I can’t believe how many times I have this discussion/argument with people.  Most of the time it is with people who’ve not spent a sufficient amount of time in SL to be able to make the claim that is or is not a game.

I refer everyone to  Prad’s post on the matter, I couldn’t say it any better than he does.  Go ahead I’ll wait…..

So, tell me how SL is a game.  There is no winner or loser.  There is  no *quest* or *goal*.  There are no points or scoring systems.    So how is it a game?  I log in everyday, I work, I interact with people socially, I relax and hang out with friends, I shop, I listen to music, I take photographs.  I don’t see anything there that would suggest this was a game.  In fact it sounds remarkably like what I do in RL.  The difference?  I do it virtually in SL and interact with people all over the world that I couldn’t do in RL.

So please, tell me how SL is a game?  Yes there are games within SL.  Contests to win and virtual games to play.  That does not make SL a game.  If those were the rules you’d have to say that RL was a game. 

I’m tired of having to explain it over and over again.

Who or what defines you?  I know a lot of people have discussed this around the web and everyone has valid views.  While I agree with some I disagree with many and decided to write my own post.

In order for me to answer that question I have to know what/who defines me.  In SL, Bails is defined by me, the human behind the Avie.  Yes there are other avs that have helped to shape her in some ways(Prad), and others who have influenced her sense of style(Rrish), some who have shaped what she is (Dazy, Ioh) but her foundation, her personality is all me.  I am her creator and the author of her story. 

There are things that drive her(her mate, her kittens, her sense of honor and justice, her friends) but those things aren’t WHO she is.  They are pieces of a greater whole.  She would still be who she is without all those things. 

Her thoughts, her feelings and her opinions are hers and hers alone.  They are also mine as I’m the author of what she says.  Those who know Bails and the human behind her will recognize this.  Neither she or I are perfect.  Neither she or I are always right or wrong.  We both make mistakes and strive to learn from them.  As we both learn from those mistakes we both change.  There is no way not too.  If you are to learn then you must change to some degree.

Who am I?  I’m the accumulation of my experiencs.  I’m defined by the lessons I’ve learned and the rules of the world I live in.  I’m shaped by the friends I’ve made, the family I have and the society in which I spend my time.  I’m driven by those I hold dear to my heart. 

I am who I am.  I’m proud of Bails and who she is.  Proud of the friends she’s made and her accomplishments.  Proud that she has had the courage to change and grow.

I am who I am.

To those who know me well, they’ll know that my avie has gone thru quite a few changes in the last couple of months.  The most notable of this is she’s completely neko now.  Not just part time, all the time.  She’s also sporting a lovely leopard skin.

The reasons for making these changes isn’t really the point of this post.  The fact remains that this is who Bailey is.  Now last night I was out shopping with a friend.  This friend happens to be a child av and that child av is my daughter.  The person behind the av is a good friend and I am old enough to be her mother!

The point of all of this was a couple comments directed toward me in IM.  I’ve also heard a number of comments from other people about child avs.  Course I’ve heard loads of comments about nekos in general, Gor slaves, kid avies, furries etc etc  These comments range from the bland to vile things I’d never repeat.

Hearing these comments disappoints me.  This is second life, a place where you can be anyone and anything you wish to be.  Shouldn’t everyone else be able to do the same?  What does it matter to you if I’m out shopping with my daughter?  I’m not asking you to recognize her as my daughter, I’m not even asking you to say hello.  Ignore us if it makes you feel better.   The same would be said for all the others I mentioned above. 

If your out shopping and you see a Gor slave kneeling half naked or a furry, or a vampire or any of the others I’ve mentioned above and you don’t like it, ignore it.  They aren’t asking for you to interact with them.  They are simply there to shop just like you.  Don’t stare, don’t grimace and don’t run to AR them.  Leave them alone, let them shop in peace.  No one is asking you to interact with someone  you don’t wish to. 

I will say though, it’s still polite to say "I’m sorry" when you body slam someone trying to get in the store.

So yeah, I’m disappointed in some of my fellow residents.  Who knew that when we logged in to SL to escape the crap in RL we’d let all that bigotry, hate, and intolerance in.

The next time I’m out shopping with my daughter or son and someone makes a comment, I’m going to ignore them.  I’m not going to waste a moment of my time acknowledging them and their small minds.

The next time your out shopping and you see a Gor slave/master think abou this before you comment, would you tell a neko to take off their tail and ears before going shopping?  Does the fairy or angel need to take her wings off?  Are you going to tell that Vampire , sorry put the teeth away?  What about the robot , can’t even imagine what problem anyone would have with a robot.

Stop being judgmental against someone because you neither understand why they do what they do nor approve of it.  It’s not up to you to like it, or approve it.  They are entitled to live their own second lives as they see fit.

*end rant*

UPDATE:  I’ve closed comments on this post and I will no longer allow comments on this blog that do not stay on track with the message delivered in the post.

Valentine’s Day.  That holiday that is either loved or hated depending on your current status.  If your in a relationship(a good one) then you are likely to embrace the day.  If your not in a relationship(or in a bad one) your likely going to hate all the mushy lovey dovey stuff.

For the most part I’ve always felt it is a contrived holiday to benefit the candy makers and  greeting card companies.  This year is a bit different.  This year I’m in a relationship with someone whose company I enjoy, who makes my face light up when I see him and who I want to spend every minute with.  While I still think the holiday is overdone by card and candy companies, I’m jumping on the candy heart bandwagon.

Valentine’s Day celebrates love and affection.  Go as far back as the Romans and lovers and friends have been exchanging tokens of love and friendship in the middle of the month in February.  Whether it is a simple token of affection to a friend you hold dear or something more personal and thoughtful to a lover, it’s a day to celebrate the bonds we have with those we love.

We shouldn’t need one day to remind us to say "I love you" though.  We should say it every day.  Life is far too short and things change to quickly to let a moment go by without telling the people you care about how you feel.

So I’m taking this moment to say "I <3 You" to those who I hold dear.  They know who they are.  You all mean the world to me.   You’ve each touched my heart in a different way and I’ve changed, hopefully for the better, because of it.  Not a day goes by that I don’t think about each of you or try to make sure I at least say hello.

To Ioh…. You have stolen my heart.  I love you more than I could possibly say.  Your my last thought as I drift off to sleep and my first when I awake.  I love you…   always.

To all those who aren’t in a relationship and totally believe this to be an overblown commercial holiday – I hear you.  I’ve been there.  But Valentine’s day isn’t just for lovers.  It really is for everyone.  Tell your friends how much you care about them.   Tell your family what they mean to you.  Tell that designer whose clothes you adore how much you love their what they make.  Take the opportunity to tell someone you care about them. 

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

P.S. -  Back to square one on the complaint meter.  Someone who shall remain nameless (Prad) pointed out a small rant I’d made.  So, back to the beginning – 1 day with no complaints!  Go me!  lol

I want to thank everyone who participated in the Charity Auction yesterday at C2P.  It was a lot of fun and best of all we raised a good deal of money.  I believe we had about 150,000L last night so a HUGE thank you to everyone!!

There will be a donation box out at the Crown and Pearl for anyone who wishes to donate but couldn’t attend yesterday.  Remember, last year we raised over 1 million lindens!!!!!

Every little bit helps and counts so if you can spare some lindens, put them in the box.

Thank you to Prad for DJing and assisting with the auction.

Thank you to Lands for all the notices and promotion of the event.

Again, thank you to everyone who donated or agreed to be auctioned off!

LOL I know, silly title but what else would say it quite so well?  See, nothing so there you go.

As my lovely friends will attest I’ve been suspiciously absent from the Crown and from their IM windows.  I haven’t even bugged them for new Gallery photos although they will get that poke later when I get home.  Hint hint

So, where have I been?   I’ve been roleplaying in Midian  and I’ve been hanging out with a very special neko that I adore and who adores me.  We partnered last weekend and I couldn’t be happier.  We talked that night about having a wedding ceremony, he said he’d do it if I wanted it.  He offered, is this guy great or what….  So, we’ll be having a wedding and a christening at St Michael’s parish in Midian.  Details will be forthcoming when I know what they are – lol.

I know I said I’d never get married again in SL but this is different.  He’s different.  I’ll spare you all the soppy details.  He knows how I feel about him and that’s all that matters.

The Crown and Pearl Charity Auction is this weekend.  We’ve had quite a few people sign up to be auctioned off.  It’s a good cause, Cancer Research so come out on Sunday and bid on someone or just dump some lindens in the donation box.  The Auction itself is Sunday at 1pm SLT at the C2P on Angel Square.  Join the Crown and Pearl group for updates on the auction and all the other great events and DJs.

The Gallery of Light theme should be changing this weekend.  The new theme is Respect.  The artwork I’ve seen so far is amazing.  We have a new addition to the gallery; Elise Capalini.  Welcome Elise, we’re happy to have you join the family.

The Angel Square market/mall is open and starting to fill in.  If you are looking for store space let me know.  Come down and take a walk through the gallery and the stores opening, there’s some truly cute items there.

So that’s what’s new and notable in my world for now.

Quick update:  I’m 3 days without a single complaint!  Woohoo Go me!

Well it’s that time of year again.   Time for the Crown and Pearl’s annual charity date auction.   That’s right, the regulars and staff are putting themselves up on the auction.   What do you get if you out bid everyone else and “win” one of these awesome folks?   You win a one hour date.  What you two do on your date is up to you.   We don’t wanna know.  No, really we don’t. 

So how does it work?  Well if you’d like to be “auctioned” off, then contact me by Thursday and I’ll add you to the list.   The you need to come to the C2P(the underground club on Angel Square) Sunday February 8^th by 1pm.   You’ll go up on the auction block and the winning bidder gets a date with you by paying the donation box.  

The event is always a lot of fun and we raise a lot of money for a good cause.  Last year over the course of a week we raised over $1million lindens for Cancer Research.   The event was dedicated to DeeDee Fadoodle, a regular of the Crown and Pearl and resident of Angel Square.   We lost DeeDee last year and she is sorely missed. 

If you can’t participate in the actual event, the donation box will be left up for a few days and you are welcome to throw some linden love in the box.   All the money raised will go to Cancer Research UK, we aren’t keeping a penny of it.

So you wanna know who is being auctioned off right?  Well, we’ve got 2 of SL’s hottest Male Avs, I’m not saying who.   I hear there is a rather sexy cat or two up for auction as well as a several other lovely regulars and staff.

If you want all the details you need to be in the Crown and Pearl group so sign up if you aren’t yet.   You’ll get all the details and notices about the event.

I’ll thank everyone in advance for their support for this very worth cause.

Yep, that’s me.  I’ve been a bad blogger.  Haven’t posted a thing in days.  Why you may ask?  Well, I’ve been sick in RL and really haven’t felt like writing anything.  I’ve also been busy doing other things.  What other things?  Oh, you’ll all find out at some point.  Just not now.

Back to blogging though.  I’ve missed it actually.  One of the blogs I read had a link to this website  and the premise sounded pretty good so I went to check it out.  Of course they want you to buy the video, the book, the tapes etc etc but the basic premise I like.  Here’s the idea, stop complaining and criticizing for 21 days.  If you catch yourself doing it, then start over for 21 days.

What an incredible concept no?  No complaints, no criticisms, no gossip, no drama for 21 days.  Have you ever stopped to think about how many times you complain about something in your day?  Being home sick for three days I’ve done a lot of complaining believe me.  But I’ve been sick so I decided to not even try this until I felt better.  I’ll start this weekend.  21 days, I think I can do it.

What about you?  Can you go 21 days without a complaint about someone or something?  21 days without criticizing someone’s behavior, clothing, attitude? 21 days without talking about someone negatively?

I’d love to hear what you think about this and whether or not you think you can do it.  I’ll post everyday to let you know how I’m doing.  Yes, I’ll be honest and not cheat!  Not that most of you would know if I did but I won’t.

I challenge anyone who wants to do this with me to comment here or drop me a note/IM in world.  Most of my IMs go to email and I’ll respond when I get it.

Even if you choose to not try this little experiment with me, think about how many times you’ve complained today.  It’s only 7am for me and I’ve ripped our building maintenance apart for not sanding the parking lot or handing out ice skates.  It’s a valid complaint granted but instead of complaining, I should call them, which I did.  I won’t tell you what they told me.  It wasn’t nice.

The idea that Phillip brought up about merging the Teen and Main grid has been bantered about all over the blogosphere.  While I can appreciate both sides of the argument I think attempting this with the issues LL currently has is a mistake.

There is no doubt I’ve met some talented and very mature minors on the main grid.  I’m sure there are far more out there than I know about.  They are smart and creative and savvy enough to not broadcast their age.  They are breaking the rules yes but kudos to them for trying something.

There are 2 sides to every argument of course.  Those who support letting all the kids in to the main grid and those who don’t.  I doubt anyone is suggesting just throwing the doors open and letting anyone thru without some form of verification that you are who you say you are.  This is where some people lose me.  You are signing up for SecondLife, many have blogs, many have even referred to their RL in those blogs.  Why are you so against some sort of verification that you are who you say you are when you enter sl?  No one is entirely anonymous on the internet.  An enterprising 13yr old could hack your website, find your bank account and buyout the video store before you even notice.  I realize that’s an exaggeration but you get my point.

Now granted, some worry about handing out personal details.  Fair enough.  Look at it from a different view though.  By verifying you are protecting yourself.  Your saying, "yep, this is who I am" to LL.  Now it’s up to LL to protect that information by not sharing it, letting it get "lost" or stolen.  Perhaps I’m being nieve but at some point you’ve got to trust a system to work as it’s intended.  So, I age verified, it took 5 mins.  I have payment info on file, it took 5 mins.  LL knows who I am and so does everyone else in SL that I’ve chosen to tell.  I make no secret of it, I just *choose* who I tell.

What does all that have to do with merging the 2 grids?  It’s one of the things LL will have to do if they want teens and adults to co-exist openly.  I don’t want to have to alter what I do in SL because a kid may be on the sim.  Not when my sim is set to mature.  I don’t want to have to tell the residents of my island what they can or can’t do on their property because a kid may show up at the mall in the middle of the sim.

By the same token I’d expect there to be some strong rules about behaviour in kid friendly areas.  I’ve no problem following the rules in such an area if I can set my own on my sim.

I’ve long since thought that parents should be able to spend time with their kids in SL.  Maybe that’s the place to start integrating.  Set up a "family" area.  See how it works.  Allow family members to bring people in if they want to.  It could be a great thing.

It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out.  As Blue said in the concierge chat last night they’ve wanted to do this for 2 years.  I’ll reserve judgement for now and wait to see what happens.

So, wow been a busy few days now hasn’t it.  To say that the grid had issues this past weekend would be an understatement.  Logins were on and off more often than…. well, it was a lot.  Don’t rezz no copy items, teleports down, stale transactions and I won’t even talk about what Midian was like.

I’ve been a resident for over 2 years now.  Way back when I was still in my Ruth skin this kind of behaviour was normal.  Hair and shoes hanging off your arse, unable to walk across a sim line.  It was awful.  But it got better.  It really did.  In fact the majority of 2008 was awesome.  Crashs happen but not often.  No weird attachments.  And if the grid went down, everyone got booted(well, except Prad).  In fact every Wednesday the grid would go down, we’d all log in to RL and eventually the grid came back up and life went on.  Glitches happened of course but they usually fixed themselves in an hour or two.

This last week and especially this past weekend has been the worst I’ve seen in 2 years.  People spamming their groups to not log out because logins were disabled.  Then once you inevitably crashed, trying in vain to log back in.  To say I was annoyed would be an understatement.  I don’t usually complain about LL.  I know they are doing the best they can.  At least I hope they are.  But whatever it is that sent the grid into a tailspin this past week needs to get fixed.  And soon. 

There are a lot of us paying a great deal of money every month.  We expect excellent service and a product that works.  Glitches will happen, we get that.  But I have to say I’d rather know the grid was gonna be down for 4 hours on one day then lose 4 hours in little bits and pieces over the course of 3 days. 

As far as the buyout of Xstreetxl and Onrez…. I’ll reserve judgement until I see what they intend to do with it.