Torley Lives

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… but I am, anyway, so let's continue, shall we? I just had the most pleasantly surreal experience which is no doubt going to bridge my waking reality and my sleeping dream, and my memory of it is still fresh, so I should get it all down while I can. (Bless nonlinear text editing.) I was doing my usually unusual round of exploring Second Life venues at a wee hour and checking out clubs and dancing… and then I wanted some peace, quiet, and solitude. I was already really quite tired but the SL addiction dragged me on + on + on. I soon found myself flying above a snowy yinyang — which itself is a landmark if you know where to look for it.

Trudging on a bit until I approached the green dots on my mini-map, and who should I see other than… well, I'll let the pictures speak since I'm almost out of words at this point:

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Whipped into a frenzy by the surreality of the moment — recalling a dream I had as a youth of walking a long distance in the snow in my bare feet and never getting cold — the music soon shifted from a mellow jazz to a fervent, thumping type of psychadelic, trancey, techno music.?I was?flanked by Gunnar and Angelina aka "Angie" on one side, and on the other by the effervescent Hamlet. He?soon shouted out references to SNL's Sprockets, and seeing a mental picture of Mike Myers as Dieter "get down" to Kraftwerk, I accordingly "got down" as well.

Knowing that if this was a dream, I wouldn't be dancing anywhere as fast as I should, I summoned the power of the CCD (Cristiano Crack Dance) and double-timed it up and down the crunchy snow. Surreal, with a very appropriate name I might add, soon joined the scene, and she commented that I was on too much caffeine… or some such substance… I don't recall — it must have been because I was high.

In the background, massive billboards showcasing models as part of the New World Notes Fashion Expo '04 seemed to spin around my avatar as my avatar — well — spun around, as a representation of how I really would spaz-dance in a situation like this. The whirring of digitally digital (redundant!) cameras soon went clicking through what would have felt like a cold air if it was real snow, and we danced. We danced. We danced.

Need I say: OMG!!! WHAT A TRIP!!!

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Today, there were a number of exciting adventures which I will post up later. For now, I want to spontaneously write about something that just happened to me. I was in Bonafacio (the cyberpunk district) near the Morris Sandbox, and all of a sudden, time slowed. You know bullet time in the Matrix? Just like that. Except it was not so cool when I was trying to get from Point A to Point B (being the other end of the city). I promptly filed a bug report, as this was not just my imagination. Earlier in the day, other users recalled such experiences and they were likened to Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone or some sort of Bermuda Triangle. Although we weren't in Bermuda and the occurances seemed to happen far beyond the geometric radius of such a thing, it was good enough to describe the freakiness.

Not too long after, in the snow of Seefeld, I met Ferran Brodsky and Paca Hannibal, who happened to have quite a handy device nearby that dispensed skulls from a box levitating above the white terrain. It dropped them out slowly but surely, one every five seconds — sometimes two at a time with glitchy lag — and produced a punchy knock with each surface impact.

Moments earlier, I had come on this sim, exploring as usual (or unusual), and it had crashed. Exact reasons remain unknown but one thing that is known is that Ferran and Paca, as well as Nolan Nash, were having an intense gun battle for fun. Second Life froze shortly after, and the simulator had to be reloaded.

Fast forward in time, Ferran exclaimed that they were weirdos, and I said that I was one as well. "Better to be weird than boring", I chirped. We talked about how many multiples of skulls the box could dispense, and Paca chimed in that skulls could spawn skulls, making for one heck of a skeleton construction kit, I'm sure. Shortly after, much gunfire amongst the icy peaks resumed, and the cold air was steamed by the furious rounds of ammunition making their way across cyberspace. I walked into the stream of bullets with a hesitant thought and proceeded to be blasted all the way beneath a floating shoppe in nearby Anton (I believe it was). FUN!!!

I went back to the Welcome Area in Ahern and greeted Darkmoon Zephyr, who is a newbie — today's his first day on Second Life. A cheery welcome to you, Darkmoon!

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Continuing off from my last adventures, I am reminded of fall. The leaves have really started to fall around where I am IRL, and in my Second Life, so they have as well. So without further ado, I present to you the following photos, this time in chronological order:

1. I was struck by the realism of this pile of leaves. Oh, if I looked closely enough, I could see the jaggy edges, and that's not what I mean. This is a still picture, but were it a motion picture, there was something very hard to describe — fluid and graceful — about the way the orangey clusters bobbed back and forth as I observed the martial arts duel in progress. More about martial arts in a sec. I remarked how neatorama the Starbucks copy called Coffee Talk in the distance was, and I think it was Kenzington (Fairlight) who perked up and declared, "Aren't knockoffs great?" I had to agree.

2. It shouldn't be a surprise that I get down to techno music, even in my Second Life. Ah. Hiijoro Platini busted out Daft Punk's "Aerodynamic" inworld, and I could not resist dancing along. Also pictured raving are Shugo Gomez and Subliminal Mackenzie. I kept going "OMG!!! WHAT A TRIP!!!" and declaring loudly which parts of the track I enjoyed, such as the big DONG bells, the Bach-baroquey section, and most certainly THE GUITAR RIFF! DISTORTION!!?Shugo and Subliminal did this awesome moment of synchronicity and started bobbing in time with prim-guitars when the riffs came into play again, and I danced some more. Brings a whole new meaning to "Sandbox", doesn't it? TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO.

3. After some flying around — which I like, but I wish it would go faster, especially travelling across great expanses — I happened to chance upon the sisters named Hawk Falcone and Nagi Akebono. They were in their red VW beetle convertible — not my fave neon green but still a cool car — and invited me to take a ride with them. Dayum, sitting is tricky in SL. Notice how in the pic, I am teetering off the edge. It wasn't until later that I was able to "properly" ease into the seat and firmly wedge myself as we went around the city. There were a lot of red bordered-off private areas, I observed, and soon enough, we found ourselves caught in a driveby shooting from afar. The brave sisters got out to defend yours truely, and soon, there was silence again. Several times, we got caught in the middle of a watery groove, but this was quickly solved by way of… explosives. Believe it or not, the bangs sent us sky-high, and then, it was on to…

4. Kuroda. The sisters seriously explained to me about their "Second Culture" within Second Life — the way of the samurai and ninja. They spoke many Japanese terms to me which I only had a passing familiarity with, so I asked them for explanations. They showed me to places like the tea room (which had a very short ceiling) and the dojo where they train. They also vomited for me. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly. Apparently, there is a device called a "puker" that will make you blow digitized chunks of undigested nutrition. It was in stark contrast to the classy outfits that Hawk and Nagi wore, but as you know, I enjoy this diversity.

5. Hawk and Naki toured me through more locations , and there was a weapons demonstration given consisting not only of swords but guns and other such combat machinations. I was given a bow and arrows and kindly encouraged to visit in the future and practice my archery in the dojo. I may have to take them up on this invitation. Thanks, girls, you're very honorable.

6. While chatting in the Welcome Area for a bit, I was contacted by Cristiano Midnight, who I talked to about Second Life even before downloading the program and trying it out for myself (as you may have read on my FAQ). We had a good talk. I told him I wanted to be teleported to his area as I really don't like text chat alone. I asked him, quite literally, if he built a lot of stuff in SL. The answer, of course, is a more-than-resounding YES. One of his innovations happened to be a whimsical method of expressing one's self I had earlier seen in a sandbox area. A girl used it to spaz her way across the virtual landscape, to none other than a soundtrack of "Battle Without Honor Or Humanity" from the Kill Bill soundtrack. IT MADE ME LAUGH SOOO HARD, OMG!!! I inquired about this to Cristiano, and within seconds, he had identified it as the Crack Dance. I suppose it's named that because of its similarities to how a human would behave upon consuming an entire ice cream-pail of crack cocaine, but I didn't ask. True to form, we both broke out in a "crack dance". (The other mode of behavior upon ingesting so much crack, I suppose, would be dying dramatically. Cristiano graciously showed me an animation for this as well. )

7. Now, here we are at Cristiano's art gallery. You can read what it says on the wall, it's very meaningful. Interestingly enough — and I like to make connections — when I was playing trivia earlier today (not pictured), one of the questions happened to concern The Wizard of Oz. You can see this is in one of the pictures. Ever-so-timely Myradyl Muse dropped in to say hi! She is Cristiano's neighbor and a top builder in SL, I am told. She is also very nice, being a mermaid. Cool cyan hair, it matches her dress.?Apparently, she helped create the Heaven section of Kris Ritter's Heaven and Hell exhibit on Krittania, which I enjoyed immensely but did not know she did. I wish Second Life had a better auto-journalling feature for travels. I know I've mentioned this before, and so I'll be needfully redundant and mention it again. It was nice to meet her, and I hope to see her again.

8. Now, here we are at Cristiano's hotel, the last stop of the night. I have long mentioned that there is something very magical about hotels and airports. I really like all the work he's put into the place. It has nice swatches of blue and classy furniture, and the stairs are ever-so-smooth to walk on.?This is a great balcony view, and although the hotel only has one room, that's because its primary purpose is to host events. I stood briefly at a podium in a room to declare, "HI, I'M DONALD TRUMP, AND YOU'RE FIRED!" Works for me.

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Oh joy… Ishkur (of Ishkur's Guide of Electronic?Music fame)?has let me know he has found out what the mistitled "Robert Miles - Rain" track is actually called, and it's DJK's?"I Like Chopin". That name rings no bells to me, but at least we now know. Thank you graciously, Ishkur. That's one less unsolved EDM mystery to wonder about.

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Here's an octet of my latest Second Life adventures. I'll provide descriptive captions, starting with the first one.

1. It can be somewhat unsettling yet pleasing at the same time to see such lush beauty created within in the inorganic confines of a bits-n-bytes framework. Humans have come this far, and yet, we have such a long way to go.

2. Here I am at FairChang Island again, after playing Jeopardy. Yes, that game where you give answers in the form of a question. That's one reason I like it. Another reason is because Garth Fairlight and Pituca Chang are such gracious hosts. As of this writing, not only are they standing together in SL, they stand together in RL! Awww.

3. This house-in-progress reminded me of my allies Paul and Dana's real house.

4. Chance Abattoir invited me to his new place. It's very icy indeed, and it gives him far more room to put up his photographs. We discussed his future plans and what will become of the snowscape, and I flew to the top of his smokestack, which seems to be much higher and smokier — and crystal-lier! — than ever before. Nice wings, Chance. Remind me to ask Aria about the ants . . .

5. OMG!!! This sushi was sooo yummy-looking I wanted to shove it all in my virtual mouth (prolly some extensive polygon deformation would then take place), and eat the table too. This is Francis Chung's work.

6. Don't ask, don't tell — but do know that using the Sit command in strategic locations can be amusing.

7. Cyrena Zamboni's cakeplate in the sky, aka her home. I flew towards it to snap this pictar just as she had to go. In the daytime, it's easier to see and even more beautiful.

8. Kenzington Fairlight?plays with particles… it reminded me of some of the laser effects from the classic Mega Man games on the NES. It was very trippy. We started dancing, as is customary to do when there are neon lights.

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