Enjoying Time in SL

The adventures in Second Life lately have been good. One would think that after almost six years as an avatar in SL that I would become bored with it. Quite the opposite is true though. People are always being more and more creative there and making wonderful worlds to visit, objects/gadgets to use or play with and, as I have recently found out, groups to join with lessons to master. All of this is made possible due to all my online free time and that is a direct result of being freed from DJing. While that all sounds like a better online experience, I can't help missing my DJing events. I am already entertaining the idea of returning to that with possibly less scheduled events, freeing up more time for exploring and such.

Shopping for a new collar

Much of my free time enjoyment is made possible by cat. Much of the stuff we do cannot be accomplished without the other. We play in BDSM dungeons and go shopping and sometimes just play a game or two with starie. It's all wonderful fun. But as I mentioned above, there are groups which require commitment. Any time I have joined a demanding group in the past, I have had to pay money to belong. That's about as demanding as it got. Well, in the case of the group cat wants to join, they don't want your money, they want your time and efforts. And while I can certainly understand why she may want to be a member of this group, I also understand that it's not the sort of thing I am interested in. It's a group that has specific roles for women as opposed to the specific roles for men. Not my "cup of tea" as it were. So when she joins this group, I will most certainly miss her and that makes me sad. But it's not until next winter that she will have enough online time to devote to that group so there's no sense in me worrying about it now. I am going to enjoy her company to the fullest until then and I'll deal with her absence next year.

Speaking of cat, it is coming up on three years since I have collared her. Starie was showing me some collars made by a designer with very good tastes, so I showed them to cat and she loved a couple of them so I got her a new one. That is the first time she has taken off her old collar since I locked it on her nearly three years ago. It's a testament to her devotion to me.

cat's new collar

 So I'm looking for something to keep me occupied in SL that is removed from what I do now, which is exploring, taking cat out, playing games and building stuff. While all of these are fun to do, as I stated, I am missing DJing. So I might do that plus something else. I never considered joining a group that demands a time commitment but that might be an option. After all, my SL daughter Neva belongs to a role playing group and she really enjoys it. Cat will be in a group like that next winter too. I will begin hunting for a group like that tonight.

Post DJ Times

Due to on again and off again issues with my internet "service", I am unable to run my music streaming software and Second Life viewer at the same time without anticipating a locked up computer at least a few times in two hours. Not worth the headache. So I have been spending all of my time in SL either socializing or creating things. And wow, I sure have missed that! I had no idea. I'm back to having fun again. Don't get me wrong, I love to DJ, but it was becoming too much like work and consumed most of my online time. So for this posting at least, I will not be talking about DJing at this place or that, I'll be talking about fun times in SL.

Me in a new chair cat got for us. Yes, that is a black doily I
am wearing for a necktie. All the white ones were stained.

My friend Oluthus and cat and starie and a friend of his all got together to sit on the top of a pyramid at the Champions of Death sim. Like I used to be, he was a DJ there but has since backed off from DJing and SL altogether. He's rarely online anymore but when he is, he's not obligated to be in any one place for a certain amount of time. It's quite liberating. Believe me Olu, I know the feeling. So we were sitting on the top of this pyramid and me and cat kept sliding down the edge. I finally figured out that I had to "sit" on the edge of it. It somehow keeps you from sliding down a steep slope. It's obviously an SL thing. Unfortunately, before we figure that out, cat had to go afk and ended up sliding down nearly the entire height of the pyramid. But she was able to get situated once she returned. We talked about all sorts of things, including our RL vehicles and where we lived geographically. Come to find out, 3 of the 5 of us were pretty close to each other. It was good to visit with Olu without having to worry about DJing.

One day while cat was hanging out at House of V, she was passed a landmark by some guy that lead her to a sim called Austin Island. It's an entire sim dedicated to the lifestyle of the novel, Story of O. The dominant males there are considered "enlightened" and the women, "educated". It's a really nice place with lots to see and do so we have been hanging out there as much as is feasible lately. I have not been online much really but cat has and has met some great people there. We were both invited to their cafe group while the main group of the sim involves hours and days and weeks of dedication and "scenes" before being accepted. Unfortunately for cat and myself, that kind of time is unattainable. We have busy 1st lives too. So we are not allowed access to a chateau they have there but that's okay, the rest of the sim has plenty to do. They also hold group discussions there. It's a good place and if you ever get a chance, visit there.

Me and cat and starie at Austin Island

Me and PattiQ at Ohana with Nanners as the hostess

I made my way back to Ohana rock club the other night (late) and saw Nanners there. I brought PattiQ with me and we hung out and danced for a while. This was the place I spent much of my time DJing. At least 4 hours per every Thursday evening. When I was finished, I didn't feel much like doing anything else. Four hours is a very long time to be sitting behind a computer keyboard. Actually, it was more like 5 hours because they wanted you there early and to stay late too. But it sure is a fun place to hang out at! They play classic rock for the most part with lots of newer stuff sprinkled in for good measure.

Exploration has allowed me time to check out some wonderful space station builds. I have been inspired by a few so I couldn't help myself. I had to start building another. It's coming along quite well and so far, is less than 10 prims.

SL has become fun again. As much as I enjoy DJing, I doubt I'll be doing it again unless it's for my own club, which might be opening up this summer. You never know.

The Old Days and SL Economics

Correct me if I'm wrong but most people do not work for free. Most people study, become able and go out and work for compensation. That's the way of the world. Oh sure, there are charities that perform services for people for free, but the people that work for them are compensated for their time and expertise. The charities themselves are supported by donations from people who are compensated for their work. It's the way of the world. People earn and make money and often times invest and consume and purchase things and services. That's the way life is. This sort of earning and spending is called an "economy". Economies have to be balanced or bad things happen. Rich get richer and poor get poorer. The so called middle class fades away and you get a lot of angry underpaid citizens. And that may last for a while but it eventually evens out. It has to or governments and economies topple.

Money is based on something of value. In the case of the U.S., money is backed up by gold. Next to gold, only land is worthy of high value. Land prices affect any economy more than just about anything I could name. So land prices have to be worth what you pay for it or at least, very close to it. You could say merchandise and services are based on land prices. If the economy is strong, land prices can be healthy and the cost of goods and services will be right up there too. After all, in order for a merchant to sell their products or services, they have to have a shop. They have to pay for land to fill this shop with what you want to buy. But if the profit from the merchandise does not cover the cost of owning land, then you have an imbalance in the economy. Second Life has such an imbalance now, and it's been going on for a very long time now.

Back when I discovered the wonderful world of SL, I purchased everything I wanted. Clothing, land, house, vehicles, hair, eyes, skin, and everything else. It was expensive! But I had to have things like Animation Overrides (AOs), radar HUDs and HUDs that allowed you to fly faster and higher. These items made the SL experience much more realistic and wonderful (oh I know, you can't fly in real life but so what? I'm sure you would if you could!). I had a plot of land, a house, a bed that allowed myself and my friends to do unspeakable fun things in it and even sofas to sit on and visit. I had a motorcycle and car and helicopter. I had clothes! So many clothes I could eventually not keep track of them all. And everything was expensive. The land cost, for a very modest 1024 x 1024 plot was L$800 per week. That was about 5 years or so ago. Guess how much that same parcel costs today? That's right! L$800 per week. But the cost of everything else has dropped considerably. Why? Because the Real Life economy is in rough shape and has been for several years.

Ohana Rock Club Christmas Decorations

The cost of a complete men's outfit used to be around L$400 to L$600. Now it's usually under L$100. I purchased a complete space shuttle fashioned after Star Trek's Deep Space 9 Runabout for L$89. It has sounds, tons of animations and sits and even a hover-cycle in it. It comes in two versions: One you can rezz on your land and fly or one you can wear for sims that don't allow you to rezz. All that and much more for L$89. I had to find a quick outfit for a New Year's Eve party. I found a sculpted top hat with mesh lettering and a particle effect for L$5. I would place the cost of that shuttle back in 2008 at around L$2000 and the hat at L$100. And these are just a couple of examples. There are countless more. So if the price on products has come down so much, why haven't land prices? I can only chalk it up to greed.

Merchants and creators are dropping their prices so much because they want to sell their items. People are not willing to spend much money anymore on clothes and vehicles and "toys". In order for merchants to move these items, they have to lower their prices. They realize the economy is slow and they are compensating for it. Yet the land prices stay the same. The creators/merchants have the same cost for their shop tier, but they are making much less profit. But Linden Labs is still making the same amount on land as they always have. That's not right and something's got to give.

Back in 2009, I was discussing with my then fiance' Dylan, the number of people online at any given time. It was typical at that time to see around 75,000 people online. She predicted that there would be 80,000 online on Valentine's Day that year and as it turned out she was quite wrong. Not everyone uses SL as a dating service. But that's beside the point. Today, it's rare to see as many as 55,000 people online. It's usually quite a few less. That's what's going to give. That's what is giving way now. The number of users has dropped dramatically.

SL has lots of new features compared to 2008. They have mesh now that can be designed offline and uploaded into the virtual world. They have mono scripts which runs with much less resources than the old scripts ran with. They have Server Side Includes. Well, that's supposed to be better but I personally have only seen things get worse due to that "feature" but that might be my video card too. Who knows... But my point is, while things are supposed to be getting better, the experience is a lot worse than it used to be.

Right now, I have the fastest computer I have ever had or imagined. Yet when I think back to my old IBM 386, it was running SL with ease and often times with two viewers at the same time. That's right, I could have two avatars logged on at the same time and it only slightly affected performance. Today, even with my lightning fast system, I avoid running two viewers at all costs. Nothing rezzes properly, frame rates are low, too many avatars are partial or fully invisible, crashing is almost a daily occurrence, lag is horrible and land costs way too much. If it were not for the majority of merchants lowering their costs, it would be very difficult to be an SL user. And that statement reflects in the loss of at least 20,000 daily users.

None of this would be that bad if Linden Labs would recognize what is going on here and adjust their tier prices accordingly. Oh, and stop trying to improve something that's working pretty good just the way it is. At this point, they are losing too many users due to lack of an enjoyable experience and  yes, it has affected me too. I have friends who are helping me with the high land costs and I have not been purchasing any goods to speak of and my time in SL has been cut drastically mostly because I'm tired of crashing. Instead of wandering around, exploring and shopping and partying, I log into my home and Instant Message with friends. That's pretty much it anymore. No wonder SL's population is waning. They need to make the experience more enjoyable. I see too many new users logon and complain after a few weeks then show up less and less often until they are gone for good. Make SL affordable again and make it run smoother. That would make a huge difference for everyone.

Busy Busy Time

I would imagine that as you read this, you have noticed that I have not made any posts in a very long time. I need for that to change but in the mean time, my free time in SL is restricted. I have very little to post about seeing as all I do now is DJ. And while I do love to DJ, the events all seem to be the same.

On Sundays, I have a free night. But I often try to get over to Dolls of Death to support my lovely friend starie. She hosts there and the DJ there is a good one. Also, there is my friend Oui who is SL married to my friend Ken. She's a dancer there and I love to flirt with her.

On Monday nights, I DJ at Rosewould Plantation. The event starts at 5pm SLT and it's always a come-as-you-are event. Most of the times, only a handful of people show up. But there are those rare times when we get a very good crowd. I think normally my hostess is Candy but lately there have been standby people filling in. So basically, I need to be online by 4pm SLT and stay there until my set is finished at 7pm. But I usually stick around for a bit just in case the take-over DJ needs a hand.

Tuesday nights are a night off for me. Unfortunately I seem to spend most of that time in 1st life taking care of things/chores that need doing. But I do manage to get online for an hour or so in the ev

ening. I am asked to fill-in DJ at these times but I rarely do. I think I've only fill-in DJ'd a handful of times. I realize I'm going to fill-in more often but it seems like that's all I do anymore. One quick point here; I am asked to fill-in DJ all of the time, every day, but on nights that I work, I don't even bother to consider it as I'm DJing at those times.

Wednesday nights are "hump day" nights at Rosewould Plantation. Usually, there are more attendees there on Wednesday nights than on Monday nights. Again, this event is come-as-you-are and between 5pm and 7pm SLT. Again, I have to be online at 4pm just to set up a playlist. And again, I spend a bit of time there afterwards dancing and joking around.

Thursday nights are Ohana Rock Club nights. These events are come-as-you-are and take place at a rock club that is England based but runs 24/7. Their events are 3 hours long. So basically, I'm online for these for 4.5 hours at a time. That's a very long time to be in front of the computer!! But they are a very high traffic place and generally, I make good tips there. I start at 3pm SLT and go until 6pm. This means I have to be online at 2pm to setup a playlist. And recently, they have sent out a group notice asking that DJs and hosts stay for a while afterwards in case the relief host and DJ want to refer to us. So yeah, that's about 4.5 hours.

Then on Friday nights, I play at House of the Rising Sun. It's owned and operated by Alobar and sami. Alo is a very long time friend of mine from years ago, and I like the way he thinks an environment such as Rising Sun and the surrounding castle, RLV area and shops should be run. That's why I stay there. However recently he lost some of his internet radio DJ due to lack of traffic. It's true, I'm lucky to score L$300 there in tips and after I tip out it's more like clearing L$100. But I really like the place and the people there are quality and hard to find. I'm talking the owners, their managers, DJs, hosts, patrons and guests. Everything about the place is just plain fun and enjoyable. Well.... except for the blues. At least he allows for classic rock too because one can nearly overdose on blues, I'm here to tell ya.

Saturdays I spend the morning time on my L$60 Linden Weekend shopping spree. Sometimes it takes me hours go get through it but sometimes I find a good deal too. This last one was a ballgown that was unique for SL and simply gorgeous. And it was only L$60! I bought one for cat and I showed a friend's alt the dress too and I think she picked up a copy. I can't wait to see it on one of them. Then Saturday night is free if I can manage to get online. Again, I'm asked to fill-in DJ but there's no way I can be online for 4.5 hours so I have to turn them down. One Saturday morning I was asked to fill in and I agreed only to get pressure from 1st life because I had things to do later that afternoon and could not leave the computer. Yeah, 4.5 hours is a huge chunk out of a Saturday afternoon! I sure did have fun though, but it's not worth the 1st life grief I get.

In the end, the amount of tips I am paid just barely covers my weekly tier expense. One would think that working for 3 of the most popular clubs in SL would easily pay the bills and then some, but that's not the case. The main thing to realize is that while you might have made L$800 in tips, you end up tipping that same place back. Dolls of Death for example employs 3 dancers, a hostess and a DJ. Well, I normally tip the dancers L$50 and the hostess L$50 and the DJ L$100, mainly because DJs have extra expenses. So that's L$300, but keep in mind that during a 2 hour event, I do that twice. So I might make L$800 on Thursday night but I end up with only L$200 after tips. The solution? Don't go to places where people work for tips. But that kind of defeats the purpose of my logging onto SL in the first place. I enjoy those places. I suppose I could simply refrain from tipping but I have a feeling that's what a lot of people are thinking and that's why I'm not raking in thousands in tips like they used to in the old days.

Either way, I'm not making enough money for the time I have to spend online in SL. What I need to do eventually is to find an external source for money to cover my modest SL expenses. That way I will have more time for this blog and for other exciting things to check out in SL. Don't get me wrong, I do love to DJ, but doing it for the money is a mistake. It must be done for the enjoyment of throwing a party and celebrating life, not to try and cover expenses.

By the way, I have met some wonderful people here in SL of late as a direct result of my DJing. Some from Rising Sun have moved over to Ohana Rock Club with me and also someone from Rosewould Plantation. Ohana does pay well, even if it is the most time consuming and therefore the most demanding. They have some wonderful people working there and running the place. They screen their people before hiring them so there are no "divas" there. Just hard working, fun loving people. It's a great place to visit if you ever get a chance and they have events going on ALL the time, so you don't have to worry about when to show up. Just show up.

Busy Nights

The title of this post is an understatement. I never dreamed I'd be this busy in Second Life. Last night for example I attended a training session at Ohana Rock Club. They have accepted my application for DJ at their very busy place. I'm hoping the tips will be very good there. But the sets are three hours long so I need to make some adjustments in my 1st life. I sure hope this works out. I was impressed by how professional they are but they would have to be to account for their success. I'm looking forward to my first event there tomorrow during the daytime.

So that went quite well. The senior DJ and I practiced handing the music stream back and forth. They own their own stream so I don't have to worry about mine acting up or anything. Easy. Then it was off to setup a playlist for my event at RoseWould Plantation. That was two very fun hours! There were a decent number of people there. The tips were not bad and the conversations were fun. Once DJ Whiskey took over the music, I had to take off and I was just a bit late for Kenmax and Oui's wedding.

KenMax Waiting on Oui

But when I teleported home, Ken was waiting there for me and he was all set to go. I had to put on a tuxedo and boutonniere. Then we headed to the wedding ceremony place. I was the officiant so I went up first. There was a good crowd and it was wonderful to see a bunch of the Dolls of Death crowd, which is where Oui works, including Lydia. The ceremony went pretty well. We only had one issue with the reciting of the wedding ring vows, but that was because the rings came with their own chat. We didn't cover that in the rehearsal the night before. But no biggie. Ken recovered quickly and we made it through the ceremony perfectly after that. It was a very nice looking ceremony too. Lots of pictures were taken. Unfortunately, I was too busy to take any of my own so all I have to post up here is the one that KenMax took of us. I may get some pictures later from the photographer and if I do, I will be sure to post them here. Oui looked lovely. I could tell, she was very very happy. And that's what it's all about!

Then after that, we went to the reception on their parcel. It was very nice and I played some music requests there. That went on for at least an hour or so. It ended up being a very long night, but lots of fun. That was the second time I have married a couple. The first time was Darren and Zuri and I'm pretty sure that's one of my earliest blog entries. I do love going to weddings. Congratulations Ken and Oui!

So needless to say, I have been hanging out at the Ohana Rock Club as much as possible lately. They seem to be some fun people and they really know their stuff. They have a web site at http://www.ohanarockclub.com/ that you can visit and even listen to the music stream there. That is a handy feature of owning one music stream for an entire dance club. The place is able to crash my computer sometimes but other times it seems fine. And even if I do crash, when I return, the system becomes stable. I doubt it has much of anything to do with the location itself. It's something on my end and I continue to work to resolve it. But if my SL viewer crashes, my computer will still continue to stream music. All I really need to do in that case is log back on to my last location.

Time To Get Back To Some Fun

Unfortunately, I have been experiencing some health problems of late. But they are all taken care of now thanks to very highly paid doctors and hospital staff. Yes, I must be in the wrong 1st life business. But the point is, I have been forced to focus on RL instead of SL for a couple of months now. It's time to get back to SL for some fun.

Orgy night at RoseWould

First of all, I wish to thank everyone who was concerned for my well-being while I was away. I can't thank you all enough for your caring and concerns. Thank you cat and Neva for maintaining our land so that when I did finally make it back, I had a home to come back to. Thank you to my families at House of the Rising Sun and RoseWould Plantation and Dolls of Death for the welcomes back and well wishes. While in the hospital, very ill and nearly unable to write, I was able to logon to SL and chat with some people. First one I thought of was Alobar. He owns House of the Rising Sun and just happened to be online. So I sent him and Instant Message (IM) to let him know I was okay. Talk about a strange feeling! I became tired simply typing! So I had to cut it short and logoff and climb back in the bed. The whole ordeal was unlike anything I'd ever experienced and never hope to again.

Welcome back Otto at Rising Sun

At this same time, Len from RoseWould was having medical issues too. It just goes to prove that taking care of yourself is very important and that online friends can be just as close if not closer than face-to-face friends.

That being said, my welcomes back were awesome! I DJ'd for a bit at both places and even had a welcome back party at Rising sun. And while a few weeks later I ended up back at the hospital for a 4 day stay, I was having fun. Once the doctors figured out what was wrong with me, they treated me and I feel tons better. No more getting tired when I DJ'd or stayed online a long time. I even feel refreshed and ready to run around after a long set. So it's back to fun in SL again!

Keeping In Touch

Communications in Second Life are quite varied and easy. You can IM (Instant Message or type). You can voice chat or talk over the microphone. You can talk over skype or the phone. You can send offline messages back and forth too. But sometimes things happen when you least expect. You can lose internet temporarily and to plan for that, you can give certain people  you trust (non-stalker types) your cell phone number for texting. For example, I lost electrical power one time before a DJ event at Dolls of Death. I was able to use my smart phone to log onto SL and send an instant message to Cinder, owner of the club, to let him know I would be late or not be there at all. That type of backup communication can come in very handy.

I have a few people whom I trust with my home phone number and they trust me with theirs. If something were to happen where I could not be online for a while, I would be able to contact them and keep them posted as to what is going on. But no amount of planning prepared me for what happened to me the month of July.

On July 3, I fell very ill. So ill that I do not remember events and I was pretty much out of my mind. It was initially pneumonia but was later complicated with a breakdown of my immune system. I was in a 3 day coma and hospitalized for a month. During that time, I would have been unable to contact my SL family and friends. What happened was that my close and trusted SL friends/family were phoning my RL wife jojo. Fortunately, she knew most of them by their SL names and she was able to fill them in on what was happening to me. Unfortunately, the cell phone they were using to call on was about to be shut off due to non-payment of the service bill. My wife did not know how to pay it. She brought me the phone later on when I was off the breathing tube and my hands were no longer tied, along with a credit card, but I always paid it online. The problem was, I did not have a computer in intensive care and jojo did not know my username/password for my account. Hell, I could not even remember that information in my current state. So communication broke down for a while. So even with my SL family/friends knowing my cell and home phone information, communication was still a problem.

One of my SL friends just happened to live within 10 minutes of the hospital I was at so she would come out just about every night I was out of ICU and visited for several hours. We were able to do lots of catching up however she was not in the same circle of friends as my SL friends/family so she was unable to relay information to them about me. Still, it was wonderful having her there. It was also fortuitous that we had been RL friends since high school. We had lots to talk about and free movies to watch which were provided by the hospital.

Eventually, I was let out of ICU and into some other care unit. I borrowed my mother-in-law's laptop and was able to pay on my phone account which reactivated it. That didn't matter much though due to the fact that cell service there was very weak. Still, I was able to text most of my friends. My MIL's computer allowed me to logon to SL but it was very slow and even more difficult to type on. So logging onto SL was a huge chore. Needless to say, I did not do it very often.

Communication resumed almost in full by the time I was released from the hospital nearly a month later. I created a notecard which I could hand out that explained my long absence and while it seemed impersonal, it prevented me from having to explain to each and every one of my over 200 friends why I was away for so long. And while it is very highly unlikely that any of you will have to vanish from SL for that long, it sure is nice to have some sort of solid backup communication plan in place, just in case.

We are all real people here. We are a society. We deserve to know what happens to our dear friends. Make sure you have some sort of backup communication plan in place. Make sure your RL family members know about your close friends in SL and know how to handle the bills if you are ever incapacitated. And finally, to my dear friends from the past who have simply vanished without a word; I deserve to know. It hurts when you leave without a trace. The very least you can do is let the rest of us know you are leaving and not returning. We deserve to know. And thank you El for at least popping in once in a while to say hi. You have no idea how much that means to us.