Second Pride Has A New Website

Second Pride has a new website! Make sure to add this url to your favorites http://second-pride.com/

Second Pride was born around 2005 and in small gathering of LGBT groups in the LGBT region of Province Town in Second Life. Back then the participants were almost all from the same few groups and it is only later that it grew when they decided to make their celebration event available to all of SL by making it much bigger.


Beginning in 2007, the Second Pride Committee has chosen a Real or 1st Life charity to designate as the recipient of proceeds raised above and beyond those required for the “business” of organizing events leading up to the annual Second Pride Festival as well as the Festival itself. Over the years, Second Pride has raised thousands of dollars in support of these Real World organizations whose mission and goals dovetail with our own. As Second Pride moves into a new era we will be supporting “in-world” Second Life groups and organizations that share our interest and concern and further LGBT causes.

Why Do I Blog?

This is essentially a reposting of an old post I did once to explain to myself - and others - my intentions with my blogging. The original post "Varför bloggar jag?" was in Swedish so I have rewritten the relevant parts of it in English here and removed some references to a conflict that was going on at that time.

My blogging is not at all professional or journalistic; it is rather impressionistic or possibly expressionistic.

I blog about things about myself, what moves me, what concerns me, what bothers me and what upsets me mostly in SecondLife but also in real life. I react to my own personal experiences, impressions and adventures, but this I have clearly stated already in the header of this blog.

I do not claim to tell the complete truth. However, I try to tell my truth as honestly and well as I can and only of the things I know of and have witnessed myself. I am not an investigative journalist; I have not done extensive research and gone through all the blogs that may be involved. Nevertheless I always allow others to give their versions of the truth and listen with respect to what they have to say.

Overall, I would define myself as a rather kind soul. I am rarely seeking battle, but rather dialogue, for that sake I do not avoid conflict when I believe it is necessary. My purpose is never to get at, hurt or harm any of my fellow human beings or fellow avatars. However, I sometimes think there are benefits to airing dirty laundry in a conflict.

I will continue to blog about what moves, concerns, disturbs and upsets me. Not so much for the sake of others as for my own benefit. Of course it is gratifying to know that others also read what I write and react to it, but honestly, this is essentially a form of safety valve, self-therapy or masturbation to which I have become dependent. I hope no blood, saliva or other bodily fluids ever splash onto you.

Have a nice day!

Music Maestro, Please!

Its time for some good music to break my irritation. Here come CockNBullKid with Asthma Attack, enjoy!

Damaged, But Not Broken

Yesterday was more or less a wasted day. I slept in long, woke up, drank some water, then crawled back to bed again. All day the only memorable thing I did was brush my teeth, nothing else really. I didn't eat, didn't talk to anyone, didn't leave my home and didn't get dressed. I walked around in the flat and slept in my boxers, a t-shirt under a hoodie and thick hiking socks. Not a pretty sight, I can assure you.

Luckily I am off from work until January 2nd, but still I want to do more in my free time than sleep, blog and be in SecondLife.

However I didn't do a worthwhile thing until I finally crawled out of bed at 9 PM to make some coffee. After my first cup of coffee I started reading predictions for 2012 in the SecondLife and virtual worlds blogosphere. That was to a large extent a dreary ordeal.

Every SecondLife blogger with any ambition or pretension to be a serious part of the metaverse had come up with some prophesy or other on what we could expect of 2012. Many seemed to have taken their starting point in Philip Rosedale´s views on SecondLife as he expressed it earlier this year. The "high threshold" and the residents being “Smart people in rural areas, the handicapped, people looking for companionship, they love it. But you have to be highly motivated to get on and learn to use it.” statements.

Some of them even went so far as to say that a vast majority of residents are "broken" (physically. emotionally, mentally and/or spiritually).

I have never ever considered myself broken in any way, shape of form, and certainly not when I first arrived to SecondLife and decided to come back again, again, again and over again for almost five years now. Maybe I have gotten somewhat damaged during my time here, but I sure as hell have not been broken by this life.

Although most of them predict SecondLife will still be around for all of 2012, they still rant on about its high threshold compared to online games like "World of Warcraft", which is one of the fastest growing games and is therefore seen as a model to which SecondLife should adapt to recruit new users. So I went ahead and tried that game to see how easy it would be to join, learn and how interesting it would be in there.

I spent four (4) hours in the trial version of the game. First I must say it was not that easy to sign into. One has to register twice, which I cannot understand the need for and which was totally bewildering because the sign in´s come at different points of the registering process.

Once you are in, you choose if you want to belong to "the good" or "the bad" side and what kind of apparition you want to be in those alliances and how you want to look. Creating your looks isn't as advanced as in SecondLife if you want to vary from the given avatars and the resulting avatar is a disappointment.

After downloading, registering twice on different services (the game itself and something called "Blizzard" - if I remember correctly) and creating my looks for about 30 minutes I spent 3,5 hours honestly trying to give the game a chance to intrigue or fascinate me.

There was never any interaction with real people, just with machine dummies who gave you missions or could bring you to life if you died, all the set was about clicking fast and hard on things you had to kill. I admit, I am easily bored sometimes, but after doing this for 3,5 hours my brain was numb and bored to death by the simplistic shit.

If that's what they think we should strive for I for one don't want any part of it - ever.

Do you finally see to what extremes I am prepared to go so you should not have to, my dear readers?

Bora Comes By

Bora Rossini came over for a visit today. We haven´t seen each other for some time, so it was good to talk about what had happened in our lives since the last time we talked and catch up with the others.

While Bora was there we also took the time to look at the memorial for Ars that Bora once very kindly made for me from the huge memorial that stood at Mirromere for a week. Bora cut it down to a quarter of its original size so that it fits perfectly on the parcel, without losing any of its beauty.

Reporting For Duty, My Laird!

Some people are always complaining that "it is so difficult to find good help these days". Those days have lasted for the last five hundred years.

Well, I can tell you I was absolutely thrilled to see my new Sergeant at Arms reporting for duty in full McMillan regalia today.

sirhc DeSantis-McMillan looked so absolutely sexy and cute, as you can see for yourself!

Lucky for him, he is betrothed (or whatever they call it - hmmm ringfasted?) to a dear friend of mine and my First Technical Officer (a.k.a. tech-head) Vampi Twine-DeSantis-McMillan - who also happens to be very scary woman when it pleases her - or I would be scratching his furry back by now.

Just one thing kitten, I usually take the glengarry bonnet off as fast as I can although I always insist on wearing it when first arriving at any function. It really is not the best look for studs like you and I, is it?

"Did I Tell You Today, Babe?"

Bock McMillan: Did I tell you today, babe?
Ars Northmead: No, but I know already
Bock McMillan: Some things need to be said out loud, in fact they deserve to be repeated - constantly
Ars Northmead: Go ahead, babe ;)
Bock McMillan: I love you so much, Ars!
Ars Northmead: I love you too, Bock babe!
...

Old habits die hard.