Hey I know Sable isn’t going to be super pleased with me for this, but I have to give her a special shout out here. That’s because she’s one of my oldest bestest friends that I’ve got in Second Life, and it’s her very first Rezzday. My partner in many crimes, my back-up in many half baked endeavors, my sunshine on days when everything feels a dense fog, Sable Slade means a lot to all of us in Topgol for the same reasons. She is ever constantly Able, Stable Sable. No drama, no bullshit, quiet but smart and funny as hell when she chooses to say something. And did I mention she’s sexy and has a great ass? See, those aren’t even the first things that come to mind when I think of her! But it’s all perfectly true. She’s the kind of SL friend I wish lived across the street from me in RL.

So happy happy Sable! Thanks for making my Second Life so much more than it would ever be without you.

Blogged with Flock

Abby has a fairy godmother in SL – Alyssum Therian. She’s been trying to raise money to help Abby’s parents out during this difficult time. Right now you can go to her store, Love, Aly and buy this cute little elf outfit for only 100L. All of the proceeds go to Abby.

This is not the best photo of this adorable little ensemble, but you can see the whole thing over at Alyssum’s blog.  You are also most welcome to throw extra cash into the tip jar, or hell, forgo the elf outfit and just donate at Love, Aly.

Truth is, there are so many people out there who need help and support this holiday. There are very personal reasons why Abby’s story affected me so, and maybe it does you too. In any case, I hope that we all remember to stop and buy elf costumes or donate time to soup kitchens or buy toys for the kids in hospitals and go walk dogs in shelters and visit elderly folks in assisted living programs.

We’re not always going to be so damned lucky, you know? We need to stick together people. Stick together.

Well I thought I’d never see the day – not again – where my two old pals Romana Wei and Johnny Skosh would be in the same sim at the same time. But here’s proof. Romana is one of the original founders of the Topgol Philadelphia community and Johnny is one of the original Section 8 tenants. In January 2007 when I wandered into Topgol, Johnny was the first person I met. He looked like Robert Smith so I rented the place next door. That started our Topgol experience way in the back when.

Things changed – they always do in SL.  Romana started spending less and less time online. Johnny started spending more time online. He actually built his own empire and created the very swank up and coming Dead City (an undead themed retail and general hang-out sim).

There’s some fucking comment I wanted to make here about how time passes in SL and what that means to friendship or some shit like that, but I’m spent because I was sucked into SL until 3:45am and then woken up by my adorable labrador retriever at 8am for a rousing game of tug the slipper.

I was somewhat inspired to post today by the news that a good SL friend of mine had suddenly decided to log off indefinitely, saying something to the effect (I didn’t talk to her) that she had put too much of herself into SL and her RL was suffering, her friends were bitching that she’d changed. And I know exactly how that feels, to be honest.  It’s a bit tricky to draw the line between the two worlds sometimes as the Second has it’s very own reality. It’s literally like balancing two lives sometimes.

So to my friend – be well and enjoy the fresh autumn breezes. Take long walks and drink steaming mugs of whatever.  Know that you’ll be missed but that even so, you’re understood.

My friend, a RL graphic artist, took one of my old photos and gussied it up a bit.  To really appreciate it, click it and get the full size from FlickR.

Ah, to have photoshop skillz!

Nope, he’s not in SL. But we’re working on it!

(This was taken from on top of my loft in Topgol.)

This is the summer of parties. This is the summer we’ll be talking about in ten years. These are the good times. The place to be last night in Second Life was head MeanGirl JellyBean Madison’s third rezday party. That’s right, you read that correctly. Third. That makes Jelly an oldbie compared to the vast majority of residents, she’s like six times older than me right now. And three years in SL is like 30 in first life. But one of the many beautiful things about SL is that it gets better with age, just like first life, only you don’t have to work quite as hard. The party for the princess of pink (sorry JB and Hawks, “queen” doesn’t alliterate with “pink”) was filled with snapshots of Jelly and friends from their many adventures and was a trip through SL history. Hawks deejayed and had everyone groovin’ for hours, including a special set from him to Jelly and a true skanking rude boy ska mix that had my head bopping so much my neck is sore this morning as I write this. There was a mix of witty banter in text chat and a series of ever-bombing but yet strangely hysterical shoe jokes coming in from the group in voice. Lots of the bloggers showed up, natch, as well as a plethora of Jelly’s huge circle of awesome friends–including some names that had me shutting up and just takin’ pics. A pink time was had by all. See more after the jump.

Tiana looked stunning and cool as usual. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t wearing pink, but she was dancing on pink, and thank god she was holding a bottle of Mountain Dew or I would have had trouble talking to her. But a Dew is always an ice breaker. You can’t use that without my permission, MD marketing people. That’s mine.

Esteban came in full swat gear providing security and did a great job–not an incident was noted all evening, save one shoe-up-the-ass problem that was investigated and attributed to accrued karma resulting from bad-mouthing an earlier shoe joke.

October was there shakin’ it and putting us all to shame. I kept getting distracted and winding up out of sync in my tango with Myg. Man, did I pay for that later.

Speaking of tango, there we are at one of our better moments. For a few seconds, I felt like I knew what Borges was talking about.

There were many others there who I didn’t know, including the lovely Tilde (did I remember that name correctly?) who was brilliant in top hat, cane, and black lace.

My apologies to the rest of you lovely people who came dressed to the nines and partied like it was 1999 all over again. I’m still getting used to a new graphics card and not all the pics rezzed out like I hoped. I’ll get you into the social pages the next time around. Thanks JellyBean for sharing your rezday celebration with all of us and for making so many second lives just that much more pink. Here’s to many more!

And that was Monday night–after we’d been partying all Sunday afternoon at the pirate-themed July blogmeet, hosted by dinee. Turnout was so great, we crashed the sim. All told, I counted 32 different bloggers throughout the party, and we had about 26 avs in the room when it crashed. Follow the jump to see a round up all all the great blog coverage the even got, Tiana’s machinima of the party, and a gander at some of the pics we took there.

Tiana put together this great machinima with backing music from Pirates of the Carribean:

Looker Lumet talks about how great it was to crash the sim.

Veyron gets some good discussion going on possible themes for the next time.

Eladrienne logs in and posts for Caledon.

Hotspur recaps his three parties in two days.

Caterin discusses the intersection of pirates and pianos.

dinee posted a slide show of the party goers. Can you find yourself on the A list?

Elusyve elucidates the finer points of pirate conversation.

Here’s a group shot showing just how big it was–even after we crashed the sim:

I wasn’t taking attendance, but as the crowd grew, i took down all the names I could spot. If I missed you, let me know. Here are the 32 attendee and most of their blog links (if you read this and you were there and/or your blog wasn’t linked, let us know in the comments):

JellyBean and Hawks
Tiana Meriman
Zoe Connolly
dinee
DesertWolf Longstaff
Caterin Semyorka
Erbo Evans
Crippy Oh
Hotspur Otoole
Veyron
Otenth Paderborn
Lillie Yifu
Telemachus Dean
Gaynor Gritzi
theshadow Oh
Eladrienne Laval
Elusyve Jewell
Mikka Etzel
Bailey Toland
Looker Lumet
Dolmere Talamasca
London Spengler
Myg March
Lisa Takao
Sere Woollahra
Sophrosyne Stenvaag
Katrina (Mishow) Myriam
October Hush
Chloe Streeter
Myster
and yours truly makes 32.

dinee and dw
Our gracious hostess and her escort. I’d say they take the prize for cute couple this time around — despite the presence of Chloe & Tober, Jelly & Hawks, and Katrina and whoever she happened to be hugging at the moment — but something about their bearing just won’t let me call them cute. i’ll sail with them any day.

Bailey and Caterin
Bailey looks like she came hoping to be the damsel in distress, and got Caterin’s attention here enough to drag her away from the piano for a few moments.

Katrina and London
You can see just how tiny Kat is on the left–on the right, London is kneeling down to hug her.

Chloe and Tober
Poor Chloe was on dialup and couldn’t see anything. As frustrating as it was for her, it was great to see her inworld for a little while.

Myg and Lisa
It was great to see Lisa, fashion Mistress for M is for Myg, out in style and partying.

Veyron and Storm
Veyron showed up just long enough to demonstrate how hot she looks and get our attention before she had to attend to RL business.

Zoe and Erbo
Getting ready to shake out the aaarrrggghhh!

We give lessons.

Things had been quiet — too quiet, Sable and I agreed. All week, the streets of Little Philadelphia had been lifeless. Once, I’d approached a stranger, but she’d darted into the night. Where was everybody? I’d seen a late model caddy rolling through the streets, its tinted windows obscuring its secrets. Was foul play afoot?

We discussed all of this as Sable erected a new building in the northeast part of town — or, rather, erected a few, then tore them down. Nothing seemed to be working. I tried to be supportive.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him: an ominous presence, silently watching us. He hadn’t shown on my radar; was he real? His gaze seemed mocking, as if he held the answers to all our questions — and many beyond — but never would reveal them. His pearly beak was worldless.

A shiver went up my spine. “Let’s take a break,” I suggested.

We found Diane on a rooftop, and things seemed normal again. Jupiter showed. One thing led to another, and suddenly he was on fire!

Lol, that was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time. It just goes to show you: all you need is a few friends yukking it up on a hot summer night and all seems right with the world.

Right?

I’m working for the clampdown, friends. Seconds after The Inside Scoop leaked bonus footage from Met A Stranger Season One, two goons from Leviathan walked into my office.

“You may think you leaked that footage of your own free will,” said Goon 1.

“But we planned it all along,” said Goon 2.

“That doesn’t mean you’re not in trouble,” Goon 1 continued.

“It’s the thought that counts,” Goon 2 finished.

I’m still shaking. Creepy. But I have a problem with authority, so I’ve released the video here as well. Dig in.

Here I am, hanging out at SL4B. Come keep me company and get the REAL story about what happened that night between me and Vint! Don’t be swayed by her tall tales of “ickyness” people!

Come see me at SLURL and if you can’t find me, IM me (Mygdala March for those of you who don’t know my full name – damn I never use it so I forget myself sometimes…) and I’ll give you a TP.

I’m here from 12-1 SLT, and perhaps afterwards but not sure for how long. Hope to see you all there!

<3

myg

Our friend DCPunk got hitched over the weekend. (Congrats again, man.) Myg told me she put a picture of the wedding up on the Flickr account and I thought she meant… well, it’s a picture of us *at* the wedding anyway. Myg <3 Myg and Burgess <3 Myg. The event was held in a chapel in Versailles, no less. A very beautiful and lifelike build. Above, Myg and I are standing on the flagstones outside the church. We clean up okay, I think. I wish you could have seen the wedding party–talk about custom dresses. The women were climbing over the pews to get a better look.

I was curious to see how the event would unfold–I’d heard about Second Life weddings before, but couldn’t quite imagine how it would all go down. Strangely, it was one of the most real events I’ve witnessed in the metaverse.

The ceremony itself was lagtastic. Even with no scripted attachments people could barely move. More avs packed into close quarters than I have ever seen. But no one has to move during the ceremony, so after everyone got seated and their cameras focused down the aisle, we all settled in. A bunch of us group IM’ing running banter but keeping channel zero open for the official ceremony (thanks, Teemu). At the end of the ceremony, the minister said something along the lines of “May I present to you, Mr. and Mrs. DCPunk and Sugar Dix,” and we all cracked up.

During the actual event, the vows and the emotions seemed almost as real as any first-life wedding. Many avs said they were tearing up. Not me. I’m man enough to cut loose at appropriate times, but I don’t cry at weddings. I think it’s because I’m a cynical person in the first place. I’m cynical about real marriage and I admit, I was cynical about this SL wedding and virtual weddings in general. I hold them extremely sacred in First Life, and performing one in SL seems just a little too playful. After Saturday, I think I need to get the stick out of my ass. Everyone had a good time, and the kiss at the end of the service was so intense the groom crashed. It was a lot of fun and as my friend Orchid put it, “Hey–it’s *their* game.” And she’s right. It’s all of our game, and we can do with it what we like.