Category Archives: Heterocera

VWX Town: Growing Back After Being Pruned.

Baker Bloch sits on the upper porch of the newly reinstated House of Truth (sans interior decoration yet), staring across Grassy Knoll toward the Temple of TILE. Great view, and great alignment! He has to do some pondering about keeping VWX Town around in October, past the 7th when my tier payment is due again.

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Top of Grassy Knoll, with DK Art’s red “Aim High” sculpture freebie and some orange butterflies. Hard to see the butterflies from this angle because the Temple of TILE’s walls are orange-ish as well. Is this super grassy knoll connected with the super famous toy avatar Grassy Noll?

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Baker looks north along the central stream of the property now. Central Stream is as good a name as any, then. As you can see, there’s a lot going on along its banks now.

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Below we have a lady statue holding a bowl erupting with water. She existed in almost the same spot in “old” VWX Town, before the great renovation. But she didn’t have the water pouring all over her then. The water seems to originate from her head, and then empties into Central Stream below. Is she the source of *all* water in the stream? No, since some of it comes from the pipe on the Toxic Art Gallery, which we’ll get to in a moment. Central Stream seems to flow south from the this art gallery and north from the partnering Power Tower Gowlery — this is its range. The statue of the water goddess merely “adds” to the flow coming north from the Power Tower Gowlery, as does the more blue-purple waterfall seen directly behind her in the below photo.

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In fact, as Baker Bloch is studying the matter now, all 3 flows (waterfall, water goddess, Central Stream from PTG) conjunct at the same spot. Queer — didn’t really plan it that way. The water from each flow is colored somewhat different.

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Perched on a smaller knoll above the conjunction is another new addition to VWX Town: a miniature village called “Lucky’s Magic Little World” in the description, created by Lucky40Resident. The little car in the picture actually circles around the hamlet at a rate of about once every 25 seconds. Inside its track are positioned 7 cottages, each a different color of the rainbow. Not coincidentally, a rainbow arches across the town’s center, complete with smiling sun, even. Lucky’s village is a true microcosm.

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Baker now sits near the center of the town. Goldie has been reborn here, just across the waterfall from Lucky’s Village. But he has severly shrunk in the transition, now appearing not much larger than Baker. Or about the same size as the water goddess statue just to his side. As the case with that statue, Goldie appears not far from where he was last seen in old VWX Town, atop the Hole in the Wall bar…

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… which has also returned to the reinvented town, seen behind Baker through the palms as we simply reverse camera angle away from Goldie.

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Another new object: a dock walk crossing Central Stream just in front of the Hole in the Wall.

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House of Truth, with a pond in front of it now. This pond compliments nearby Grassy Knoll, since they lie on either side of the terraforming range (+4/-4) of my land. I built up for Grassy Knoll, and burrowed down for the pond. Greenup/Yellow Down archetype in action again? There’s even a bunch of yellow fishies swimming around the pond to reinforce this theory.

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Another new object: a giant head, not pink as this angle might imply on a glance, but simply seen through a pink curtain, with nose projecting through a bit. Connected to Noser Mill in Franklin County, Missouri then? Probably not, but no harm asking in this here blog. *But*, if so, then can Central Stream be connected to muddy Bourbeuse River similarly slicing across the length of Franklin County? A contrast might have been made between that very crooked real life river and straight-as-lace Central Stream. Noser Mill is mentioned in the wikipedia article on the subject as a particularly curvy stretch of the river, even.

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Behind the unnamed head (Noser?) are Biker Jones and Ranger Johns discussing the location of VWX Town’s galleries, once more.

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A giant spoon leans against Hole in the Wall now.

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“Noser” in profile view, with the masking magenta curtain seen edge on.

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Inside Hole in the Wall. Great view!

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Should…

… be able to get out in the woods a bit today, unlike Sunday and Monday. Ailing mother needs have set me back in that department. Biological clock still readjusting.

In the meantime, here’s some pictures from VWX Town. Yeah, I decided that VWX Central, the meat of the town, should be completely redesigned if the town is to survive in any way. Almost all of its buildings have thus been deleted, and a long stream has been created connecting Southside’s Power Tower Gowlery and Northside’s Toxic Art Gallery, cutting across almost the entire length of my land.

I have only several days to decide the fate of VWX Town, as another Linden tier payment is due the 7th. Ponder ponder. Again: I will not be able to create such towns in the future, most likely. It’s really trying to survive; I can tell.

Westside, Northside, and Southside remain basically intact. Is another town meeting forthcoming?

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, Heterocera

VWX Town Video

Great little video of VWX Town by my neighbor Veyot, culled from her Veyot’s Views Tumblr site. Thanks neighbor; great work!

http://vt.tumblr.com/tumblr_mt88ywxbdE1sozjhx.mp4#_=_

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, Heterocera

I’m

“The hole represents the grave of the bug, which is the grave of Wallace. You were suppose to put the bug into the hole. But you saw it was instead alive.”

bb:

Was it a *trained* insect?

Hucka D.:

That is all we’re allowed to say at the moment. Sorry.

bb:

What of the *light*?

Hucka D.:

Sorry.

—-

Let’s see, I was going to put the dragonfly, if dead, into the cup and take it home. I had accidentally left the cup behind on the beach the day before. In the meantime something had played with the cup and bent it up a bit, and also dug a hole perhaps at the same spot the cup was originally at (when I found the cup, it had been overturned). When I saw this cup, I also realized that I had *just* left another coffee cup of the same kind in Yellow Down. How absentminded can one be?? So I decided to return to Yellow Down and retrieve that cup as well, not wanting to clutter up the woods any more than I already do.

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A bug burrows backwards.

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Another new hole. WIS once more?

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Dragonfly (once more).

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, Green Oz Creek, Herman Park, Heterocera, Wealthy Mountain

Looks like…

… I’ll be keeping VWX Town for at least another month. Good cheap fun. Relatively cheap I must admit. I now have terraforming and linden plant creating rights in Northside, which aided in the judgment. My neighbor Veyot is probably happy as well.

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It’s exciting, because I’ve developed several brand new structures in VWX Town, including the Marble Tower of Northside, the Peter Grave structure (cat topped) of Central, and Westside’s Church of The Diagonal.

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Thoughts

Head’n to Charleston tomorrow. Always great fun. Thoughts before leaving: Will probably take a number of blog ring binders with me. 🙂 Thinking of the inevitable end of VWX Town, which has existed almost 2 months now, a long time for a virtual town for me without the word Pietmond in its name. Will it be as early as September? Heterocera’s The Diagonal is admittedly a very exciting concept, and seems to have greater potential beyond what I’ve found so far. The Church of The Diagonal connects it directly with the pulse of VWX Town. But I’ll also be out in the woods a lot even in Sep. and especially Oct. That will be my main focus. Drawbacks to destroying VWX Town: As I’m reading things, and as I’ve mentioned before on this blog, the possibility to create a town in larger than a 8704 space without jumping up to the next Linden tier payment (40 US dollars to 75 US dollars) has greatly narrowed in the past year, as the rules of Linden land abandonment have changed and the number of mainland parcels for sale has greatly shrunk, shooting up real estate prices and obviously causing problems for my regular rental businesses such as Lama Estates. I was very lucky to even have set up VWX Town in the first place, which now covers 13312 square meters, and also has some add on real estate components, as one could put it. I actually have what is in effect a second avatar resident of the town, even, who has contributed to its skyline with a conglomerate freebie structure of her own. In effect, the town almost covers 1/4th of a sim, which is fairly extensive and probably matches or surpasses even the largest expansions of Old Pietmond. So back to the question: How long will VWX Town last? If I can get past Sep. and Oct. its existence could possibly extend even into Jan. or Feb. In other words, it could come up to the level of Old Pietmond status, if so. I’m having trouble envisioning that, and it would mean putting out about 300 dollars for land expenses from Sep. – Jan. If I just keep my Lama rental land in Philudoria, that would be reduced to about 60 dollars, a savings of around 250 dollars. I want to keep a land presence in SL, and the 60 dollars is quite reasonable for this period of time. But let’s think this through — *eventually* I’m gonna buy a bigger chunk of land in Second Life if I give up VWX Town in Sep., which will most likely cost me about 20-30 more dollars upon purchase, subtracting the tier payments. I’ve already paid for the Philudoria property. Plus there’s the problem of timing the land purchase to maximize my tier value, which I was able to accomplish with VWX Town. Then if I buy property in another place later on, it’s probably not going to be on as cool of land as my present burg, with its connection to the Heterocera Diagonal, prox. to the glorious VHC Town, and so forth. And one needs artistic hobbies; I don’t pay anything for exploring Frank and Herman Parks except for the gas to get there and the inevitable car repairs of the Frank_and_Hermanmobile (1999 Honda Civic). And it seems like when I shift my regular SL purchases over to another art venture — think specifically of buying a Lionel train set last spring — it doesn’t seem to give me as much immediate pleasure for certain. Long term may be a different case. The money I sink into Second Life does not get me any tangible products such as train track, which I can still use, say, 10 or 20 years down the road. Hmmm.

Hucka D.:

Keep VWX Town. I’ll pay the bills through January.

bb:

Thanks Hucka D. But you don’t really have any money you can give me, you know. It’s all out of my pocket, me as baker b.

Hucka D.:

Not really. I can give you money. I gave you money for travel this summer.

bb:

Hmmm (again). What is the importance of hanging on to VWX Town?

Hucka D.:

You just listed them above — in this blog post. We are in a blog post aren’t we?

bb:

This time. Do *you* — well, you just said I should hold on to it. Maybe we should have a town meeting. Who will represent Northside?

Hucka D.:

Casey The Alien of course. He’s up and about now after his resurrection. He lives in the Cape Map cottage on the edge of Northside. Has a bed upstairs. You should invite him over for tea.

bb:

Tea with baker b. Or Baker Bloch.

Hucka D.:

Sure. He’s the one you need to talk to the most now. He can communicate to you in Second Life[ now].

CTA:

Hi. Thanks for inviting me over for tea (smiles).

bb:

Hi CTA. Welcome to Nowheresville.

CTA:

Does seem a little bare. I appear to be sitting in mid air. Oh look, over there’s a painting. Let’s go take a look.

(all walk to the painting that has manifested on a far wall, next to the window)

bb: (looking):

Landscape. I like landscapes.

CTA:

It’s the Cliffs of Dundee, I assume. I was there.

Hucka D.:

Me too.

CTA:

We’re there now, in fact.

(and they were)

(to be continued?)

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Cliffs of Dundee” (Waverly Knapp, c1812)

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Burnet cliff, top; Burnet/192/192/85.

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Burnet cliff, bottom; Burnet/160/160/42

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, Frank Park, Heterocera, Whitehead Crossing

Peter’s Grave, Otaki Gorge…

… finally gone.

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August VWX Town Meeting…

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… finally adjourned.

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Texas

Last night I wrote about Texas synchronicities related to VWX Town and its new Northside. I also posted the link to this blog entry on the Synchronicity Phenomena, since it relates to former board guru/leader Don Boulet. Tonight the wife and I watched an episode of The Big Bang Theory where main character Sheldon (another guru/leader) runs home to his mama in Texas after being embarrassed by friends and colleagues at the university he works. A flag of Texas covers one of the atomic particles in the segue to the Texan location in the episode, which I pointed out to the wife, who didn’t originally see it.* Now, just minutes ago, was looking up more info on Don and discovered this online work, the largest graphic I could find of one of his paintings, prominently displaying a Texas flag.

* You can view the Texas flag in the segue at 1:57 in this video:

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Also take a look at the resemblance to this marble picture added to my blog the night before viewing this episode.

In perusing pieces of the Synchronicity Phenomena’s archives, it seems that Don’s opinions about the supposed “real” or non-fictional Big Bang Theory were a bit jaded.

An additional possible synchronicity in all this is the appearance of a Firefly star (Summer Glau) in another episode of The Big Bang Theory, watched by the wife and I several nights previous to the Texan related one described above. The spaceport in Burnet sim, Second Life, which includes Joe’s Garage, seems based on this series.

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, Heterocera, MAPS, Texas

What next?

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The weather is getting warmer, and I believe further exploration of the Byng area for now might be blocked. My promised pictures of that place today turned out not to be, since I forgot my frigg’n memory card before heading into the woods. So instead I decided to go over to old, reliable Whitehead Crossing, but from The Way this time. Standard nomenclature needs to be reviewed for the area. Whitehead X-ing is so accessible because you can get to it through a number of ways (and so not just through The Way, har). It is definitely a center. Today I walked the Contemplation Loop quite a bit once more, but a slower pace than on previous visits. Will read more of my older Whitehead X-ing notes after finishing this post.

Hucka D.:

No pictures today? Aww.

bb:

Sorry. Stupid memory. *Mine*.

Hucka D.:

Contemplation Loop is connecting you to the woods, the wild. I heard you heard coyotes. Maybe wolves. But I think coyotes.

bb:

Yeah.

Hucka D.:

You just need to walk it as much as possible. Missouri is closed for now. Missouri will change into something else in a bit. Different name, I mean.

bb:

It’s an amazing ridge. And a path that I could not have predicted up that ridge beginning at the very start of the Lion’s Roar/Kansas path. Crazy.

Hucka D.:

That is Missouri, leading to Kentucky. You should study that state[ again].

bb:

Apologies once more about the pictures.

Hucka D.:

Soon it will open up. Lion’s Roar and Kansas too.

bb:

Who lived in Missouri?

Hucka D.:

*You*.

bb:

Hmmm… how about toy avatars. For that place and also Lion’s Roar/Kansas.

Hucka D.:

That beginning of the path, presently guarded by a greenish mushroom, is the gateway to the future. Missouri future. Through it you can gain quicker access to Kentucky and beyond. Diagonal. This formerly hidden trail will lead you further than ever before. Future.

bb:

Thank you.

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Filed under Byng, Herman Park, Heterocera

Burnt Octagon

Yesterday I noticed a similarity between VWX Town’s newly erected Marble Tower…

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… and a gazebo near the northeast corner of Burnet and thus near The Diagonal passing through same. For now I call it the Burnet Gazebo. Both it and the Marble Tower are based on the number 8, a number also strongly highlighted by the previously discussed Joe’s Garage octagon in lower Burnet.

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I decided a link should be effected between the two, and am even tempted to rename the VWX Tower in question the Burnet Tower. Probably won’t, because I like the name Marble Tower, and it’s not close to the Burnet sim unlike the gazebo. Compare its colors with here (a form of agate or aggie marble)…

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A chart showing the relationship of The Diagonal (blue line) and attached elevations (pink line) as it passes through Burnet. The master number again for Burnet is 32, where the number of the Diagonal becomes the same as the number of the elevation in meters. 32 is 1/8th 256, and thus 1/8th up Burnet’s Diagonal from the 0 point.

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The Diagonal as extended up from Burnet through Hooktip, Lanestris and Philudoria, my home sim and the site of VWX Town. Notice my Church of The Diagonal seems to be the only structure directly aligned with The Diagonal on this map.

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The Diagonal passes almost through the exact middle of the Hooktip train station, where Baker is sitting below.

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All these octagon based structures appear to also relate to the Billfork diagram explained in House Greenup’s Floydada, as pointed out to me by Westside’s C. Derek Jones during his several visits to me today. He wants to make sure that Northside knows its place in the bigger scheme of things, and that Westside and Westside alone lies on The Diagonal, making it super important and indispensable to VWX Town. Given that I don’t have any terraforming powers in Northside nor the ability to create linden plants, he need not worry as much.

I’ll perhaps get to more on the Billfork Core Diagram soon, then. On the surface, however, there seems to be a resonance going on between it and Burnet’s Joe’s Garage, specifically through Zappa’s inspired creation Billy the Mountain featured in a mini rock opera of the same name. Billy parallels The Bill of Billfork — explain more of that soon, then.

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An octagon shaped hut appears in a 1987 scetchbook of mine, with a purple martin flying away from it and toward a line of static filled televisions emerging from a nearby wood. A clump of trees (lemon, lime, lemon-lime) in an otherwise barren spot blocks its progression. This picture eerily predicts the future appearance of the Billfork diagram, which also contains a 9th “purple MartiN” symbol that separates itself from an 8 pointed octagon. It’s also an inspiration for Bark’s “The High Octave Story”. More on that soon as well.

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The octagon and martin, two in this case, make a reappearance in a more recent artwork titled “Saltzhole”. Also notice that the Marble Tower kind of looks like a chess rook.

“Saltzhole”

“Timescape Castling”

“Slipper Men”

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Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, collages 2d, Heterocera, VHC City