He came into the room holding a top secret file and spoke directly into the 2 way mirror connecting our 5 and our 6. “You need to look toward Franklin,” he said after removing his disguise and showing his true face which mirrored the ones on the 100 dollar bills littering the floor. “Franklinn,” he emphasized.
—–
“FrankLYNN!!!”
“Oh god what is it this time?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, Jeogeot, Georgia, Missouri, Heartsdale+, 0213, Nawt Vaya+, NVFS, 0049
“All the homes have just appeared, see?” he indicates with his pointing cane. Excited he was. Another center. “This *must* be where we head next, explore the neighborhoods if not explore the mtn. itself. Because I understand there’s really nothing on it.”
“No, Mouse. It’s as if… well, I won’t go as far to say that Our Second Lyfe is *dying* or anything. Just changing — in perspective. Outpaced by other virtual realities. And the *cracks* are starting to show. Can we right this thing?”
“One way to find out,” Mouse logically answers. And so the Bellisaria* team already established over on the Newbrooke continent (Newbank sim) in the background behind the white mtn. continent here will be sent over to investigate and interact. Unless I decide to create a whole new team, or a mix of new and old. I’ve reviewed all the available avatars avatars found on the SL Marketplace for under 50 linden dollars (about 25 cents) in the last several days, filled in the gaps of what I had before as I deemed fit and worthy. A lot now! Over 1500 unique characters created for this blog and attached photo-novels, 48 in number and apparently still growing. And probably 80 percent of these from Our Second Lyfe sources. Not dead. But just because of the creators past and present. The platform remains a viable sandbox option for cutting edge development, if not technologically then psychologically still, at least for those who know how to navigate its complex ins and outs and also don’t mind dealing with a little bit of lag at times. So creators: keep it up. I don’t think the game can be “fixed” and I’m not really sure it needs to be. Just allow it, master Lindens, to keep on keeping on, tweaking as we go along but no major overhaul. It is what it is at this point for the most part. With these lemons we can still make lemonade and that’s all that might matter.
White mtn. centered continent often called Sakura in the foreground with the Newbrooke continent with its central Newbank sim in back
*I know this is spelt wrong, ha.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0049, 0205, Bellisaria, Continent 04, Continent 06, Jeogeot, Nawt Vaya+, NVFS
“Oh I hate removing all these beautiful decorations and then taking down the tree. Can’t we keep it up for a while longer, Frank Lynn? Please? Pretty please?”
“I told you, dawg,” he said while continuing to finger the difficult Spongeberg invention, #3 he was working on this particular day I believe. Full of Middle C’s in an attempt by the composer to make the path more clear, but still a very windy and twisty journey indeed. One he still can’t fully navigate to its end. “We don’t have to take the tree down until New Year arrives,” he continued his explanation.
“But… Nada is arriving at 7. For our dinner. Philip and Nada together. Two teams.”
“Frank stops playing, pivots in his bench to look over at his own (new-ish) girlfriend Daisy, realizes the mistake made.
“*No*, not *Nada* New Year. Just the New Year — dawg. The first of the year. It’s tradition that you don’t have to take down Christmas trees — for most people — until New Year’s Day the week after Christmas.”
Daisy stands back, gold ornament still in hand and not the collecting box. “Oh,” is all she could say, and proceeds to hang it on the same limb she retrieved it from not 30 seconds ago. “Good,” she said while putting more on formerly plucked. “Good good good.”
—–
“Where’s he now?” Daisy asks about Frank’s oft times visitor Dr. Mouse. Like House but different.
“Place called Linesville PA,” Frank answers from across the table. They’d finished eating (salmon and brown rice and mixed vegetables, yum!). Now time for leisurely chatting before cards (bridge? rook? Mille Bornes even?), catching up with all the latest local news and stuff. “He’s wondering why it’s so close to the PA-OH line,” Frank continued, “about 5 miles if I remember correctly, but not named for that. He’s also indicated Glenn Islands next to Ford Island in the same area and something about the possibility of watching a lot of Glenn Ford movies when he gets back, hogging my video feed again, pheh. Maybe time to think about that 2nd screen?”
“I’ll chip in,” chips in Philip to his right, partner Nada New Year across from him as Daisy is to Frank.
“Well thanks, Philip. Nice of you to offer. But as I recall, you didn’t bring any actual money over after your, er, *conversion* from Alamo to Nawt Vaya here.” Unlike me, was the unstated jab; Frank planned his metaverse jumping quite a bit more carefully. “That’s why you live with Lexi.”
“Oh,” says Philip to this, remembering that fact. “Right. Which reminds me. Nada you got a tener you can loan me for a while? Need to pay off Frank for my bets the last time we played. Right Frank?” And he hits Frank’s nearest shoulder with his fist — pretty hard. Because he’s pretty mad about it. “Good to, how you say, *square* up before we start, huh?”
“Keep it, dawg,” he says while glancing at Nada, who remained silent, maybe even looked a little sleepy. Was she up for this tonight? “I — again — appreciate the thought.”
“Okay, good. Great — that’s great. Even steven, then. Soo… what’ll it be tonight? Rook?” Philip was always up for a game of rook, his favorite. But Daisy preferred bridge and Nada and Frank preferred Mille Bornes, at least for tonight just to keep things fresh. So the majority wins and Mille Bornes it was. Philip mumbled something about preparing to lose again since it wasn’t *his* game, but then dealt the first hand and started to get quite into it before the end.
—–
“Nada, can you loan me a twenty?” he said as discussion of cards was brought up the next week after another delicious meal (poached eggs, steamed green beans, something bread related) and catching up with local news and such. Frank was just that good — naturally. Let’s call him a card savant although I know that term is usually reserved for precocious children(?). If only Spongeberg came so easily. TBC
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0049, 0106, Jeogeot, Nawt Vaya+, NVFS, Ohio, Pennsylvania
“FrankLYNN!!!”
“Oh god what is it now?”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0049, 0105, Jeogeot, Nawt Vaya+, NVFS
“I- don’t know where I am!!”
“Wait a minute. Yes… yes I this I *do* know where this must be,” Mouse rectifies as his head stops spinning around an unknown center and the earth moves up to meet his feet, giving him balance on the perch above the trees. True earth, and not that fake crud up down sideways in Our Second Lyfe. “Bill,” he says, looking down. “This must be Bill again, a, um, reduction from the mountain in Maine. As, yes, mass turns into energy for locomotion… across the landscape. I *remember*.”
—–
“I forgot to tell you — I got a postcard from Mouse today,” Frank says after he puts his hands on the planchette to begin. “Turns outs he’s in Vermont, not New Hampshire.”
“Interesting. Okay… back to the game.” Philip also touches the planchette from his side, which then rather quickly spells out OLD ZIRCON. The self described phased-out Byzantine devil ends up giving them the answers they both need and desire. tbc
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0615, Jeogeot, Maine, Nawt Vaya+, New Hampshire, NVFS, Vermont
“You see? You SEE?? Columbine. Revealing strangely bright lit Edward Pierrot coming from the North. He doesn’t know what will backstab him in a minute. Or back *stick* him as in a stab. This is important. This is *crucial*. She should have never opened that door in the wall and neither should we.”
“Simmer down, Mouse,” said Philip Strevor to his oft times housemate, still unable to beat his high score at his best game, NUMBER not to be taken down yet. 28064212. “Just start over at the beginning, pal,” he said while also looking up at the castle’s video feed he just walked in on. Mouse: always jabbering, always theorizing. Until it ends.
“How about the middle,” said Mouse, and then went there.
“The banana moon hangs low in the blue night-sky, yellow-ish or maybe even green-ish, sun nowhere to be shone now,” he describes. “In the shadow made by the walls the stick keeps poking, keeps jabbing, turning him ’round and ’round and eventually gone. Leaving Columbine for…
“…. Harlequin. This is the tragic tale of our Edward, Philip.”
“Edward… Philip?” TBC
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0610, Jeogeot, Nawt Vaya+, NVFS
“You know, I’m kind of tired of all this, Wendy of hot dog restaurant fame. I think I’m going home. I think I’m going over to Nada’s tonight instead of staying here. I think I’m… leaving.”
But Wendy didn’t care. Wendy was merely a stand in for another. Again.
—–
—–
“How was Little Hell today, Philip?” Frank asked while they were gathered together once more around the dining table at suppertime. Or thereabouts. Frank just assumed he wouldn’t go to Heaven. The 2, upper level doors to his high castle in the skies labelled such don’t naturally swing that way for him, being an Id figure and all. Disposable by the end (of the game) as stated.
“Oh. The usual,” he answers Frank. “Think I’m going down to the coast tonight for my r&r, though. See if Nada is still hanging around Lexi’s place.”
“Good idea.” Mouse was absent from the castle too, having gone back to the Amazon’s cement pond to confer with Pansy about more YouTube Poop possibilities. He knows now that the rest of New England is key for the movement of the main castle down through the states (of consciousness?). Now maybe Frank can enjoy a little peace and quiet about the place. Maybe time to call up Daisy, ask her how her day’s been at the bar. And remind her of that *third* date. Because tonight, he felt, was the night, Miss Mistletoe 2025 and her waiting lips being more a distant thought than ever. He knew about her real life Nigerian origins with the mother priestess and all, and her continuation of that ancestral calling in virtual Rodentia. He knew that the father had something directly to do with the out-of-this-world Non she wanted to develop, and why she came to Jeogeot’s only inland sea of Nawt Vaya in the first place. She’d heard about the alcoholic sea monster, what issues for the Hole in the Wall it caused. An opening had been revealed. Non-alcohol would be all they could serve, which slotted in perfectly for her plans of Our Second Lyfe dominance in that department. All has been revealed about the family that needs to be. Time for a different kind of revealing, of a more intimate type. Frank was ready. Now the question on his mind is: was Daisy ready for this kind of commitment?
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0608, Little Hell+, Omega, Southern
“And so you see you couldn’t help your father because there’s nothing wrong with me and everything wrong with him. So you were right to run him over in your car while the old fool stood helplessly exposed in the middle of Route 9 over there. Like you hit him with a bullet in the past in, what was it, 1785?”
“More like the late 1800s I think,” said Alice Tart to her mother Wheeler Wilson, finally together for that talk about the recently deceased Mouse. Overdue, as are a lot of things in life. Better attend to the important stuff before death.
“I– met the town leader I think,” she then revealed, “this Rodentia of the continent of Jeogeot of the metaverse of Our Second Lyfe,” she expanded needlessly. Like assigning a particular color to white.
“Oh. The male?”
“Yeah, the embodiment thereof.”
“What was he like?” said the curiously non-surprised Wheeler at this turn. She knew that behind the female there’s always a male, often in the same body whether virtual or real, or figuratively if not literally as was the case here.
“What you would suspect, I suppose. A big rat, but with brown markings on top of the white. Add in a bit of color.”
“Chocolate to vanilla,” said Wheeler, translating hues into flavors. “What did you say to… this rat?”
“I confessed *everything*. He seemed very pleased. I supposed I owed him that, using his town, his *female* half, for a good number of posts already. He kind of trapped me in retrospect, drew me to the assembly hall that was his sanctuary. So I just explained everything.”
“Pleased, you say?” Wheeler takes another puff of her cigarette. She’d already offered one to daughter Alice who refused. I wonder if she– no, can’t be. Can it?
“Yeah, pleased. He’s probably still over there if you want to pay him a visit. Checking… checking… yeah, green dot still there. He’s waiting for us… when the time comes.”
“When the time comes,” echoes Wheeler then inhales more smoke. TBC
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0508, Dokken Hollow+, Jeogeot
“Caledonia has been mentioned in 48, *cement pond* has been mentioned. That’s 2 in a row. And then Baker obviously, since that’s me: baker b.! And through baker b., both Baker Bloch and Baker Blinker, the original male-female duality of the blog and what everything builds around. And then Maxwell to end — she’s obviously around as well (wife). So that’s 4 in a row again, just like here in your castle, Frank. Whaddaya think, huh? HUH?”
“Get out,” Frank says to this issuance. Philip starts to leave. Frank catches him. “No no, I mean, get out of him, baker b. I want to talk to Philip directly.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Philip” turns around, returns to the couch. Baker exits the body; Frank has learned enough from him. “W-where am I, w-what *happened*?”
“Never mind all that, Philip. You’re back and that’s the most important thing.”
“I *am*?”
“Yeah, it happened again. You got all dizzy and had a lie down, let’s say.”
“I *did*?”
“Yes, you *did*.”
“Huh. I can’t remember.”
“Of course not.”
“I can’t remember *any* of that. Was I high on speed? Was I playing High Speed? And, worst of all, was I playing High Speed while high on speed?”
Frank decided to say, all of the above.
“Golly.”
“Golly Miss Molly, yeah.”
Philip looks up at the video feed, at the map. “W-what’s that? 4?”
“Yeah.” Must still be doing a little channeling, Frank rationalizes this insight. “4 in a string,” he explained, “but I think Caledonia is 4 instead of 1. It’s reversed from what I saw before here. I’M WITH STUPID — that indicates (the holder is) the wife. And (stone holding) hubby baker b. is being pointed to, ha. Veery clever. And cement turns into concrete to seal the deal. Concrete, Washington I’m talking about here, which use to be named Baker. I checked: former towns Cement City and Baker combined to form Concrete back in 1909. So there’s that.”
“But… why am *I* here?”
“I told you. You were playing pinball. In the wrong way. Again.” In truth, *Edward* turned into Philip while Mouse had a bit of a lie down after all the excitement. He was in the spare bedroom that Philip uses occasionally. No room today. Well, there’s never any room in the tiny bedroom adjacent to the stairwell. STOP
GO “What’s this, then. Adjacent?”
“Yes, Philip. The tile before the 1st. Le Roy. Lime, indicating lime Jell-O, a new, 5th flavor added to an original 4 in 1930. We have to go down. Something — is there. TBC
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0504, Jeogeot, Nawt Vaya+, New York, NVFS, Washington
I watch over him from the moved table as he continues to shake. I called Lexi and she said it was in all likelihood an epileptic fit caused by all those Youtube poop videos he watches with the flashing lights and all. She just suggested keeping an eye on him until it passes — and DON’T put anything in his mouth, she warns. I couldn’t call Daisy at the Hole in the Wall; didn’t know her number. Must rectify that soon. Anyway, Lexi said she was probably too far away to help, and that the fit should only last a couple of minutes at most. I didn’t know her current location, forgot to ask. So I just waited…
… and waited. I glanced at my watch not on my arm. 3 minutes now. Glance again. 3 1/2. Glance again 3 3/4. At this rate it will never end, Zeno’s Paradox. So I stopped glancing at my watch, started counting Mississippi’s. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. On and on I went. 100 Mississippi, and that added on to the 3 3/4 minutes I had to start this. 200 Mississippi — okay, calling Lexi again. “Help!” I said. “Get here!” But just then he sat up, stopped shaking, seizure ended, as if nothing had happened. But he was different, really different. “Where is Edward with the stone?” he monotoned, and threw away his cane into a corner. “I need to talk to Edward. I need to *see*… Edward.”
So I pulled him out of the back of the fireplace where he lived and then this happened.
There they were, all lined up in a row, all holding something. I didn’t know what to make of it! TBC
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0503, Jeogeot, Nawt Vaya+, NVFS
Sunklands 