Eighth Blogoversary

Bock in SecondLife was first started on August 25, 2009, so today we celebrate the blogs eighth anniversary.

Before moving on to the singing, cheering and toasting with champagne in crystal glasses lets summarize the blog's existence with a few numbers.

During the eight years, the blog has accumulated
907,949 page views (since June 1, 2010),
4,044 posts,
7,378 comments and
119 followers

Please, all rise and join me in singing to the blog.

For it's a jolly good blog, for it's a jolly good blog

For it's a jolly good blog (pause for 4 beats), which nobody can deny

Which nobody can deny, which nobody can deny

For it's a jolly good blog, for it's a jolly good blog

For it's a jolly good blog (pause for 4 beats), which nobody can deny!

Three cheers to Bock in SecondLife, Hip, hip!

Hooray! 

Hooray! 

Hooooraaaaaaaay!

White Christmas

I just finished a long and wonderful talk with both my brothers, Dej and JJ. Love the guys! And then I found this sweet cartoon Christmas card in the comment section of J.M.G, so I had to share it with you my loyal readers.


Sung by The Drifters. Cartoon by Joshua Held. Featuring Bill Pinkney on lead bass and Clyde McPhatter on tenor. An animated Christmas Card, and a homage to a great song, a great band, and a great Holiday.

Happy Holidays everyone, hugs and kisses!

Seventh Blogoversary

Today I celebrate the seventh anniversary of Bock in SecondLife. (The blog was first started on August 25, 2009.)

Before moving on to the singing, cheering and toasting with champagne in crystal glasses lets summarize the blog's existence with a few numbers. During the past seven years the blog has accumulated
786,614 pageviews (since June 1, 2010),
3,787 posts,
7,100 comments and
115 followers

Now please, all rise and join me in singing to the blog.

Happy blogoversary to you,
happy blogoversary to you,
happy blogoversary, Bock in SecondLife,
happy blogoversary to you!

May you have many more,
may you have many more,
may you have many moooooooooooorrreeeee,
happy blogoversary to you!

Three cheers to Bock in SecondLife, Hip, hip!
Hooray! Hooray! Hooraaaaaaaay!

No Moderation of Comments

A while back, in a stressful situation with hurt feelings and some turmoil for me and others who used to be close to me, I decided to start moderating comments on the blog again.

I am now hopeful that conditions are again normalized and stable and have therefore decided to turn off comment moderation again.

You are once again responsible for what you decide to post on this blog.

This doesn't mean that anything goes, there are still situations where I feel I will be in my right to delete comments, among others for the reasons listed here

• Spam, porn or illegal material. 
• Personal attacks against others who have commented. Treat each other with respect. Whatever you which to say about me is OK, but don't expect me to keep silent. 
• No hate speech, regardless of gender, race, creed, color, or sexual orientation.

Sixth Blogoversary

Today we celebrate the sixth anniversary of Bock in SecondLife, which was first started on August 25, 2009.

Before moving on to the singing, cheering and toasting with champagne in crystal glasses lets summarize the blog's existence with a few numbers.

During the past six years the blog has accumulated

• 704,902 pageviews (since June 1, 2010), 
• 3,517 posts, 
• 6,969 comments and 
• 125 followers (of whom 7 prefer to remain hidden).

Now all please rise and join me in singing to the blog.

Happy blogoversary to you,
happy blogoversary to you,
happy blogoversary, Bock in SecondLife,
happy blogoversary to you!

May you have many more,
may you have many more,
may you have many moooooooooooorrreeeee,
happy blogoversary to you!


Three cheers to Bock in SecondLife, Hip, hip!

Hooray! Hooray! Hooraaaaaaaay!

Comment Moderation

Comments on this blog will - until further notice - be reviewed before they are published.

I fully recognize that this is censorship and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. I also appreciate your understanding.

Belated Fifth Blogoversary

I have always been terrible with dates, anniversaries and birthdays! Today I discovered that I had missed the fifth anniversary of Bock in SecondLife, which was first started on August 25th, 2009. 

Before moving on to the singing, cheering and toasting with champagne in crystal glasses lets summarize the blogs existence with a few numbers. During the past five years the blog has accumulated 589,270 pageviews, 2,923 posts, 6,505 comments and 113 followers (of whom 6 prefer to remain hidden).

Now all please rise and join me in singing belated congratulations to "Bock in SecondLife"

Happy blogoversary to you,
happy blogoversary to you,
happy blogoversary to you Bock in SecondLife,
happy blogoversary to you!

May you have many more,
may you have many more,
may you have many moooooooooooorrreeeee,
may you have many more!

Three cheers to "Bock in SecondLife"!

Hip, hip!
Hooray! Hooray! Hooraaaaaaaay!

Celebrating Four Years of Blogging

"Bock in SecondLife" celebrates it's fourth blogoversary today!

Little did I know when I started my online presence back in 2009 that I would still be at it this long afterwards. After publishing the first post I actually didn't post again until 4,5 months later, but ever since then I have been posting regularly - even if it was somewhat half heartedly at the beginning. It took the passing of my beloved Ars and my need to relieve my anguish to get me committed to blogging and by-and-by it became a habit that I miss when I am not able to do it.

Before moving on to the singing, cheering and toasting with champagne in crystal glasses lets summarize the blogs existence with a few numbers.

2,237 posts
5,618 comments
396,007 pageviews
97 followers (of whom 3 prefer to be hidden)

Now all please rise and join me in singing to "Bock in SecondLife"

Happy blogoversary to you,
happy blogoversary to you,
happy blogoversary to you Bock in SecondLife,
happy blogoversary to you!

May you have many more,

may you have many more,

may you have many moooooooooooorrreeeee,

may you have many more!

Three cheers to "Bock in SecondLife"! Hip, hip!
Hooray! Hooray! Hooraaaaaaaay!

I Am Totally Biased!

Recently I and my poor little blog have gained some attention due to my posts concerning the upcoming Second Pride election.

I have received messages and emails asking me to post this or that "to prove" that I am unbiased and objective. It is totally beyond me how anyone can think I am unbiased or even attempting to be that.  I am a blogger, not a journalist. Every post I run is something I myself find interesting and have an opinion about, which I in rare cases choose not to share with you. Usually however I will tell you what I believe, think or feel in no uncertain terms.

In this election I have asked the candidates certain questions that I believe are relevant and pertinent. I have done so respectfully and with no interest whatsoever of "bashing" them or making personal attacks in anyway. Despite this I have, more than once, been accused of bashing or personally attacking some candidates, sometimes even by the candidates themselves.

I have also been asked or told - anonymously or straightforwardly - to ask a certain candidate something or other. I have always refused to do so because I am not a mouthpiece for anyone but myself,. If someone else wishes to ask a question they should do so themselves.

I of course realize that others do not always agree with me, and however distasteful I may find their views I will allow them to comment on my blog as long as they stick to the issue and don't attack other commenters or people, should they wish to launch a personal attack at me they are welcome to do so.  I have only ever removed one (1) real comment and several hundred spam comments. The real comment I removed was a personal attack on an avatar and had no relevance to the post at all. Even the four Swedish female avatars that I utterly detest, can and have indeed left comments here even if I have expressly asked them never to do so.

In spite of this I today received an acidic message in private on Facebook from someone whom I thought was a friend, thanking me for permitting him "to leave a comment on (my) magnanimous blog". This totally irked me.

So be warned, I am opinionated and totally biased. Always!

Update On Commenting

I have previously told you that anonymous commenting would no longer be allowed on this blog, see Bock In SecondLife: On Anonymous Commenting.

The reason for that decision was mainly my refusal to use the word verification process on my own blog as it at the time gave me huge problems on other blogs that had activated that option, see Bock In SecondLife: On Word Verification.

As I have since noticed that Blogger has stopped using the blurry pictures of street numbers and also seem to have made other helpful changes in their word verification process, I reconsidered my decision and changed the commenting options so that anonymous commenting was again allowed but now with word verification activated.

My friend and co.blogger Christo Spyker reminded me the other day that I had neglected to inform you about the policy changes I had implemented.

You may hereby consider yourself informed that Bock in SecondLife now

1. allows anonymous comments again, and that
2. word verification is activated.

Funny Coincidences

Yesterday my buddy NE0 Timeless posted a response to my recent post about my problems with insomnia. In his post he suggested a wonderful piece of interesting, soothing and relaxing music that I should listen to whenever I had problems sleeping.

The music was Thomas Dolby's song N.E.O. which I am sending you to NE0's blog to listen to, Free Your Mind: A song dedicated to Bock McMillan.

While I was listening to the song I focused on the photography of a meteor that is displayed throughout the video. Suddenly I saw a vague outline of my own face on parts of the meteor, which was rather amusing.

The next funny thing that happened was that when I was going to comment on the post and thank him, I got the following word verification.

Thank you so much for the caring suggestion buddy, I will try it the next time I cannot sleep!

2,000 Posts

This is the 2,000th post of Bock in SecondLife since it's start on August 25, 2009. Since the start there have also been 5,048 comments, 362,239 pageviews and I have acquired 94 followers (3 non-public).

In honor of this accomplishment I would like to thank my loyal readers for staying with me for such a long time, through thick and thin and through sorrows and joys. I could never have made it this long without y'all!

Selma & Sev

My buddy Holy Archer has posted some beautiful pictures on his blog Holy's Picture: Ceremony of Love. They are from the partnership ceremony between Sev Laval and Selma Edman.

Photography by Holy Archer

Below you can see how I make a damned fool of myself in the comments...

... but what can I say, I was distracted by Sev's beauty and a bit tired.

Oh, and Selma's beauty was a huge distraction too of course!

Guys Talking About Guys

Just before I was going to drop out to first life yesterday my beautiful brother in-law Dej logged in. I joined him for a short chat about life and men while we watched the sunset on Southern Charm.

Two men who love men talking about other men, who may or may not love men, is sometimes a bit confusing but fabulously profound and wickedly insightful, as it has the added value of us being men ourselves.

During our talk Dej told me he had read a comment on my blog that he didn't like and that he thought the guy who had written it could never have lost anyone he loved. When I told him that I did not remember the comment he was referring to, but that I believed that the man had told me that he had actually lost a love in his life. Dej snorted disparagingly, "Men, they lie more than they shower!"

Dej's comment made me laugh out loud, both because it surprised me and because it carried an element of truth. We have all met them, these men who rather than tell us the unadorned truth by some inner need are driven to embellish their stories in a completely unnecessary way.

One of these men is my own father, whom I love dearly and who never tell lies to people close to him because he knows we will spot it immediately. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard him go into a song and dance routine with a complete stranger or a salesperson at the door or in a shop somewhere rather than simply saying "No!" to them. When I have asked him about this strange and rather uncharacteristic habit of his - several times - he just shrugs and says "I wanted to give them an explanation, just to be polite or kind."

On Anonymous Commenting

The Egg-Despiser (Hamburg 1931), photographer  Herbert List

Today I have changed the options on Bock in SecondLife concerning commenting.

Anonymous comments will no longer be allowed. The reason for this decision is that lately I have been overwhelmed with spam-comments and that 99.8 % of those who comment anonymously are spammers.

To those of you who have earlier made legitimate comments anonymously I kindly suggest you get a Google Account or some other Open-ID account, as all comments from Registered Users will be allowed. You can choose any name you wish for yourself through these services.

Blogger cockup

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I cannot reply to any comments, when I try I get the above message. I am not sure what is going on but I hope they fix it soon, because there vis nothing about the problem in the Help Group.

Unmoderated Comments

To improve a free dialog between the commentors on this blog - and as a personal favor to my buddy Apmel Goosson - I am now going to stop monitoring the comments before they are published. Your comments will appear on the blog without delay.

My monitoring will be done retroactively instead. I will forthwith delete comments that I find abusive or otherwise unacceptable by my own personal standards. Please be civil!

(And I had to get out of bed to do this, because I couldn't fall asleep otherwise after my talk with Apmel.)