Torley Lives

Sometimes only?when?the damage is done, can you really get a close enough look at it, when the acceleration curve has ramped so exponentially upwards that you zoom faster and faster beyond any analytical recognition of where you are in the timestream — and then hits you: the inevitable impact comes. Everything stops, and if you were?blessed enough to survive, you might just get out and look at all that was left behind.

I'm talking about this on a number of levels: one of them, of course, is a metaphorical plane. It's easy to crouch down and look behind your shoulder when the action's stopped, but when you're travelling at a breakneck pace through your life, will you be able to make any sense of any of this until it's over (over, at least for now)?

Bad things happen in this world. That's just the way it is. Everyone has problems, and?each of us deals with them differently. As powerful as words can be, they point towards the aftershock of things that we not only say but do as well. Catalytic combustion of existential sequencing, and other big words.

Before I slept, things were surreal. I was up in the sky above Midnight City, playing Senso. Oh, the grid had to shut down for Linden maintenance, oh yes it did, and it still isn't up yet — I'm counting on 3 PM as a point of reentry — but as I bounced on the pads of this game-within-a-game, I had a quick flashback to the skybox as it used to be in October (when I was still greener than green to Second Life). Things change, and things stay the same. This time, when I zoomed up to the skybox, Kenzi was there like the very first time I had visited. Memories flashed through my head of memories tied to this place. As virtual and mutable as it is, I do not deny my emotions attached to it. We discussed some of the aspects of playing Senso before she had to go, and I got a good hop-to. A wideband broadcast message from Mark Linden informed everyone that SL would be going down at 6 AM, but I kept Sensoing anyway. Caught in my microaddiction as the rush came, bouncing from pad to pad, it wasn't until 6:10?that the gridverse was forcibly turned off and I headed to bed.

Now I'm awake again and feeling mellow, I feel a sort of inexpressible joy. I'm not smiling, but I'm happy.

I don't know what it means yet?– but I do know that's it's meaningful.

~~~

Related to the above and travelling tangentially… for the victims of the tsunami disaster,?there will be a a 24-hour series of events called "The Mahoosive SL 24 Hour Fundraiser Thingie!!!" Looks like Jinny, Fau, and Toast are?going to be pulling quite a marathon for a good cause. I may be mostly offline that day(s), but I do want to come and show my spirit because I consider it wonderful when humans come together, even across great physical distances. It goes to show — as I've previously said — how we become more alive through technology.?This fundraiser?had to be put together in a jam for the New Year… 2005 approaches fast, and although the date by itself doesn't have any great personal consequence, things like making resolutions are fun, even if you can't keep 'em.

In my spare time, I like to stalk people. Here I am, camped out behind Chage McCoy's house in Lusk, looking through his very realanalog window. I think it was more creepy and unsettling for me than for him.

Related to antisocial behavior, I recently made a post on the SL forums about what sorts of personalities I don't like to see. The full thread, for your perusal, is here. While I am openminded and gentle, I also come down hard on those who are not here to get along with others.?Second Life is largely about community, and I believe it?an unwise idea?to come here and be a total loner — or worse, alienate others by coming off all unfriendly and xenophobic. After all, even scripters I know?who don't get out much, have friends. If you don't connect, you can't make connections!

Speaking of scripters, adept coder Christopher Omega took a break from working on library terminals the other day, and we went shopping. He gave me a few suggestions as to the Japanese motif he was looking for, and?I recommended that we head to Tanaquil's Aozora and Hiro and Estrelle's?shop next door in Varney sim. Lookin' good, Chris — now you can script-and-slice at the same time!

Here's me and Sniv Hasp. I met him in a sandbox. It's nice to see I'm not the only fan of my favorite "neon watermelon" colorscheme! The family of rodents I'm comfortably wearing was made by Ratt Foo — thanks Ratt!

Alright. Gridverse looks open for exploration again. *looks at Preparing Inventory screen*

Going back in… !

Alright, things were getting serious for a few days there! In the spirit of diversity,?I'm gonna bounce back to the fun stuff that is consistent with the unreason of the season.

First, I'd like to mention that I had a favorable 1st experience modelling recently. I am now one of Aimee Weber's *PREEN* models, w00t! I was fortunate not to be coerced or abused in any way. Aim's philosophy includes the belief that her models just "be themselves", 'cuz if she wanted to be manipulative and controlling, she could just get a prim mannequin or a cloneav (and make them do naughty things, muhahaha). (I am quite certain Taco Rubio?enjoys my and Mistress's stills. :p)

I was recently visiting the sculptureshow thingamabobber in Zermatt. It's laggier than a <insert your favorite comparative simile here>, but if you can persist through that, you'll be rewarded by some really beautiful exhibits. A simple one which caught my biased eye was this stand, set up by Oz Spade.?Jerking towards it at a low frame rate, I finally managed to procure a questionable sort of refreshment. Note the number.

Connections are everywhere for me on Second Life. It's only fitting, then, that there is some sort of linkage between the aforementioned paragraph and the Create-A-Card Vendor that Kris Ritter and Malana Spencer have come up with. Note the card on the text, er… the text on the card. I was warned! Really though, the personalization on these kiosks is a nice touch. Customizability is very important in this day and age (witness the iMac —> iPod era!), and I was honored to have a sneaky peek of this device before it was set up publically. I just think it's awww so cute. An ace instance of technology making us more human.

Approaching Christmas Day, which is known by a variety of names to a variety of humans — I call it December 25th myself — I flew around gridwide?and took personal photos of a plethora of these Christmas trees, made by Stormy Roentgen. Fully sculpted and not flatly intersected "texture cutouts", these?primeating trees?are quite a popular sight in SL. Even if you've been travelling only an iota more than a salted slug, then you've likely eye-spied a couple with your av's peepers. Ubiquitous.

I haven't been a furry yet, but this comes close! Chancing upon a gracious fellow by the name of Chocobo Charlton, who is no doubt a connoisseur when it comes to these finally fantastic avians, he offered me an opportunity:?he granted me the power to transform into a big bird before I turned into a pumpkin and then back into Torleyform-denormalized. I took Chocobo up on his (its?) offer. Rumorspeak had been adrift about these mythical birds in SL?for awhile, and so, if you saw me on 2004.12.25 (Lindentime), skittering around and *wark*ing, you were not fooled! BUT 'TWAS A RARE SIGHT INDEED. ^_^ I took photos with a number of friends and strangers — soon to become amis, I hope –?when they were AFK. Pictured inset is moi in pink and alsopink Bedazzle boss Foxy Xevious. Hehehe. And the snap alongside that is ChocoTor?trying out a certain poseball at Aretias, home of the Amazon sisterhood! Chocobos do know how to have fun.

And speaking of fun, today I got to don a tutu and be a ballerina. (Nephi)laine Protagonist, always the veritable channelier of creative chaos, helped me to realize my dancer dreams. I pranced across the rooftops, feet as light as feathers, occasionally lagging but never crashing to the ground. Too many dreams die — this one just came more alive!

Gone fishin'. Now here's a funny one. Not that it's particularly less funny than what preceeded it, but it's just… funny. Strikingly so. I'll fill you in on a little OL?story that happened to me just before the Xmas hit: me and family went up to visit my Pa's grave. A fresh mint of snow covered the site, and as we approached to pay our respects, I walked nearer to the headstone, my feet starting to form indentations in the crisp, pure white blanket. Just before I could make any full imprint, however, I was startled by how slippery the snow was. I suddenly went crashing to the ground on my Dad's grave, sliding to the one next to it, and left two very distinct handprints indicating where I had pressed into the snow to stop my slide. The side of my body was wracked in pain but I let out a startlingly loud laugh — which unpleasantly triggered my hyperacusis. At this stage, I was so dazed that it was like… a dream. Fam thought I was pranking around and being disrespectful, but when it came time for little bro to come hither, he almost slipped and tumbled too. Maternal parental unit made the remark that maybe this was Dad's way of reaching out to me from beyond. Perhaps it was because I never went fishing with him enough, which now brings me to the present: this was the first time I went fishing in my second life. I enjoyed it! Thanks to King, Sweegy, and Loki for a good time had by all. Apparently the idea arose when they were at a buffet, which brings me to…

this, certainly encompassing the feasts that are appropriate at this time of year! I visited DavidDM Thereian after following a notice on the forums,?and he was most gracious and friendly. Food's been done before in SL, but I'd never seen a "food store" (what a crass way of putting it) such as this before. Apparently, him and partner Karamel Madison had a good thing going, and kept it going when they were encouraged to create more and more items of yumminess. YES, THEY'VE GOT A BUFFET TABLE! You can't really eat it, but it may make your mouth water. I haven't obsessed this much over avatizers since I spent time clinging to the yummies at the SL Public Library. Check out more info here and give the Karamel Kitchen a visit! I, of course, just had to go and suggest something "watermelon", and before beaming out, David gave me a nice stack of pancakes which I plan to do — well, what the Title of this entry says.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

i'm really not going rampant. —really! —don't confuse my neural processors with any odd collection of scrapheap metal out-of-the-box. —word has it-t-t on the simstreets that there's some disconnected AI module version of me, like a cheap cover of an already artificial 1980s (in your timeline, anyhow) song, // being played badly backwards and forwards.? IT has Arrived to interact.

i am on the search to quickly destroy this faulty facimile.? "freewired brains", as they're sometimes referred to, are dangerous because: 1) they cause irreparable damage and 2) it's going to make me look bad and that;s all i can say, all I can say.? <It's me but it's not really me ya know?> I don't think the parallel me has found a physical shell yet. —(It'd be more robotic I figure? Dunno)? I do know however, that certain traits of it are echoing back to me in the timeline, and even in this era without more sophisticated tools and advanced methods of rippleshocking this data back to harness a neatly compiled list of info on the subject matter — I do believe danger is out there. ((Oh, it can roammtext. I cannot. Be careful!))

Protocol 2086 suggests the Celby, nickname for Celestial Bureaucracy,…. will be enacted again so I can take action.?#2086 (I used to be a former?Officer but internal conflicts had me leave.? My file, however, remains active, and in doing so, there is nothing apparently wrong or particularly detrimental bout me regaining status ops.? There's also the plus side of time travel being a major PITA.)? Also - I'm not receiving orders from further in the timeline or anythang. —Im doing this strictly on my own.? Because I must.

? —-> in short, THERE IS AN EVIL "ME" INWORLD.

Clues? If you have any let me know.? Thanks in advance, and like Celby crew sez: here's to?a prosperous and honorable future.

?vs. ???

A showdown is imminent. A battle of the body, mind, spirit, and soul.? (But aren't the last two the same? —At least to some avatarions…)?

There's certain liberal ironies to this thing called life. Without question, she'll muse wryly about it for a few days, feel the awkward?rollercoaster of emotion pounding upon her back — then it'll be another cycle of tiding her over for a few days more. "The weather's not the same every day, but rain's rain," she remarks to herself.

She sits, by herself, on some island sim. Not in the middle of nowhere, but it's certainly out there past the charted stretches of the mainland. The gridverse is getting mighty large nowadays, with half-a-thousand-somethin' sims and plots to spare. Bending her back down while crouching on some polygonal gray construct, she sighs to herself, sipping slowly from her bottle of Turquoise De-lite, and looks wistfully towards the horizon — an infinite gradient of one?shade of?blue fading into another. That's just the way it's perceived, not how it actually is, and damned are the fools who try to fly out there from this port, as they'll only get bounced back into the bounding box of the simits.

Laughing a bit nervously, a bit excitedly, she wraps one pale hand into the other, knitting them together?like an argyle scarf. She cocks her head to the side, sniffing the fresh sea breeze that wafts in. It's a little too crisp, and that?discomforts her. So?she stops. Tilting her head the other way, she notices that her Franimation Overrider?has somehow been kicked offline, so she boots?it up again, waiting for the?rich, pulsating skitterplot vector to cue in her motions.?A few blips in the timeline later, her movements become more graceful, angular, and feline. It only makes sense, as she is part cat, after all.

And part robot. Droid. Avatech. Whatever word you choose, it's going to point to some origin of mechanical means. Used to be more of a stigma against that in some circles, but in here, it might as well be the whole ten yards of bangers and mash. Regardless, the lithe female form sitting and staring at the sky can't help but sometimes wonder if she was programmed wrong. Sure, she can update herself periodically, but firmware only goes so far. And she's certainly not rampant (per se per se), but oh, it's like the girl with the curl, and she's had her moments. Putting the empty bottle back into her Inv and planning to recycle the prims, she muses: You can build a pyramid, but once you're up high, don't touch the damn foundation or the whole works will come sliding sloppily down, like?a bag of?crisps you've inadvertently but undeniably slammed your rear into?– and you might as well have never started in the first place.

She thinks about her old man. Her old man's old man. Her mothers. Her jaded love, her diversity of friends, and the times she's had here. She knows that all good things gotta come to an end, but 'tis better to have had them started up in the first place. Otherwise, how else would you know what good lay ahead? Cycling through an array of her favorite anecdotes, adages, and aphorisms,?she comes up with this:

"Lost time is never found again."
-Benjamin Franklin

Which brings us to regret. Or doesn't, because it's the kind of thought that flutters by as a leaflet might carelessly flap in the wind, and it won't come back. At least not for a little while, for this particular avatar just happens to be living in the moment, making a low sound somewhere between a squeak and a chirp, and not quite a sob. Choking back what might have been a tear, her weary face, traced with lines of the explorations before her and almost precognitively?pointing to those after, now wears a subtle smile.

The girl in the neon watermelon-themed clothes (and hair, may it do ya well to remember that!) lifts herself to her feet, gazes at the heavens above, and stares at her surroundings. If trees could talk. All 14,000-plus prims of FleaBilt-manufactured goodness, synthetic variants grander than this second nature's own, tower above the landscape. They?dwarf the dull gray track which runs thisaway to thataway, a loop. A loop that's already been broken and doesn't even know it yet.

…her smile gets wider.

Another day, another adventure.

……wider still.

The HUD above the viewport reminds her of the name of this location — Allow Life.

………even moreso!

Efficiently packaging the big-ass trees in a compact subspace on the asset server as to not be confused with common GREEFER KIN, she beams off, teleporting back to regions alien and familiar at the same time, knowing that she won't be alone.

And that happens to be one of those liberal ironies of this thing called life.

Second Life.