Category Archives: **VIRTUAL SL

January 4, 2024 · 12:38 pm

00410413

He knew he shouldn’t do it but once he got the idea in his head it was stuck there. Paint — watercolors of course — this red headed bathing beauty in front of him as an abstraction, red all over and with a round head instead of natural. Chroma, he knew. His former existence. “Okay, keep still,” he requested to his paid model for the day. “I’m about to start.”

Wannabe boyfriend but way-too-plain, way-out-of-his-depths Butchie Hawkins looks on very interested from the other side of pool dipping Carrcassonnee (she’s back!). What he lacks in looks he makes up in mind powers, namely psychic abilities. He’s going to ask her out after all this is over. He’ll be more on her level then. Because this wasn’t just a painting. This was *real*.

—–

Later:

“What have you *done*?” she cried, no longer the person she knew and loved and admired inside the finished product. “Where *am* I?”

“Just follow the yellow ball,” he said from his side, also part of the art work now. “Follow it all the way into the grave.”

She backed out of that death scene as fast as possible but she was indeed the ball now. Stuck.

“Thanks for *nothing*,” she said as she bounced away, cash in hand but wanting a lot more for what he did to her image. Greg Ogden had made a breakthrough today at the Aisle of Palms Pool. He didn’t have to paint pretty all the time. He could paint ugly.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, *Jeogeot, 0041, 0413, Big Woods, Fal Mouth Moon

Tagged as , , ,

January 3, 2024 · 8:43 am

00410412

Shaping up!

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, *Jeogeot, 0041, 0412, Big Woods, Blue Feather, Fal Mouth Moon, Kidd Tower, Temple of TILE

Tagged as

January 2, 2024 · 10:47 am

Aisle of Palms…

… is a go!

More details very soon.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, *Jeogeot, 0041, 0411, Big Woods, Fal Mouth Moon, Temple of TILE

Tagged as , , , , ,

January 1, 2024 · 8:26 am

the return of googly eyes

Happy New Years everyone! Hope yours will be starting off fantastically.

Tomorrow I plan to begin renting 10,725 square meters of land on the continent of Jeogeot, Gods willing. I think my earmarked parcel is safe until then because of this…

… an “intrusive” aisle of palms on an elongated 512 parcel in the middle of the thing. In fact, that’s a tentative name for the town I want to construct here, a rehash of Constantynople which is a rehash of Fordham’s Collagesity and so on and so on down the line.

Just like 8 years ago, the wife and I have returned from a vacation in Charleston SC and also nearby Folly Beach, the latter becoming more and more the center of focus during our almost yearly sojourns to the world famous metropolis around Christmastime.

It all seems to fit together seamlessly *because of* and not despite the invasive palms.

And then there’s also the London Tower Bridge nearby, which, in this virtual version, just lost 1/2 of itself. Wonder why? Maybe I’ll be able to find out from my new neighbors.

I must keep my eyes peeled for more synchronicities, ha.

And I plan to recreate the dead parrot statue as well in some fashion. Blackbeard’s? (Bluebeard’s?) To be seen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbeard#Blockade_of_Charles_Town

1 Comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, *Jeogeot, 0041, 0410, Big Woods, Michigan, South Carolina

Tagged as , , ,

December 29, 2023 · 7:59 am

Flashback Friday: “Polly Beach”…

… from exactly 8 years ago.

Rat Island, SC near Folly Molly Polly Beach and Charleston. Present centerpoint of budding, new mythology, bourne in the midst of unprecedented winter heat. This is where I hiked Sunday. This is where I doddled. Sand dunes.

ratisland01

Pirate Bluebeard Bluebird involved. Blackbird Rook Crow involved. We will see.

dead-parrot_London

Other Rat Islands…

New York:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Island,_New_York

Alaska:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawadax_Island

I was just reading about the latter the same morning I found the name Rat I., SC, through researching earthquakes in connection with fracking. Rat. I., Alaska is site of one of the largest earthquakes in US history. Charleston, SC is the location of the largest US earthquake east of the Mississippi River in the last 200 years.

Triangle, thus:

ratisland02

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0409, Alaska, New York, South Carolina

Tagged as ,

December 28, 2023 · 7:26 am

00410408

Newt called his wife with the exciting news. “Listen honey I know we’re kind of stuck in the moment but I’ve stumbled upon an important lead.”

(reply)

“We’ll right now I’m *physically* stuck — in some rocks it seems. Anyway it’s in a place owned by Pan… actually shortened her name to that from a longer form beginning with those same letters a couple of years back. I made a note to ‘STUDY Pan’ in the Real World — thinking here more of Peter Pan and Neverland and such — and then lo and behold when Baker logged me in tonight, seconds later, I was standing on land owned by this virtual Pan. It’s a way we can go — *potentially* go — from Flores back to Our Second Life. Through Amiable.”

(reply)

“It’s a long story. But Baker and his *own* wife are headed to Charleston, South Carolina tomorrow. Obviously I’m talking about Baker B. and not the components Baker Bloch and Baker Blink–”

(reply)

“It’s a triangle. We enter the real world but there’s only one spot there we can get back — theoretically again.”

(reply)

“I will.” And with this he hung up. Now to get himself unstuck. He has a path to follow. He stares into icy water and sees it is so. Here he also makes a mental note to drink more water to prepare his avatar body better. Because something is coming up. Something big.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, *Jeogeot, 0041, 0408, Big Woods, Nautilus, South Carolina

Tagged as , ,

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.

Leave a comment

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

Tagged as , , , ,

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

Leave a comment

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

Tagged as , , ,

December 24, 2023 · 10:48 am

00410405

By Christmas morning he had collected 3 cans in total. The second that soon followed the first through the portal, some kind of product called Mount and Dwu (?), turned out to be pretty nondescript in his estimation outside the queer name — just a “can” if you will. The 3rd, arriving only a handful of minutes ago after a wait of hours, was more interesting; it was now front and center before his eyes. A soda filled aluminum cylinder labelled 12939 — no ambiguity here that the number was the most important element — with a descriptive line underneath: “on reflection, a better cola”. He’s stared and stared but can find no rhyme nor reason to it. If only he’d played an early, open world game from the 1980s called Mercenary he might have the opening he needs by popping the figurative tab off the top.

Newt’s literal creator Dr. Mouse showed up later in the morning with a present of Old Spice Showering Gel. He’d played the open world game Mercenary in the 80s and a bit in the 90s even. While in Spain in the 2010s he’d also seen a commercial playing on the reversing trick.

“*But*,” he said to his “son” Newt after revealing it, “the number translated through this can is not actually 12939.”

“It isn’t?” Newt said, staring at the central one with renewed interest. The overall meaning was starting to dawn on him as well.

“No. It’s 1939. The same year as…”

“… the year coming up,” Newt finished for him, suddenly wondering what he was going to do with his tree after New Year’s.

Mouse pointed his cane at the can. “This is (your predecessor) Pepi. My guess is that he’s indicating, from the Great Beyond let’s say, he wants to come back… in the best way he *can* currently, I’m assuming. Pepi ‘Can’ Kolya.” Here he points to the 3rd again, then the 2nd then the 1st. The order of the words in the person-in-question’s full name.

Newt reflexively stares out the window toward the crossroads he’d envisioned Pepi standing in the middle of just the other day. And then Mouse was about in the same spot last Tuesday’s Wednesday when he was flagging down that streetcar named Desire which goes all over town, uptown downtown sidetown (etc.). Could he have known even then?

Or was it merely another of one of those what you call coincidences? Couldn’t be, he thought on the spot. Couldn’t be.

On cue, they both hear the streetcar rumbling into downtown from midtown. “Gotta run and catch a ride, Newt. You know how scared I am of midtown, Chinaville and all. Merry Christmas and thanks for the slippers!” And with that Mouse was gone, moving quickly out of the apartment building Newt lived in beside Shenanigans and onto the street once more.

“Wait, wait, I want a ride!” he called.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0405, Cass City+, Maebaleia/Satori

Tagged as , , , , ,

December 23, 2023 · 5:28 pm

Christmas Eve

He was playing Schubert’s 14th piano sonata he’d bought the score for about a week back when it flew in from his set up portal, the 1st of 3 as it turns out. It clanked and rolled on the floor almost to the opposite wall, freezing his hands mid chord progression with the sound. He knew instantly what it was of course. He’d been here before.

It was minimally damaged in the transition thankfully. He brought it over to his work table, moving his trusty steampunk computer aside for the moment; automatically started to take notes on the thing. “Quasi-vintage Coko Cola can circa 1990s, lid unpopped with pop still inside,” he wrote,  unable to resist a ready pun. “12 fluid ounces; bar code 490690.”

Understanding the fractal nature of his universe, Newt brought the computer front and center again, googling the number. Through it he learned the product was manufactured in New York with a can manufacturer called Crown. Approx. date of creation: 1983.

https://www.cokecollection.com/index.php?lang=en&pageid=50&canID=11453

Those are the mundane facts. In digging deeper with the number, he soon found another New York connection here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_90_in_New_York

Within New York, I-90 has a complete set of auxiliary Interstates, which means that there are Interstates numbered I-190 through I-990 in the state, with no gaps in between.

Splitting 490690 in two and averaging the 2 resulting numbers gives us 590, which is exactly between 190 and 990 or exactly in the symbolic center of New York somewhere moving west to east, he determined.

Right about… here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_of_Worms_(interchange)

Can front and center once more, he figures the fizz inside has settled down enough to safely pop the top. But dare he?

Another can comes flying through the portal. Saved by the bell, er, *clank*.

Leave a comment

Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0041, 0404, Cass City+, Maebaleia/Satori, New York

Tagged as , , , , , ,