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

Laird ❤ Linden Lab=True

So many improvements have been made in SecondLife over the last couple of years, that I have been thinking it was time to consider updating the landscaping at Southern Charm. As some of you may already know, the time lapse between me thinking of something to actually doing it is sometimes extremely long. However, at other instances, I just get tired with myself and do it right away.

Early yesterday I had been experimenting with my newly acquired snow HUD and Guyke, the Prince of Paradijs, had come over to assist me. I then realized that winterifying the landscaping convincingly would require so much more than just falling snow. The ground textures would also have to be changed and the all the trees and plants would need to be updated to the kind that change according to the seasons. It seemed rather overwhelming and I was a little hesitant.

The Prince of Paradijs started - ever so sweetly and subtly - informing me about the great developments that had been made by the gardeners and creators in later years to make trees "that don't look flat".

I let it slowly sink in and then I started asking him if he thought specific trees all over the place looked flat. Even if he tried his very best to be delicate about it, I came to the realisation that my son thought all my trees and plants were antiquated, flat and awful "even if they were once the best you could get...". My son is careful never to hurt my feelings and he knows how attached I am to Southern Charm, but I can always expect him to - eventually - tell me the truth.

Later Guyke and I were joined by my boyfriend Tomais and the three of us took a tour around the Arrival Area. "To hell with it", I thought to myself, and began returning or deleting trees as we went along. This is when I got called up by brother in-law Dej. "I see you're doing landscaping... if you have a moment could you remove some things here also", he said. My sweet Dej had been suffering for three years so I went over to his parcel and removed a load of ugly stuff.

After Guyke had left us to cater to Ziggy's needs and urges, and his own also no doubt, Tomais, Dej and I started looking for more eyesores to attend to. I then remembered the strange and ugly hill that was a remnant from when the sim had been subdivided into parcels, but now just looked weird. I asked Dej if he would mind if it was flattened out, he told me he would welcome it because he had always thought it looked strange.

Although I have never previously terraformed during my entire existence in SecondLife I thought, "How hard can it be, really, everyone else does it. You are the only one you know who leaves it to others. Come on, just do it!" Thought and done, I unblocked terraforming and started to level out the hill. I thought I was absolutely amazing at it and that it was really easy, even if I heard Dej talking to me in the background telling me to be careful.

A few minute later I looked at my work, It was astounding! The hill had been perfectly flattened. Unfortunately, as Dej and Tomais pointed out to me very kindly, the rest of the land all around us had been raised. The big lake on the sim was gone, the canals and waterways also and the seating at the Arrival Area was now under the ground. Hell and damnation what had I done!

"Call the Lindens for a rollback", I thought just as the other two suggested it. So I went on the SecondLife website and chatted with the kind Izzy Linden at customer support. He kindly informed me that I would need to submit a ticket about it. I did that promptly and told them that I had experienced a terraforming disaster, as I had not heeded by wise brother in-law Dejerrity Mycron's warnings to be careful.

With the holiday weekend and all I was not expecting anything to happen before Monday, but lo and behold, within five minutes of submitting the ticket I got a message from the wonderful and clever Elijah Linden that the sim was going to restart in five minutes.

As I told Tomais and Dej, the Lindens know that I love them and this shows they love me back. I would not be surprised if they actually have my portrait up in the company lunchroom right next to my darling Philip Linden's.

Izzy Linden and Elijah Linden have definitely made my Holiday cards list this year for their courteous and speedy assistance!

Take The Geek Test

 How geeky are you? (url)

My score, but everyone around me is 83% or above, except the lovable Ziggy who only got a measly 19% (as rumor has it)!

A Great Sunday

Tomais and I started off with a little cuddling, once Tomais had figured out how my bed worked and could show me...

The we went ahead and tinted my mesh-feet, Tomais achieved in five-ten minutes what I hadn't been able to do in three hours. I have now decided that if tinting is that easy I am also going to get mesh hands and ears. Tomais then went on to show me why it is so handy and how easy it is to create outfits in folders.

When we couldn't get into the Shoetopia fair, we decided to take a look at Tomais hangar, where the Ashdene Aviation Co keeps its fleet of airplanes and helicopters.

That made me really excited to go on my first air trip in SecondLife. Tomais is an excellent pilot and I felt very safe.

After a while weekend-SL acted up and we had to log off to be able to get into another plane, an amphibian airplane this time, which took us to Guyke's and Ziggy's parcel Paradijs and their home Villa Kakelbont.

We talked a while with Guyke and Dex, Guyke's and Ziggy's, sexy Greek neighbour, before Dex had to go to bed and Tomais had to seek cover because there was a tornado, with winds up to 70 mph, closing in on his first life home.

I suffered the twins, Ace and Max, before Guyke finally decided to put the little brats to bed. As I understand it having babies in SecondLife is much like the Zion chicken scam and all the other breedable animals. You have to pay loads of money every week to feed them and buy toys to keep them happy and contented.

Now, that wasn't even half of it, just the short version.

I also had a good and long conversation with the master builder of Second Pride the extremely huggable Jak Calcutt, who was busy getting the Second Pride sim ready for the Christmas parties and balls. His little helper Karl Karlchek also got a word in sideways when we allowed him...

Not to forget, I received a royal invitation to visit with the Queen of Netherlands etc., etc., etc. BM Oh (her majesty actually has more titles than I have given myself, but I will soon remedy that) together with my stunning new man. The queen is really eager to meet Tomais.
---

Please keep Tomais, his family and neighbours in your thoughts and wish them safety as tornadoes wreak havoc in the Midwest.

UPDATE 4:21PM: All is well with Tomais, his family and closest neighbours. The tornado passed within five miles of them and created a lot of damage but no reports of worse stuff, not yet.

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...."

Laying Plans

Three men in a back-garden scheming and laughing. You don't know what they are planning, but you instantly know they are up to no good.

The World According to "Bock in SecondLife"

This is, according to Google Analytics today, the demographics of the visitors to "Bock in SecondLife".

There are still quite a few completely white patches that need to be filled, such as Mongolia, Greenland, Iran and some of its neighboring countries and most of Africa of course.

The tally of which countries my visitors come from (All time)

1. United States 109,003
2. Sweden 89,150
3. Russia 16,511
4. Germany 15,357
5. United Kingdom 14,191
6. Canada 10,723 (half of which are thanks to Ziggy Starsmith)
7. France 8,994
8. Netherlands 8,168
9. Egypt 5,722
10. Belgium 3,226 (all of which, I am sure, are thanks to Guyke Lundquist)

The 80's@"Q"-Lounge

I crashed in at my buddy Butch Diavolo's place yesterday and found that my late husbands son Guyke Lundquist was already there.

They were dressed weirdly and were both fiddling around frantically in their Inventories and with their outfits. When I asked them what their plans for the evening were the two told me that "We're going to a 80's party at "Q" Lounge with DJ Arcy."

"Ah I hope you both have a delightful evening!", I said in my usual charming manner, trying desperately to cover up my hurt feelings for not having been invited to join. "What?", they said, "Why aren't you coming?" at which point I was forced to inform them both that it was simply out of the question for SecondLife royalty, like myself, to intrude on a party of the common residents without a formal invitation of some kind.

Totally out of the blue and completely unexpected I got the most charming invitation in Instant Message (IM) from Amanda Allen, proprietor of The "Q" Lounge: "We are very pleased to send Bock McMillan, Laird of Southern Charm etc., etc., the exclusive invitation for the 80's party here @ 'Q' Lounge. We're looking forward to your company."

To which I promptly responded: "Oh thank you so much, what a delightful surprise! I am extremely honored and will do my best to be there in appropriate attire - if I can find something suitable..."

I had less than 90 minutes to prepare for this occasion, so I immediately threw myself into my Inventory in search of a suitable outfit. "Black", they told me, "get something black! Black was the color of the 80's!".

After rummaging about for a while, I found some stuff that was halfway decent and my beautiful black pashmina shawl from Zaara's. I also found a slouchy Fedora that the two said reminded them of Boy George, which was astonishing news to me, because in my faint recollection of him he always wore a scarf around his filthy dreadlocks. I adamantly refused to put on makeup!

Well, just about 11 minutes before the party I was in an outfit that I could accept and the other two could live with, even if there was still some disagreement between them when it came to my boots. I settled the dispute between them by telling them that, "With a face and body like mine no one ever looks at my footwear."

With that settled, we rested a little to refresh ourselves before going to the party.

Now its time for less talk and more pictures, so here we go!

The always fetching Spanki Moulliez

Amanda Allen & Arcangelo "DJ Arcy" Hellman

My two fashion advisors, Guyke Lundquist and Butch Diavolo

Spanki with friend

Picture of Ms X removed at her request

Fredy & Karin Brune, the sexiest couple of the evening. Karin seems to be a bit
shy of the camera because in just about every picture I took of the two - and I took
very many - she is turning away from the camera

Picture of Ms X removed at her request

The man, the myth, the legend - Ziggy Starsmith decided to join us close to the end

Ume A-something that I cannot remember

Ziggy with "Salad Fingers"

 So to sum up, I had a great time at the party although much of the music sounded very weird to me accept a detestable ABBA song and dear old Madge singing "Like A Virgin". When I told Butch this he went into a rant about how amazing an artist I had never ever heard before really was and how she had influenced the music of all the coming millennia with her "storytelling" songs. So sorry...

Congratulations Ziggy!

This blog and it's editor in chief wishes to congratulate one of it's most devoted readers for a remarkable accomplishment.

The wonderful Ziggy Starsmith, my dear buddy, celebrates his first anniversary as an X-Smoker today. This man is a gay icon in his own right and now also a role model for us all with his will of steel and his balls of marble! Way to go my sexy, sweet and now even sweet-smelling friend!

Childhood

Guyke, Butch and Ziggy have been pestering me for a first life picture of myself, but this is as far as I will go at the moment.

In the picture you see me on a donkey and my older sister being protective. The picture was taken by my father on one of our families vacations in the Pakistani parts of the Himalayas. Quite lovable ain't I, but which child isn't?

Facebook Error

The little %&@#¤ is keeping me waiting!

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