Ziggy, Oh Ziggy!

The enfant terrible of SecondLife, one of my favorite Canadians and my friend Ziggy Starsmith (a.k.a. Rex Short again) has decided to shut down his blog (lately in cooperation with his - now - former partner Dalton Cole) and to start a new photoblog instead. (Update: Ziggy tells me he and Dalton have rekindled and are staying together.)

I for one - and I'm sure many more - will miss Ziggy's wordblog, where he has shared his investigations of SL villains (Kharfest), his adventures and his life with us.

Read Ziggy's action-packed last blog post here: Ziggy and Dalton In Second Life: The End Of An Era...This Blog Is Now Closed.

You will find Ziggy's new photoblog here. Tempus Fugit.

Blogs With Great Second Pride Coverage

I highly recommend these four excellent blogs to complete your knowledge of what is happening at Second Pride this year. (Listed in alphabetical order.)

 Eddi & Ryce's Second Life

 Jeff Ellsworth Witnessing A Second Life: Second Pride 2014 Live And Lively

NakedCarl's Blog

Ziggy Starsmith On The Edge Of A Second Life

Straight Talk From Ziggy

My awesome and straight talking buddy Ziggy Starsmith tells it like it is. If anyone ever wonders why I love this man so much, read his blog post and you will know exactly why, Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life; Oh Oh...Kharfest....Das Fuhrer is Back!

Ziggy Is Back!

It was only a few months ago that Ziggy Starsmith, to the dismay of his loyal and loving readers (of which I am one), tiredly declared that he was going to stop blogging full time.

The beautiful picture that Ziggy left us with in October, 2013

Since then we have only gotten a few bread crumbs tossed at us from time to time by the irate and erratic blogger, just enough to keep us from feeling totally abandoned and dying from mental and emotional starvation.

Knowing and loving Ziggy I, however, kept my hopes up and never removed his blog from my blogroll. Lo and behold, yesterday he came back to us - full force - with no less than five posts!

The blog has been slightly renamed to "Ziggy Starsmith On The Edge Of Second Life... And Beyond" with the declared promise of "brutally honest commentary of the virtual 3D world of Second Life".

Welcome back, buddy, I have missed your forthright views on the worlds as we know them!

Catching up...

There is so much happening in my lives now, mostly the second, that I have a bit of catching up to do.

I have started a huge landscaping project to update Southern Charm while still keeping it beautiful. The creators and gardeners have been busy the last three years and there are so many better and more beautiful trees and plants on the market now. It is also something I firmly believe Ars and I would have done gradually if he had still been alive.

To my help in this project I have forcibly enrolled the assistance of my boyfriend Tomais, my son Guyke, my brother in-law Dej and my dear friend the intuitive, sublime and brilliant - yet amazingly humble - builder Butch. They - sometimes with the assistance of other friends - have guided me gently in this new world of seasonal trees and plants and other beautiful things that can be used in modern SecondLife landscaping. 

I started by clearing of the old "flat" trees and only kept the old pine trees for the time being. Then I returned a shitload of stuff to the original landscaper, the original sim owner, former tenants and a few strange visitors that had somehow managed to rez things where they should be able to. This freed up almost 3.000 more prims (or whatever the modern term for this may be these days), so that I now have close to 6.000 prims to work with.

Next thing was the waterfall running from under the house. It got a major facelift.

I have slowly started replanting with trees that can be changed to any season with a single click according to my whim. It is awesome! Of course I will need different kinds of trees to, but so far I am going about this slowly.

Next thing will be to change the sims ground textures to winter, and in time get the other seasonal ground textures also. There are things I want to keep relatively close to the original design so I am going forward slowly.

And when I am not working on the landscaping I take time to smooch with Tomais and go out with friends and family.

Yesterday I took Tomais to visit with Ars at Mirromere. I warned tomais beforehand that if Ars didn't like the idea of me having him around he would most likely be ejected from the sim or get electrocuted by his own computer. Ars had his ways and means of showing how he felt...

However, Tomais was quite safe and nothing bad happened during our visit, so I am choosing to take that as an encouragement from Ars and that he after screening Tomais has found him worthy.

Later last evening I and Tomais went sleighing and skating at Calas Galadhon with Guyke and Ziggy. Ziggy has posted beautiful pictures of that enchanted evening here Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life: A Night To Remember

A Child Is Born

The most loveable badboy of the SecondLife gay community, or the part of it that I know, Ziggy Starsmith yesterday revealed a sensational story on his - yet again - reborn blog "Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life....".

Ziggy and his son Ace out on a stroll in Second Norway
(Courtesy of Ziggy Starsmith)

Believe it or not, but Ziggy is now a father! Although Ziggy on his blog claims that the wonderful 11lb (5 kg), blond and blue eyed, bundle of joy is adopted, rumors have it that Ziggy actually gave birth to the sweet boy himself. The delivery was supposedly gruesome until the gay-hating doctor finally relented and allowed a cesarean to be performed.

Its a wonderful world when miracles like this occur. Ziggy is said to be contemplating writing a book or a blog entitled "From Wild to Mild. A gay single father's guide to responsible parenting in SecondLife".

I am not a rumormonger so I will spare you from the speculations about who the father may be, suffice it to say that it is a fact that a certain well known blond male avatar lives in the blue mansion ("Villa Kakelbont") you see in the picture above, incidentally just across the road from Ziggy's home...

For more information and cute pictures, please visit "Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life...."

At Sea With A Beauty and Five Beasts

We set sail at the crack of dawn and Ziggy had just informed us that he needed to masturbate while he should have been focusing completely on piloting our handsome captain Thomais and his beautiful sailboat "Wave Dancer" through the, for our captain, unknown waters outside Haug in the Second Norway archipelago.

I was a bit worried that Ziggy divided attention was going to land us in the middle of some poor Norwegians lobster party. With so many distractions close at hand, like Helene's heavy bosom, Thomais' perky ass, Guyke's adorable body odour, Butch's bare and manly feet, my deliciously exposed legs and Larz's hunkalicious body, it is a miracle that the man could speak at all.

But I needn't have worried, Thomais is an experienced sailor and safely found his way through to the Blake Sea despite Ziggy's somewhat scatterbrained directions, as soon as I realized that, I could relax and enjoy the experience and the pleasure of the good humored company.

For some reason Helene seemed to drop her hair in the water behind us at regular intervals, as you can see in the picture below where it is floating around by itself in the wake of the sailboat. Other than that it was just a glorious experience with the sun, the sea, the hard bodied men and the pleasant company of sweet Helene.

All seemed to run smoothly until I went for a smoke. When I returned I found myself standing with the others at the bottom of the Blake Sea, apparently the boat had decided to disappeared at some sim-crossing or something.

Our asses were soon hauled to safety on nearby land by the now focused Ziggy, it seems my buddy works best in unexpected emergencies, which is a good thing to know about a friend.

 We were soon out on the waters again, but this time on Thomais' motorboat "Capitan".

After a while, we decided to make a stop at the well-known and peculiar island which consists of a long dead monsters skeleton. I was hoping there would be a bar, because I was getting thirsty for a refreshing beer, but no such luck.

We were exploring the waters under the skeleton, when I got a call from my friend Holter who reminded me that a dance recital I was going to was about to start. I had totally forgotten about this previous engagement because of the wonderful time we were having.

I asked Holter if anyone would mind if I turned up in my skimpy swimsuit. Holter assured me that he was sure that they wouldn't, so I said goodbye to the gang and teleported to the show.

To be continued... (I had a very busy Saturday!)

For another point of view and more pictures, please visit Ziggy On The Edge...; Ohhhh What A Marvellous Kiki

/dramaomg

*Bock McMillan runs around in circles while flapping his arms. A shrill voice shouts "Oh My God" repeatedly and in local chat you read: "OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG!OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG!*

The reasons for this reaction are twofold. Firstly for having missed a blog post that my dear buddy Ziggy Starsmith posted on his blog yesterday announcing that he and his husband in first life Larz Kas celebrated their twentieth anniversary, Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life: My 20th Anniversary In Real Life: Larz Kas and Ziggy Starsmith. Secondly because I have formerly claimed to be the most patient man in both worlds (because everyone always keep telling me so). However, I realized that I must officially concede to having been defeated for the title by Larz Kas.

Lars has successfully survived living with the rebellious and ranting Ziggy for the last 20 years! Admittedly Ziggy is a kind, loving and wildly charming man, but Larz must still truly be the most patient man in both lives!

My sincere congratulations to both of you men for the first twenty years and my very best wishes for the next twenty!

(/dramaorg is the trigger you type in local chat to set off the gesture I am describing in the beginning of this post.)

My Big Boy

Today I met my son Guyke at the gay SecondLife-bloggers group Rhino Writers meeting in preparation for our groups participation at the SL10B. Guykechen was there representing his husband Ziggy's blog "Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life". (Well, not officially but I had brought him there in that capacity.)

Unfortunately we were not many who could make it to the meeting, so besides Guyke and myself there was Avacar Bluestar and his partner ricogenu and Jeff Ellsworth. It was soon apparent that Avacar and Teno Theriac had already had fruitful conversations on the matter and had come up with many good ideas.

Myself and Avacar Bluestar

Jeff Ellsworth

ricogenu and Guykechen

After the meeting Guyke and I returned to Southern Charm to catch up and say our goodbyes. On top of the list of topics was of course what was going on in our first lives and Guyke's fabulous SecondLife  makeover.

"I decided it was time to grow up", the boy told me, "so I needed a complete remake for a more manly and less boyish look." And what a stunning look it is!

To my great relief he has not grown to big for hugging, I will never allow that to happen of course, but still it is good to notice that the Swedish part of his upbringing is deeply rooted in him.

On "The Boys are Back in Town"

The Boys are Back in Town from Tremendum Pictures on Vimeo.

A post on Ziggy's blog yesterday (Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life: "The Boys are Back in Town" (url)) reminded me of the discussions my Ars and I used to have at irregular intervals about our son Guyke and his SecondLife love life. Our son's love life was always a major concern for Ars,

"When is the kid finally going to settle down? Why can't he just stick with the great guys he has found?", he would ask me worriedly. This was after Guyke had in close succession been in long-lasting relationships with two men - who had both been to Ars and my liking - and had suddenly broken the relationships off. "He brings along new men and expects us to befriend them and love them and take them into our family and then ends it all for some mysterious reason. I am not having this anymore, babe, the next guy he brings along we will not allow into the land-group until we really know it will last!"

"Kiddo is still young, babe, and we may know a lot of what is going on between him and his men but I am sure we don't know everything. Besides it's his love life, we cannot choose whom he should love, now can we?", I used to say to try and calm him down. "And remember, babe, he is good at picking up easily likable  men - well except for (name withheld, an avatar whom Ars never trusted or liked.)"

"Don't be a damned fool, Bock, of course it is his love life and he gets to choose, I am just hoping that he at some point will stick with his choice, just like we have, and not keep looking for greener grass somewhere else."

"I love you too, babe! Like all parents I think we just have to go along for the ride and try to be there for him when things go awry. I am sure he will settle at some point."

"Yeah, but we will still not let any of his new guys into our group until we decide so ourselves, not because he wants us too"

"Of course not, Ars, it is our group and we decide whom we let in or not!"

Miraculous Recovery

Some of you may still remember my problems in world named Support Ticket #01587329

• repetition of my own chats in local and Instant Messages,
• repetition of purchases and tips,
• repetition of movements,
• repetition of teleports,
• etc. etc.

The problem remained whichever viewer I used (Yes, I did clean installations every time!), the official Linden viewer 3, other Linden versions or their beta-versions, Firestorm or Singularity etc. 

Linden Lab's customer support could not help me to completely get rid if the issue, but helped me with a few useful workarounds to alleviate the problems it was causing. I am now happy to inform you that the problems are now completely gone. 

This miraculous recovery happened after I had installed the latest major update of Firestorm (4-4-0-33720). I read about this on my buddy Ziggy Starsmith's blog Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life.and thought I might as well try it. Lo and behold I am cured!

Congratulations "Ziggy On The Edge...."

Today my mentor Eddi "Eagle Eye" Haskell noticed that my buddy Ziggy Starsmith's blog "Ziggy On The Edge..." had passed 100,000 pageviews since November 2009. (The counter is at 101,567  pageviews at the moment so the event happened 2-4 days ago)

Bock in SecondLife wishes to congratulate Ziggy on this achievement and hope that we will be able to follow Ziggy´s unique view of SecondLife and the world at large for a long time to come!

Take Ziggy's Poll on Blogs

My buddy Ziggy Starsmith has a poll running on his blog whether you "think blogs are becoming a little passé or even boring now...?"

I would suggest you go there and set him straight!

In my not-so-humble opinion blogging in itself is still a viable and excellent way of expressing yourself to both yourself, your community and the world as a whole.

So what if nobody else reads it? You atleast have the possibility of unloading shit and putting your views out there for the world to see and know. Many bloggers may wish that they could be more relevant to many more readers and accumulate a huge following, but nonetheless it is a way for all of us to leave a little trail of ourselves on the world wide web.

Talking with Dej

Yesterday I had a good and long talk with my brother in-law Dejerrity about things that are important to both of us. I love the fact that I can always rely on Dej´s honesty and love. The beautiful man is straightforward, caring and considerate.

The conversation gave me much to think about.

Later in the evening i dropped in for a short while at the surprise party for Larz Kas in celebration of his first life birthday. Pictures from the party can be seen at my son in-law Ziggy Starsmith´s blog post Larz Kas Birthday at Resurrected Ironworks Club.

Zig-Bam-Boom

I am sure you all know of Ziggy Starsmith. Ziggy is (to quote myself from a comment on his blog) "my dear, sweet, charmingly hotheaded, fiery and wonderfully passionate but extremely rash darling buddy". On his blog (Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life) he regularly rants wildly about different viewers, sim-crossings and such things. To put it succinctly, Ziggy does not - and I emphasize not - love Linden Lab and that company´s customer or product services as much as I usually do.

Well, after my horrendous experiences inworld yesterday I was extremely close to agreeing with him. It was the second worst night of my whole existence in SecondLife. Whatever I did, and even if i did nothing at all, I crashed, crashed, crashed and - yes, you probably guessed it - crashed again and again.

The laird at the lowest point

I was white with rage and fuming with smoke coming out of my ears and my nostrils flaring  To top it off. my dear, sweet and loving son Guyke takes the time to inform me "I and Janttu are actually running Firestorm viewers on the Ultra graphic setting and are having no problems at all!" 

Murdering one´s stepson is not considered acceptable in polite company, but I was just seconds from doing just that. Luckily I crashed and was thus saved from that fate.

The impertinent boy also told me to upgrade to Windows 8 and to abandon the official Linden viewer (Viewer 3) and install Firestorm again. So after my last crash, the one following the murderous thoughts, I did just that to cool myself down.

The upgrade to Windows 8 Pro was simple and cheap (around US $40). The upgrade assistant did all the work well. I love the sleek new look 

But when I tried going inworld again with my Windows 8 Pro platform and the Firestorm viewer, guess what happened? You got it, I crashed, crashed and crashed! Then I decided to call it a night and try again today, reports will follow.

Breaking News: Ziggy Is Staying

The amazing, wonderful and sexy Ziggy Starsmith today announced on his blog that he is going to stay with us in SecondLife! Ziggy Starsmith On The Edge Of Second Life...; Second Life: The Twinkle Has Returned To My Eyes.... (url)

As the goal has now been reached and we have convinced Ziggy to stay on I am taking down the poll "Should Ziggy Starsmith stay in SecondLife?"

Twenty-three people voted in the poll. Three votes were cast on "No, I am a jealous dickhead and cannot stand the competition." These votes are of course disqualified on the grounds that the voters are self-admitted jealous dickheads whose opinion cannot matter.

All of the remaining twenty votes were for "Hell yes, we need charming and passionate people here!".That means that 100 percent of the voters whose opinion matter voted that Ziggy should stay with us! (Ukrainian rules)

It´s unanimous, Ziggy has to stay with us because we love him, the ranting little bugger!

Take the Poll; Should Ziggy Stay In SecondLife?

Photo by Ziggy Starsmith

Today my hotheaded and passionate buddy Ziggy Starsmith has gone to far!

After a rant against my darlings Linden Lab, where he accuses them of all the problems in First and SecondLife and then some, he ends the post with actually threatening to leave SecondLife by November 25, 2012, if things don´t improve in a hurry!

Read his post here Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life: Crash After Crash... Second Life Apocalypse.

I left him this response in a comment on his blog.

"My dear, sweet, charmingly hotheaded, fiery and wonderfully passionate but extremely rash darling buddy!

Please read what you yourself have written carefully. You are on the same modem and the same hook-up as Larz and "he has no issues most of the time". Doesn't this tell you that the problem is with your computer and not with SecondLife, sweetheart?

And what the fuck is this shit about you leaving SecondLife? Are you trying to kill me off completely?

I do not care if you don´t own land or if you become a basic account freeloader but don´t you even think of leaving, and especially not for that hellish Facebook of all the damned Internet social networks.

Take deep breaths, my darling buddy, and please calm yourself.

Love you always, even when you become a rash and impetuous Linden-basher!
XOXOXO"

With this post I want to give him a flap in the face and tell him to simmer down, because we are many who actually love him and need him in SecondLife! Take the poll in the upper righthand corner and dammit check the correct option or else...!

I also promise and plan to come inworld more often so that I can enjoy his company more.

Eternal Bad-Boy Marries

Ziggy Starsmith, fabulous, famous and fantastic, has finally met and married the man of his dreams.

Read all about it at Second Life Memories: Part 4 - Ziggy Gets Married

Biking With Ziggy

I reentered SecondLife today. The main reason for doing so was that my buddy Ziggy Starsmith had promised on his blog to open up a keg of beer and I was in a good mood so I thought, "Why not!"

Well, once I got inworld our plans changed. First I looked around at the work Ziggy had done at his home, as you can see here it looks fabulous.

After a while Ziggy asked me if I would like to go for a ride on his bike. Of course I jumped on the chance to get a bike ride around the beautiful Second Norway in the safe hands of Ziggy.

At the behest of my son Guyke I asked him, "Do I need a helmet?" Ziggy answered, "No, I will drive carefully and slowly". When I told Guyke his response he said sardonically, "Yeah, that's what my brother told me - and then he didn't!"

Anyway I started out without a helmet and felt quite safe.

The feeling of safety and after the first sim-crossing when we were both thrown sky-high and after a bit twirling around were stuck in the sky and had to re-log to get anywhere.

So, for my personal safety's sake, I donned the first helmet I could find in my Inventory before rejoining Ziggy to continue the ride. Not because I did not have complete trust in Ziggy´s skill as a driver, but because he after all did not control all aspects of our ride.

 I had a great time and enjoyed myself all lot with my charming and always so sweet-talking buddy!

Photo by Ziggy Starsmith

For more pictures from this thrilling adventure please visit Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life: Fighting The Lag Storm With Bock McMillan

Must Read for Rod Humble and Linden Lab

Rod Humble and the rest of you guys and girls at Linden Lab must already know that I love you all and that I am usually a staunch supporter of what you guys provide us with. But...

We - the residents that have been here a long time and still come back - have seen you perform several changes in our in-world experiences that do not seem to address our immediate concerns and problems. This has continued despite repeated promises from both my beloved Phillip Linden and from you too dearest Rodvik Linden.

We did not ask for "mesh", you shoved it down our throats, neither did we ask for "pathfinding", which you are force feeding us now. If any of these things are happening to fix the stuff we have been praying you to fix, you have been awfully bad in communicating it. And if it isn't, why the hell don´t you fixed the promised things first before doing things that are cool only for the tech-geeks?

Please read the plea from another frustrated resident (and a very smart and cute cookie at that) Mr. Ziggy Starsmith Thank You, Linden Lab ... Thanks Alot! (url).