00470301 (Now I am become Life?)
After the meeting, Spongeberg rendezvoused with Mmmmmm toy avatar and old friend Grassy Noll by the pond not far below Carolin’s new place. Sharing a bottle of mulberry wine they start talking about the past, namely Spongeberg’s former home of Mystenopolis and its towering statue of Christ the Redeemer just up the ridge, now derezzed quite a few years back along with the town itself. He misses the place and laments its passing.
“But we still have the Faune,” Grassy said to all this, firmly in the present while staring straight ahead at it. “Its opposite but also complement. Your 12 x 12 ‘Atom’ founded in Mystenopolis can still be used for constructive instead of destructive ways. Time can be reversed, *hiccup*. Excuse me!”
Spongeberg back at his Route 14 home recovering from the drinking and thinking about what Grassy said.
00470302
“I wonder if Rockstar is mad at me. For, you know, not getting the Beethoven thing; being, ahem, deaf about it.”
“Nah. He’s going through a lot of crap in his life right now,” I continue talking to myself on a high road over on the old continent of Our Second Lyfe, a location pointed out to me by an old acquaintance. “I’m just being paranoid, creating situations where there are none. Okay, better get back to Vortexville or, maybe better, ‘false’ New Island so I can kickstart my new novel again. ‘The Hmm.’ Bothering another one of my, he he, *allies* for a change. So naughty!”
“Yes?” he wheezed, manifesting on the ledge before me.
“No not *you* Nauty,” I said, looking over at him, not too surprised by the sudden manifestation for some reason, as if I was expecting it. Nothing’s changed: he’s still the same old Nauty with long, sharp pins stuck through his burlap body just there there there and there. We might seem equal in stature from the above snapshot…
… but we’re not. Not much different in that regard than, say, towering Kong up there is to me judging by his big foot over there from this angle. Not much different atall. Hmm.
Suddenly just like that I was in a different place with more pins, many more. This was Nauty again, I understood, but turned into a whole continent, or a representation thereof. I walk through his pin marking the former location of Spongeberg’s Mystenopolis…
… toward Center.
(to be continued)
00470303 (6666 posts, 666 pages — coincidence?)
“And so that’s how it all started, this story of FILE derived from TILE,” observing Nauty declared in his wise guy way. “We simply had to move Firey from 4th to 1st in this bottom group of 4 to spell out the word F-I-L-E with the first letters of their reordered names. F stands in for T because these are the 2 straight letters of the alphabet which can contain 7 sub-letters per the TILE game structure. The BFDI object-character colors here also match the 4 of TILE in red green blue yellow of course, although the individual letter to color correspondences are different from the game board. I could go on and on, but I’ll ask you the burning question that now presents itself up front and center alongside or even on top of repositioned Firey: What happened to the Dream Island all these characters were so fiercely battling over, often to their deaths? We know the answer to that too, given it presents itself as a constant in *our* world.”
“Constance,” I say to this, citing the name of the FILE sim that is also the name of the island in question.
“Correct,” he wheezes. “We should return but I’m not sure that’s possible given all else that’s happened in the meantime.” Since the demise of my attempted urban center there I dubbed Constantynople, I understood. Back toward the end of photo-novel 39 I believe. Checking….. checking….. Yes. 39. The island seems to have changed little in the intervening 2 or so years, indeed an aberration for such a large group of separately owned properties in the ever changing world that is Our Second Lyfe. It truly appears to represents some sort of sticky outie constant.
pin filled map of Constance Island with my former Constantynople at the top
“But we still have, let’s see, the rest of FILE,” I said, “the other 30 sims in this column that Constance more or less centers. Minus the hacked off 1 at the top.”
Constance Island in the middle of the 32>31 Nautilus continent “FILE” (purple column)
“Exactly centers including the hacked off 1 at the top,” furthers Nauty, knowing his continent better than me, since it is the same as his body in essence, pins stuck just there there there there, and so on and so forth. Constance is just a start. But also an end. “(The sim of) Ten Pages is 10 up from the bottom,” he continues with his FILE knowledge, “indicating that the 32 minus 1 (the top sim was wacked off in the retirement process), taken as a whole, are pages of a book, perhaps a chapter, perhaps more.”
“A section,” I say. But then I knew it had to be 2 if so.
“The… doorstep to the Temple of TILE was positioned right smack in the center of the 32 sim FILE,” he pinpoints while wheezing out.
Suddenly I knew what had to be done.
00470304 (lost ally)
Spongeberg tried to ignore the long haired, slightly smelly man sitting in the phone booth next to him while retrieving his canned drink from the machine. But no good.
“Umm, spare some change for a Green-Grey war veteran?” he prompted as Spongeberg was about to move away after a refreshing sip.
He glanced over, detected no immediate disability. “Depends on what’s wrong with you,” he decided to say unfeelingly. Can’t even bother to pick up his cup for begging, pheh, he thinks. Lazy bum as well. Then Roth moves more into the light to expose his hands that weren’t there, also exposing the reason the cup had to remain on the ground in front of him.
“Oh,” said Spongeberg to this, still considering whether to give him even a hard earned dime of his money. He drops a nickel into the cup, prepares to move on. He walks slowly so as not to rattle all the change that still remained in his pockets. Didn’t work. Roth watches him with his own disdain as he fades into the distance…
Up the road connecting Highway 13 and Highway 14 over the mountainous beige spine of Lower Austra separating them he goes. Aiming to catch a Second Lyfe to Real Life plane back home to Whitehead Crossing before dying again on the road like a dog in this cursed world, his own severe handicap here.
The two men could have become chums then and there, sharing Spongeberg’s drink while discussing disabilities personal and societal. But Spongeberg chose to remain free of all that, not tied down to a new friendship, despite the benefits he might reap.
This is actually an alternate story to the one presented here in photo-novel 13. But also a warning. Extreme freedom sometimes has a price, and something like a nickel won’t cover it.
https://bakerbloch.com/2019/04/11/88829/
00470305
The US of A’s only Dream Island lies in Flathead Lake, Montana, a 197 square mile body of water divided, appropriately enough, between the counties of Flathead to the north and Lake to its south, making the interesting equation Flathead + Lake = Flathead Lake. Dream Island, not much more than a football field in breadth, is found clinging to its southwestern coast near Big Arm.
The only really clear angle we have of the island in Google Street View is from Highway 93 as pictured below. From this 2011 screen capture, we see what appears to be several manmade structures and a glint in the trees indicating something else.
But by the time Google gets around to photographing the island again from the same spot in 2018, all of these objects are gone and the island seems to be totally bereft of human traces. Queer.
So in digging a little deeper, found this tiny Dream Island in a remote section of Montana had an interesting history. There was indeed a legitimate residence on the island at one time, owned by Juanita Daly whose well known family made their fortune from the state’s lucrative copper mining industry. When the property was sold after Juanita passed away in 2011 — the year of the first snapshot of Dream Island above — the new owners decided to clear the island of buildings, which also included a guest house and a boat house. Juanita was also known to entertain rich and famous personalities at her small slice of paradise, like legendary comedian Phyllis Diller photographed here in 1981 on the island with her.
But Ms. Diller is not the only famous person photographed on the island, at least according to some Google Earth photos I uncovered pinned to the same location. Remember the object-character Firey from a couple of posts back? Well here he is in what appears to be either the main house of the island or the guest house! Was he also a celebrity friend of Juanita’s? If so, this would have to be at the very end of her life, since the “Battle for Dream Island” web series where he was showcased only started in January 2010. Let’s come back to this.
Our Second Lyfe…
… can have weird combiney avatar situations too. Just like Cyberpunk 2077, Witcher 3 and other open world games featured in newer photo-novels attached to this here blog. Witness this collection of 2 sets of clones all 272 days old — once again coming from the Nautilus continent, its northern part this time.
And here’s what I assume is the mastermind behind it all, born 9 years 9 months ago in contrast to the rest. Elegant pose there you have going on. 🙂
I think I’ll call you Preston. Tammy Preston. Blue Rose case.
(to be continued)
00470307 (exact center again)
And red roses weren’t the only thing that’s turned blue in Elizabeth Perez’s mind. The scans of her brain itself were doing so, revealing new neural links replacing the normal red. Same for her husband Madison, the wannbe mayor of this here Nightsity. Formed for mind control purposes obviously. Cutting the head off from the inside, yes: that’s how I described the process for them in a previous photo-novel. Their story still remains uber interesting within this alternate Cyberpunk 2077 universe we’ve concocted here.
More soon.
00470308 (workaround)
“An island!” Firey calls from the top. “And about the right size too. Maybe we’ve found our Dream home after all!”
“Cool!” says his riding companion Leafy clinging to his legs below. “Let’s get a closer look. But *careful*.”
“Whoa, that was a *close* call with that big building, Firey. I told you to be careful!”
“And *I* told you when we started I don’t know how any of this works! I’m just along for the ride like you!”
“*Not* cool (still)!”
“Uh oh,” says observing fisherman Mr. Z, watching them move closer to the ground…
Closer… closer…..
*CRASH*
“*Well*,” says tossed aside Firey, trying to make the best of a bad situation. “We’re… here?”
Leafy leaps up, surveys the damage. “Firey what have you done?! Now we’ll never be able to return to Goikyland! Glider — *destroyed*!”
An exclamation which the people holding service behind the red doors of the Church of Ood they just crashed into would surely have heard if they weren’t laughing so hard at Pitch Darkly and his cussing about the blood spurt he’d received on his chest from the clown sacrifice up front, ha ha ha, he he he!! Even wife Mary beside him couldn’t subdue a smile. The landed spurt must have also exactly coincided with the crash outside come to think of it. Cool? Not cool? To be seen, perhaps.
On the other side of the island, All Orange senses another object-character is here with him now. No, make that two other object-characters, he amends.
He rushes inside to place a call to his Constantynople contact.
“Excuse me, Phyllis (Phyllis!),” Al says when hearing a particular ring tone and understanding who is on the other side. “I have to take this. Business matters.”
But Phyllis was still laughing at the matters in the church. Remotely. We’re talking about some kind of doppelganger spirit here.
“Hallo?” Reply. “2 of ’em, eh?” Reply. “Find them before anyone else if possible?” Reply. “I’ll try.” Reply. “Okay, I’ll *do*. Goodbye, All Orange.” He hangs up. “Goodbye forever I wish,” he says to himself and himself only. He turns around but Phyllis is on the ottoman now. Both of ’em.
“Sit down, Al,” they cackle as one, scrunched down to only a laughing/smiling head. “I’ll bring them to us, no worries.”
“Here,” Firey says, spreading his stick arms out before it. “I feel that we should go here.”
(to be continued)
00470309 (Crooked)
“Right through there, boys. That, ahem, Secret Door takes you to the actual Dream Island you seek. Trust me. I’ve been there. My friend lives there. Almost certain she still lives. There.”
“Thanks bodiless lady!” exclaims Firey. “But what about–”
“No need to worry about a glider this time,” exudes the spirit-head that calls herself Phyllis, guessing what he was going to say. Mind reader, I presume. Among many other talents. “And Al and I will take care of the wreckage left down at the church. Won’t we Al?”
“Um, sure,” says Al, just offscreen to the right. With her steady stare toward him, he then realizes this is Phyllis’ prompt to go take care of it before service ends at the Church of Ood and the congregation within is let loose upon the world again, blood splattered Pitch, his wife Mary and the rest. “On it.” He takes his leave, jumping off the 2nd floor balcony and down to the ground to save time.
Her attention turns back to the boys. “Okay, a word of caution; I must be totally honest and up front with you — no choice, actually.” She thinks of truth demanding All Orange here on the other side of the island but much closer in psychic space. “If the time is 2011 or before when you arrive, then you’ll be provided comfortable accommodations by my friend in the guest house near the main house like we spoke about. But if by chance — just by chance — it’s 2012 or after, no structures will remain on the island and my friend will be gone and your trip might be in vain. I’m almost sure she’s there waiting for you. But I’m not *100* percent sure — again, just being up front with you about the transition.” Damn you, All Orange! she cusses internally.
“Oh,” says a suddenly less flamey Firey, his happy-as-hell enthusiasm for the exit just a second ago dampened by this news. And cool green Leafy’s formerly upturned mouth has become more of a flat line.
“W-well. If not 100 percent then *what* percent?” he asks. “About your friend being there and the trip being a success and all.”
Phyllis hesitates for a moment. “80?” she finally comes up with timidly, eyebrows raised.
Al leaps back up to the balcony and into the room. “Done,” he says to Phyllis. “Threw it over into the graveyard next door to be eaten and disposed of by the zombies when they awaken tonight.”
“Excellent job, Al. Well done. I’m, er, just being up front with the boys here about the odds of their success.”
“40?” says Al.
“No. *80*. 80, Al.”
Al heard otherwise but… that stare again. He dare not counter her.
“Alright, okay. We’re still good,” says Firey. “We’ll take our chances. After all, we know *this* isn’t the Dream Island we seek now.”
Phyllis shakes her head which is all of her. “No Dream,” she says with her mouth. But Leafy thinks he detects a forked tongue within now.
“I think we should stay, Firey,” he says. “Check, I don’t know, some other sources. Maybe the Church of Ood people she spoke about.”
“Those *FOOLS*?” Phyllis dismisses the proposition loudly. “I mean, ahem (timid laughter), those people know nothing, absolutely *no*-thing (more laughter). They still think there’s a God in the Air that controls all outcomes for everyone. Instead: everything is odds, chance, calculable to within an nth degree by a big brained soul like me. Like 80 percent (for the circumstances) here. Right Al?”
“Right Phyllis,” he quickly agrees this time, taking care not to look at the boys.
“So it’s settled,” she says. “The exit awaits. You can’t stay here after all.”
“Can’t stay,” quickly tacks on Al. But he’d certainly take even 40 percent odds to leave this blasted hellhole. And in fact that’s just what he plans to do. Follow the boys through the door, running as fast as possible behind them before being caught, whatever that might entail. Montana sounds great in comparison, 2011, 2012 or any other time.
Oh *God*. Phyllis is staring at him again. She *knows*.
(to be continued)
00470310 (Bubble Head (transparent meaning))
So what lies beyond 26? 27 we assume.
But 27 merely reflects back to 26 in this case as the Joe Perry Project single “Let the Music Do the Talking” made by 2 of the 4 Aerosmith members who left the group becomes rebranded as an Aerosmith single when the 2 join back with the other 2 to reform the original band, cycle complete.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_the_Music_Do_the_Talking_(song)
Similarly, hang gliding Firey and Leafy chose to leave their own band of 4, separating consonants from vowels in the overall game of FILE. They thought they’d achieved paradise, life well lived, Dream Island manifested for real. Can they similarly resolve the mistake of leaving a perfect alliance and reintegrate with fellow bottom feeders Ice Cube and Eraser to make a new whole?
No. They simply go deeper into the False Dream, 2 itself separated into 1 and 1.
“Leafy? Is that… you Leafy? What happened to your–
“OH NO!!!!!!”
What a beautiful dream they had, though.
00470311 (level 9223372036854775807 = trap?)
I spoke clear and distinct into the Air. “I’m here looking for a BOOK.”
No answer for about 15 seconds, then:
“WE ARE HERE.”
I think that’s *Lauri*, I realized. I pondered what to say next. Simply repeating the request didn’t seem right. They knew.
I had to specify.
“31 pages with a 32nd ripped out,” I tried.
15 more seconds, then:
“CHECKING.”
10 more seconds, then:
“LIMITING QUERY TO PICTURE BOOK, 32 PAGES MAX. PLEASE RESTATE REQUEST.”
Picture book? I thought. I didn’t even know what that really meant. I assumed: children’s book. What children’s book did I know?”
“‘Little Black Sambo,'” I said once more into the Air.
2 seconds later: “THAT REQUEST IS NOT ALLOWED.”
O-kay, I thought. Good the library has some kind of racist filter, I suppose. Although someone old enough with a valid ID should be able to request the material anyway. Just then:
“PERHAPS SPECIAL COLLECTIONS CAN HELP YOU SELECT A PICTURE BOOK. OPENING A CONNECTION…..”
Hmmmm. Dare I? It would mean returning to the beginning of it all. Perhaps losing everything that’s happened since in the process. All those hard earned years of service.
Couldn’t do it. Like Denmark, something rotten went on there. 42. Bad juju.
I’d have to keep working from outside the system. Nibbling away on the periphery.
(to be continued)
00470312 (huffing and puffing)
“Edward, dearest, I have a request. Let’s go tubing on the erupting volcano over there today. Let’s have some *real* fun for a change. I mean, aherm, more real fun,” she said, thinking of last night. For him: fantastic. For her: okay. Adequate. Thus her need for more this morning. He’s good with eruptions for now.
“But — it’s *lava.*,” he said, not needing to look out the window at it unlike her.
“Check the Oracle,” she replied simply. “Ichelus. Here, I’ll give you an image.”
Edward hated when she did this but couldn’t help seeing the proferred picture in his mind’s eye and understand its meaning. Indeed tubers in the 1:1 Oracle equivalent of firey Ichelus over there, which would be the clear, totally non-firey waters of SIXMILE long Ichetucknee River in Florida, simply made for such activity. He knew they would be safe, orange heat transmuted to cool blue. The Oracle speaks.
This also makes me think of another volcano whose lava can turned to water…
Also in an episode of Battle for Dream Island: The Power of Two (“The Seven Wonders of Goiky”), pieces of the broken gate of Dream Island itself are used to patch the cracking volcano.
All this seems related.
“Ready for another go, dear!” she said after they’d finished. She couldn’t get enough. Until it was too late.
“Wheeeeeeeeeee!!”
**CRASH**.
Mr. Babyface thinks of Jem and her collision with that unseen boulder when he stares up at Ichelus on his Big E/Big Schwa later on. It was big news all over Jeogeot. Death of a pop star.
Ironically he would also soon be killed by another Korean Channel natural phenomenon, a water funnel in his case which sucked up his too small boat for the journey. And very close to Ichelus at that, just in the catty-corner sim of Orgamast. More fire-water polarities, hmm.
This is where I die, he thinks fleetingly and then forgets all about it.
00470313
“I always wanted to break down the 4th wall,” Alice responded when I asked her if she liked her new home in the woods. “Now I can speak directly to you, the observer! We have no barriers between us.”
“Ka,” exuded Ka to her left, also joyful. “Skwi,” squeaked Skwi in glee to her right. If Mistress Alice is okay with this then her pet cat and squirrel respectively are too. Let the Flathardt experience commence!
Oh. I guess I should explain where we are. It’s a bit difficult. Let’s just move around and see who else is here and I’m sure everything will become crystal clear as soon as possible.
“Where do you want the Big Arm,” issued Ted the dump truck driver, tired from a long journey across upper Woodlawndia to get here.
“Just over there. Beside the Big Banana,” said pointing Pinky, sort of a manager here I suppose and dependent on outside help until the village gets its own fleet of trucks and drivers. “Ellie, give him a, er, *hand* if you don’t mind.”
“Sure thing,” the elephant said after they all had a chuckle over the joke, even tired Ted, although he laughed the least. Still about 5 seconds.
Not really becoming clear yet… oh, here’s another group to investigate.
“This giant frog skin is soo smooth and colorful,” gushes Pantomime Penny to her father or perhaps her brother.
“Don’t touch it,” he says down to her. “Warts,” he summarizes. I was thinking poison and I believe by the look the lamb is giving him she did too.
Well, let’s just back up, zoom out. Out out out.
There we are. That grove of green pine trees, with undergrowth consisting only of rhododendron which you can’t really see from the air. And, most remarkable, despite this being the top of a hill, all land in this grove is completely and utterly flat. Hence the name Flathead, as in flat head of a hill. Plus that whole Montana thing we’ll get back to in a while.
The toy avatars that are already here had a debate about whether to name their new community the same as the hill, Flathead, or instead go with Flatheart, meaning the heart of the hill since their community is much smaller than Flathead itself and in the basic center or “heart” of everything. At least in their eyes. They settled on a portmanteau of sorts: Flathardt, 1/2 head 1/2 heart (kind of). And one of the more vocal citizens at the meeting was a big Dale Earnhardt fan and owned a #8 toy race car in his honor (see right of frog above). So that probably played a role in the compromise name too.
What next for Flathardt? I’m guessing toy train tracks, since I’ll be the one hauling them up here and laying them down. I wanted to bring the tracks up today but I couldn’t find them in the junk heap that is our basement. So I settled for some other toys. Hopefully tomorrow, then. Weather should be okay again.
(to be continued)
00470314
Something’s happened over in Crooked, psychic Myrtle Beech intuits from her position at the center of the island while spying the distinct looking Constantynople building through a gap. One person would definitely know and that’s Old Orange (= All Orange). On her way…
“Okay, Old Orange. Start moving your dangly red legs which are the same as your forked tongue and spill the truth for a change!”
Old/All Orange complies.
MEANWHILE… world maker Philip Linden had made it over to Constanynople library’s Special Collections, despite his head blowing up about 57 times now on his journey across the island south to north. “What’s in those crooked bookshelves over there?” he couldn’t help asking room attendant Swanie Rivers, trying not to flap her wings in disgust and irritation despite the gum. And the gun; both poppers, if both dormant for the moment. Tough stretch of land in the middle of the island — The Abyss some call it — and he decided to pack some heat in his pocket beside his pack of Wriggles chews already planted there. Back to the crooked shelves, he believes he’s seen them in a dream.
Flattie cleaning robot-lady Ross C. slides through the secret door connecting SC with the rest of the library and takes a listen while dusting the totally straight shelves — easy work. Is this really Merk Coolie Brighton in disguise? she thinks. She’d only seen him twice since his death almost 3 1/2 years ago, job killed off along with his Records Center, which he had become the functional manager of down through the years. Blue Boy, she thinks. He called me Blue Boy! Do I *look* blue to you, Merk Coolie Brighton? But I can hear him say he was just trying to kill off the library in turn, making everyone he actually cared about within a color of his TILE, red yellow green blue, with me at the end timewise. It was all up to me to find out the truth, she thinks. 42. Bad juju, and so on and so forth.
But she can’t quite make out what they’re saying, what Philip Linden or what appears to be Philip Linden actually came here for. If it’s that book, that one single book, then she can slam the door on the subject, case closed. But if it isn’t… then the door remains open.
It all depends on what happened in Crooked.
(to be continued)
00470315
“So Ice Cube who also stands in for Eraser is dead,” observing Nauty said about the crushing of the vowel object-characters in this game of FILE. “Done in by Ruby Gem’s spell centered on All Orange. But let’s back up, examine what these fruits actually represent. Everyone has an Orange, but only females have generally recognized Apples and males have generally recognized Bananas, Big Apples and Big Bananas we can call them. Although all have spaces on their body that can be filled with such.”
“Everyone is actually All Orange with Apples and Bananas to fill around (an agreed upon) center,” I attempted.
“Big Orange, right. Or Old Orange,” he wheezed out.
—–
Thanks to the pills she manifested in her mouth, Original Phyllis returned on the ottoman on the 2nd floor of the Crooked building in Constantynople, now depossessed or unlinked from the harmful inner spirit known as All Orange, who some call Big or even Old instead. Like Myrtle Beech for the latter. Shame we can’t get into more of her story right now but there’s only so much you can do with a 24 hour day these days. Outdoor fun like watching a tired dump truck driver unload a Big Arm beside a Big Banana in Flathardt with the help of a handy elephant can only last so long, else you run out of time for other stuff. Plus there’s the rain, the seemingly daily mountain showers and thunderstorms to contend with, PHEH. Else who *knows* what could be achieved. There would be an outdoor center congruent with the inner. But back to original Phyllis in her original role.
“Red yellow green blue,” she begins. “NO orange, NO–” She pauses. Is it about the orange? she briefly contemplates. NO, it’s not about the orange. Nor the violet. “NO violet,” she starts again in her loud, confident manner, pills in full effect now. “NO nothing else. We HAVE — our 4…..”
00470316
Grassy Noll stares at the giant statue and wonders: Is it about the Faune? Really? After all, Spongeberg is a *destroyer* not a creator. His very nature, his very essence in essence. The old Christ the Redeemer statue he worshipped up on the beige (read: yellow) ridge should be down not up. Conversely the Faune here is down on Green not up. Everything is Bass Ackwards. His 12 x 12 Atom *should* destroy, hmm. Or be destroyed.
“Why do you keep staring at that thing, Grass?” asks his friend from the couch of his Route 14 apartment, or just off of.
“Oh. Just thinking what might have been.”
Silicon Church… Siliconicus. Yellow not green.
00470317
Voodoo doll holding Miss Ouri observes Pietmond Boy patiently waiting outside SC’s Secret Door for a father who seemingly never shows. Wait for it… Wait for it…
There.
Sunklands 