Rest & Recreation

With two major events occurring simultaneously a blogger need to take some time out once in a while for some necessary R & R. This is me just hanging with Guyke at his and Ziggy's beautiful home in Second Norway. Talking in voice about nothing in particular, is a great way to just let go.

When Ziggy came home we decided to move down to the dock and the leisurely conversation continued into the SecondLife night.

Family Meeting

My prodigal stepson Guyke returned to SecondLife today, after a few weeks away nurturing his first life. It was good to have him back again and we had the chance to get updated on what had been going on in each others lives.

A while later we were joined by my brother in-law Dej. The three of us were all talking together on Skype because Dej (the tech-wizard) cannot get his SecondLife voice to work for him. We had a pleasant family evening together on this special day.

Sunday Dinner

This evening I was invited over to my son and son in-law for Sunday dinner. I don´t worry too much about the fact that I had to twist their arms and play the guilt card to get the invitation, they made me feel like an honored guest anyway.

Ziggy had been at it all day, cooking for the dinner, getting the house cleaned and decorating it for the season. Guyke, like his dad, loves the seasonal decorations and goes crazy every holiday to get all the stuff out.

The place looked wonderful of course, even if one of the scullery maids had not quite finished in time and was still at it trying to get a stain out of the carpet in the living room. The food was delicious, the wine was excellent and the company courteous, but best of all was that Ziggy was on voice and sounded marvelously manly and lovely. Even with his quaint Canadian "out". I always thought that was a silly American joke, but now I know its true - they really do say it that special way.)

The only strange thing that happened was when Guyke suddenly left us to go drain the potatoes, he had not done a single thing earlier - the little jewish princess - so I was really amazed that he took upon himself to do this chore. After a few minutes he returned without any potatoes and looked very relieved and happy. For some reason or other I was unnaturally shy and could not bring myself to ask what he had actually done with the potatoes, although I at that time had started yearning for their arrival.

All in all, it was a nice evening and the boys are sweet together, so I am happy. The fact that I love them both separately and that they get along so well as a couple is reassuring to me. If I should one day no longer be there, Guyke will be well cared for by his loving hubby. Ars will rest in peace and I will be happy.

Voicing with Millimina

When I came in-world yesterday and had finished my usual initial procedures to get unstuck from the back-deck at home, which has been an irritating feature of my SecondLife for awhile now, I checked my friendslist to see who was on.

Millimina as a vamp

I was happily surprised to see that my little sister Millimina Salamander there. She hasn't been in-world for a while due to first life work and other hindrances, but we have kept in touch via email. As I am now able to use my headset again without my jaw resting on the table with my nose touching the keyboard, I plugged in the headset and called her.

It was wonderful to hear her beautiful voice again. She speaks Swedish with a hint of a dialect that makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over.

I myself speak the most detested of Swedish dialects from the far south, Scanian. The rest of the Swedes claim the diphthongs of Scanian are so thick that it becomes totally unintelligible and "sounds like Danish". Although I myself claim that my dialect is extremely polished, I admit to sometimes speaking too fast and with a sultry drawl. I have on more than one occasion been asked to speak English when talking with shop assistants in Stockholm. I blame their lack of intelligence and imagination for this.

Anyway, we had a good long talk and caught up with the latest news in each others lives. I was very happy afterwards.

Everyone beware, I am going to ask for voice-conferences more frequently! 

Citius, Altius, Fortius

After constant crashes for more than two week and a lot of other technical problems, in both my realities. I decided to change my SecondLife viewer back to the Linden Lab Viewer 3 and to upgrade my hardware. And you will most like not believe it, but this time I actually checked that my graphic card is from NVIDIA, it has always worked better for me.

The Much Honored Bock McMillan, laird of Southern Charm and prince of Cascade Falls, is consequently much improved.

Added value is gained by the fact that I again have voice-capability, although I have not had time to try it out yet, but I do not expect any problems.

As for my much needed attitude adjustments and the way I interact with people around me, these issues may take a while longer. However, you must always remember that I am steadily working on improving myself to your satisfaction, but this seems to be a lifelong project. Until this goal is successfully attained I have promised myself to

1. take three deep breaths,
2. think twice, 
3. count to 1.000 and 
4. (perhaps) "sleep on it" before reacting.

P.S. (as a response to my bosom buddy Apmel´s comment): Miracles are not to be expected, nor do I give any guarantees. All I can say I will still react, but hopefully in a calmer and non-boring manner.

Just Floating

After a few weeks of almost total focus on first life I have again slowly started to immerse myself back into my second life.

This time I am feeling a certain resistance; I am not sure why really. A possible reason could of course be that the ones that have been closest to me for a long time have for the time being more or less dropped out of Secondlife, some due to personal priorities and others due to actions taken by Linden Lab. Nevertheless I miss them all badly sometimes.

I have also recently accepted a proposal to take part in a mediation between myself and "the opposition", as I call them, or "the innocents", as they prefer to call themselves in this Swedish Civil War in SecondLife. We will in time see what comes out of this, in the mean time I am refraining as much as possible to read most Swedish SecondLife blogs except PetGirl´s, Apmel´s, Vanadis´s and a provocative newcomer (well, so he says and for now I accept it) who calls his blog Znapscrap.

To take part in the mediation I have set up a few conditions.

Primarily I have asked that we actually talk in voice. My experience is that otherwise some participants do not actually read what is written but start typing halfway into what anyone says because they assume they know what the other person is actually going to say. This only results in intentional or unintentional misinterpretations, with voice this can be corrected swiftly.

My second condition is that at least one or two of the "first-liners" take part, not only some of their followers.

Although some time has now elapsed since I accepted the proposal of mediation nothing more has come of it yet, I do not want to speculate in why.

Meanwhile I am taking it very easy and slow, mostly relaxing and trying not to worry about anyone or anything at all. I am just floating around, but luckily facing upwards.

Förändra din röst och låt som du vill i framtiden

Hos "Eddi Haskell´s Second Life" hittade jag detta intressanta inlägget. Enligt detta kommer man i framtiden kommer att kunna låta precis som man vill när man "voicar", som det kallas när man talar med varandra med rösten istället för att skriva.

Detta genom att ladda ner ett program hos LindenLabs och betala 750 L$ i månaden. Män kommer alltså att kunna låta som kvinnor, kvinnor som män, gamla som unga och unga som gamla .., och detta utan att besöka logopeden!!!

Skitkul, vissa har ju hittills haft "voice" mest som ett könstest eller ålderstest! Om någon har vägrat voica har anklagelser haglat om att den avataren egentligen tillhör fel kön eller fel ålder. Som om det inte ibland finns allehanda andra skäl att inte vilja voica med vissa människor.