Good documentation is pretty important. I realize that because quite often a well-written manual is a gateway, a key to opening realms of usage for a powerful product that may otherwise seem convoluted and impregnable if a clear line-of-sight for fulfilling potential?isn't established. That being said,?today I'm going to focus on two?products which just happen to have excellent documentation, and in turn, are solid pieces of art themselves.

The first is Huns Valen's A-11 Slipstream II Jet. VERY COOL VEHICLE. I first became aware of this way back in September or October '04, when I noticed it on Francis Chung's skybox. She said something about the deep level of scripting. At the time, I was like WOW but hadn't flown one yet. (I had only seen Huns himself pilot it through Oak Grove and the nearby vehicle sims.) You know how it is with me and crazy dreams — it hit me! I figured Torlop's soft bunny belt would look great contrasted against the shiny metal frame. So, on a skylark, I finally bought one from Abbotts Aerodrome. This?was after?several things came together, and?Huns used one of my music pieces in his new Get There Fast promo video. I always smile at the part where it floats, and I had to try that for myself. For more details, see the forum thread here. You can read the instructions before buying, which will really amaze you… the syntax,?layout, and everything is quite remarkable, given SL's currently primitive notecard features. I had no idea what a Pugachev's Cobra?was until googling.

Which brings me to this: I'm hoping we get richtext formatting for notecards in the future. I really am. It boggles me how the Basic Help is quite stylized (yet contains a number of outdated references), and it appears to have some internal?HTML?or hypertext?engine within SL. Yet with notecards, there?is no italics, no bold, and?I?certainly can't color my text.?(<BLINK> tag would have to be out of the question.)?So this is one thing I'm going to keep my nose on.

I had the good fortune of running into some of my good friends underwater in the private Aleph sim. New construction is happening there, and I happed to fall right down into Ice's new server room. She appeared quite excited about it. Enabran Templar, clad in his Deus Ex outfit, was a welcome sight to see, and he gifted me with one of his siegeBots to get a kick out of the flower sticking out.?Detailed construction, beautiful texture work, and fine attention paid to primesthetics. That was the first step. The second was me, with a touch of my fancy, recoloring the works all watermelony and then skittering around Waterhead before heading to — well, that's the next leg of the story. But we'll jump back a ways, sequentially.

Had a great time celebrating YadNi's party at his Junkyard. It's a few weeks back his 1st rezday but this was actually in celebration of the YadNi Junkyard being open one whole year. Lots?of?good?memories?at?Snapzilla. One thing you'll quickly notice is the translucent red beacon: no, that's not an optical illusion, YadNi took it upon himself to construct his own, 300+ m pillar of light indicating where the junkyard is. It reminds me of my very first day in SL, when I was still Torley Sr., and when I was trying to customize my neon jacket and whole av, actually. I got very lost flying around — I'm still a bad flier — and finally stumbled into the Junkyard. It looks a lot more open and well-designed now. If you're new or old or anything in between to SL and haven't visited YadNi's, go there to get LOTS OF FREEBIES, SORTED NEATLY. Leda (210, 28)

"What if everything around you,
Isn't quite as it seems?

What if all the world you used to know,
Is an elaborate dream?"

-Nine Inch Nails, "Right Where It Belongs"

Returning to the sequence, I think one of the signs that I've really found myself in SL is that I'm really reminiscing about my first days on here. I've done that in previous blog entries, but am now starting to shift into another phase of my Second Life. I'm just a little over seven months old, had my 5th-month anniversary with my Jadey, and while that may all seem puny in hindsight, it's a big deal for me now. Here. In the present.

I started to ride my siegeBot along the holoroads of Nexus Prime, flower bobbing and green bubbles popping out,?ending up in one of the places I started. Although the city had somewhat changed since my initial appearance, friends I'd made along the journey were still here. For such a transient digital world, there is a permanence of emotion in motion.

But, there's no finished documentation. Just like "real life", there is no single blueprint that can be followed. In other words, I'm pretty much making up this manual as I go along, blogging in a way to share my experiences with others. I hope it'll be fun, I pray it'll be useful, and maybe even elicit ilicit bemusement. I know it already has, because I confuse the heck out myself writing this stuff.?Penultimately, it's what I have to say, and say it I shall. And?in the?spirit of?remembering that one of the prime reasons I came here was to praise others,?I've received numerous tips, guidance, and general inspiration from those who I've come with and who've come with me along the way. I'm midway between a — and a !, really. So it's kind of hooked, but flexible to go erect. OH PSCHWA GET THAT OUT OF YOUR MIND!!!3

Next, I think I'm going to try miniblogging. More entries, less text, same Torley. Well not exactly — TorPrime is still "way out there" and Torlop is also not in the hizzouse. We have TORBOT, WHO SEEKS SECOND LIFE, AND HAS FOUND IT!

—> Enabran Templar's siegeBot is available at Kaili (135, 47)

—> Huns Valen's Slipstream II is available at Cecropia (100, 70)