The Laird´s Envoy Returns

Millimina, czarina of Solace Island and other distant territories
Photography by Kent Hutchinson/KH Photography

The McMillan Household sent an envoy to the Court of St James's to congratulate Queen Elizabeth II, constitutional monarch of the sixteen Commonwealth realms, head of the fifty-four members of the Commonwealth of Nations and head of state of the Crown Dependencies, at the celebration of her Diamond Jubilee.

The envoy was the younger sister of the Much Honored Bock McMillan, laird of Southern Charm and prince of Cascade Falls, the enchanting Millimina Salamander, czarina of Solace Island and other distant territories of the McMillan Household.

However the princess returned prematurely from London today with a case of "political flu". It is rumored that the dispute  between the McMillan Household and the Court of St James´s concerns the suggested seating arrangements at the festivities.

The laird would not comment on the diplomatic kerfuffle other than saying "We are very happy that our little sister is safely home again. Welcome back, Millimina!"

Focus on the Real Things

When I was up awhile during the night I logged into my SecondLife and went to Mirromere for a visit and talk with my Ars.

I still love that place so much and it holds so many treasured memories for me. Although I have a memorial site for Ars on Southern Charm, this is the place I return to when I want to feel really close to him or when I need to think things through. Strange maybe, but nonetheless true.

When I am there, I connect with Ars and can think through stuff that has happened or that I have experienced and do not fully understand or simply don´t know how to handle. From time to time, I get a thought that has a "timbre" of Ars or simply hear him laughing.

Before I went to the party I had had a quick talk with my sister Millimina, she was logging off as I came in-world. There are many similarities between Ars and Millimina and many disparities too. The most striking similarities are their solid and grounded personalities, their wisdom and their care and love for me. I could/can always depend on them telling me the truth. After the conversation with Millimina I already had her input on a few of the things that were troubling me, but I still needed to digest them.

What was at the top of my mind was my worries for a friend who is possibly facing some bad news. There are no definite results yet and the verdict is not in, which is the biggest problem right now.

The waiting is always the worst part, and if it drags out we sort of end up in a state of limbo not knowing what to do or say. We just feel helpless and prepare our-self for the - inevitable - blow. Once we get "the news" we can rave, rant, cry and go on to handle the situation or pick up our pieces again with a sigh of relief that we have a minor ailment to take care of.

What we as friends and family can do is try to be there as much as we can and are allowed, listen more than we speak and sometimes try to remind our friends not to take the bad news for granted in advance. However, we have all been in more or less similar situations sometime and know that that is easier said than done...

The other situation was a trifle compared to the first one.

I have not been proud of my own demeanor during the past days. It is a situation I often find myself in somehow, where I take the bait that is thrown at me and revert to childish behavior. Since childhood and youth I have been thought not to let people trample over me and to stand up to bullies. "Hell, if I don´t do it, who will?" is the thought that strikes me and I run off on a rampage.

Try as I may, to follow the kind advice I get from friends and family to me and whose advice I value highly, I revert to this immature childlike behavior and find myself laying on the floor of the department store kicking, screaming and yelling to no avail. What I must realize and  come to terms with is that in taking their bait I accept the game they are playing.

Instead of doing that, I must remember the things I know to be true about myself and act accordingly.

I am not and have never been a bully, neither do I use suppression or domination techniques against anyone, especially not women. I must also remember what actually happened from my perspective and hold on to that however someone else tries to distort the events. I am not responsible for their version and have no obligation to rectify or clarify anything they say, it is a futile struggle anyway and will only entrench their position.

Only if and when I see somebody else get hurt do I have an obligation to act. The rest is nonsense and other people role-playing. I should stick to what matters, real things and real people.

"It´s time to grow up, Bock babe, now focus on what matters!" *deep roaring laughter*

Inner Dialogue

Me, myself, I and Bock (that me, me, me and me for those of you who don´t know me well) have had a conversation running the last few days.

I will only show you the conclusion here.

Bock: "So, to sum this up, we all agree that we believe this bloggers conclusions are wrong based on International law, the constitution of the country concerned (as far as we understand it) and by what we have witnessed ourselves in news reports after the ´incident´, but we are still not going to make a comment about it on that blog or write our own post about it?"
Me: "Yup!"
Myself: "You got it! If the bloggers own countrymen don´t care to comment why should we bother?"
I: "Yes, that´s it! And we are doing this because we like the blogger, even if we do not always agree with the bloggers political assessments, and because we are not going to stick our nose into another nations business which has no immediate impact on our lives. In addition to which we did make an agreement with Millimina, remember? Milli will keep on breathing deeply and calmly while we choose our battles with care."
Bock: "Gotcha, but can we still do the think about Dan Savage huh?"
Myself: "Hell yeah, we all love Danny boy!"
Me: "No shit, that ´Dan the man´, is hot and knows how to stomp out a Bible-preaching bigot who seems to have missed the message in the New Testament completely!"
I: "Yeah, Dan is great, I am so looking forward to see that debate between Dan and Brian Brown of NOM!"

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! 

Breathe In, Breathe Out

This is for my strong and loving younger sister Millimina, who can never-ever be forced to anything against her will! Love you always, even when you are trying hard to be a bitch... I am not convinced, not for a second, my darling!

The Concept of Family in SecondLife

From a sociological and/or anthropological perspective a family is a group of people who are affiliated by marriage, consanguinity, affinity or co-residence. Families are formed as a source of mutual love and support within the group concerned. Sexual relations among family members are regulated by rules concerning incest such as the incest taboo.

In a virtual world we don´t need to focus on consanguineous relationships as sexual relationships cannot end with an independent issue. All relationships are created by choice through affinity and affections and are either romantic or non-romantic.

The Family Chart. Muted colors mean that the avatar is (mostly) no longer around
Yellow circles signify partnerships/marriages, red circles previous partnerships/marriages and yellow arrows mutually elected non-romatic relationships of a family kind (sister/brother or child/mother or father)

In the beginning there was Ars Northmead, a charming, friendly, clever and multitalented avatar.

Ars was - among many other things - a DJ in SecondLife and founded the Sarco Sound Group with his friend and business partner Sarco Halderman. One of the first DJ´s recruited to the group was Andrey (D R E Y) Messmer. Ars and Andrey developed a close non-romantic-friendship, with much love and trust between them.

Shortly before Ars and I met there may - or may not - have been a brief sexual relationship between Ars and Guyke Lundqvist (I am not altogether sure about this and have never really worried about it). Anyway, by the time I appeared on the scene the relationship between the two had evolved into a relationship between a father and son. When I teamed up with Ars I also became Guyke´s evil-stepfather.

Ars and I became a couple, shortly thereafter Andrey and Guyke became a couple also, this was however before we had established the family. When Andrey´s and Guyke´s relationship ended, Andrey became Ars brother. Both Andrey and Guyke went on to form new romantic relationships that were included into the family.

When Guyke became partnered with Haakon Meads, his elected mother Starry Sweetwater and her husband Sir Trifle became in-laws. Similarly I become the uncle of Skip Turbo´s adopted son Liam when Skip and Andrey were partners.

Ars also formed brotherly ties with Dej Mycron and Jeb Nicholls, while Martial Eisenhart and I and Millimina Salamander and I also elected each other as siblings, well in the last case I more or less forced it on the poor girl. Martial formed a partnership with Elorian Scarbridge for a while through which Elorian and I became brother in-laws. Dej has of course also had partners, but I did not much like the last one so I am not mentioning him (I am invoking my literary license on this).

Postscript
I am happy that I took the time to make the family chart, because looking at it clarify some things that have been a mystery to me earlier.

As I understand it, these kind of chosen family clusters are supposedly more common among the gay population in SecondLife than among the straight population. An explanation to this could of course be that many gays already have experienced the concept of "choosing your family" in their first life due to the shunning and ostracizing that still occurs in all cultures, albeit to a lesser extent nowadays that 15-20 years ago.

I have no sure information on how common it can be among lesbians, either in first life or SecondLife. As we all know lesbians seem to provoke less animosity in the straight culture, possibly because the women are better at staying "under the radar" than gay men. The fact that straight men find women "playing with each other" so fascinating at least while they wait for him - the macho male - to arrive. I am also certain that part of the explanation is due to the unequal status of women in society, "what women do does not matter".

If heterosexuals ever think about homosexuals, there seems to be a strong tendency to focus on the sexual activities rather than on the feelings and attractions. I did not choose to become gay to engage in fellatio or have anal intercourse. I am gay and therefore use the sexual activities and techniques available to me to give and receive pleasure from another man - and hell yes, I damn well love it!.

At "The Viking Gods"

Yesterday was the all-worlds premiere of the music and dance show "The Viking Gods", written, produced, directed and starred by Ewa Aska, owner of the Gimle Theater on Yadkin sim. As you may have noticed I was asked to co-host the event with the amazing Svessa Hax-Beornsen.

To prevent lag the number of avatars on the sim was limited to 40 guests and the production team of ten avatars, including your truly and my wife-for-a-day Iendi Laville. As I was extremely busy with my chores before and during the show I did not have much time for taking pictures. I had also been assigned the arduous task of keeping a close eye on the honored guest Apmel Goosson, to see to it that he kept his clothes on. My burden was lightened a bit by the presence of Millimina Salamander during the greater part of the show (because Apmel usually behaves when my sister is around).

All the Swedish and International glitterati had squeezed into the sim, among them junivers Stockholm and his sweet partner Medora Chevallier.

Millimina and Apmel (with clothes)

After the show I was able to take some pictures while Apollon Allen supplied us with music for the dances.

Svessa and I

The ex-missus Iendi and I

External Memories

Hermione Gingold & Maurice Chevallier from "Gigi" (1958)

I am always certain that I remember correctly, but from time to time I realize that my memory has a will of its own.and what I remember in hindsight may not be what actually happened. It as is at times like these that I heavily rely on people around me - in both my lives - to inform me of what really occurred when it occurred, who where there etc.,etc.

In my SecondLife I rely mainly on four people to work as my "external memories", these are in the order they appeared in my SecondLife Sarco Halderman, D R E Y, Millimina Salamander and Diana Gilderoy. They do not always have to give me very many clues or set me straight on something before the true memory comes to me, but my mind simply needs those inputs to start delving in the right places.

A Gift From Millimina

I had a good evening with my Ars today.

Some friends came by and sat with me for awhile, others I talked with in IM. It was a wonderful time we talked about Ars and myself somewhat but also about their lives and their experiences. Sharing is always good.

First I will show you two beautiful pictures taken by Millimina Salamander that she gave to me from last years gathering. In the pictures you see, from left to right, Sarco Halderman, Andrey Messmer, me, Janttu Winkler, Guyke Lundqvist and Millimina herself.

"Remembering Ars 2011" by Millimina Salamander

"Remembering Ars 2011 in The Jesters Hats" by Millimina Salamander

This is a picture I took earlier in the evening while I was still alone and just enjoyed the peacefulness, the music and the sweet memories.

Remebering Ars 2012 by Bock McMillan

“Being crazy isn't enough”

Joetonight dressed in lightning

The quote in the title is by Dr. Seuss, and sometimes I think that may be true. Other times I, like Albert Einstein, ask myself  "Am I or are the others crazy?”

I think I may be hanging with a beautiful yet crazy crowd of people. 

First there is the sweet Millimina Salamander, who every time I happen to mention I  am going to log off starts talking with me frantically to keep me there, while when she herself wishes to do the same she just says good night and exits promptly thereafter within 10 seconds flat. Tonight it actually took me 6,5 minutes before she acknowledged my good night and let me log-off. 

Then we have Joetonight Starship, with whom I seem to have a mental connection, because whenever I think of logging off Joe sends me an IM inviting me to a cool party with him and his hubby Dalimar. Every time when I tell him the party starts at 3 AM in the morning for me and that I am sorry that I cannot come, he at least wants me to see his cool costume for the occasion. Usually something half naked - we gay men like to show skin.

Lastly we have the sexy stud Butch Diavolo, who knows very well that I am worthless at multitasking, but still insists on saying his goodbyes when I am chatting with someone else and goes POOF within 5 seconds after his "Slaap lekker".

If I didn't love them all so much I would perhaps start looking for a slower crowd that lets me set the pace, but then again I think I may be bored stiff if I did. 

I am happy to have these wonderful people in my SecondLife although they sometimes drive me crazy.

RL Photo Exhibition & A Colorful Rezday

On Thursday I was invited by tthe gallery owner Aake Roffo to a exhibition opening at his gallery at Yadkin. The exhibition was called "Houses in RL" and featured the first life photography of Kaja Lurra, well known sim landscaper in SecondLife.

I liked the pictures a lot and even bought a beautiful one showing some old beautiful blue tapestry. As I am mostly a people person here are some pictures of the visitors at the exhibition.

My buddy Emarald Harvey and his sweet avantgarde wife Zigadena Gabardini

Party people

Beautiful Svessa Hax  flanked by Aake Roffo and NE0 Timeless

After the gallery opening I had originally planned to retire because I had a early morning meeting in first life on Friday, but Kandinsky Beaumont and Apmel Goosson convinced me I would have time to drop in at a rezday party.

The rezday party was for SaveMe Oh, famous and/or notorious performance artist in SecondLife. She has made her whole public existence inworld into art by behaving rudely and by being obnoxious and cantankerous. Sometimes I find it amusing and am wholeheartedly entertained, at other times not so much.

Apmel and Kandi had been appointed as my caretakers by my little sister Millimina Salamander when she went off on a first life adventure for a couple of days. When I learned this I could not refuse them any more so I crashed the rezday party.

Luckily Apmel had warned me beforehand that it would be colorful, but what I saw when I was teleported in was the most amazingly bright cacophony of colors in all imaginable shapes and forms. It was a veritable bombardment of the visual preceptors (i.e my eyes). Occasionally we would also have shoals of sharks attacking us. I presume the shark is her totem-animal, but I am not sure.

I enjoyed the experience thoroughly but after about half an hour my sight was suffering from an overdose and it was time for me to sneak of to bed.

The rezday girl SaveMe Oh

Reflections on a Monday

Sunday was a hectic day for me. My feelings were all over the place, swinging from sorrow to happiness and then back and forth a few times. All in all it was a good day though.

Can one actually celebrate a wedding anniversary if the spouse is dead? That was one of the things on my mind early in the day, but I soon decided that "Hell yes, sure I can" because it was one of my happiest days in SecondLife. "Honi soit qui mal y pense" (which in Bockese directly translates into "Bugger those evil minded bastards who think ill thereof")

Then I was reached by the news of Whitney Houston´s death at an early age in tragic circumstances. The first song that came to my mind was "I Will Always Love You" from the film where she starred against Kevin Costner, "The Bodyguard". Not very original I know but...

The last Coffee and Pajamas Jazz Show with Elfay at Circe´s Sunset Jazz Club brought laughter and sad and happy memories. That club and that show and Circe, Elfay, Diana, Margo and Carol, Mari and Ex and all the other regulars there, meant a lot for me during a difficult time. I cannot even begin to explain how important it was for me to have that place to go to every Saturday (and later Sunday). It was a sad parting of sorts but still not because they will all remain in SecondLife and hopefully we will all keep in touch.

The Sunday ended on a very happy and festive note with the birthday bash of my buddy Ziggy Starsmith and his studelicious man Holter. All the gay hunks of SecondLife where there and I should think some more came after I left at midnight (my time) to catch some sleep before work today.

In between the show and the party I had good conversations with my sister Millimina, my brother in-laws Dejerrity and Andrey...hmmm sorry I mean D R E Y. My avatars soul was after further investigations proven to be in mortal peril and was finally saved. 

But more about the last show, the birthday bash and the tests and the scary treatments I had to undergo to save my soul in future posts. I need to gather more energy for that.

Ohh I will also reveal the identity of "my vampire", the most beautiful vampire that has ever existed, including that silly Tom Cruise´s rendition.

Welcome Home, Millimina

"Millimina at sea" by Millimina Salamander (stolen from her blog)

My little sister Millimina is back after a short vacation.

Welcome home, sweetie, we are many who have missed you a lot!

The Woman I Love

"Millimina", photo by Millimina Salamander

I know she always loves me,
I know she always forgives me,
I know she will always support me
and she has always been there for me

Even when she scolds me,
even when she is angry with me,
even when I am bad, forgetful, selfish, thoughtless, cruel or just plain stupid,
she is always there for me.

She is my memory,
she comforts me when I cry and
she holds me, hugs me when I don´t deserve it.
She will always be there, for me.

I will always love you, my darling sister Millimina, and I am so sorry I forgot your rezday on December 6th, but you didn't remind me... (Hugs to Apmel for stepping in!)

Ugh sorry, but I am no poet (as if I need to tell you...)

Sven Analyzes "the Threshold"

Swedish virtual worlds blogger Sven Idyll over at Svens(k) Idyll has been thinking over Philip Rosedale´s statement to the New York Times recently and come up with this interesting analysis (rough translation by me) in his post "It becomes impossible only when you know it is"

"Philip Rosedale made a statement recently about the threshold of Second Life being high, and to some extent it is true, but one thing is absolutely critical, the willingness to learn and explore. I have in the past month seen how quickly primary school pupils will take on such a thing as building in virtual worlds like Second Life and Open Sim. They do not think it is particularly difficult - if they have the interest they learn extremely fast. Learning how it works is not the hardest part for them but to learn to utilize the many options that are available is difficult. Children do not see so many obstacles, but they try - and often several times. Sometimes, the impossible happens.

Children have not acquired the limitations that we have as adults. We as adults mean something else with "impossible" than children do. Impossible for us older people is a pretty solid stop but for the young, it is a condition that exists until someone finds a way. A few adults manage to keep this desire to conquer the impossible and I would have liked to be one of those but I have put up too many stop signs and signs for both "one way traffic" and "forbidden passage" in my mind.

If you could make a wish for new feature or something else new in Second Life would it be something that has a counterpart in real world, or you could come up with something completely new - something that can only exist in the virtual world? Some children just spurt out such ideas. We are well accustomed to some of those things, being able to teleport, fly and change our avatar anyway we wish - or so we think.

We have a whole new world waiting for us where everything is possible, but we just copy things from real world into virtual reality. When will things start coming in the virtual worlds that we can copy over to the real world? Lack of imagination is in short supply in the virtual worlds!

We want to come to the virtual world because it is different but when we get there we immediately start converting it to a copy of the world we want to disconnect from.

In how many areas of your life are you free from rules and patterns and have a belief that there are no limitations? If you have that, can you describe that which has no borders and that cannot be captured by rules or exhibit patterns?

Second Life needs pure imagination to grow but to let go of the rational thoughts completely and let your imagination reign free is probably the hardest things to do."

---
I must say I agree with Sven, if a total gaming idiot like myself - and a few other fools I know all to well - could learn to enjoy SecondLife and develop our skills inworld by ourselves and with the eager help of our friends I do not really see where the huge threshold problem is. There is nothing "impossible" with SecondLife!

Sven is also correct in my mind when he calls for even more imagination in virtual worlds.

Challenges should not be easy, but they must be fun and interesting and allow us to develop in our own pace. Only then will the curiosity and childlike creativity be awakened that makes life so fun sometimes.

Model: Millimina Salamander

I am still waiting in vain for my fashion statement "The Jesters Hat - only for the boldest among fashionistas" to be copied into first life.

"Bock, You Are Such A Lens Bug"

As I reported yesterday, I left the Imagine peacefest at Solace Island on Sunday rather hastily.

This was because I received a call from my buddy Eddi Haskell, major SLebrity, blogger, fashionista, photographer, machinimista etc. etc., to come to the shooting of his appearance on The DJ Insyx Show. This show is a weekly show produced by the great people over at Gay-World News.

When I informed my sister Millimina Salamander that I was leaving and the reason for it she said, "Bock, you are such a lens bug!" (A "lens bug" (linslus) is a Swedish colloquial phrase referring to someone who very much likes to be photographed.)

The laird in a beautiful Pashmina shawl and a girly sit on the far left.

Fabrice Snook from Gay World News overseeing the taping and looking hot

Although I told her I was just going to be a part of the audience at the taping and would most likely not appear on camera, she just laughed me off. My sister is loving but sometimes I want to wring her neck!

The reason I went so fast to the taping was of course that I assumed he would tell the story about what happened to him in real life at the Hotel Mark Twain in San Francisco along with a hot blond. But no such luck this time. instead he went on and on about other interesting topics concerning his Secondlife experiences.

You can see the taped show on Eddi´s blog Eddi Haskell´s Second Life My Second Life Television Debut.... (Be careful with the sound level, start out low.)

The Laird Inspects Installation Art

"No Name Yet" Installation art by Kandinsky Beaumont

The Much Honored Bock McMillan, laird of Southern Charm and prince of Cascade Falls, deigned to honor the Imagine peacefest at Solace Island with his presence on Sunday evening.

During his unusually lengthy visit the laird took the time to inspect a piece of installation art that had been partly sponsored by The Bock McMillan Art Foundation (a part of the BMcM Corporation). The installation was made by Kandinsky Beaumont, hostess of the event, and met with the highest approval of the laird.

The peacefest was a great success with entertainment by the singer and songwriter POL Arida and the fabulous group DRUM.

All and sundry of the existing art mob in SecondLife passed through the party during the many hours that the laird was there, but he most appreciated the presence of his beloved sister Millimina Salamander whom he had not met with in a long while.

Treasure Found

My sister Millimina yesterday asked to see a picture of me when I was still a brunette in SecondLife. While I was rummaging through my Inventory I accidentally came across this picture showing my Ars, me, our son Guyke and my brother in-law Andrey relaxing together.

I cannot remember this particular occasion but I still intensely remember the feeling of belonging and of being together.

Ever since Ars passed away I have been meaning to go through all the snapshots, but the task feels overwhelming.

Named Avatars 3

Today it is my great pleasure to let my buddy Apmel tell us about how he named his avatar - and his host of co-avatars.

As you perhaps already know Apmel is a prominent figure in the virtual art world of SecondLife. His blog "Min avatar heter Apmel" ("My Avatar´s Name is Apmel") is also the oldest existing Swedish SecondLife blog and the distinguished recipient of the prestigious lifetime achievement award from The Bock McMillan Art Foundation (a part of theBMcM Corporation).

The Apmel Trinity - from the left Meerson, Ibbetson and Goosson

"When I registered my first ava I first looked up a surname that ended with “-son”... it just happened to be Ibbetson and Apmel as first name, which was simply a reversal of one of my nicknames at work - "Lempa" instead of Lennart.

Later, I wanted to have a name ending in “-sson”, two s´s, and more Swedish I thought .. while I kept the first name. Apmel Goosson plain and simple with everything that it has come to mean...

When I created the next avatar, that was first conceived as a pure backup, the choice for a surname happened to fall on Meerson.

Eventually these alternate versions of Apmel developed, as several of you already know. 

Apmel Ibbetson was modeled using pictures of myself taken just before my sixtieth birthday in real life and hey presto, he became Uncle IB. The "last name" IB comes from the fact that my primatar initially was determined to promote his RL-activity, "Indexkompaniet Bokförlag" (The Index Company Publishers) and started an Index Company book café in-world where the group´s members were called IB-agents (Yes, I did have the (for Swedes) well known IB-affair in memory, and liked the ambiguity).

Apmel Meerson quickly turned into “Kludden” (the daub). An inexperienced young cousin to Apmel who is finding his way around in Second Life. Daub rapidly strengthened my interest in the virtual arts.

At long last Apmelina Slingshot came along and proved to be the sister of Apmel that Apmel´s dad never had. Apmelina rapidly extended my old-fashioned (albeit narrow) musical taste in a more contemporary direction - with a little help from Milli, I readily admit. :))

 

And the last (latest?) avatar that I have acquired is a banker who originally was of the same indeterminate sex and age as the name I gave it, "Apmelsprivatabankman" (Apmel´s-private-banker). I refuse to use the ugly surname Resident that automatically and not so amusingly came with it. This avatar later developed into a beautiful woman in her fifties. I am hoping she will bring order to the Apmellian finances :))"

My Computer Crashes, World Isolated

The title of this post is a travesty of a famous British newspaper headline that read, "Fog in Channel; Continent Isolated".

Well, around this time yesterday I started having strange things happening with my darn computer, which lead me to decide it was a good idea to do a system recovery. The much honored Bock McMillan, laird of Southern Charm and prince of Cascade Falls, and myself have since then been toiling tirelessly to break your isolation.

Do any of you realize how many updates your computer receives during a year, if you include all the different programs you have been using, or how many reboots it takes to get things back in order again? I am sorry to say I did not count, but my best estimate is that their have been about 550 000 or more updates and you need at least 25 500 reboots.

So now your isolation is broken and I am guessing you guys didn't even notice you were isolated. The world is cruel!

If anyone knows how I use the security copies I took of my bookmarks and what I must do to get them back in my browser I would be most grateful, neither the laird or I are technically savvy. To our relief I was however able to recover my treasured photo-collection.

And ohhhhhhh my mail and contacts are also lost, hopefully my little sister Millimina will again be able to help me with the mailing address to Ars sister Debbie, if I cannot find it in the System Recovery Files mess.