The End Of The World And Standard Viewers

The title refers to the end of standard viewers, but I'll touch on that subject in just a moment. First, I'd better mention the end of the word just in case you are reading this as all hell breaks loose around you.

Yes that's right, on 12-21-2012 (or as my Aussie friends like to put it, 21-12-12), it's supposed to be the last day of the Mayan calendar and the end of the world as we know it. Just like Y2K only worse. I tend to embrace change so I am looking forward to Armageddon. But for some inexplicable reason, I'm scheduled to DJ on the following night so maybe it's not the end of the world? Maybe things will not change all that much?

I've always been a big fan of the old standard SL viewer. At some point, everyone told me Emerald viewer would be better so I tried that. It did have a lot of features that I liked so I stuck with it. Unfortunately, someone at Emerald thought they could make some money (it's all about the greed) by including some privacy-breaching code embedded into it so Linden Labs shut them down in a huge hurry. Fortunately, the Phoenix viewer group was quickly formed which fixed the problems with the Emerald viewer. Linden Lab's standard version 1 viewer, Emerald viewer and Phoenix viewer were all very close in appearance and operation. The Emerald and Phoenix viewers had some features though that were very attractive. There were building/creation enhancements, better graphics control, many many more variables that could be set and controlled by the individual user. There were also other 3rd party viewers such as Singularity and Imprudence to name a couple more. The main thing to realize here is that all viewers were generally the same. Your settings were all in the same place. You could build/create things the same way. Upload, download the same. Advanced menus were the same.... Well, you get the idea.

Then Linden Labs went and did something. They created version 2 viewer. Why? Because they wanted a good laugh I guess? Except for Emerald viewer doing naughty things with our account and inventory information, everything was peachy. But Linden Labs saw fit to create a viewer designed by a committee. I can just hear the board room meeting now. "Let's make a viewer that is totally different than anything we have now or have ever seen". Well, they did. Is it better? I don't think so. I see no improvement really. But it is totally different to operate. Your inventory is split up into different groups yet you can still get at all of it by various means. Building/creating is confusing but can be gotten used to. It's no better so I'm still trying to figure out why they changed it. It's difficult to see how many prims make up an object. Instant messages can now be thoroughly missed. The added lag of voice chat now activates automatically. You can no longer just File>Upload. Now you go to Avatar>Upload. What's with that? You can also upload from another sub-menu called Advanced. Okay, why did they make it more complicated? I have no idea. Why have 4 different ways of getting to your inventory and 2 or more different ways of uploading? Wasn't one method for each enough? Apparently not because they have gone and put out a version 3 viewer. Let's not even get into that just yet.

What I and many others did was drop their viewer and go all out with Imprudence, Singularity or Phoenix viewers. I went with Phoenix and life was good for a year or so. Just about everyone was using Phoenix viewer so we were all able to support each other and share ways of achieving technical tasks through the same viewer. However, new people were discovering SL and of course downloading the now default viewer 2 because that's what the SL web site tells you to do. So all the new people (and you could tell because Linden Labs did away with creating a surname and just put everyone under Resident) were getting used to viewer 2. So when one of them had a problem or wanted to accomplish something in SL via their viewer 2, none of the more experienced users could help them because we were lost when it came time to navigate viewer 2. New User: "How do I check how many prims are on my land?" Experience User: "Go to World > About Land." New User: "whaaa?" If you are like me and like to help out, this became frustrating in short order. I finally had to tell people who needed help, "sorry, I can't help you, my viewer is night and day different than yours."

But in the end, it was inevitable. We were going to have to learn to use the new version 2 viewer because Linden Labs said they will eventually end allowing the version 1 type viewers anymore. So Phoenix, the group that actually seems to care about their users, began the Firestorm viewer project. It is a viewer 2 viewer except for one big thing; it's highly configurable. So someone at Firestorm decided to create a 'skin' for Firestorm that looked very similar to the viewer 1 style Phoenix. It's an instant hit. With only a dozen or so viewer 2/3 stumbling blocks, you can now navigate and enjoy SL just like the old days.

Visiting with my lovely daughter Neva.

Oh sure, change is good! Well, it's only good when there is improvement, not backwards steps. Yeah, I can hear the gasps now but it's true. Linden Labs has put out many youtube videos demonstrating how to make their new viewers work but in the end, they have taken functions that used to be right there in front of you, intuitive to use and find and have buried them in a quagmire of a menu system and doubled or tripled the means to find those functions. Just yesterday I was attempting to make a tattoo layer for an avatar. I tried everything I could think of to create a new tattoo layer and edit it so that I could place the graphic for the tattoo onto my tattoo layer. I finally found the little gear icon that allowed me to do this but not only was it far out of the way of my work space, it was NOT intuitive. I strongly feel that Linden Labs needs to return to the drawing board and start all over again. Hardly a day passes that I don't hear from a user who can't figure out how to accomplish a task in their viewer and I, having been inworld for over 4 years, cannot help them because I too am lost. It's senseless. The tower of Babel all over again.

On a brighter note, my psychic cat just told me that the world will not end tomorrow so that means I get to party on Friday! I sure do love that cat.

Molding SL To Work For Us

SL (Second Life) is a bitch. She's a wonderful bitch but she's also a selfish bitch. "OMG Otto! How can you say that?" "Oh, I know exactly what you mean bro". SL does not allow us to live a complete virtual life inside itself. What do I mean? Well, first of all, everyone is in a different time zone. Secondly, typing takes up way too much time! Sure, we can do voice communication but sometimes that's not plausible. I mean it must be awesome to hear a woman orgasm over her mic as she stimulates herself in front of a large group of avatars watching her SL boyfriend bang her brains out. It's quite another thing to try and convey that over a mic or even camera! Yes, they have web cams for that. It's called Skype.

But SL's text interface is just too time consuming. Or is it?

Text communication forces  you to be precise. It forces you to choose your words very carefully because each and everything you say will be judged upon an earlier sentence. You need to be very careful of what you say. You need to paint a picture in your recipient's imagination of what you are doing. You need to tell a story. In many cases, this story may require time consuming detail to describe. Other times it may only require a series of short and to the point sentences. One side argues, "don't make your audience wait for what you are typing", or on the other side, "be more descriptive". So it would seem that a balance is the way to go. I have witnessed both sides of the argument and I do feel that a nice middle ground is desirable.

"Guiding my fingers over her smooth, slightly perspiring skin from her excitement, I slide them over the curves of her firm tight ass. My hand pausing on the apex of her round rump, I place my palm over her bare flesh and squeeze it, hearing a soft moan from her as I pull her pelvis harder toward mine, grinding ourselves together"

As opposed to, "gropes her ass"

As opposed to, "runs my hand down her smooth back to the curves of her fine, firm ass. I give her a squeeze as I pull her closer."

The third example doesn't take much time to write/convey, yet it gets the point across much better than the second example which is sort of disappointing. So isn't the first example better? Sure! That is if you want your recipient(s) to have to wait for you to compose all that. But if that's the case, then a 'scene' would take several hours. Who has that kind of free time? Not me.

So I go for a compromise. A balance between the two methods. It seems to me that's what most of the other people I run into prefer too. I mentioned earlier that I and cat had just joined a swinger's place. They encourage public "emoting" in their group. So far, the majority of the members there use the same method I do, so that seems to be the way to go. It is also a great way to flirt.

Out Exploring Alone is Easy

Keeping groups of friends together is a bit of a challenge too, but there are a couple of reliable methods to keep in mind. The first one is the party or club or whatever. Always keep in mind the 20 meter rule: Local chat ends after the 20 meter mark. Beyond that distance, if you want to public chat with someone, you have to shout. Shouting goes out to 100 meters before it cannot be heard anymore. Then there is always the Instant Message or IM. But unless you initiate a group IM, which can often times become clumsy, then keeping your party or dance club's dance floor to 20 meters is a smart choice. That way everyone can read what is being said between everyone there. If  you want a private conversation, choose IM. They will work between two people in private across the entire world of SL.

The larger than 20 meter clubs can be annoying. You go there to have some fun and crack jokes and listen to lively chat. But the last time I was at a large club, I could only hear the conversations going on on my side of the place. Now I realize you cannot build a club large enough to accommodate 60 people without making it larger than 20 meters, but the vast majority of the clubs never have more than 25 people in the place anyway. So why build larger than 20 meters for that?

But what if your group wants to travel? Say you want to explore a sim together? Then some sort of transportation vehicle is the way to go. When you and your friends 'sit' in a vehicle, you all stay together. I have a helicopter that seats 4. A boat that seats 6. Those are usually large enough. It's very rare to have a group of people together that all want to ride in the same vehicle and communicate. But they do make them larger. There are some boats I've seen that will seat a dozen avis. It all just depends on how many friends you have online at the same time that all want to do the same thing.

Keeping Busy

Maybe too busy? It has been far too long since I have posted here. Very nearly a month, so there will be lots of catching up to do.

I suppose most of my time is spent DJing. Three nights per week in Second Life (SL) and once per week in InWorldz (IW). That's where I was at last night. IW is not nearly as popular as SL so when a couple showed up there last night I had never met before, it was a real treat. Mat and Connie. Connie requested some Nickleback and I was happy to play that for her. I'm not allowed to play Nickleback in SL at one of the venues and I don't care what anyone thinks of them, they are quite talented and their music is entertaining.  Thanks Mat and Connie. It was a pleasure partying with you.

Halloween has come and gone. No, we did not attend any Halloween parties together, but cat and I did locate some outfits to wear, just in case. We also had some very limited time together but did manage to celebrate our 1 year wedding anniversary together. We got us a new bed with a pull up blanket, which is important at the end of the night, among other things such as 'furniture', RLV traps and such too. I can trap her before we logoff for the night and know exactly where she'll be when I return the next day. Right where I left her. Yes, RLV (Restrained Love Viewer) is that powerful. If left active in that bed when she logs off, that's where she'll return when she logs back on and she will not be able to get away. It's sort of like keeping her in a cage without the restrained space of the close six walls. An excellent anniversary gift and testament to her total devotion.

What happens when Iron Man gets a boner?

I have created 3 new racetracks but I think I'm only going to continue using 2 of them. One is a semi-oval but it's kind of small and best for go-karts. The curvy road course and the newest track, a banked oval, are the ones I will keep using. The road course has a scoring system with it and I'm able to add it to the oval track as well, but I need to separate them a bit because the scoring mechanisms interfere with each other. I'm not sure what the minimum distance is. I suppose I'll have to break down and read the instructions soon. I made the tracks but I have no idea how to script a race course timer.

Majyck is working on a new club for me. James made one but it was pretty large. So large that the 20 meter local chat conversation barrier is breached. This is okay when you have a super busy and crowded club, but it is very frustrating when the crowd is 20 or less and you cannot "hear" (or see what is being typed) by the people out of the 20 meter range limit. So Maj took some ideas of hers and ran with them. It's a really nice looking club for sure. So cat and I go over there from time to time to check on what she's come up with. It's really nice and gets better every day that she works on it. I suspect she's just about finished with it by now.

There is a swingers club that cat has been invited to join that has raised some curiosity lately. It's not exactly what she and I have been looking for but it's a start. Somehow (and I'm not sure how), cat knows one of the people who belong to this swingers club. So she was invited in and of course, being her mate,  husband, master, lover, I was invited too. There are nearly 400 people in the group at the time of this writing and more to come I'm sure. I may or may not post more details about it at a future date. We'll have to see how it goes because last time we tried this, it was more of a Dom/submissive group and we thought that would be perfect for fulfilling our kinks, but it was not. There were many layers of trust built into that group and it would have probably taken us the better part of a year to get to the points of trust we felt we deserved, so we lost interest in that group. Too time consuming. So she heard of this swingers club and thought it might be what she's looking for. So now we are members.

I have belonged to a couple of exclusive swingers clubs before in the past and pretty much know what to expect, but that does not make me an expert. I would have talked her out of this group had she brought it up to me before she joined. I had learned more about it from this friend of hers and it sounded exactly like the swingers groups I had belonged to in the past, but she was a member before I even had a chance to say anything. So I guess we'll give it a shot but I doubt it's going to be what she wants. Don't get me wrong. I"m excited about this new group, and it will be fun and we'll be able to contribute for sure, but I don't think it's what cat thinks it is. Actually, she and I might just have to make our own group the way we want it to be and that's not a bad idea at all. But it will take time to build group membership, and that's what the club will be for. That is if I open another club.

If you have read any of my posts from the past where I was running the Cherry Street Mall club, you would know that they are expensive and will hardly ever produce a return. Sure, I've had weeks where I would shell out L$900 only to have a customer come and purchase L$1000 of dresses, but that's only happened twice and the rest of the weeks, I'm in the red. But the purpose of that club was to get patrons to shop at the mall. If I start a new club, It would be to attract new members to our group which would be more D/s related than partner swapping. Yes, both lifestyles enjoy orgies but they are basically two different groups. And I would also need at least one club manager and one DJ to help me out. I would also need to quit most of my other DJing jobs just to focus on this one. It's a possibility that I need to look into should this swingers group fail to work out for us. In the mean time, I guess we'll give that one a good try for a while.

Circle Of Chairs

There is probably not a single morning that goes by that I awaken and do not lay there and think about what I have with my two women, cat and Neva. I will be the first to admit, I don't deserve to have a life this good yet.... just look! Look at what I have! I am truly blessed.

Neva is my cherished daughter and cat is my submissive. She also would like you to know that we are partnered and married, but her submission to me means much much more than a mere husband/wife relationship. But that's a subject for another post. The main thing here is that I'm a lucky and happy and satisfied SOB, thanks to these two women.

Yes, I have other daughters in SL and I'm very grateful for them! No, they do not live with me. They do not share decisions along with expenses. They have some wonderful lives going on and I'm there for them, 100% and they know it. But we are all sharing and experiencing some intense joy and love. I love my cat and I love my Neva and I love my SL family.

Thank you my family.

Really? Another Wedding For Ritza

Oh yes, she married him once now she's married him twice! And she will keep wedding him just as often as she wants to as she has his permission!

Dok Waiting for his Bride

I'm talking about Dok and Ritza. They got married today and didn't invite anyone but me and cat. Due to RL commitments, cat could not make it but that's okay. I got some great pics!

I love weddings. Obviously Dok and Ritza do too. This one was quite exceptional. It was a beautiful place and was created by the officiant, who was RL ordained to a minister and official in SL as well. It was an awesome and to-the-point service but with a great deal of intense romance and emotion. They used rings with vows in them and were an amazing looking couple. The only other witness besides me was the lovely photographer, Savanna.

Here are some highlight quotes:


Thundar Muggins: The love these two share is so special, so magical, so romantic, it’s undefinable.
The greatest feelings in the world are those we can’t really explain.
We try to explain them day in, and day out.
But we can’t, because that feeling in us, is so powerful.
The bond these two have, it's the same intensity.
One powerful force...unbreakable.
That undefinable feeling only soulmates, such as Dok & Ritsa share.
Enjoy this feeling you two.  It comes but once in a lifetime.
Before I go further, I'd now like to ask these two soulmates to please say their vows. :)

Dok Meriman Newt (dok.newt): I promise to give you the best of myself
and to ask of you no more than you can give.
I promise to respect you as your own person
and to realize that your interests, desires and needs
are no less important than my own.
I promise to share with you my time and my attention
and to bring joy, strength, and imagination to our relationship.
I promise to keep myself open to you,
to let you see through the window of my world into my innermost
fears and feelings, secrets and dreams
 I promise to grow along with you,
to be willing to face changes in order to keep our relationship
alive and exciting.
I promise to love you in good times and bad,
with all I have to give and all I feel inside in the only way I know how.
Completely and forever.

ℛϊtşα Newt Johnsky (ritsa.windstorm): I stood before you what seems a lifetime ago vowing to be your wife, with tears in my eyes dreaming of a life full of love and laughter. It was a dream come true and it is again today.
How do you describe a love that goes beyond the rational? That love I have is for you.
I have loved you since the day I met you and you have captivated me body and soul since. Not even time could diminish my love for you.
Now I stand again with you declaring my love for you. I fell in love with the man behind the avi stronger than I have ever loved anyone before.
I love you stronger today than the first time we married. I will love you stronger every day after.
 ㋡
You are my love and my life, you are the reason I and will continue to be the reason I strive to be a better person.

With that, they exchanged rings and Thundar introduced them to us as husband and wife. I was happy to congratulate them and they did their first dance as wedded then I had to leave. No party afterward except for their honeymoon, which I'm sure was exciting.

I know, I know. SL weddings? Are they real? Well, the people behind them are real but I know lots and lots of SL people who are RL married. The partnership and wedding of souls in SL is very meaningful. There are real people behind the computer. But they are just that, not real weddings. Rather they are an extension. They are the next step toward more intense intimacy for a couple. It's the right thing to do and it's emotional and it's beautiful. And I will never turn down an SL wedding invitation if I can possibly help it. This is just another of the very intensely emotional and beautiful aspects of virtual worlds.

Other Grids

They could also be called other worlds though, but I feel that each simulation (sim) is a new world just in SL. But there are other grids like SL out there and I hang out on a few of them. So let's talk about the differences between these grids and why would anyone want to hang out there anyway?

Probably the most sensible reason to visit another virtual grid is cost. SL is a very expensive place to 'live'. Land, clothing, furniture, gadgets, vehicles, entertainment, all cost. Everything you can imagine is for sale in SL and it is mostly relatively expensive. Oh sure, I've purchased fully furnished houses for around L$300, which works out to about $1.25 US dollars. And that is becoming more and more common. Lots of things such as beds, cost thousands of L$ (Linden dollars). In the 'old days' ( four years ago for me) a fully furnished house would cost upwards of L$3000 or more for something with some good size to it. Now a house with even more features and fully animated furniture costs about 10% of that. Why? I think people are realizing how easy it is to learn to make your own home with some time and learning effort. The days of over-priced items in SL are nearly over but not quite. There are a few clothing places that are not keeping pace with the more affordable economy. Nadas fashions are very reasonably priced and of high quality, but there are other creators out there that commonly ask L$400 to L$600 per outfit. Their competition will have them going out of business soon if they keep that up. Most quality outfits now cost anywhere from L$60 to L$200. Items with animations in them are still pretty expensive for the most part. Animations require a L$10 upload fee for each one. So a couple's animated bed with roughly 400 animations in it can cost quite a bit to create. Clothing does not cost so much to make anymore.

So why is SL still considered the most expensive virtual world out there? Because their virtual property costs are so high. A regular sim is roughly 65,000 square meters (sq m) and can contain 15,000 primitives (prims) or objects. The monthly cost for a sim like this is $300 US dollars. That's a lot really for not owning anything that's real and solid. You can place (rezz) nearly 15,000 prims on it but you really do not have them. They can vanish tomorrow if you don't pay your monthly tier. But that's true of any virtual land. What if you could own a sim for only $75 per month and it could contain 45,000 prims? And there were no limits on how large you could make a prim? That's where these other virtual worlds come in.

Otto Turbo at Open Sim

I think the first one I tried years ago was Open Sim. I went there because Linden Labs increased the cost of land in SL and I was upset. I just wanted a nice virtual house to live in on some nice virtual land and to throw nightly parties that wouldn't cost too much money. That's all I wanted or so I thought. When I arrived on Open Sim I found my avatar looked really really bad. I ran into a woman there who looked really good though and she was patient and showed me a shopping mall where I could get some free stuff. The only problem was, it was mostly all for women and the guy stuff there looked really bad. I ended up making my own pants and shirt. I picked up some freebie boots and I probably never did anything about the hair. But the main thing I found on Open Sim is there is no economy. At least I cannot find one. In Open Sim, anyone can own a full sim. All you have to do is pick a location on the map for it and you run it off of your own computer as if it were a server. No out of pocket cost to you! It's 45,000 prims and all free. At the time of this writing, I have yet to find out if you can acquire other people's creations for free, but I'm thinking that  you can. So on a sim that you own, you can build your house and your world and have parties every night! The only problem is, there are probably 200 people online at one time as compared to SL's 50,000. That means you will need to go out and make a bunch of friends to have parties. It sounds like an awful lot of work to me. Also, if you shut your computer off, which is acting as a server for your sim, your sim vanishes. You can create your sim again once your computer is powered up, but it won't likely be in the same spot on the grid map. People will have a hard time finding you if you keep that up. So it was back to SL for me. I paid their inflated fees but I had a very richly and heavily populated virtual world to live in for the time being.

Otto Turbo in InWorldz

Then came InWorldz. I can't quite remember how I found InWorldz. I knew there were other grids out there but I figured they were all like Open Sim so I ignored it. But someone or something got me curious so I opened an InWorldz account. I rezzed in there looking really new. No skin tone, slight build, bad hair and awful clolthes. But everyone there greeted me and they were friendly and pointed out the freebie shops all around where I was, so I went 'shopping' with no money. Come to find out, at least one of the avis who greeted me was one of the owners of IWz. I think it's pretty cool that they care that much for their customers. It is one of the main reasons I'll keep hanging out there. So I got myself together and ended up purchasing a skin and making my own shape. But I was able to find my SL hair creator's shop in IWz! So not only does my avi have the same name and shape as my SL avi, it also has the same hair. Both avis in both worlds look very much the same, but the SL one has much better skin and looks, along with a much better choice in wardrobe. But there are other differences between the two worlds.

Jaynee Turbo in InWorldz for modeling my ladies creations.
Please guys, stop hitting on me. It's creepy!

In IWz, you can own a sim for $75 US per month. You can also have up to 45,000 prims. Much more than SL. There is also no size restrictions to your prims. One of the bad things about IWz is that there's hardly anyone there. Probably 200 maximum is all I've ever seen at any one time. The IWz web site claims there are lots more users than that though, and they will all need clothes and that's one thing I can make. So I struck out to make an income in IWz so I would not need to bring in anymore real money. I made a couple of tee shirts and pants and even a leather and lace scanty ladies outfit to sell there. Well, I didn't have a shop to put the vendors out in but I was approached by a woman who had just purchased a sim and she wanted a shopping mall. Shopping malls are great because it's a place for creators to gather and sell all of their creations and it's great for the shopper because everything is all in one place. Just like real life. And the sim owner collects rental on all the shops so her costs are offset too. It's all good. This sim owner was offering me a free shop for life if I built her shopping mall. That is a good deal. The only problem is, she had a say in everything, every step of the way. Don't get me wrong, I truly did value her input, but it sure did slow me down and I had only 2 weeks to build it. As it turned out, she wanted it completed in one week. That was a very tall order because as it turned out, the mall covered the entire sim, and not on the ground either. I built it over 1000 meters in the sky. Like I said, tall order. So I finished her mall but I have yet to get a free shop as she is filled up solid with shop renters and that doesn't bother me that much. I'm happy that she's doing well. But until I get my free shop, I won't mention any names ;-)

So I broke down and purchased my own 1/4 sim and had my friend Whisper and her man move in with me. I did that for about 8 months and while I had a vendor or two in Whisper's shop at another mall, I didn't sell enough to offset the cost of the land, so I let the land go. About a month after that, Whisper purchased her own sim, a full one and offered to let me have a skybox home on it for free. I still pay her I$50 (Izzies) per month for my little kiosk shop there, but that's my only expense. I sell an item or two once in a while there and that pretty much covers my expenses. But I cannot wait to get into my friend's shopping mall. That should increase business enough to work on expanding. So it pays to be in InWorldz, but the parties there are few and far between. Ichie sings there live once per week where my kiosk is, but I have to DJ in SL at the same time of night so I can hardly ever make it to one of her performances. InWorldz also does not have a method for scripts to run across sim borders. So if you have a HUD operating and you go across sim lines, the scrips all reset and it's quite a pain in the ass. Also, no vehicle scripts there. Despite all those shortcomings, IWz is a fun place to visit and you should check it out. If enough of us SL people went over there, they would expand enough where they could invest in fixing these shortcomings and it would be more of a feature rich environment.

Otto Turbo in Island Oaisis

Island Oasis is another nice virtual grid to not only visit but live on. I have just recently started an IO account but so far I'm having difficulties in creating a decent looking avatar. But one thing about IO that stands out above all the rest is free land! That's right, you can live there for free. You get a small parcel which has a rental box on it. Just click on that box at least once per week and you are living for free. You get 250 prims you can use on that parcel too. So I'm starting to build a house there. I might put up a skybox too as a place to entertain guests. I have already made 2 friends there in 2 visits. I told them I was looking for some decent hair, mine was really bad, and one of them gave me free hair, but it was attached to a cowboy hat... and it was blonde. I like darker hair. So I graciously accepted the offered gift and I am now in the process of changing the hair color and I will soon be removing the hat from the hair. This is the first time I've ever worked with avi hair and it's a bit tricky, but the hair I come up with will be much better than the free hair I had. I'm still not yet certain what I'll be doing in Island Oasis, but I'm liking it so far. The cost of a sim there is $75 US which is exactly like the other places with 45,000 prims supported too. So much more affordable than SL. Unfortunately, there never seem to be more than 400 people logged in there at any one time. Still, that's a fair number of potential friends to make.

Otto Rocco in AviNation

Finally, AviNation is another grid I'm on. I've only recently started an account there too and have not brought in any real money there, so I'm having a hard time making my avatar look okay, but it's a nice place to explore and again, it's probably not easy to live for free there. I did find a bunch of freebies but they are also less than top quality items. I will probably be making my own clothes there too. Unlike the other places, I have not met anyone at AviNation. I believe it is European run so my time of night was probably not their prime time. So it's hard to say how many people are online at any one time. But I do enjoy trying to find bits and pieces to help build my avatar up to looking half way decent. One of the first things I did was get a free Animation Override (AO). Your avatar can look pretty silly walking around with stick-like movements. Then it was skin that was not pasty and hair. I have the worst luck with hair. I look really bad but given time I'll either make some or find some. AviNation is by far the least expensive place to live. It costs less than $29 US to live on a full 45,000 prim sim for a month. But a big problem with AviNation is there is nobody there. Last time I logged on, the viewer informed me there were 67 other residents there. It would be difficult to earn back your investment by selling stuff on your sim when there are only 67 people at a time on the entire grid. It remains to be seen what I'll do with my account there. Another bad thing is I was unable to choose my surname, so it's one of the only grids I'm not known as Otto Turbo on.

So why is SL so much different? Why do they charge so much for their land fees? $300 per month vs. $75 per month or even $29? They were the first. They led the way. But I can already see signs of costs going down in SL. They keep adding features such as mesh objects, which makes for a much richer environment, but they also cost a lot. I suppose that they will keep charging a lot too, just so long as they have users willing to pay it. What I do to offset my costs is to DJ three nights a week. The tips and payments from those events cut my expenses down to a reasonable amount. No, they do not cover my expenses completely, but they make it so I can afford a nice rich environment to share with .:cat:. and Neva. Unless I could come up with a comparable environment on any of these other grids, I doubt the girls would enjoy them very much. But we'll see. It's very possible one of these grids might get serious about competing with SL and begin to provide a rich virtual world as well.

A Little Free Time

I have been DJing a lot lately and loving every minute of it. But there are other things to do in SL and one of my favorites is exploring.

I used to believe that you could visit any very busy place and run into some interesting people either via local text chat or voice chat, but that's not so much the case anymore. Just a quick note on voice chat: Basically you can use a microphone to talk to people in your location in SL instead of typing. It's also much like Instant Messages. You can also carry on a conference call with voice chat so that a group of you can talk but do not need to be nearby each other inworld. So with voice chat turned on, but not my mic, I use search terms to find places to visit and hang out.

But lately I've found it's best to stay away from the PG rated places. It seems that the adult rating verification that one has to endure also screens out a lot of undesirables who do not want to make the extra effort to be rated as adult and thus being made able to visit practically anywhere in SL. So I tend to stick to the Mature or Adult rated places. Depending on what sort of conversation or event I'm looking for, I'll type in keywords like "friendly, tolerant, romantic, sexy, fun, explore", etc. Then I just compare the traffic rating (something assigned by Linden Labs to a particular location and updated every  day) to other results. If a place has a high traffic rating of 10,000 or more, then they usually have a nice sized crowd there. I've recently run into a place with a traffic rating higher than I've ever seen and that was nearly 100,000. I am so there!

Turns out it was a free sex and rape role-play place, which is fine. cat and I have lots of fun wandering around those places and checking out all the people and conversations. As it turns out though, most of the people here must have been in private conferences because not a word was being said that day. Which is fine too as it gives me a chance to check people out. There was a guy there whom I had to check out twice. His attire said it all. Free sex/role-play place, 24/7 orgy, there for one purpose only and that was sex. So if you could have anyone you found attractive in an orgy place and didn't have to worry about disease or unwanted pregnancy, what would you do on a Friday night/Saturday morning? This free sex place sounds like a good idea. But what would you wear if anything? This guy had on the perfect attire. Towel, slippers, coffee and for some reason, a cap. But where would you hang that pesky towel? He found the perfect spot. I even showed up the next day on a Sunday and he was still there. He must stay very busy all weekend.

My friend Gabby has found her man. He's actually an old man. This is their second time around. She's very very happy and that's what matters. Anyway, he knocked her up so she's SL pregnant. My views on SL pregnancy involve being able to do anything you want here because it's a virtual world, but please don't let your tummy talk to me, okay? You have to experience this to know what I'm talking about.

Dolls Of Death

I always look forward to Sunday nights at the Dolls Of Death. I DJ there and get to play heavy metal, rock and alternative rock. There is a "no play" list which restricts me from playing everything I'd like, and it keeps me from playing some requests too, but it's not a long list really.

Me, cat, Neva, her date and nearly the whole gang at DoD

This past Sunday was Breasts and Chests night. I guess we were supposed to show off our breasts and chests just like it touts. So I took my shirt off and alternately flexed my pectoral muscles for the hostess Kelle and the guests. Unfortunately, they were not impressed, but they did enjoy the music I played. It started out metal then hard rock and a little alternative then ended with rock.

But what was really cool about the whole event was the fact that my woman cat and my daughter Neva showed up. It's been way too long since we have all three been together so we had a wonderful time! I was informed that cat could only stay for a half hour due to RL commitments, but she managed to stretch it to a whole hour. And Neva looked stunningly attractive and even brought her own man along. The name escapes me now but cat assures me his looks are worthy of our daughter. So if he treats her right and she's happy, I'm a very happy Poppa.

Breasts and Chests night at Dolls of Death

I got some great tips that night from some great patrons. It was quite the party and so much fun! Lots of flirting and goofing around. Poor Kelle kept crashing but she kept coming back. I was mired down in my fair share of lag but so long as I didn't move my camera around too much, chat lag was at a minimum. Just a quick side note; chat lag is when you type something in the local chat window and the characters do not appear right away in local chat. It means the computer that is the server for that particular sim is bogged down and falling behind in its processing. It's a fairly common occurrence at busy night clubs.

But it was the end of the night was when I started having troubles. There was another guy there and we were flirting with all the girls. One of them suggested an orgy after the event. That sounded like a good idea to me since it's been so very long since being involved in one. So I tried moving my camera to the orgy room which is the next floor down from the club. Unfortunately, as soon as I moved my camera, it crashed my computer and crashed it hard. I locked up so badly that I had to hard-restart my computer. Fortunately, I was 3 minutes past the end of my DJing event. Unfortunately, I was unable to switch the music stream back to where it should be. By the time I was able to reboot and relog, Cinder, the owner of the sim, was able to let me know that he was able to reset the stream to where it needed to be. But so much time had passed that I guess they did not have the orgy afterwards. So I simply logged off. But what a great party that was!

It just goes to show, that you never know what's going to happen at any given party in SL.

Rising Sun's 3rd Anniversary

That's right. House of the Rising Sun just had its 3rd anniversary. I wrote about them last post. I love working there and the place and people of course, but I had not realized I had been hanging out there off and on for more than 3  years? I can remember when Lark told me about the place and we went there. It was in some sort of castle lower level. Alobar was there and Lark introduced me to him. The contest at that time was "purple" so I had like, a purple shirt on or something. Anyway, Alo was in purple too and on the other side of the castle, out of the 20 meter "ear-shot" range were pole dancers. The DJ was Lilac I'm pretty sure. She loved purple. Still does. I had a blast the short time I was there.

Later on, Lark took me to show me the club she was building for Alo and HRS. It was pretty basic but the textures really made it unique and it evolved over the years and was a great place. Alo used to have shops just outside of the (at that time) new club and I used to rent one there as my alt, Nugget. I used to attend at least two of the events per week too. I remember all sorts of people showing up there too and needless to say, that often made for a fair amount of drama. So around that time I sort of eased on out of the place, picking up shop and moving on for a while. I did a club of my own for a while (one of 6) and that kept me plenty busy. That fell through in a rather fast fashion and I pursued making clothing and items and stuff. Lark would keep me informed as to what was going on with the place from time to time. Then I remember a 1 year anniversary. I went to that and it was a blast! I think that was the time, or was it the 2nd, that I was asked to provide my lighthouse, which at that time I had been working on, as a gift for prize winning patrons. It was a full day of blues and prizes and partying. At that time, Lark was in the habit of making themed sets for the events. She made a New Orleans street set for this one. Quite detailed and very authentic.

After that she would often build themed sets for HRS over the years. I remember helping her with a Harry Potter set one time. At that time I had never seen a Harry Potter movie nor read any of the books, so I had no idea why my texture had to state Platform 9-3/4. Why not 9.75? Stuff like that. Then I was asked to make a steam punk themed setting for one weekend of events there. That was one of the trickiest things I ever did in SL. I worked more with scripts then than I ever had. I learned just enough to be dangerous, but it got the job done. The largest relief was when I was able to come and take it back into inventory. It seems everyone enjoyed it though and that's what it's all about.

So that was all as my alt Nugget. In the past year or so, I have been trending toward being Otto because of this latest try at running a club. Must be my 6th try? Anyway, I opened a shopping mall there, a huge one, that Nugget put his stuff and his affiliate vending stuff there too. Lark made a club for me and it was impressive. I opened up and used my entire sim for an "Adult Playground" which was mostly BDSM themed. I had a cuddle forest, castle with RLV (Restrained Life Viewer), BDSM palm trees on a nude beach, an underwater ballroom, a huge shopping mall and of course the club. That went on for quite some time but less than a year. If you read way back in this blog, you will see what it was like back then. But I also was a member of my brother Kaboom's group which let me broadcast events on their rather growing and large group.

So at that time, Alobar expanded and acquired some more property and put up Crimson Nights. There was a good sized pool and party area skybox there that was not getting used. I was goaded by Lark to throw parties there and I was all about helping Alo's traffic build and of course I was all about throwing parties that didn't cost me anything so I started having Kaboom's group show up at parties I would throw on Crimson Nights. It was basically a weekly demon party. Lots and lots of Kaboom's group would show up. I'd DJ and graciously accept tips and that was about it for a while until Alo put down a castle and RLV area on the ground of Crimson Nights. So we started having the parties in the castle. There were dance poles, animations and game there so it was perfect for parties! That went on for quite a while until I started throwing parties at my Cherry Street more frequently and I lost the ability to broadcast notices on Kaboom's group. An oversight I'm sure.

Alobar and his woman sami could come and visit my Cherry Street once in a while and even threw parties there themselves a couple of times. But my club was destined to fail without regular help. Sure, I had Emi who was wonderful! But I needed regular DJs too and I just couldn't hang onto any. Any DJ that works solely for tips is going to want a good sized crowd there and quite frankly, sometimes nobody would show up and I could not do the whole thing myself. Perhaps one day I will assemble a staff and give it another go. We'll see.

About that time, Alo moved and built a new place with Lark's help. It was awesome and it's constantly evolving but basically, it's House of the Rising Sun with Crimson Nights right next door. Great place to visit and hang out too, even when they were not having events. It got so popular that even Linden Labs chose it as one of their Editor's Picks places to visit for over a week. It shows up at the very top of searches too. So when the group announced they were looking for DJs, I just had to fill out the app. After all, my club had failed and I did have a night free on my schedule. They hired me immediately and I began DJing on Friday nights at 6pm SLT. What a blast! Some nights do not produce very good tips at all but others do. I'll gladly take the bad with the good in this case. The events do not cost me anything, so long as I don't play that wicked sploder of theirs.

So their 3rd anniversary came up and went quickly and without hardly any notice. I was going through my inventory looking for photos I have taken of the various evolutions of the Rising Sun to put into a rotating picture frame or better yet, a clickable picture frame to hand out to the people who give me DJing tips. But I don't have many pictures at all. I'll have to see if anyone else has any they'd like to see in there.

So be sure to come down and visit House of the Rising Sun once in a while even if there is no event going on there. It's an exciting place to hang out and explore. Look for me there on Tuesday and Friday nights too.

Busy, Busy, Busy

It sure has been a while since I've posted anything here. I'm keeping very busy lately but I should have more time soon to devote to SL and this blog. But real life (RL) must take precedence.

Most of what I have been doing is DJing. I DJ at House of the Rising Sun on Friday nights but I've added Tuesday nights as well. Then I also DJ at Dolls Of Death on Sunday nights. At Rising Sun I play mostly blues music and at DoD I play hard rock, metal and just some fun songs too. Each event lasts 2 hours and I usually need an hour of prep time, so there's 6 hours out of my SL time that gets used up. But I do enjoy DJing lately. I have been reluctant to in the past but a few things have happened.

Meeting Angel with cat

First of all, Oluthus has shown me a much much less expensive means of maintaining and paying for a music stream than the one I have been using for the past 4 years. Secondly, I have found a less expensive way of finding requests than Amazon.com. Thirdly, I have found a great way to thank people for their tips and that's to give them a gift of something I have made myself, such as a sex bed or tanning blanket. I even have some customized butt plugs for the more adventurous out there. What it boils down to is that I am able to give back not only music and a fun party, but some gifts as well. But what this means is that I should try to come up with a different gift for each event. Not easy to do. But as I find more time in SL, I'll find more time to create some useful, fun stuff.

Angel and her new man Crashed

I was able to meet a new but very elusive daughter of cat's (which makes her a daughter of mine), Angel. We visited on the beach for a while and cat had to go but Angel and I hung out for a while. It appears she enjoys battle competitions which I do too to an extent. I don't get into it to the point where I wear a HUD or anything, but I do like to hang out, battle and kill when I have time. Zombies are best but other avatars will do as well and that's what Angel is into. She also recently introduced me to her new man, Crash. They met while setting off bombs on each other. Yes, very romantic.

Rosa stopped over for a bit a while back. She and I had sort of a lack of trust issue which has taken me a bit to get over, but over it I am. I did a little catching up with her and made sure she knew she was welcome to our home anytime. I believe she is still with DancingDragon.

A Visit With Rosa

There was also some time for me to explore. cat has not been online very much at all lately and so when I did find time to logon, I was mostly alone. So I would go exploring, looking for places that she and I can visit when she returns. I found a great many places and Nim helped me find one, but on one sim I was exploring a waterfall and came across this snow leopard. He pretty much left me alone but made a few sounds that reminded me that I was a guest there and should not step on any tails.

I have also been hanging out at one of my favorite sims of all time in SL and that's 2Raw Extreme. It's a sim made up of several race tracks and you drive up impossible streets to get to them too. The place is huge, ever expanding and more fun that I care to admit. Basically, you go there to race your motor cycle or car. Anything that requires roads to work can be used, ridden or driven there. I usually rez my Harley and race to the very top. The track at the very top is probably the best one they have. However, the very top has changed recently. They are adding onto it all the time. I can't wait to explore this new part and report on it here to you.

The Awesome Racing Sim

Hopefully, I'll have more free time for SL coming up soon. Look for more frequent posts here.

Second Life Groups

Groups are very important in SL. Groups are formed by people of like interests. They can also be formed to provide special rights to members and restrict the rights of other members. Groups are a great way for people of like minds to keep in touch via group notices. Groups can update you to shopping sales or changes of location via landmarks or inform you of events or meetings. Groups are very important in SL.

In SL, you are limited to 42 groups. You can join no more than that, but you can leave a group at anytime. Some groups are open for free enrollment. These types of groups are usually shopping groups or club/party groups. Once you join, you may be given rights to remark in the group chat or rez items on group land. You will also likely be on the group's notify list. If this is the case, you can be sent group chats or group announcements at any time. Group chats occur in your chat box window. A new tab will open when  group chat is initiated. You are probably able to participate in that chat if you wish. If you choose to close that group chat, it's likely you will not receive another notice from that group during your current session. A group announcement comes in the form of a blue drop-down window which can contain a text message and an attachment. In the case of a club/party group, the message might contain the time and location of the event. A file can be attached to the announcement such as a landmark or notecard.

All groups can show up in your profile. The title or name of the group is important. It can inform anyone examining your profile as to what sort of things or activities or interests you enjoy in SL. A group listed in your profile can be opened up and read about. The group description pretty much says it all. And open enrollment groups can be joined right then and there, just by someone examining your profile. But you can also hide any group in your profile. You can also choose to not receive group notice too. Some groups do not send out notices to members at all. Some groups are formed solely for the sake of controlling land. Anytime I purchase land I "deed" it to my group. This allows me to let group members do as they wish or need while in my group and on my land. I may also "deed" equipment, such as a media controller, to the group. In this way, the other group members can control it, just so long as I have given them permissions.

Permissions in groups is very complicated. After nearly 4 years of setting group permissions, I still fuck up. But I'll give an example here so that it illustrates how powerful these groups can be. I have a parcel of land and have deeded it to my group. So now, I no longer show up as the owner of the land, rather my group is the owner of the land (Group Owned). I have different levels of people in my group. There are owners, which is usually just me, officers and managers and then everyone else. The officers will have rights to the land's media streams such as music and video. They can change the media being streamed into the land using either a device which I have deeded to the group or they can manually insert their own streaming media URL into the parcel's land options. The members listed under Everyone Else cannot do this. Officers and managers will also be allowed to eject and ban SL avatars if they so choose. Reasons for this may vary, but it's mostly due to griefers trying to cause trouble. Other privileges may include being able to rez objects, run scripts and fly. Most everyone has those abilities though. If it's ever abused then I will usually seek out the culprit and ban them. Nothing personal, it's just that drama and chaos is not always fun for everyone. Group officers may also be able to create notices and such.

While it is very important to get the word out prior to a party or event, it's not always welcome. For example, I belong to a group that has parties 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. I belong to that group not to party but because my sub and I like to hang out there. But because an event lasts two hours, I will get two notices from them every two hours. It's mildly annoying getting those blue drop down windows, especially if I'm in the middle of doing someone. But I keep the notices activated because it's important for me to know what is going on with them. Another real good example is a place I DJ at. Of course they are going to be in my groups. It is important that I know of every announcement they broadcast. And while they don't operate 24/7, they do have oodles of events. And I belong to not one but two of their groups. I had 3 groups of theirs but I left his DJ group because let's face it, it didn't have any announcements unique from the regular groups. So of these two groups they put out an announcement for an event on each of them, plus an announcement in both group chats, plus some sort of local chat announcement for the same event from a bot. Don't ask me how this is done, I don't understand it yet but I would imagine that if I ever open a club again, you can bet I'll be finding out how it's done. It's a great way to get an event announced but think about it; I get 5 notices for the exact same event! That gets pretty annoying but there's no way I can leave any of these groups, so I put up with it.

Nezzy and me

Some groups require that you pay a fee to join. These are usually highly specialized groups who want to make sure that you are serious about their interests before you join, hence the fee. I belong to at least one of these groups. It's Frank's The Other Place. It's a formal dance place that has an open enrollment group plus this closed enrollment group. I had already belonged to the open enrollment group when Whisper had asked me to come and dance with her while we visited and "caught up". She was in the paid group member's part and I was unable to get in because that parcel only allowed paying group access. So I finally paid, L$500 I think, and was able to get in to dance. But that was the only time I have ever used that group. I haven't left the group yet because it pains me to have thrown L$500 away but I suppose I should so that I can use the empty slot to join a group that I would be more likely to use such as game playing or racing groups.

Okay, why is that picture of Nezzy and me here? No reason at all. It did not pertain to the subject of the post. It was just on my desktop and I wanted to post it. That's her and I on cat's new cabana. Why are we naked? Why not!?

Second Life, Take Me Away!

Kind of like the Calgon commercials a while back (okay, I've dated myself), where the housewife gets to take a bath in Calgon crystals and it takes her away from life's everyday hardships. That's one of the reasons I use SL: Take me away from the rough day of work I had.

But sometimes when logging onto SL, things aren't always a fantasy, wonderful virtual life. Instead, people can have problems and issues and sometimes just need an ear to bend or even a shoulder to cry on. But that was not the case on this day. On this day, I desperately needed to get away from my real life and enjoy some time in SL.

On this day, I was able to logon and go swimming in my lagoon. I jet skied around the island. I flew my helicopter around the place, played a few games of Greedy Greedy breaking my high score by quite a bit! I went and snooped through my daughter Neva's house, my new neighbors house and even went exploring some new places I'd found in search for cat and I to hang out at.

I went up to the building platform and started making beach blankets. I already have beach blankets down on the beach. If you lay down on them, you can choose between several animations and lay there taking in the sun. It's a great way to hang out with and visit with friends. But I wanted different blanket textures. While I was out shopping for L$60 things, I ran across a full permission animation. It was not much. Pretty lame actually, but I got it anyway for my new beach blanket. I suppose I could make my own animations but that takes time and I never know how much free time I'm going to have in SL, so I went for it. I then went to the most invasive internet presence in the world, google, and downloaded a whole bunch of beach blanket textures. Only a few of them needed editing and Photoshop made quick work of that.

Upon uploading the textures to SL and applying them to my beach blankets, which I added a sculpted pillow to, I added an animation player and adjusted the pose to look realistic. I then made a bunch of copies and placed them out on the beach. They looked good and only cost me the expense of uploading the textures to SL at L$10 apiece. Then I remembered, I had some sort of texture changing script that I picked up a few weeks prior. I had to wonder if I could use that script somehow for these blankets.

After some fiddling around, I found that yes, I could click once on the beach blanket to sit and run the tanning animation and a second time to activate the texture changing menu. What was really nice about this texture changing script was the fact that I didn't have to load the blanket with textures and have the script choose them. All I had to do was load the UUID number (Universally Uniquie IDentifier) for the texture. Now a single beach blanket can have any of the textures I uploaded. I have tie-dye, superman, striped and swirled to name just a few. I will have them up for sale sometime soon, just as soon as I get more time online.

Then cat logged on. Let's just say that she and I had the very best time imaginable. I lost myself in her and lost all track of time. Before I knew it, it was way past time to logoff. It was the perfect way to escape RL for me.

Ari and Hell Hound's Wedding

My daughter Ari and her man Hell Hound are into VAW (Virtual Attitude Wrestling) wrestling. So after a long courtship, and when it became time for them to wed, of course it's going to be an exciting production at one of the many wrestling venues in SL. But first, there were a few events to watch. Three wrestling matches in the ring before the wedding of Hell Hound and Ari.

In attendance left to righ, cat Olu, Neva and Chica

I'd never been to a wrestling event in SL so this was all new to me. When we first arrived, the place was so laggy that it took several minutes to be able to sit in the audience. Olu was there and informed me that there were 50 people on the sim. Well that explains the lag! But after a while, we were all able to sit. Olu, Neva and Chica and I all sat together. Chica left a seat open next to me for cat to occupy when she showed up. But as it turned out, the wedding was relocated. Good thing too because at that point my computer locked up and closed the SL viewer. So I relogged to my last location and was offered teleport to the new location, which was much less laggy by the way, from Neva. Refreshing. So our party and a bunch of the regular wrestling audience all had fun with the seats. The way they work is that you simply sit in them, but it's not all that simple. You do not necessarily sit where you click. After you sit you are allowed the choice of adjusting your sit or swapping sits. If you swap, you end up anywhere in the row of about 8 seats. Whatever happened to pose balls? With pose balls, you knew which seat you were going to end up in, the seat with the pose ball on it! It was pretty simple. I can understand wanting to hide pose balls but if you cannot control where and how you sit, what is the point? But finally, after lots of laughing at the ridiculousness of trying to manage the audience seating, we got settled.

At that moment, two things happened. I was offered teleport by Hell Hound to get setup back stage and cat logged on. I waited for her to rez so that I could say hello before tping backstage. I met up with Hell Hound back there and we worked on the gadget that would allow me to walk Ari down the isle to the altar. I also met up with Ari's daughter (my granddaughter) Arianna. Not to be confused with her mother Ari having pretty much the same name. Anywayz....

The vows

There were three wrestling matches before the wedding. It was sort of fun to watch the wrestlers in their costumes and performing their animated moves. Just like RL, the winner of the match is decided ahead of time, but it's still fun to watch. But the best part was the two announcers. They sat off of the side of the ring and were in local voice chat with the whole place. Because my voice chat radius is restricted to 20 meters from my camera's position, I had to cam over by them to listen. They were lively and funny and reminded me of Cheech and Chong. I wish I could remember their names. You should check them out sometime if you ever get a chance. Just search for VAW group inworld and go from there.

Then there was the wedding. After the last match, the ropes came down from the ring and the altar and decorations were setup immediately. I moved the isle walking gadget in place as Hell Hound and the minister took their places. And there was Ari next to me, in a gown that I must say was breathtaking. I saw the picture of it that Ari passed to me a while back, but that picture did not do the dress justice. Maybe it was made better because Ari was wearing it? Yeah, I bet that's it.

Chica, Neva, cat, Arianna, Ari, HellHound, Me and Olu

I walked her down the isle and gave her away. I took my place off to the side with Arianna who was the flower girl and had gone on down the isle before us. I kept her close to me and it's a good thing too, because after the vows and the presentation, Raiders Redstar jumped out from the shadows and clobbered Hell Hound with a wooden bat. He scooped up Ari and ran off with her! The crowd went wild! Hell Hound quickly recovered and chased off after his new bride, eventually finding them and freeing her from Raiders' keep. His motives are still unknown to me at this time.

Afterwards, we went to Cherry Street club to have a nice reception. There was dancing and pictures taken and a good time had by all. After that, cat showed me a new floating dock she put in the water behind the house. We did much more than just float. The perfect end to an amazing evening.

Home Sweet Home

I think it's safe to say that Goetz is now our new home. We had issues early on with stuff vanishing but nothing has happened in the past week so I'm thinking we might be okay. There were problems that Linden Labs were dealing with at the time we were filling our new parcel with stuff. I've had a handful of doors vanish, which is not a huge deal because those still reside in my inventory. But losing cat's beach loungers was a hard pill to swallow. She and I, and I would imagine countless others, have made some very fond memories on those things.

And we have some new neighbors now. The old ones who were not happy with us for unknown reasons, have moved on and a new bunch of D/s minded people have moved in. They have a wonderful house and nice roadways over there. I'm looking forward to meeting them someday.

Me, Olu and Neva chillin' at her place

Hanging out at the nude beach and at Neva's and playing Greedy Greedy has been a real treat. This is what it's supposed to be like. It's so wonderful to have my daughter and my woman with me at home where we all belong. I have other daughters and sons in SL too, but they have their own places and their lifestyles are a little bit different than ours. But for cat, Neva and myself, we tend to think a lot alike and like the same sort of things, people and experiences. We like the same things out of our SL so it only makes sense that we stick together.

Neva has had a few guests over to the new place, but I have not had a whole lot of free time yet to socialize. One afternoon, cat and I were christening the beach when my hostess with the mostest, quietygr popped in. She said she saw me stuck in the sand on the beach and left. Apparently she did not she that I was stuck in cat instead of a sand dune. Both cat and Neva have had guests but quiet is the only guest of mine so far. I plan on bringing lots of my friends over soon. Ambriel is rezzing there when she gets time and I think that Nezzy is too. So things are starting to settle down and it's feeling more and more like home every day.

Goetz

Now this worked out pretty well! We shopped for and found some good land. It is 1/2 of a full sim. 7500 prims. My exciting submissive cat and I along with our amazing daughter Neva purchased the place and are in the process of setting up home there. I say "in the process" because for some unexpected reasons, this move is more difficult than the last move from Styll to Sensual Freedom.

The differences between the two locations is that now we have a huge house on the ground. On Sensual Freedom and Styll, we have a simple skybox. So this has made the move a little more complicated. And due to a large barrier that needed to be erected between our parcel and the neighbors, there is no room for the club on the ground not to mention room for the shop.

Giant 1/2 sim wide wall of privacy

On Sensual Freedom we had 3 other neighbors as it was a 1/4 sim sized parcel. We never had any issues with the neighbors on that place. Goetz is a different story. The neighbors started contacting me immediately complaining that my guests needed to stay off of their land. Well, I'm okay with that except for the fact that I had only owned the parcel for 8 hours. How could my guests become a problem and how could they be my guests when nobody but cat, Neva and myself even knew where the place was? See how this is shaping up? The neighbors are blaming things on me before they even have all the facts. Not a day goes by that they (meaning there are at least 4 of them) don't contact me with one complaint or another. They want to keep their land parcel private, which I respect, but they are on a residential/commercial sim. They own a nightclub FFS. What do they expect?

So I had cat put up a huge border which covers half of the parcel and Neva is going to put up another one to completely block them off. I've never had so much problems with neighbors before. They need to understand that others have rights too.

All of that aside, the new home is wonderful! I let cat and Neva have at it and decorate the place. Needless to say, they did a fantastic job! I'm still working on the club move and the builder's sandbox, etc., but these girls have everything else pretty much finished. Of course land is always a work in progress here in SL, so I expect many upgrades and improvements as they become required or available. I have put up the sex/orgy/dungeon place along with the castle and our new couples cuddle forest attraction. These all exist above the ground level. I have scattered teleporters all over the land so be sure and use them to find the fun places to visit. More fun and places to come too! Be sure to visit http://slurl.com/secondlife/Goetz/183/151/23 This will bring you to the nude beach so be sure and take your clothes off before clicking :-)