pick one of the newly laid Linden roads and follow it until it hits the end of the continent. You deserve it. Nothing is going to go wrong if you take a single day to yourself. And if someone bugs you, tell them to stuff it in their talk hole until tomorrow. And don't hand me that crap that "Oh, I already had a day off and you just happened to miss it". You're going to take the day off because it's your rezzday, dammit. Even if we have to tie you to a chair and drag you to a beach.

That is why it's too easy to like Jurin. She is too damn nice for her own good. Sure, when she's angry she gets really nasty, but it takes a lot of energy to do that. Epic amounts. Similar to how helium can become a solid at low temperatures. Possible, but really really hard. Usually, though, she's relatively pleasant even when she's suffering from food poisoning. Or when her air conditioning breaks and it's pushing 110 degrees outside. Or an asteroid hits the planet and a wall of fire and ash is fast approaching.

"But Anna," you are mewing at this point, "Surely you exaggerate!" No, my friends, I am not. For I shall rely the story of the anonymous (to me, anyway) donor.

For you see, one day someone (nevermind who) decided for whatever reason known but to Nunchuck to donate a significant chuck of L$ to Jurin's Blackwater gallery. We're talking not just 100, not just 100,000 but upwards of a million or so L$. And upon receiving this huge sum and its promise of paying off some significant tier, Jurin mulls it over and decides to return the amount, judging it to be either a mistake or embarrassing and possibly both. Read that sentence again. Thinking it a mistake, she returned almost a million L$.

Now, as it turns out it wasn't an accident and it is rather rude to defer a donation back to the donator, but let's consider if it had been an accident. How many of us would return it? No one else knows but you. Would you return it? I can only speak for myself. I would keep it. And hey, this kind of works in as a plus and a fault of Jurin's, because sometimes she loops all the way around past the 'super nice' on the nice scale and back into 'super rude'. It's also annoying. Be selfish! Good Nunchuck, all 19 of my readers will see this and think I'm exaggerating. Well, 18, because Jurin is one of those 19. They'll say, "Oh, Anna is being Anna and making tall tales again, like when she talked about a cheese powered computer."

But Jurin is a good friend. Whenever she's on, she doesn't ignore people. She always gives me the time of day, and Nunchuck only knows I can rant and rave and make someone reach for the mute button. No. She always seems to listen because she will interject and not with "What?" or "What the hell?" or "I have no idea what you are talking about", but something relevant! Like "I disagree, cheese powered computers would only be good in Wisconsin." Although, since I can't (and prefer not to) hear her tone over the internet, she may be honest or sarcastic about the matter.

For better or for worse, Jurin also egged me on to create a blog. So you can blame her. You can blame her for a lot of things, because she likes to egg people on. I think it irritates her to watch someone not do something. I'll bet if I stopped writing normal posts right now and filled this thing with posts consisting of the letters of the alphabet, she would bug me until I stopped and returned to normal. Such as normal as I can get.

In short, Jurin is a good and true and loyal friend despite whatever she thinks. And she will, I know she will, IM me inworld right about.... now and deny this entire thing. Sigh. Humility is a terrible sin.

Oh, and Jurin? You didn't want anything for your rezzday? Tough shit.