Category Archives: Rubi

Dear Spongeberg,

Please don’t destroy Collagesity. It has taken me a considerable amount of time and effort (and a *little* bit of money!) to get to this point in my virtual town creation. I am still able to exhibit all of my collages in various galleries within the town, even though I’ve produced over 150 more in the last 3 years to add to the 100 in the Art 10×10. There’s more a one to one match between series and gallery structure, almost right off the bat, with Fal Mouth Moon and its 61 piece Falmouth series being a prime example. I anticipate more collages to come in the next year, two, three. I need this town for future exhibits. I cannot just start over.

Pietmond, my first virtual village, came during a period in Second Life when object return times on abandoned land could still be set to zero. That meant I could abandon land and retain the objects I had created on it. Through this, I was able to line Pietmond in the Otaki Gorge sinkhole with protective parcels containing structures and vegetation — really, a small forest surrounded the bottom of the sink and the town. I could also move objects onto this land after abandonment except for linden vegetation. It was a unique situation. It has been a struggle to re-create towns that I am pleased about *without* resorting to a jump up in Linden tier since then. Sometime in the first part of 2013 I believe, the rules for abandoned land were changed. Objects left behind were now automatically returned to the owner after a certain period of time expired, usually a week at most. This means that you have to own land in order to retain objects on it. You can still place objects on abandoned land but they could not be part of the parcel prims. They had to be prims assigned to your own land, slyly placed in an adjacent property. There are still a certain amount of objects now in Collagesity that actually lie on abandoned land, but they count against my prim allotments.

On the other side is the really handy prim to convex hull conversion for Second Life objects that’s come along in the meantime, saving a lot on land impact. I would estimate that the prims needed to create the present state of Collagesity might have to be increased by 1/4 or even more without this new option. So advantages have been taken away, but new advantages have been put in place.

In order to create an actual living, breathing Collagesity, I feel I need, at minimum, 8704 square meters of land, maxing out a 40 dollar monthly tier payment. I have that in Minoa. This might be hard to find in another spot in Second Life. In addition to this, I find it really handy to have just a *bit* over this, and in Minoa’s case I rent the land for the row of structures that include the Red Umbrella gallery and the old Norum gallery. I’m not sure if I *have* to have this rental for it all to work, but it’s certainly convenient that it’s adjacent to my Minoa land and available for use.

Then there’s the Rubi Woods. You have to look far and wide to find a similarly protected woodland of Linden design. The pine oriented Kerchel Forest is one, but that’s on the oldest continent and I haven’t seen land for sale directly bordering it in a number of years. Then there’s the Punic Woods, recently reinvestigated by Baker Bloch of course. You know this option. But I would point out, in that case, the disadvantage of Nautilus City properties. True, you have double the prims on any 1024 you rent, but that’s not as necessary now with the prim to convex hull option. And you still have to pay double what you would for an ordinary 1024. What might be better is a *larger* parcel with *half* the allotted land impact at *half* the cost. In this scenario, a 4096 with half the prim allotment would cost the same as a 1024 with double the prim allotment. You would have space to spread out.

So with all this in mind, let me beg of you to not destroy Collagesity in the coming month at least. Give me a little more time to figure out the next big step beyond the Boos gallery. The town is still progressing, still developing. I will rouse the townspeople to action. Let me outline some plans; more will be added later:

* expansion of the town library to include books generated from the Baker Blinker and Frank and Herman Einstein blogs.
* continued expansion of the World of Collage gallery.
* development of the town museum now housed in Castle Jack.
* reinstatement of the TILE Temple.

These are just things off the top of my head. Collagesity has great possibilities for growth. Currently I have over 300 prims freed up to work with. The town should not die at this point. You still get great bang for the bucks.

Respectfully,
Baker Bloch (baker b.)

“The Church of the Red Doors is gone,” he began in his slightly metallic, echo-y voice. He was standing uncomfortably close to me, but I stood my ground.

“Yes”, I said. “Cardboard Derek Jones claims it was eaten by a blackbird in the middle of the night.”

“Jasper?” asked Spongeberg, surprising me.

“Oh yeah, Jasper the Rook wasn’t it?” I recalled something far far back when I had a gallery next to the Lemon sim of the Sansara continent. It was called “Something to CHRO About”. A giant rook named Jasper visited the balcony one night. Let me see if I can dig up a picture.

“Pardon me,” I said to Spongeberg. “I’m digging something up in my inventory for the blog reader… and for you.”

“I’ve seen it,” he came back. “I am that bird,” he then followed calmly. He walked over to the place that the church once occupied in Collagesity Heights. “Tasted like chicken,” he added flatly. “I was going to eat Cardboard himself but backed off at the last moment, thinking about Lisa. Poor dear Lisa. She needs him, if only for a giggle. And Carrcassonnee has said he needs to write that book about Pennsylvania.”

“Corisca”, I corrected. “The Second Life continent of Corsica, which I have compared to Pennsylvania, or at least its main island.

“Pennsylvania is an island? I thought that was New Jersey.” I didn’t correct Spongeberg this round. I thought I’d just let him roll. Spongeberg is the blackbird! But I knew he was telling the truth. He’s some kind of shapeshifter!

“Would you like to see?” Spongeberg came back. I assumed he meant witnessing a transition into a bird.

“Are you a rook, then?” I asked.

“I’m technically a rook, yes, but you can call me crow, blackbird, raven, whatever turns you on. But you’re here probably to talk about Uncle Meatwad. I have digested that as well.”

“What did you think? What’s your verdict?”

“The Egypt thing is pretty profound. I’ve been thinking about that. And I think we need to re-create that hole, that vortex, in Collagesity. Carrcassonnee agrees — I spoke briefly with her before you came up. Lisa has a date, I understand. Really glad I didn’t eat her date now.” He smiled and then blew me a kiss. Then started dancing crazily. This went on for about 30 seconds. I was tempted to join in but didn’t. After all, Baker Bloch was a top notch dancer. Everyone can dance really swell in Second Life, it seems.

He stopped. I waited. He disappeared in a spray of black particles, and, I repeat, right where the Church of the Red Doors sat.

Was this the place he wanted to set up the vortex? Had he, I don’t know, created some kind of hole into another dimension there?