Category Archives: **VIRTUAL OT

January 11, 2024 · 4:51 pm

00410509

“I came here looking for ship parts. Maybe even a whole ship. Instead I found an X. X marks the spot.”

“You’re in over your head,” she said back, the first female salvage related person he’d met. And the 1st person of color, period. She rezzed in to help, to be truthful. RDBH had the perfect angle for an opening shot. He didn’t want to mess it up.

“Or a spot marked by an X,” he changed the wording of his former sentence. Now that she had come he could look down.

Ah yes, a bunch of stuff named Mare: cigarettes, beer, ‘nother different kind of beer. “Why are you running an, er, eatery stand? Salvage person.”

“I have to make ends meet,” she said plainly, matter-of-factly. “Else how could I offer goofy looking scavengers like you such good prices, eh?”

RDBH looked over, took her in better. Pretty face. Jewels on head and body. Attractive. But the prices were still too expensive. More than one way to skin a cat? “What’s your name, dear?”

“Pearl. Black Pearl most call me. To differentiate from other types of pearls: grey, white, so on.”

“Black Pearl,” he parroted back, making the birds on his shoulders share a smile. He seemed to have heard the name before. But where?

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0509, Mountain Lake, Omega, RDR2

Tagged as Black Pearl^^+, Kolya/Pepi/Can^*+, PEARL, Red Dead Beardy Head^*+

January 11, 2024 · 12:04 am

00410508

One needed parts and the other ran a salvage yard so it seemed these 2 characters pirated from other lands should get together.

“Flying ship, eh?” said one to the other. He turns. “What do you need? A propeller?”

“A crew, actually,” said Red Dead Beardy Head who we just met in that last post here, throwing a monkey wrench and all into our dialog. Building a space ship he is. Looks like a sea ship. Might be both. “I want to re-crew-t you.”

“Me?” Nick turns back to the bar, thinks about ordering another mug of Carribean White Rum from green haired Marcia with this. We’re from different lands, he ponders, *rival* lands. “You’re talking crossover here, you know.” He let the statement hang in the air, then: “You understand the consequences.”

“Yup.” One of the two parrots on his shoulders said, “Crossover, *squawk*” and the other said, “Consequences, *squawk*”.

The 3rd reddish parrot on the barrel beside him said nothing, biding his time. He was waiting for Nick’s 3rd line. It never came; Nick got up intending to leave this small parcel next to a road on the Corisca continent, never to return. Then he realized that Red Dead Beardy Head was the one who had to leave the property to properly end the scene, since he was the visitor. Embarrassed — turning red himself — he sat back down.

“Forget where you were, *who* you were?”

“Yup.”

(to be continued?)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0508, Corsica, RDR2, Storybrook-

Tagged as Marcia^^+, Nick Barkley^*++, PEARL, Red Dead Beardy Head^*+

January 9, 2024 · 6:03 pm

off to a flying start

We have a sign…

… and are directly tied into our neighbor’s road system to the south in two places. Super nifty!

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of downtown from the sign, we find a parallel Michelle Roundup examining another object. Just ribs now. But soon…

“Should be ready by the christening,” spoke mastermind Red Dead Beardy Head, a pirated version of himself from another open world game.

“But… how are you going to get it down to the sea?” she logically asks about the still skeleton of a thing.

“Don’t need to.” He turns and points up toward the circling seagulls. “Space.”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0507, Big Woods, Jeogeot, RDR2

Tagged as Officer Michelle Roundup^^+, Red Dead Beardy Head^*+

December 27, 2023 · 10:10 am

00410407

“You don’t understand, Madam Mayor,” he spoke formally to his wife of 27 years. “I was soo tempted just to walk into those green green hills and never come back. I envisioned myself doing so. Still can.”

“So (the Our Second Life continent of) Maebaleia doesn’t stand a chance. If people here found out.”

“No,” he said plainly, bluntly. “Look at the depopulation of the once vaunted Hills of Bill in the central part of our continent here. Probably no actual spiritual energy left there by now. I’ve popped around there recently.”

“What of Horns of Hatton? Possibility still, you said earlier (in the week).”

“I-I don’t think so.”

Wheeler, presently playing the role of Mayor of this here Our Second Lyfe community that now calls itself Cass City, finally gives in. “Then we’ll have to block the whole area off. Our Second Life must be quarantined from Their Real Life. The link with the actual Azores will have to go away, like a beanstalk to Heaven being chopped down.”

“Suppose,” hubby Newt said back. They were in his downtown apartment at the moment, studying the corkboard Newt brought over earlier from her office in uptown where she usually stayed. More separate but equal stuff going on there. If possible, we’ll try to clarify the living arrangements — and the corkboard — soon.

“Another idea is to allow select members of our community to visit there, experience first hand the temptation just to chuck virtual in favor of real.”

“Keep the conduit open; don’t get rid of the, er, skybox. Heaven. Make it a religion instead.”

“Right right. Tell them they can go *visit* Paradise. But they also have to come back. They can’t stay there permanently. Or else–”

“They *die*, he he.” Newt was digging all this. Like a deep, dark grave.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0407, Cass City+, Europe, Google Street View, Hills of Bill, Horns of Hatton+, Maebaleia/Satori

Tagged as Axis/Tropp-Opp/Campbell O'Pine^*++@, MAYOR, Newt/Windmill Man^*++&, Philip Linden^*++!$, Wheeler Wilson^^++\@

December 26, 2023 · 5:04 pm

00410406

I teleport to what I understood to be a skybox, high above my Cass City apartment somehow. Heaven of sorts, or at least Reality. I almost walk in front of a car which, at the same time, is shooting at me.

“Watch it cork for brains!” the driver barked through the right side window as he passed, face screwed up like a walnut. “Can’t you see I’m trying to work here?!” Street View camera person, I realized later, probably stressed out from navigating all these narrow Santa Cruz streets and alleyways. Also noticed later that the job certainly seemed incomplete, and that the largest and most important Flores island town here was only minimally covered. I wondered how he slept at night in his various hotels across the world. Probably pretty soundly.

His incompetency would make my *own* work that much more difficult. To find a reason for the Cass City Town Council to spare this real and actual Santa Cruz and not replace it with their own alternate history version. For I was married to the Cass City Mayor. And, in an obvious, surface conflict of interest, I was the head of the council too. So I had to convince myself first before Tom, Dick and Harry would go along with the proposal. Two separate worlds. Two separate realities, virtual down there and real up here. Separate but equal. Didn’t work in post-WWII Jim Crow America, but here in 1939 Cass City it might have a chance.

gaining a higher perspective on Flores’ Santa Cruz with neighboring island Corvo in the background

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0406, Cass City+, Europe, Google Street View, Maebaleia/Satori

Tagged as Axis/Tropp-Opp/Campbell O'Pine^*++@, MAYOR, Newt/Windmill Man^*++&, Wheeler Wilson^^++\@

December 12, 2023 · 9:57 am

00410307 (the 1st Haze County entry (!))

Station attendant Ginger directed Marsha to a large square map hanging on the back wall. “So it is Lucky,” she said to herself, looking at the name of the nearby motel on the map. Just down the tracks as it turned out.

But in the unaltered reality, it wasn’t.

Mouse was right all along.

—–

“NC,” she said, staring up again. Could be either one still.

And then she walked inside the property to see what up. A considerably younger Octavia Tart awaited her appearance.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0307, Blue Mountain, Google Street View, Haze County, Paper Soap+, Soap

Tagged as Dr. Mouse^*++$, Marsha "Pink" Krakow^^+

November 22, 2023 · 3:44 pm

00410116

“I have come from the mound I have come from the corn. Your turn now.”

“From the mound?” still sitting Pamela returned to the person claiming to be Jane as in Plain, even though everyone knew her as June. “From the corn?”

“Yes. From the mound from the corn. Your turn now.”

Pamela pondered what to say next.

In the gap: “Follow me.”

—–

“From the mound…” she said, standing before it with Pamela now.

—–

“… from the corn.”

“*Five* people is all,” exclaimed Donna, leader of the husking team and owner of most of the stuff in town: cows, vineyards, etc. Using the other hand, she counted them off with each finger starting with the thumb. “There’s *Tom* — and he’s all thumbs ironically; probably won’t go through a half a dozen himself; there’s *Stan*,” she continued this with the index, and then freed it so that she could point in the distance. “He lives in *Braggtown*. Do you know how far away *Braggtown* is over those hills? In other words: will take him half a day to get here, half a day to get back. And, let’s see, half + half equals whole, as in, a whole day away from *husking*. If he even makes the effort.”

“I believe that’s where Christina claims she’s from,” offered upbeat Ben beside her, leader of the sweets and drinks team and solid with his own personnel. Scowls all around. “*Christina*, then,” said Donna, holding the middle finger now, “can’t mow grass much less husk corn. And that leaves…”

“Jane,” spoke the person everyone knew as June just back of the white corn mound. Pamela had disappeared beside her. Pamela was never real as it turns out.

“Jane,” said Donna back to her, taking in her plainess from about 10 feet away. “Is that what you go by now.” She didn’t add the “whore” part but everyone knew she wanted to. They had some bad blood between them, namely a man named Bazooka, formerly the police chief of this here little village. Former owner of Biff’s farmhouse before he allegedly came over from Braggtown himself, but perhaps that’s just more Christina talk, Christina’s World.

“And me, Marsha ‘Pink’ Krakow,” she spoke while walking in stage left. Donna let go of her ring finger and took firm grasp of her pinkie. She joined the inner circle; tried to smile cheerfully. Dick to her right (music team leader, replacing stressed out Sitton seen in an earlier blog post here) tipped his hat, a built in gesture. Silently amused Harry (weights and balances) studied Donna’s reaction to this newcomer, this Johnny-come-lately.

“Marsha, huh?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Staying up at Biff’s I understand. Found the secret bedroom. Found the *truth* behind it.”

“Um. Yes, er, ma’am. I suppose I did.” She looked over at olive green Jane beside the unhusked corn, recognizing an old friend from Storybrook. Jane will get her through all this. There *must* be a loophole.

(to be continued)

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0116, Google Street View, Teepot+

Tagged as BATCORN, Christina^^+, June Bug Johnston^^++, Marsha "Pink" Krakow^^+, Pamela^^+, Phyllis Phox^^++

November 22, 2023 · 2:36 am

00410115

So what of White Rock population places in the Oracle? one may ask (31). Jane pops up.

And then the same for Gotham (2).

White House (10) or Whitehouse (15) only produces itself. There is only 1 White Mound and that’s in Grayson County, Texas. Curiously, the county also contains a Whiterock (or White Rock), which is actually very nearby. And then both in turn lie near a (larger) Whitewright, making a kind of White trilogy in that location.

And then there are 2 separate Black Rocks in Grayson County, Kentucky, the 2nd of 3 counties sharing that name. Notice Kentucky Town in the midst of the White trilogy pictured above, along with Tom Bean.

The 3rd and last Grayson County (Virginia) contains some interesting place names too. We could go on and on.

Dick Grayson was the actual name of Batman’s crime-fighting superhero sidekick Robin.

There are no Blackhouses, Black Houses, or Black Mounds.

Continuing with our story…

—–

“It’s a beautiful view you have here, Reuben, and I can see why you stand here all the time, looking at it.”

No answer.

“I… know something else about you, Reuben.” She looks up at the boy towering above her from this sitting position, the last member of Batcorn, the one supposedly with an identical twin named Steuben. Dream girl Pamela knew better. Instead: Reuben is the same as Steuben, as in a first name paired with a last.

She knew this from Kansas.

No, let’s make that an ancestor to the twins who were named for him. If so, his grave might be here.

And here.

Center of old White Rock. Or maybe White Mound she hasn’t decided.

All of Amiable came from this.

Someone appeared over the hill from the direction of it, walking toward them.

Jane.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0115, Google Street View, Kentucky, Missouri, Teepot+, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin

Tagged as BATCORN, June Bug Johnston^^++, Pamela^^+, Phyllis Phox^^++

November 20, 2023 · 8:48 pm

00410114

You of course can’t have a perfect 1:1 match between virtual and real here but this difference right at the very end of our journey into the heart of Amiable via Google Street View stuck out to me — last snapshot from their vehicle in fact before it turned around and went out the way it came. In reality reality, as defined by Google Maps in the year 2010 mind you, we have this mound of white rocks piled up next to the start of that weedy lane we saw, in its virtual version, Marsha “Pink” Krakow sitting at a table at the end of earlier in this here photo-novel, the one where she found an accordion just laying there on top of, unattended.

Then switching to the closest angle I can get in virtual we have this. Notice there’s no pile of white rocks now but a series of white rock walls in the same location with concrete mixing equipment in their midst…

… and then just beyond, a whole white rock house with an extensive patio area made up of the same material, none of which appears at all in 2010 Google Street View. In the white mound from the latter, we thus seem to have the seed of an extensive white rock construction complex revealed in present day virtual. Since everything else has been re-create in such loving detail, I think we can pretty safely assume that this white house, and maybe the accompanying walls and patio space, actually exists in Amiable now when it didn’t in 2010 — or the whole project was just getting started back then.

Here’s a curious and perhaps related anomaly from the Oracle. Searching for population places with the exact name of Black Rock across the U.S. reveals a single deviation among 13 examples: a hamlet instead called Whitehouse located in Maryland with a *variant* name of Black Rock — why it shows up in this particular list in the first place. It got me thinking: if we *de*construct the rocks making up the house, say, in a reversal of time itself, would we return to the white rock mound or something different… say, a *black* rock mound? Dark Matter again in other words; no emission of light.

And why is Pamela here staring at all this in the first place? is another question to be asking. Does she understand the concept of the Taoist yin-yang symbol (taijitu) and that white inevitably cycles back around into black via a planted seed? There’s something odd about the girl. She’s only real in…

—–

Marsha wakes up in the hidden bedroom again but with head pointed the right way this time. Thing is, she tried backwards when she laid down to sleep, with head instead at the bed’s foot; it switched once more despite her efforts to rectify the situation. She knows now up is truly down, white is black. In the dream.