Does This Dress Make Me Look Too Tall?

It's always nice when people find a hobby. Hobbies are similar to hair styles. Everyone has one and everyone thinks theirs is just the greatest thing ever and spend lots of time and energy into it. My personal hobby is, of course, this blog. The President's hobby is to bring about the socialist revolution as predicted by Marx and Lenin. That nerd who still hasn't left his parent's basement at the age of 55's hobby is collecting post stamps and porn.

And a few people on the SL forums have made it their hobby to shove their avatar shapes down our throats. Yeah, it's that kind of hobby. The annoying kind where it's not enough for them to practice it in the quiet dark shadows and caves like the rest of us. No, they've got to proselytize to the world. They come to the forums like Jehovah's Witnesses, making the same arguments that have been made since the dawn of the Grid in 2004.

There were about 6 or 7 little more than a month ago, and let's see if I can guess what their arguments were before I even open these threads. Hmm, let's see...

-Everyone confuses me for an ageplayer!! (bonus points if they throw in mockery)
-Wasted space!! You could save almost 10 prims and an entire square meter!!
-Everyone looks stupid and unproportional!!
-Linden Labs is stupid!!

Ok, I'm going to open them now... whoa, I'm 4 for 4! How did I do that? Well, like I said, it's easy when you've seen the same shit for the past 5 years. It's similar to the complaints and concerns whenever Copybot crops up, or sim performance, or whatever the hell is wrong with the asset servers this particular day/month/year, or griefers, or etc etc etc. Boring.

And I don't even see the problem, frankly. I think I noted a long long loooong time ago that you can actually date an avatar based on their height. Rare is the person born before 2008 who is three meters tall and breathes fire. The more a person plays and get immersed into Second Life, they proceed on a gradual pace to create better and better avatars. I don't know whether it is due to gaining a better understanding of the shape tools or whether it's due to boredom or what, I've just noticed it is fairly constant. In fact, judging from the forum responses, everyone seemed to be trying to get 'realistic' anyway. Most of the people against it did so on 'freedom of speech'-esque grounds.

Anyway, go enjoy your realistic avatars. For the record, I have one (even if I am six feet tall, that is within the range of humanity). But don't run around and impose on people who have, undoubtedly, heard it all before. Thank you.

RL Linkage Is The Only Way To Validate Your Work

Ah, I remember Bettina Tizzy. She was a tad less than enthused about the art critiques of her Flickr stream given by me and my friends. Rendered speechless by our rapier wit. And undoubtedly bemused by our attempts to discuss how a sculpty androgynous statue hovering in a waterfall could Possibly Exist in Real Life. Yes, I remember Bettina alright.

She's moved on from passively aggressively expressing her disapproval (the " . " heard round the blogosphere) to dispensing pearls of wisdom to artists trying to make it in the big bad world of Second Life. Since Bettina is possibly the biggest name in the SL art world (aside from Starax and whatever alt of the week Starax is using to hide from his adoring public), her words carry the weight of the world upon Atlas' tired shoulders. What was this jewel bequeathed to Hamlet Au on NewWorldNotes?

Paraphrased, it was, "Link your Real Life name and your Second Life name!"

Of course! Genius! Surely, no one has considered this. Let us listen to more of this indispensable wisdom.

More Paraphrasing: "If you use your Second Life name on your Second Life projects, then you'll be forever pigeon holed into Second Life itself. Cast off that albatross! Proclaim throughout the land and across the sea your True Name, so that you may expand beyond our pitiful sex-addled insular circle jerk of a virtual world into Real Life praise and glory!"

There were detractors who threw meaningless strawman effigies of Bettina up. They argued nonsense, such as attempting to point out people using pseudonyms in real life, so why should a SL pseudonym be limited to only Second Life? Do I really need to answer that? You silly commentators, you can't use SL fake names in Real Life! Could you imagine ever buying a book written by Anna Tsiolkovsky? Assuming it wasn't pure drivel (and that's assuming a lot), people would research the Internet and say, "Whoa, this Anna, she's a fake name from SL! To think I was almost conned into buying and reading this!"

Or if I crafted an exquisite statue in Second Life, I am sure the Art Life would cast their gaze and hand down the judgement upon me, that anything I may do in First Life would be null and void unless I revealed my Real Life. Think of how much my work would be devalued! All great artists never hide! What are you so scared of?

Bettina leads the charge by bravely exposing her Real Life self. Whew, and good thing too, because I almost was about to dismiss her NPIRL as the mewings of some anonymous nobody. Now that I know her real life, I will so read and watch her more often. Dodged a bullet there Bettina. Bev. BettiBev? The small fact that despite this linkage people will continue to call her Bettina is irrelevant, of course.

So, budding SL artists, remember that your SL name is only valid in the virtual world it was issued. If you wish to travel to real life, you'd better produce the proper papers and passport.

Politically Incorrect? A Study of One Blog

My good friend Ari over at Common Sensible takes his politically incorrectness as a point of pride. Questions arose, however. Was this monster as terrible as advertised? Would, Could he be worse?

In order to answer these unsettling questions, I ventured into the archives of what is, possibly, the den of an unimaginable evil.

Three Years

As a general rule, I avoid anniversaries. It focuses far too much attention on mindless accounting of the years as if the only thing relevant were the seconds of something's existence. That really reduces it all down, doesn't it? Devoting an entire day celebrating the random statistic of how often the planet has revolved around the Sun since you were born, met, engaged, married, died, fought in 'Nam, graduated high school, etc.

For me, more importance should be placed on the quality of the experience during the time which you are blessed (or cursed, damn high school) with the privilege of living it.

Which do you think you would enjoy more, a heavenly marriage which you've forgotten how it all began, or a strained one under the Sword of Damocles' Divorce but which you know the exact amount of time you've been bound to each other?

Does it really matter the precision with which I can recall long ago it was, if I remember how good that time was? Or if I work instead towards bettering it? Refining it? Finding new and exciting ways to peel an onion?

Which is why I don't particularly care for 'rezzdays'. Or real life birthdays, for that matter (which I actually find it rather morbid in that it counts the miracle of each year you manage to simply survive, how fun). It should not matter how long you've graced the grid. The real question is, have you enjoyed yourself? Did you have fun? Have your friends had fun? Have you made a positive impact in the Second Life world around you? Have you lived? To me, these are more important.

My rezzday is coming up in November, little more than three weeks away. I will have been in Second Life for three years. I think the math is that one RL year is 6 SL years, so I will turn 18 in SL time. And yet, it hasn't felt like it has been that long. I, for honesty's sake, did not even realize I was about to turn three until I read Peter's post on his own rezzday.

I look over my screenshot folder (which is massive) and I can't believe the things I managed to limp out of and witness and enjoy and people I've encountered. Even looking over this blog, I cannot help but laugh at my petty worries all that time ago and all the silly things I loved to write. All the numerous times I enjoyed poking Torley with a stick (I was tempted to put a counter up on the sidebar ticking off the number of times I bashed him, his actions, or his philosophy) and Jurin who prodded me like an editor-in-chief to write write write. And certainly, there are no better co-writers than Winter and Torvald.

To me, all of that is far far more important than spending an entire day in revelry to a simple countdown (countup?).

The same goes for my real life birthday (which, if you're curious, is about a month after my rezzday). I am doing what I want to, doing what I love. I have good friends and good family (even if they're a bit odd). I've done many fun things, half of which are illegal and likely to get one killed/maimed (I kid! Kidding!). I count myself extremely fortunate that in this increasingly dreary and impoverished world that I have never known lack of money or love.

Not that everything is peaches and cream with cherry soda. Friends and family have died. I've made some rather poor decisions and suffer from some rather debilitating flaws, or so I'm told. I have the growing feeling I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I have my health problems (although even in that I count myself lucky).

Does it really matter at all that this has spanned 22 years? Why is there a need for numbers?

I count every day as cause for celebration.

Surrogate

I haven't seen 'Surrogates' yet. My first impressions were "Second Life in Real Life" although the actual film is probably nothing of the sort. It's a conceit reinforced by one too many months playing Second Life, although the commercials don't attempt to dispel the notion.

"You can lead the life you've already wanted," it says and with no fear of consequences. Go ahead and screw your brains silly for automatons cannot get pregnant nor can they contract HIV. Go ahead and recreate Columbine, the 'dead' can always buy new surrogates and no one's the wiser. Provided your real life body remains safely tucked away safely in meat space, you're invincible.

Everyone is pretty fixated upon the entire 'no consequences' deal. The ability to do whatever the hell you want and bring internet anonymity out into the world. No one ever need know your true self behind the mask.

And to look perfect while doing it! Because you can look perfect. That mask can be made to be oh-so-pretty. You can become just like you wanted. It's the furry and transgender and elf's dream. I, for one, am looking forward to dogs which bag their feces because I'm pretty tired of walking into a park and finding surprises all over the grass.

But I think my brother pegged the not-so-obvious: Sure, we're gushing over all the special abilities and possibilities, but it also hides a fear and that is the fear of death.

They stay cooped up in their homes. Everyone. From what I've seen in the trailers when the power is cut, everyone drops. Not one soul, not even the homeless guy in the alleyway. They've all chosen to create a surrogate. They get into their comfy control chairs and never emerge again.

Touchable only by time, they stay cooped up. There's a perverse pride in the eradication of murder (much like that movie with the psychics who could predict and stop future crimes before they happened). And death is conquered. The millennium long dream of eternal life is more-or-less granted. I'm thinking life expectancies at least to mid-nineties (have your surrogate chow down on cake and chocolate).

To me, that takes the fun out of life. It makes life boring. Granted, that's quite a charge coming from someone who immerses into Second Life. But I do live a life outside of it as well. Frankly, these days I spend more time out of it than in.

In any event, what's the point in sky diving if the fear of smacking into the good earth at free fall is gone? How much fun can swimming across the Atlantic be if in the back of your mind there's the knowledge that if you stop paddling, the worst scenario is an interesting visit to the Titanic? In fact, why not just take a stroll across the ocean floor?

But I suppose I'm not everyone, and the allure of nigh-immortal life appeals to some (if not all).

And besides, who wouldn't want to live through an avatar which can fit into a size 4 dress?

"There were Giants in Those Days..."

Ari talks about body shapes. I love his parting shot: "Oh, and if you see me in world and I am shorter than you [above 6' 5"], you are an Amazonian-freak-of-nature!"

All too often, I feel like a child avatar. Measuring my height is a meager five feet, ten inches. So tiny! When I first adjusted my torso sliders, I felt like I made my breasts too big. It is hard saying that with a straight face, because after three years or so of Second Life I feel small. Haha! Anna the tiny child av!

I've seen child avs the same height as me, now that I come to think about it.

I am sorely tempted to upload Munchkin tunes into Second Life as gestures.

On the other hand, the 'Amazon Freaks of Nature' only compose of about half my friends. The other half are actually average sized. And no, I'm not counting my alts. For instance, Jurin definitely 'normal'. So is Winter. Although Winter is a tad on the small side. And 'normal' is kind of subjective, there, isn't it?

As for guys, all I know is that Torvald attempted to make a 'normal' male shape. As I recall, he was very proud of it, until a guy hit on him thinking he was a woman. So he crawled into a corner and cried. He refused to come out, and we had to slide his food to him under the door. Winter suggested putting him out of his misery.

Don't worry. Torvald eventually snapped out of it. Kind of. Sorta. But we did manage to get him to move from the corner to the sofa!

One more thing before I fall asleep (I had a bunch of nightmares last night). One of the 'clues' he gave to figuring if a female avatar was transgendered was " “large hands”, “shoulders wider than hips” " This at first perplexed me. Large hands and wide shoulders? Surely such an avatar would come out looking very male. Wasn't the opposite supposed to be true? Don't men-as-women make exaggerated feminine shapes rather than more butch?

Don't worry, it is explained: "Gigantic (non-prim) ta-tas with “buoyancy” set to absolute zero, size set to maximum and shoulders widened to hold them, yet hips half the size of shoulder and short arms with large hands and a pea-sized head." Aahhhhhh... that makes sense. You know, I never really thought too much about the other exaggerations that go into making large breasts seem less out of place.

In short, avatar shapes are scary.

336

Real Life Identity

A very late post.

Dusan says words about linking SL names to RL identities. His main point claims that without the potential for anonymous avatars and those who choose to hide behind their avatars are an untapped pool of talent. In fact, the drive to link real life to Second Life may scare people away. Poor people who in an unmolested world would vastly contribute to this little world of ours.

I suppose I'm hiding behind my avatar, too.

I am Anna J Tsiolkovsky, no more, and no less.

Anna likes to chat, and it is almost always irrelevant. "What is your favorite tree?" "What does green taste like?" "Does Frank litter my lawn with cigarette butts out of stupidity or malice?" Anna deals with enough stress and serious business in real life. Second life is time to play.

For Anna thinks Second Life is a game. Partly to egg on those who say otherwise, and partly because that is how she rolls. She builds things, but rarely completes them. After all, they're just toys, to be thrown back into the box at the end of the day. Only a few times did she ever attempt to finish something and sell it. It had mixed results. Her Second Life is scattered with jokes and occasional mischef. For instance, she wonders if Jurin ever realised just who it was repositioning the statues...

She loves to fly. And drive. And float. Sure, vehicles in Second Life are broken but that's just part of the game. How far exactly can I fly before the sims (or Nunchuck, May Nher Femur Shine Forever) decide to swat me down? There is peace up there in the sky. Nothing is like watching the mainland builds, in their patchwork glory, roll across below you.

Anna is sometimes prone to nostalga. Ah, back in THOSE days. She has, after all, lived in Second Life for a considerable length of time. Certainly not as long as the true oldies, but long enough. Almost three years! Throughout it all, gaining and losing friends, and watching sims and builds and groups rise and fall. As well as the latest Linden attempt to create stability (Which only Nunchuck, through The Femur, will bring). It's been a long life.

Anna sometimes writes. It is bad. Even though friends insist it is good, it is not good. Trust my instincts and knowledge of writing and the english language. But that doesn't matter too much, because she's not looking to get published. She writes to write, and does the best job she can. Being Anna (and so being not 'real'), no one will come knocking down my door and asking what kind of drugs I was smoking to ever think to publish this drivel on the internet. And for the record, my drug of choice is alcohol.

Anna likes to read. And sometimes think. She sometimes goes to 'discussion' events (even if most of them are silly) and she reads SL blogs. She will read backlogs. She has the awesome achievement of having read through the entire archives of Prokofy's blog. Even the chat logs. She was very bored that week, indeed.

That's her second life: reading and writing and playing and chatting all in mindless fun. Real life is sad and stressful enough, so let's avoid drama, unless we're watching it. And the only regret is, that due to real life duties, she can't be around as often. ;_;

That's me. And whether you think Anna is a coward hiding behind the visage of a computer game avatar, or just an expression or extenstion of real life me into Second Life, it's all the same, isn't it?

Anna is Anna.


352

Name Origins

How I got my name:

Lock Down

Ever get the feeling, the urge to change one's style dramatically? One fine morning, you wake and decide, "I feel like wearing a tuxedo and dying my hair purple." "I'm sick of wearing the same shape, skin, and hair."

I so want to do that. Well, actually, I'm fairly content with my shape and skin. My hair, though, is a constant war to find the right fit. There's a few styles I've settled on but (when I have the cash) I keep on hunting for... I don't have a clue.

Oh, and attachments too. For the multitude who've never met me in Second Life, I wear a daisy in my hair. I tried not wearing it and you would have thought I lobbed my arms off. And so it has grown roots into my skull and hasn't been removed since. In a similar vein, I tried to wear glasses and my friends talked me out of it. Some things are just stuck on me.*

Back to hair. I've been blond since I first came into Second Life and played with my appearance. And thus one day I decided the time was ripe to dye it.

There were ground rules. Red was to be avoided. For a time, all my friends were red-heads and the scars have not faded. Obviously, blond was out. And green was off the list because I have a mental association of green hues with vomit. Aside from that, everything was fair game.

I tried black, brown, blue, violet, white, magenta, and other assorted combinations. Everyone shot down each one. Since I have the self esteem of a boiled clam, I went back to blond. So much for change.

The discovery is that my look is pinned. Pinned. I can't change it without making everyone sad.

I knew I should worn a mask.



383

*An interesting note on my daisy: Being a left hander, I absent-mindedly attached it to the left side of my head. One Hawaiian acquaintance of mine, upon seeing this, asked who the lucky guy was. Apparently, wearing a flower on the left side of your head indicates you're dating/engaged/married, and right side means you're single. She still wants to meet my husband.

Rheta and Apathy

Rheta Shan died in real life, and died in Second Life. There is at the time of this writing already a massive outpouring of grief and sadness. It seems that everyone feels the sting of this loss. Even for those skeptical of the real life explanation there is pain in knowing that the Second Life avatar they knew isn't coming back.

I should be upset. I should be sad. Shouldn't I? Yet, I can't bring myself to care.

“Is it ignorance or apathy? Hey, I don't know and I don't care.”

The problem lies in Rheta being a complete stranger. Who is Rheta? What did she do? I have no idea. We've never met in Second Life and I'm confident I never knew her in real life. She is a complete stranger (I'm probably worse off for it).

How can I care about someone I never knew? All I have is her blog, which from the sounds of the survivor, might be taken down someday. Her blog is voluminous, having been active since August 2007. I can't take the time to read all that! It'd take at least... two days. I can't even be bothered to read my own blog. She'll remain forever obscure in my heart.

“Everyone talks about apathy, but no one does anything about it”

Prokofy made some commotion concerning whether this is a real death or a faked one so as to enable the user to quit with a conscience. And of course you have people for or against the idea who are fervently posting their opinions and arguments (more of the former than the latter). I've been reading it and I've found... I don't care. I honestly don't care.

How can I possibly care whether I've been fooled or not when the jury is still out whether I should care in the first place? To get involved in that debate requires concern for the state of the first point and since I don't care about it in the first place, it's moot to me.

I feel like a cold hearted evil person because this person has died and my response is a mere twenty sentence discussing whether or not I should care or not. But I harbor no ill will. I don't wish she was dead. I just can't get excited one way or the other.

Maybe I need to get out more and meet more Second Life people so when they die or leave I can write more sadness.

442

Canary in the Coal Mine

Ah, Prokofy can add another notch to the 'U GONNA GIT BANN'D' belt.

I think it's unsettling to think that they're putting a knife to his throat on the objection to what he writes. Sure, he goes off like a bottle rocket sometimes over nonsense issues you or I could not care less about. On the whole, however, he does raise interesting points. Discussion would be poorer for lack of him.

Also, I regard him as a sort of 'test' of Linden Lab. Prok doesn't pull his punches but he's not outright flaming, either. He's that curious mix that you want to hate and report and shut up but hasn't ever actually done anything. He's a polarizer. If Second Life were Korea, he'd plant himself right up along the border and moon the North.

In short, he makes me feel safe. As long as LL tolerates him well enough, I can rant and rage on my own, smaller, scale and be immune from complete punishment! If he goes, what's to stop a small fry like me from being smeared across the floor?

I can only hope my active campaign of non-action in Second Life can protect me.

Six Birthdays

This coming June, Second Life is going to be six years old. Just step and think about that. Six whole years of lag, naked noobies, and general insanity. It's the better part of a decade. Six years is longer than a single presidential term (in the United States, anyway). In fact, it's one and a half terms in office according to that metric.

We've seen a lot in those six years. Let's not get goofy, however, because comparisons between way back then and the right here and now have been done to death. "We didn't have skins, point to point teleporting, and we have to walk fifteen miles uphill both ways to reach the sandbox in order to build. Newbies these days don't have no idea how good they got it!" That's just way too easy.

The harder angle would be what's changed over this past year.

I think in terms of technical progress, nothing groundbreaking was unveiled. Nothing revolutionary was put to market. SL is still as laggy as it ever was and any significant changes towards stability have been lost on me (and, it seems, a good 60% of the rest of the population). For all of the opensourcing of the viewer, I haven't seen any high visible third party viewers, either. I still use the Nicholaz client, especially when the latest Linden experiment to 'lower' lag backfires.

The Lindens have exerted their significant muscle with more pressure than any other year. With the acquisition of XstreetSL and Onrez, they effectively circled the wagons with regards to the economy. Their fingers are in all the outlets. With the ramping of activity of the DPW moles and the creation of themed continents, competition is extending into the land itself. This wasn't simply an auction of the land, but the physical creation of an essential atmosphere. Granted, their attempts fell somewhat flat if you've seen Nautilus or Bay City these days. However, when they can't bootstrap, they glomp onto the next best thing. They went and tacked the United Sailing Sims (or whatever that USS acronym stood for) onto Nautilus and declared it 'good'.

We also witnessed Linden Lab making moves to control Second Life. For all their bluster about allowing the world to be free and easy, their actions have spoken otherwise. Not a few months ago, Jack Linden sat down and discussed bots and what to do about them. In addition, there's talk of moving against traffic fraud. Ad farms were finally flogged back around October or so of '08 with the caveat that ads without extortion are a-ok. They have a big stick and they're starting to play with it. It hasn't been pleasant all the way, either, because Openspaces and the move to treat them as regular sims on billing hurt. Hard.

Of course, the most notable example in these times has been the 'Adults Only' move. This was a resounding shot that yes, indeed, age verification is going to go ahead. The kinks have been worked out (you can use your credit card if you're disinclined to use your IDs) and full implementation is upon us. If you have adult content (specifically, adult content in the public domain and in public search), you must take it out of the limelight. Get your sex club offa our mainland! An option in the abuse report menu allows one to report the mislabeling of such content. The buzz word is 'predictability'. The Lindens are trying to force a Second Life experience that can be predictably controlled.

The outside venues of SL were revamped. The website and blogs got a much needed face lift, although the results are mixed. The new website has a pleasing design. The only gripe is the lack of ability to teleport to the locations and events featured on it. Same goes for the splash screen on the viewer log-in. I want to reach out and touch these places, but they're behind a glass wall. The new blog site is ok. All the categories have been butchered and you have to click around on everything to make sure you're really up to date on the latest comings and going of Linden Lab. Clunky, is the word, but not in the sense of being slow to load. Even the forums later got a good wash (I'm not a frequent visitor there, so I'm not sure how that change went).

And all the while the Second Life economy has... stalled. It hasn't continued its astronomical boon from 2007, but it hasn't completely went bust, either. It's doing what any other normal economy is doing, and that's existing. Doing its... economic thing. Stability, I think it's called. It's keeping in theme with the new mantra of SL: "predictability". It might be tougher to enter the market but once you're in you're alright. As long as you keep at. The moment you slip, the sharks'll get you.

Kendra Bancroft died. Lindens left. Sarah Nerd went out of business. Lots of churn. And yet life goes on. People flocked to some new worlds, and then came back. Lively came and died so fast heads twirled. Metaplace has come out, but I haven't visited it yet and I believe it's still in beta. Some of the bigger news blogs and agencies have pulled out as well. No one seems to notice or care. Unless it directly impacts them, no one stands up and shouts. They may glance up from their own personal blogs and put up a quick two paragraph eulogy. If that.

OpenSim has progressed, but not nearly as fast as initially anticipated. From the reports in '07 and '08, you'd think there would be a sim in every garage. The initial eureka moment over being able to host SL sims independent of LL's servers and reach led to all sorts of crazy reports. It reminds me of the predictions made in the '70s about life as it would be today. Astronomical imaginations of cities on the moon and flying cars gave way to reality: that stuff is hard! So it is with OpenSim. It's getting there. But that stuff is hard! And the big issues aren't really technical. Do I trust you with my log-in? With my copyrighted materials? That's funny.

We witnesses two major competitions: the Linden Prize and the Resident Choice Awards. The Linden prize was notable for being strictly inhouse and up to the judgement of the Lindens. You could sign up for a nomination, but they made the final judgement call. Upon seeing residents weren't keen on awards given without their input, the Resident choice awards were created and of course created whole new controversy. I could write volumes about it and it seems almost everyone had an opinion on it. Everyone seems to agree that something was not quite right about the entire thing. It felt shoddy to some.

And then there's me. This year will be my third in Second Life. Three entire years. Depending on who you ask, it's either a waste of time or a waste of energy. I kid. But I marvel at how I've seen a good half of Second Life's existence. At the people I've met, the friends I've made (and lost), the things I've seen and built, and all the things still left to see. Ah, I just can't wait until next year!

450

On Memory

The other day, someone (never mind who) was apologising for their infrequent appearances in Second Life. It was alright, however, as they did not think that anyone in particular would notice or care if they disappeared.

I promptly called bullshit on this.

Of course people would notice if you're gone! Unless you were a hermit, chances are you have some friends. And chances are those friends are, whether you know so or not, attuned to your comings and goings. And chances are that said friends would be saddened at your disappearance. Even a casual acquaintance would shed a tear. OK, that's a little dramatic.

But to casually say no one notices, with the implication that no one cares, is inherently stupid. I personally found it insulting as I am one of those acquaintances! And I certainly do care! I am also not alone, because I'm certain I'm not your only friend. Your statement is untrue and thus flawed.

So there. Neener Neener!


The other day, the Lindens unveiled the Memorial Park, at which you can remember those who have gone silent or died. There's small monuments for Kendra, Ginny, and Sojouner as well as a small garden for the rest of us faceless anonymous alts. Narrow woodland paths and candle lit vigils also dot the island.

Have you ever wandered a graveyard and wondered who the names were on the tombstones? I never knew Kendra, Ginny, or Sojouner. Never even heard of them until they died. All I have are their low prim graves and the same epitaph accompanying it. No more and no less.

Those are just three of the hundreds who come and go, and many more thousands if you could those who join up and mysteriously go AFK forever.

Such is life.

On Participation

There was a big argument over at Prok's blog concerning the Resident's Choice awards. Vickie Greenwood won many of the building categories but the big question all across Second Life became: Who the hell is Vickie Greenwood? Prokofy being Prokofy, he went and did a lot of digging and found that Vickie does not have much of a footprint into the Second Life world. In fact, it seems that unless you personally knew her, you wouldn't have heard much of her at all.

That leads us into an interesting discussion. How can someone win a contest such as this and have almost no visibility in Second Life or its related websites? At the time, it was noted that she didn't even have a profile picture. And is it right to award a distinction to such a person?

The awards were about the resident's choice. And one would expect the resident's choice would be someone who engages and is active in the Second Life universe. This can usually be gauged by such things as profiles, blog posts, items listed on Xstreet, and so on. That indicates an outreach into this world of ours. They've invested some time and energy into putting something out there.

By not engaging and not listing on Xstreet, not blogging/being blogged about, and not spicing up one's profile, you've disengaged from Second Life. You are attempting to be aloof. Plus, there is the implication that you're an alt. People don't keep alts well. If alts were jugs of milk, then people tend to let them turn to cheese. Not having anything 'there' triggers an instinct, and that instinct is 'the person I'm dealing with is someone else, this must be their alt'.

It could also mean that you don't give a shit about Second Life. Visit any university sim or any island where the inhabitants are students/employees forced to register an account and check out the profiles. If there is a profile picture, it will be one of the random default picks in the inventory library and the profile space will have 'Penn faculty' or 'hey all, Temple CoE '08'. Read them and the feeling of apathy oozes out. This pattern also drifts into my mind when I see a skimpy profile.

There's this feeling, this attitude that if you participate and build and create in Second Life, or hold discussions or host and create music, or design the latest in sculpty socks, that you'll be taken up into the current. And you'll make a profile. If you're good, bloggers will come to you and interview, if not, you'll make your own blog. I think this is inevitable, especially when you're really good at what you do. Just imagine if Torley had nothing on his profile. I cannot imagine that, it's up there with making a word for that squelshing noise my shoes are making because I got ripped off and the soles are falling off and when water gets into them it makes that noise or calculating all the digits of pi.

Not that it isn't possible, just extremely implausible. In fact, it's nigh upon suicidal if you're serious about being recognized and having others buy your work or join your groups. Johnny McAlt will put up hours you can contact him in case you need debugging of your prim scooter, or Suzy Avatarvik will put the hours when she hosts a discussion on the recent policies of French cheese imports.

Let's come around now to my opinion. Vickie deserves a medal for being low key and then winning three of the categories. However, she also did herself a disservice by not making herself visible for whatever reason. The announcement left everyone scratching their heads and that's not a good thing. You're the best, dammit! Promote or something. Although, this is probably a moot point now as Linden Lab's contest has single handed pushed her into the top.

That's what's fueling all this speculation. It is as if my alt won the award for blogging. What's that you say, you've never seen my alt's blog? Well, it's set to private. And there's only a few posts. And I've never told anyone about it (until now) and I've never linked there. But trust me, it's good. My alt doesn't have much of a profile, but that doesn't matter, does it? It's the exact thing. My alt could have writing that would make Jesus cry in its wonderful subtlety and supreme skill but I imagine people would rightly question how I won the award. Well, it's the same deal with Vickie. She may very well be the best of the best of the best, but it is kind of scary that not many have heard of her until now.

Considering this is the awards as granted (or so Linden Lab says) by the residents, one would think that one requirement for this would be an awareness among the populace of the person who won. If most of the community is left scratching their heads and frantically googling your name and asking everyone around who you are, something might have gone wrong. You would imagine the winner would be someone well known. It's only logical that the winner of all the residents would be pretty famous else hardly anyone would have voted for them.

Then again, what do I know? I'm writing this in the middle of the night punch drunk.

On Short Hair

Today (or more accurately right now) I let my (Second Life) hair down. I had a run of short hairstyles that I bought on a whim on my birthday and as I hadn't changed my appearance for some time, I decided the time was ripe for a hairdo to be done! Of course, unless you hung out with me a lot in Second Life, you probably didn't notice and this post isn't going to make a lot of sense. Oops.

In any event, no one seemed to notice too much. I think Madison made a comment, but it was only because I was changing it directly in front of her. Am I an attention seeking narcissist? Oh Yea! I was kind of sad that no one said anything to feed my insatiable appetite. I suppose no one really takes a good look at each other to notice. "Oh, she's got hair, nothing new. Just like every other human being I have met."

One thing that did cause quite a start among everyone was my experimentation with different colors. 'Dying' my hair was very entertaining. People may not notice the style but they certainly notice the shade! Which is understandable as you don't need to alt-zoom into my follicles to notice, right?

I first tried it jet black, and was asked if I was going 'emo'. When I said no, then I was obviously 'goth' it seems. The concept of dark black hair was too much and there must have been some deep meaning into it! I tried brunette next and no one seemed to mind that much. Aside from the 'you changed your hair!' comment after the fact. I went through about seven shades of that, even a few with streaks (one made me look like I was on fire literally with the orange and red highlights), and the reaction was mostly 'blah'.

White was met with 'Hey Grandma' and I am way too young for that so that was quickly ditched (My friend Winter, though, does not seem to mind it as much. Then again, Winter's a ghost and doesn't care much for the earthly plane as it is). And I wasn't about to try any sorts of redheads because I just have this aversion to it. At one point, almost all my friends were fiery and I fear blending in. Except when something nasty (like a rabid dog or a neurologist or a loan collector) comes and then I wish I could blend into the wall. They'll never take me alive.

I think next time I'll try truly ridiculous styles and colors. Gigantic purple pigtails, anyone? How about ankle length blue hair with dotted navy streaks? An Afro? I'll keep you guys updated if and when I do.

On Comics

No, not stand up comedians. Visual print comics.

When I pick up the Inquirer in the morning, after looking at how the world became more screwed up while I slept I check out the comics page. There's something reassuring about Garfield eating a metric ton of food. Call me what you will, but I like Garfield. I find Garfield funny. I've seen opinions and papers written about how Garfield is the bane of comics and art in general, but for some reason, that's never held a bearing on me. Fat orange cats are just my thing, I suppose. There's no shortage of newspaper comics.

And there's certainly no shortage at all of online comics. Most of them are just terrible. Godawful terrible. The drawing and art will have all the talent of a kindergarten child who just learned how to fingerpaint. Their writing will make my prose look as if Jane Austen crafted it. But there are a few gems out there. If you're willing to dig through the enormous pile present. I bookmark a few of them, and when the urge strikes I check up on them.

There are hardly any comics that focus on Second Life. Or use Second Life as a medium. I can think of about two off the top of my head, and from a quick search through the internet I found three more. And I don't like any of them, to be honest.

Let's first point out that using Second Life as the visual medium is extremely difficult to do. With a hand drawing, you can quickly slap something down. With photoshop, you can do the same with a mouse or tablet. With films and real life photographs, you have control (usually) over what is in the scene. All four of those involve little work to invest in. Don't get me wrong. Getting the photo or film or any of those to actually be any good, it takes a lot of time and knowledge. But the basic bare-bones needs are accessible to any Tom, Dick, and Harry. But in Second Life, it's a much more difficult task.

You have to build your set from scratch which requires some working ability with the Second Life building tools which have their quirks and annoyances. You also have to dress and attire your avatars or models properly so they don't look like shit. This is harder than it looks for you must find a good skin, shape, hair, and outfit. If the image you want isn't on sale, you have to make those yourself and you have to subject yourself to tweaking the shapes, building hair (very difficult, tried it once), running photoshop and making good clothes and uploading those clothes and checking to make sure the upload is good to go (and uploads cost you L$10 a pop). Second Life avatars are about as expressive as Microsoft Sam and thus require lots and lots of time creating your own gestures and animations and poses to fit your comic. This is just the visual set up. The final step (although a step which requires at least as much, if not more investment) is to get the writing and scripting together because just having a funny visual is usually not enough.

Whew. That's quite a laundry list. It seems truly daunting. I am sure a good amount of people who try to make a comic get tangled in one of the steps I listed above and then probably give up. Even if the theoretical creator in question is very skilled at doing all that, the time one has to invest is very great. And frankly, someone who is gifted to be able to do all that will not be very interesting in writing and scripting a comic when he or she or it could make a killing building or designing or something else. The comic is a time-suck. It doesn't generate any revenue. I suppose you could compile a book together and sell it, but who inworld is going to bother? They will reason (rightly) that it's not worth it when they could spend that cash on land tier or toys or furniture.

Therein lies the second problem. How do you market such a thing? How would you entice and convince people that they should buy your book? So add marketing talent to the above list. Getting someone to notice and buy it so you can make tier is very hard. One idea would be to make a blog and showcase a few select pages so the discerning buyer can sample the flavor. Exposing yourself to critics isn't much fun, either. You then have to defend your work, or change it for the better which is a struggle unto itself, for you have to turn a nasty eye on your pride and joy. You have to then be careful not to get caught up and be too critical. Torley is sometimes right and sometimes the critic in question is just not going to be satisfied. You have to have the ability to make the proper judgement call between "I need to fix this because it honestly is not good" and "This is good enough/actually quite fine and the other guy is a moron".

In light of those considerations, you'd probably want and need a team. Which means you need to find the people who you can work with. And good luck to you on that. That means reliance on your team to do their part and get work done. As I'm sure anyone can tell you, all it takes is one slacker or asshole to royally ruin your product. When the team is small, this is especially heinous. When it's a very much a combined product, you fail. Once in college I had a slacker for a group member, and while it was a pain in the ass to hold up his end of the work (and in the end we reported him to the professor) the good thing was that we were all in the same field and thus the working knowledge was not difficult to distribute. With a project such as a SL comic where you have to make, script, and distribute/sell/market, you don't have that ability. If your writer takes a holiday, the artist and the advertiser may not be able to carry the day. Similarly, it really hits hard when the builder flakes off forcing the gesture maker to throw something together. "What? Is that supposed to be a Pollock painting or a fridge magnet?"

That's all quite a lot weighing on the fool or fools who are foolish enough to be fools and try this out.

I think the most famous of the lot is Plywood, which ended some time ago. I have to be honest, I never really found it funny. I found the jokes tired and forced. I give them credit for using Second Life as the visual medium, and of the entire lot I've read they certainly have done the most. When you can see the avatars, they're very expressive and the gestures and poses are well done. Well, ok, sometimes they got lazy. But usually the panels are very zoomed out and you can't really see what's going on. Sometimes the scene is kind of awkward. Their speech bubble placement gets really nasty later on and so congested it blocks the panels.

The jokes and stories are sometimes confusing. Who is the robot, why is he freaking out, and what the hell is with those bears? Ok, well, the bears were previously established as being evil by suffocating people, I guess. It's only the third comic, but there's no lead-up to anything to do with the robot. Plus, he spends about 75% of that strip almost out of panel talking to a car. Did he create the bears? I suppose it's supposed to be a cliffhanger, only it's right off the bat which makes me angry and confused. The next bunch of pages leave it unresolved, however. In fact, it doesn't get resolved until much later. There's a quick storyline about how evil Tringo and Avatar contests are and how stupid Newbies are (har har) which I didn't find funny, probably because I don't see either of those things as particularly bad things I would electrocute people over (although the comic was made in 2005, maybe things were different back then). There's the typical gender hysteria (zomg! who's what gender!?!?) which explores the whole Gender Detective aspect. After about 25 comics, they finally get to the original cliffhanger.

This one made me crack a smile, and is probably the best in my opinion. The joke is simple (even if it depends upon one knowing the pop cult reference which is sketchy). Compare it to this, where I'm not sure where exactly the joke is. It just kind of peters out. I think it might be due to the wordiness. The way the joke is ham fisted into the reader as if they could not put two and two together and assume it's worse to be a prim on a vibrator than in hair is partly due to how it's over explained. I think that's the problem with most of the Plywood comics. Too many words. It's a visual medium, they should have left something open instead of turning it into a small novel.

Dwell On It was another one, which has many of the same faults as Plywood. The camera is zoomed so far out that if I made two squiggles they would have the same resolution. Take this one, for example. It's okay in the first and second panels, since we need to establish that the newbie is running up and down a large street. But why is the third panel still somewhat zoomed out? The large empty space above and to their right is distracting, it feels lopsided. This one too. Once you've established the park bench, you should have panned the camera in a little.

I did find it more clever, though. The bit on LL censoring made me giggle. Probably because it wasn't as wordy and let the picture tell the story. In that one, we didn't get a long spiel from Tateru about the region crashing, and the Lindens somewhere cackling and explaining everything, no. She comes in, the blue box of doom appears, and she curses as she logs off. This one made be actively laugh. If the writer took a little more care in setting up the panels and adjusting the camera, it would be pretty good, actually.

There was a running story about what happens after she was forcibly logged off. It was alright, but not as good as her stand alones. She hasn't updated in a while, since November 2008, so perhaps she ended it or forgot about it. Oh well. If it seems I didn't grill this one (and the successive comics) as much, it's because there's not as much there. Plywood was fairly large with about 70 pages most of which were an actual page, Dwell On It is maybe half that with little four panel skits.

Next up is the aptly named... Second Life Comics. Not a very original title. This is even smaller, only about twenty pages. This one manages to solve the problem the first two fell into, which is placing the scenes together nicely. The panels seems fuller, I can actually see faces. Establishing shots are occasionally used, but then zooms in to focus in on the avatars who, rightly, are the center of the action. The author must have been in some graphic design course or something, I'd bet on it. The only downside is that while we see the avatars in a clearer light, their faces aren't as expressive and always seem somewhat apathetic.

Some of the jokes rely upon the visuals which is good. This one, for example. Some are just strange and disturbing. I think they were going for shock value, but I am not the kind of person who finds pure shock on its own as funny. Some I just don't understand. Did they forget something in there? Also, the "Is Not" girl looks a lot like me, only tanner. I found this one brilliant, if not a tad on the stereotyping side. At least twice the author threw in some political commentary about Palin, which was alright I guess. She makes a disturbing avatar. I'd say the writing is hit or miss. Sometimes I laughed, sometimes I scratched my head. You know what? Dwell on It and 'Second Life Comics' should pair up, because between the two I can see a very good comic.

Rabble.ca is a flickr book. This is by far the worst. As far as I understand, it was done as an advertisement for something that I didn't bother to investigate. The panels are absolutely terrible and are so poorly positioned you'd think you were on the International Space Station viewing it on the ground. Seriously, the arrangements are bad. The entire pretense of being a comic breaks down by the third page and it turns into a collage. The dialogue, as expected, is equally terrible and serves mostly to advertise. You know, I guess I'm being too harsh. This was just a quick job to advertise whatever it was. Still, it came up when I google searched for "Second Life Comics" so they asked for it.

The Herald once ran a serial called "Alien 28 versus Plagarizer". These were not meant to amuse but to tell a drama. The story is that Coke, a random avatar, meets with another avatar called Alien 28. They band together to fight the guy who stole Alien28's stuff. Like Second Life Comics, the panels are arranged and set very beautifully. They zoomed in and out at very appropriate times. Gestures and poses were nicely done. Too bad Coke, the main character, seems to be a chameleon. She goes from a pale blond to black hair and a deep tan with tattoos, every page or so. The author performed a self insert (a problem in itself), so in the day-to-day change of their avatar, they screwed up the comic as for what I can see no explanation is given.

The pretty graphics are murdered by the waves of text and speech bubbles. I'm surprised the characters can breathe, it gets so cluttered. The real problem is that, with limited space on the Herald, they tried to cram as much as possible into the three or so pages per article. The story suffers as a result, as everything gets rushed and the pages are awash with white bubbles.

Finally, I don't find the story itself that interesting. I'm sorry, but it sounds just like every other accusation and fight over who stole what that I see and hear everywhere. On the last two posts, she drifts from focusing on the content debate into individual stories: Coke gets turned out homeless and the Alien gets abducted. And that was it. It hasn't updated since January, so we'll never know what ending was in store, although she repeatedly mentioned that she only planned the first two to explain her situation. Oh well. It was that great of a concept to begin with.

The next bunch are what I have come to call "Flash In The Pan" comics. They seemed to have at most nine pages before they fired out.

This person created a comic book, an educational one about how to dress up. I haven't really read it, but it doesn't seem as if she made anything else. I should really check out her place in SL.

This one is about furry goreans. It's not spectacular, and the writing is pretty blah. It's the kind of thing you pass between friends, really. Hey, kind of like this blog! She moved all her stuff over to some other site, which I don't feel like chasing down, plus I think she got kicked out of second life from one of the posts.

Patches of Insanity died after three strips, even though the count is up to four. I couldn't find #2. Haha, get it? It wasn't that good, but it's hard when there is such a small sample. Some people take a while to get revved up. We'll never know.

Finally, this person makes virtual world comics about a bunch of different virtual worlds. There's twelve total. They're alright. Not the best, but not especially bad. Like Garfield? The graphics are good, however.

That's about all I can find on Second Life comics. Some were ok, some were bad. It'd be nice if someone would take up and make a good one. I can imagine it might help Linden Lab's already horrendous public relations. Plus, it'd be fun to read.

I'm really bored.

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.

Ghosts!

The other day, I was wandering about Second Life as I usually do when none of my friends are logged in and I'm bored.

There is a beautiful build on that ring shaped continent, in the middle or thereabouts, in the Iris sim. It's some kind of pagoda with lovely deep red pillars framing its graceful arches and rooms. It is also the place where I discovered now that I am completely insane.

There was a bunch of people standing around, some afk, some bots. And someone walked by, decked out in some kind of blue spiky avatar that was named, and I kid you not, Okasus. That, my friends, is how I know I am officially insane. I am starting to see things that I made up walk around. I couldn't catch him/her/it before it left, but the name was definitely Okasus.

Someone could have been messing with my head, though, and made some alt, found me, and walked by to make me think I am going crazy. Who would go through all that trouble, though? Is it you, Jurin? Or is it you, Torley? I can't think of anyone who would be that spiteful to try and get me to think I am crazy, so I conclude that I actually am crazy.

Hell, now I wonder if I am actually typing anything or just think I am typing something.

Ah ha ha?

Vote for Bob

My dear readers, I have been often pressured with a crazy idea that is completely unreasonable. This idea is that I should be a Linden.

First off, we all know that if that happened, the universe would implode upon itself. It would be like dividing by zero and getting 4 as an answer. Or developing a working perpetual motion machine. Or finding out that this entire universe is but some person's dream and your existence depends on them not waking up, but then they find out and they wake up and everyone dies. It's just not possible. It's impossible by the laws of the internet universe.

Second, I would make a terrible Linden. Imagine all my hatred and bile directed at residents, as M would certainly direct me at? Or worse: imagine the twisted love child between a theoretical Anna Linden and Torley Linden. Anley? Tornna? All of my ideals and hopes and dreams would be knocked down and recast as some horrible undead shell of myself, talking about how it's all the residents' fault OpenSpaces were destroyed. I am too weak to resist such power as Linden Lab wields.

Third, I would have no private life anymore. Talk to some of the Lindens and they'll tell you not to IM them inworld because they're already so flooded with chat and objects and requests and such. Too much white noise. I'm too lazy and bored to turn off 'see my online status' for all my friends, plus they get angry when I actually am on. I really don't want that on a grid-wide scale. I like my private little corner of Second Life and my private little blog in which I can complain and write my private little thoughts.

But, there is one man who would probably be worthy. And that man is Bob. Vote for Bob for Linden. Bob would make an awesome Linden. As he notices, he really cannot do worse or be less qualified than the most recent string of newly minted Lindens.

Bob Bunderfeld 2009 : Change We Can Download

4 of Diamonds

Hey lookie! Now I'm on a playing card.

Maybe if I work really hard this year, I can get promoted to the 5 of diamonds.