“Is that sup-pose to be… me? IS THAT… suppose… to be… MEEE? What’s going on here? Wh-wha–”
“Let me show you your future to explain,” I said back from beyond the 4th wall.
“Yeah okay yeah I guess I see your point I guess I see.” He shook his head. “Jack, eh?”
“Jack,” I said. And then I showed him where I took out (the) yellow.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0314, Big Woods, Bull's Bar, GTA, HANA LEI, Jeogeot
She was at the point of auditioning acts for the new bar. This one was a stand up comedian from Cork.
“What do you call a parade of rabbits hopping backwards?”
“Receding hare lines,” he answers himself after a beat. She finds that joke especially pertinent, since she copied a lot of this decor from a place named Rabbit Island.
Rabbit Island items: free to copy yourself!
“I don’t need to hear any more,” she spoke up. “You’re on the bill.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0313, Big Woods, Bull's Bar, GTA, HANA LEI, Jeogeot
Nothing there in the cat house. She begins again.
Green red and blue predominate going up the stairs.
And then yellow at the top as the light slightly shifts to show the star’s interior.
Looking further along the same line: TILE.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0309, HANA LEI
Time for Mary Ball and Pitch Usurpius Darkly to move on to the next leg of their extended fishing vacation…
…. Fox Island at Endlessly Antipodal. Note that Antipodal is very close to antipoison, almost as if it was in the same jacket near the same pocket. Juliet-like, balcony standing Sepisexton we’re talking about here again and her hidden vial of the latter. Just in case, as she puts it. The former is included in picks by not one but two Yellowmoon Ridge landowners who seem unconnected to each other, er, otherwise (where we’ve just seen Shelley and Arthur). That’s why I knew I had to send the Darklys or someone else in my family of avatars there to check it out, interact with the landscape and perhaps the residents, if any exist.
Philosophy time now: Everything in Our Second Lyfe is connect to each other as if in a fractal environment. It all drills down to the same thing over and over. Only Outside can save us, something beyond Our Second Lyfe. Haze County where I actually live up in the Real World is an obvious, top level way to escape this void. Similarly virtual but much more intensely verisimilitudinous Red Dead planet too — if I can figure out how to get Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate out of that fox body and into a human one again in St. Dennis, its only full fledged city and what some call the 8th wonder of that world. GoogleEarth and associated Street View is yet another way to latch onto something more real. Thing is, Our Second Lyfe is losing energy as games keep developing way above and beyond it. If it weren’t for the ability to create. Oh, and also the avatar customization and the incredible creativity of Our Second Lyfe residents in designing clothes, buildings, vehicles, all sorts of things. I seem to need to relay this to the reader of my blog to illustrate that I’m in sort of a tug of war between it and the rest of reality, including even other virtual worlds (and specifically, at least at this point, Red Dead Redemption 2, even though I don’t yet own the game itself, ha). I mean, right now in one of my other computer windows I’m looking at something that shouldn’t be possible. Something in Mary Ball’s old Killing Shack now located at the bottom of a lake in Decker on the original Bellissaria continent. How did I get to this point?
Then there’s the problem of OSL laaaggg.
So here we finally return to Pitch Darkly and Mary landing in their small fishing boat on what’s called Fox Island in the River of Bear. Of course it has other names — no surprise there — including Squirrel Island. Because of this little fellow, currently surrounded by sniffing foxes checking him out. But he’s actually a chipmunk; that’s what the foxes have surmised as well, being versed in Endlessly Antipodal geography and the naming of local things. “We’re still okay; still on top,” one speak-thinks to the other, actually being a part of one soul beneath the separate exteriors, a distinct advantage they have over humans.
Maybe we shouldn’t be so hasty in switching Jim Randolph the Bastard Pirate back into a human body himself. See what he can still uncover as an urban fox.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0305, Bellisaria, Google Street View, HANA LEI, Haze County, RDR2, Western Hills
“Look dear, I caught another one (!).”
“Hold on, Mary. Hold on. It’s Baker calling.”
“Baker? Hi!”
(reply)
“Yeah, we’re getting along great. A little cold of course but it is North–”
(reply)
“What was that? Hold on, let me take this darn Russian cap off with the ear flaps and all.”
—–
“Okay go ahead, sir.”
(reply)
“Yeah, I heard that now.” He covers the phone with his hand and whispers over to fishing Mary. “Baker says he needs to talk to us as soon as we get back to town.” He listens again…
(reply)
“Mary Ball, eh? Well that’s *one* of her names.”
(reply)
“George, right.” He removes the phone from his ear but doesn’t cover the face up this time while saying over to his wife in a louder voice: “He wants to know how you acquired the Killing Shack, you know, the one over in Epping Woods.”
“Why does he want to know that?” She was happy fishing right now. She didn’t want to be reminded of that horrendous past on her well deserved vacation. Calm, she said to herself. Caalllmm.
“I’ll ask him.” Phone to bare ear again. “Baker, what’s going on?”
(reply)
“Virginia neck country again, eh? Just like with—”
(reply)
“Dead ball era, huh? That’s *my* era, where I came from. Where the *ERA* was real low, he he. Get it? My era. My ER–”
(reply)
“Okay, thanks. See you when we get back.”
(reply)
“We will. Thanks.” And Baker Bloch hangs up on the other side.
—–
“Did you mention the antipoison?”
“No,” Baker responds to Hucka. “I thought he’d had enough to chew on today.”
“Agreed I suppose. So we’re on for next Tuesday?”
“8 o’clock sharp.”
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0303, Big Woods, HANA LEI, Jeogeot, North Dakota
And this is where we came in.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0216, ADC, HANA LEI
In this “Amazing Digital Circus” teaser, ringmaster Caine directly references Kane (Pixels) and his famed Back Room bacteria creature. Knew it.
And then there’s the abstracted Kaufmo clown character from the pilot, who some spell as Cofmo. Including me here. Poor Cofmo. But good guy (?) Caine takes care of the immediate danger for himself and his still intact circus employees by banishing the poor transmogrified creature to an underworld, underwater realm.
“Honey? Honey? Snap out of it again. Look at me look at me. Honey?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0215, ADC, Back Rooms, HANA LEI
“King Rodney,” the Shadow spoke. He turned, confronted it.
“Me? I’m no king. I’m just a ruler of a country, democratic in nature. Now, anyways.”
“The Country of Morrow. Otherwise: Cofmo.”
“Well, yeah. That’s it. A country, not a kingdom.”
“But you train ants. I mean, you have ant warriors. In your fort — make that: forts.”
“Use to. When I was a kid I suppose. Now I’m they’re grown up. I have adult games to play.”
“So I’ve heard,” the Shadow spoke. A pause, then: “What year is it, ruler of Cofmo? I mean, can you sit in a diner with a white girl or even an Asian girl and get away with it? Can you listen to the Everly Brothers blaring from a jukebox? Or do you have to settle for Fats Domino?”
“I… don’t know. 1984 I guess. Last I checked. What time do *you* think it is? Shadow. My Shadow I’m supposing.”
“Correct. You are just confronting yourself. Because this is a dream. I know something that you need to know. About the abstracting.”
“The what?” And he woke up.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0213, HANA LEI
Newt looked down after he’d finished, deep in thought. “Amazing,” he finally spoke. “What in blue blazes did I just eat?”
Wendy beamed a smile at him, just like on the logo. “It’s called a *hot dog*.”
“A *what* dog?”
“A hot dog. Made from the freshest ingredients. No pig anuses if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I wasn’t thinking that at all (!).”
“Nor snouts, nor hooves. Only mechanically separated meat byproducts — I’ve been told to call it muscle trimming.”
“It’s humans,” Newt deadpanned. “Isn’t it?”
“*No*. Ridiculous man.”
“Okay,” he said, standing up and wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I’m going to have to do my research before we make a deal.”
—–
They were back at the Pink Hippo, name slightly changed to hide the innocent involved. “I did my research,” Newt started after he made his introduction. “I had to brainwash you into thinking our meeting never happened. Bottom line: *don’t* sell those things to the general public any more. I was right about the humans (!).”
Several people dancing nearby overheard the conversation. Soon it was all about town. Kangerootown would never have a Wendy’s in its midst, the name of the red topped establishment being sullied beyond repair. March turned out to be a really bad month of the year for the likewise red topped gal before him.
“Dance?” he said, trying to ease the pain. No smile now. Turn that upside down into a full out cry, which the dancers also recorded. Where’s the beef, Wendy? Where’s the beef?
Not in this reality as it turned out. *This* Wendy’s franchise was basically over before it started. Soon, quite soon, she would turn into a vegetarian and change the course of her life. But first we have to get her to Castle Town in the South.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0208, Castle Town+, HANA LEI, Kangerootown+, Omega, The Cross
They were preparing for battle, they were preparing for war. The Mann claimed to not be the same as Wayne Bruce who owned the manor but just an old neighbor doing a favor and house-sitting while he and and his “wonder boy” were away chasing arch-villians around the world, specifically Antarctica at the moment and possibly New Zealand. I checked back through the blog and saw that he indeed was a former neighbor over on the Corsica continent (Instabar sim). By the tone of his voice back then it didn’t seem he had much respect for the dynamic duo, this Batty Man and Superduper Guy. Old grudges tend to not alter that much over time.
March 03 2020: Batty Man and sidekick Superduper Guy arriving home in their noisy Battymobile while neighbor The Mann looks on disdainfully.
What else? Oh, the whole war/battle thing. Here’s some pics of the odd assortment of troops from a lower level of Redsland, closer to the ground for easier dispatchment when needed.
The conflict? Some call it the great Green-White War, others Green-Gray. No one knows exactly how or where or when it started but it extends over the entire known Universe by now in ever manifesting pockets here and there. Many are conscripted and don’t return home, either by death or by perpetual service. Martian Mabel’s big brother Little Big from photo-novel 02 was one of these. Mabel will never get over the loss, although she may put on a brave face nowadays. And here we come upon the legend of Plain Wayne, said to be killed in the war as well; slit in the throat by none other than our Wheeler back in her more evil days as directed by the powerful witch Mid-Hazel; event mentioned in photo-novel 03. Is Plain Wayne the same as mild mannered Wayne Bruce, alter ego for Batty Man? If so, why isn’t *he* dead? Mid-Hazel aka Hazel Wood would know if anyone. I’ll make a note to ask her later through some character or another; she now appears to be imprisoned somewhere in the innards of the manor with former formidable powers excised. More coincidence?
And here’s certainly another interesting twist. The Mann is actually Marsha “Pink” Krakow’s father as proven through the plot of photo-novel 19 where she’s 1st introduced. And now they interact again in the current photo-novel. Do either remember the other? Is The Mann, for example, so busy making sure the grounds are neat and tidy for Batty Man and partner Superduper Guy’s return that he doesn’t have time to recall who he really is? And it does indeed look super; Jack and Jill, however shady they are in other ways, are really skilled lawn care people.
And if The Mann is around that means Parasol his wife is too — I’d forgotten about that as well. His perfect Wo-mann, first rendezvousing with each other on the Fruity Islands back in photo-novel 12 and then properly tying the knot in photo-novel 24.
meeting in novel 12
marrying in novel 24
And here she is now, entering the manor room where The Mann is fingering through the first of Schubert’s 4 Impromptus in his own inept way, the only one he can play to any degree atall. He’d admit this ineptitude himself; would say Parasol is the true musician of the family. But then he might also thinks of drums — someone is talented with the sticks as well. Maybe he remembers Marsha during these moments, maybe it lies just beyond his consciousness still.
But Parasol certainly knows, also known as Red and, from the other side, Blue. She’s a bad speller and a wiz at the same in one.
“Where’s your *girl* today?” she tests once more.
“Girl *Friday*,” he responds defensively from the piano, inept fingering temporarily halted. “I hired her as a secretary; I have no interest in her otherwise.”
Still doesn’t remember, Parasol understands through this. She can keep her edge for now.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0042, 0105, Fruity Islands, Maebaleia/Satori, Redsland+
Sunklands 