I knew my attempt at modeling on female poses would have scared someone. But in SL as in RL, the world is made of the weak and the brave. Among the brave, there is Quaintly, who not only appears not to have thrown her laptop out of the window after seeing my "tap my butt" pictures, but she 's just rezzed a male pose stand on the sandbox/platform that Banana built for her a few days ago (it's not that Banana isn't brave enough, she has just lost hope with time. Understandable).
Shall I take it as just kindness from Quaintly, or is this an encouragement to make me hit the 'snapshot' button again and again??
Since I am pretty good at making fun of myself, but I am definitely bad at taking myself too seriously, I will postpone the new modeling session for now. But I will do it, and blog it too! No worries if I am on your blogroll/feed, I will make it clear from the title that it's about me modeling again, so that you can choose wether to take the risk or not, lol :P

Thanks a lot Quaintly :)

It's kinda crazy what's going on at Nebula. Banana's store has been there for ages, in a little corner of the SIM and with much of the surrounding area being empty all the time. It's a week now that a new neighbor has bought a huge section of it and has rezzed a big black building just on the opposite corner. It's so huge and black that you can actually see it from wherever you are at Potassium, and it isn't really a nice sight. Plus, the outside "garden", bordering Banana's property is full of crappy grass and some kind of tall purple flowers worth the most abandoned war cemetery in Greenland(omg has there ever been a war in Greenland?). Banana was left with no other choice than try to decorate the strip of grass on her side with some cute mushrooms and a pond, right after a first attempt at raising a little hill in between the sections so that the monster could be at least partially hidden. She has posted about it, and even felt a little guilty about the terraforming she had made at first. But surprise surprise....the neighbour built some ugly walls on the border, which accomplish the hard task to be even uglier than the black building itself. Now what could Nana do? She raised the hills again, so that the grey would disappear from sight, at least the side facing Potassium. You may think...ALL SET, grey wall on their side, green hill on our side. Fair enough.

Hmm, no, have a look at this!

I wonder what kind of pot this woman smokes. What's the point in making the wall taller again? Do we have to raise the hills again? Is this going to be a battle for the tallest avatar-made structure in Second Life? What's the fun in crashing my bike on a grey wall? Make it blue, red, yellowish at least!!

I walked to the black building (she made it a no fly zone) and wanted to check the view from there, looking towards Potassium. Here it is.



Don't you think that is just too "KEWL"???? I 'd really love to hang out at a place like that. Really as in...really really really.

What to do now....I don't know. I hope Banana gets things sorted. I hate grey, Berlin wall grey.

Thanks to Banana and her neverending blogroll I literally bumped into this Flickr post.
I recommend reading it, though it's a bit harsh, and definitely her (Nicole's) own point of view. But I agree on some points, as I have always felt sad looking at people who lose the balance between they RL ego and the reflection of it into the metaverse. Too bad this person, Nicole, appears to have left Second Life, because no loss of balance can't be recovered with time. Take a deep breath, and read:

What SL should look like

I had a long conversation with probably one of the only people in my life who's ever been honest to me.He helped me see something, that I did not want to see. I. Hate. Avatars. This is what SL should look like. We should not know that there is land. We should not know that there are skies, or stars.Fly up a few thousand meters. Do this: Advanced - Turn Off Skies. He reminded me: "Even the stars are fake" SL should look like infinite space. The problem with SL, is that, it is fundamentally broken. We still know that we have avatars. We still know that there is land below us. We still know that there are avatars all over the grid. SL is too internalized. We all keep looking inward. There is no way to escape it. Take an honest moment with yourself and ask yourself. Why are you really here? You can not escape the fact that. You're just hiding. It does not matter what you are "doing" there. You are still there for what? Your OWN reasons. YOURSELF. Reconnect with yourself. STOP PROJECTING YOURSELF onto a you that will never be. Stop using your fucking sliders. Stop using your fucking clothing inventory. Stop taking picture after picture, of your "hot" little avatar. Face it. It's not you. Your pictures are lovely, I'm sure you like to look at yourself, just, STOP IT. IT IS NOT GOOD FOR YOU. I will not be using my avatar anymore. If you do see me, I will be my light ball, and that is all. I am not going to pose for you. I am not going to pretend to be something I am not. I will speak to you as myself. I am not some cartoon character in your imaginary little world filling some role that you've imagined me to be. I am not saying SL is entirely useless. I am just saying that SL has made you all sick. Whether you realize it yet or not. This is true. I for one am not going to imprison myself in avatar. SL should look like this. Infinite space. It should expand peoples minds and stimulate creation in a void of space. Ask yourself... why do people keep buying land, clothing, hair. Why do you keep trying to fill your life with fake "real life" items? What purpose does it serve? Is it comforting to have something you can't have in Real Life? Think of it this way. YOU DON'T and WON'T ever really have it. You are paying other people to lie to you.

Truth.

I speak it.

Don't like.

Don't comment.

Thanks for listening

-Nicole

Actually, I am pretty sure she will come back into SL.
Nicole, if you 're ever gonna read this, send me an IM!!

"Caution : Secondlife can activate basic neurological processes and may cause synaptic connections to be made triggering emotional responses that could lead to paradigmatic shifts in cognition which affect the quality and direction of future life decisions."

BS or truth? I don't care.
Yes, I do love your comment, Ripped Winkler. Even though you posted it just to cut and paste the URL of your Xstreet account, it just made me stop for a second in a kinda speechless mood :)

Celebrities, yeah.
I have always thought Second Life to be too much an "easy" world for anyone to define themselves as Slebrities. I mean, no matter how popular and productive you can be as an avatar, it doesn't take much effort to become well known and respected in a little village of 400 thousands active users worldwide. Moreover, the common definition of celebrity in RL is of someone who is popular, and exclusively in the media, for the most various reasons, even if the reasons themselves aren't really praiseworthy. So, since I can't really find any representation of the "media effect" in Second Life, (hmmm, gawd, how crazy would it be to have a SL TV in world??) then what is it that makes a celebrity out of a pixelled avatar?
I guess it's a matter of money again, or at least in part. I won't name any of them, but there is a little bunch of guys in here that is actually capable of earning REAL money, even if the legend says only 49 people worldwide (Linden Labs not included) earn enough to fully sustain their real lives. I can't anyway define them as celebrities, i'd rather think they 're just..very smart guys in the virtual sex/porn industry(lol), and a few ones in the fashion business.
Then, there 's the much wider community of avatars who THINK they are Slebrities. "A year in SL equals to 7 years in RL", as the saying goes. 100% true, though I haven't bought Banana a present for our 14th wedding anniversary yet. Fact is, emotions run fast in here, and so does self-esteem. From noob to entrepreneur, from camper to landowner, from ruth to supermodel, from nerd to trend-setter, the target is at anyone's reach. All you have to do is get a hundred dollars charged on your VISA. Lacking traffic? Some 50 more dollars spent in advertising will do the trick, for a month or so. But hey, nothing compares to becoming a celebrity!

I 've been lucky enough to witness some of these guys while stressfully dealing with their change of SL-status.
No more 'how are you?' IM's 'cause they were often in busy mode.
No more 'Let's go for a ride' IM's 'cause they were frantically going through the list of possible managers to hire.
No more rezzing helicopters on their land 'cause it could offend the patrons.

But the point of no return is...when you open their profiles and the guy who once was a..

"friendly easygoing man who enjoys SL and all it has to offer! Send me an IM if you like"

becomes a...


OF COURSE you 're a PROUD owner and of OF COURSE your IM's get capped!!!
But please tell me why you can't just check them in your friggin' email.

Pathetic.

Peace.

*someone please stop me from uploading SL profiles on my blog or i 'll get sued one day or another.

HMM Pretty cool pictures at her store... and a skilled model too...



Wonders how she can make it...there must be a pose stand somewhere near and I am gonna find it for gawd's sake!

Done. What I thought were huge light bulbs hovering in the sky...Idjit me!


OK ladies, stand back and enjoy! My turn now ;)

erm, ok first try was good, don't you think? Female poses make the bald man look so kewl...




Second try, even better. I think i am enjoying this..hmm...too much.



Ooopss! I think I went a little bit too far..the last one reminds me of Tony Manero but I can't be that low on testosterone.

Back on track, italian avatar. If you haven't learnt fashion in Milan, you won't learn it in Second Life anyway. And all of you reading this, please JUST KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT OK?? ;)

No pun intended. She is just my Banana.

Number 10. 'Cause she can feel really disappointed when her new neighbor puts a yucky black castle-thing right in front of her pretty store and all you want to do is to bomb it straight away.

9. 'Cause instead of bursting into tears, she then decides to make it up by adorning her pretty little land with some funny colored mushrooms and a small pond just on the border of the property.



8. 'Cause there is no better place where she could start whispering sweet little nothings in my ears...

7. ...or start jumping on the mushrooms as if they were a trampoline!


6. 'Cause no matter what she is busy with, she always finds the time to build Quaintly a custom sandbox...


5. And then allowing me to go mushroom hunting on my pink chopper!

4. 'Cause despite knowing that women drivers rhymes with women riders, she wants to give it a try herself..(look at the passenger's frightened face)


3. Cause she is the only one capable of jumping the hills like that..

2. And 'cause when it comes to riding a bike, she doesn't mind violating the sacred steps of a french church...

1. Most of all, the number 1 reason to love a Banana is...'cause after a tiring day like that, she won't just say good night and log off. There is always time for a last dance, until the morning comes.

'Cause morning will come.
I love you baby, ti amo tanto.