Thursday, June 25, 2009
Some thoughts on arguing the law
Dictatorship and the Web
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
@justinmclachlan is a total loser
Monday, June 22, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Vidal Fashion one day gift special
Vidal Fashion is running a special, join the group, and request one free outfit. Today only.
Friday, June 19, 2009
How have you twitted for a #publicoption today?
Neo Nursery Rhymes
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Green #iranelection twitter icon of mousavi
Not a Freebie but... 'Indie Rose' is closing down soon :(
One of my first choices for SL clothing and I will be very sad to see it go.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Sleepless
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
That bleeding of time
Ensign on Marriage. Speak Loudly and Carry a Big err... stick.
"The time-honored and unique institution of marriage between one man and one woman is a fundamental pillar of our society and its values." Representative Ensign of Nevada, on behalf of the Defense of Marriage Act. He missed three votes on it. Including the final one.
Ensign however, may have had reservations, he did not vote on the Definition of Marriage Amendment. Even though he said he supported it.
Perhaps it is his idea of political courage?
A Missive From My Generation
Monday, June 15, 2009
What Errol Morris' Eye Missed Part V
(Mark) Hoffman could get Emily Dickinson's voice and handwriting right. He could create a letter from Daniel Boone that is so convincing you can hear the crack of gunfire as you read it. He could manipulate ink and paper with consummate artistry. He could fake history and manipulate people. But he could not simulate time: the slow drop-feed of the days, andweeks, and months, the shift of the seasons, and with it the subtle changes in humidity, temperature, and light that alter the chemical composition of a document. It was the flaw that would send him to jail for the rest of his life.Simon Worrall The Poet and the Murder page 226
Metcalfe believes that Hofmann's genius lay in his ability to deconstruct Mormon scripture and create fictional texts that fitted seamlessly into the historical record. Just as computer scientists take a piece of code and reverse engineer it to discover how it was constructed, Hofmann reverse-engineered Mormon scripture to get at the underlying structures. "He would create these fictitious documents that were sprinkled with enough historical verisimilitude that people concluded historicity from them," recalled Metcalfe. "And they, in turn, became pivotal documents that said how things are. Hofmann wanted to demythologize the founding parents. I think he was saying 'You've been told all these stories. But this is what really happened.' "Metcalfe see Hofman as a ruthless nihilist whose ultimate goal was even more ambitious and diabolical that most people have assumed. "Steve Christensen was a rising star in the Mormon Church," he explained. "By murdering him Hofmann was disproving God's existence."
*Tuty's* Jing* Skin *~* FREE FREE FREE *~*
It's difficult enough to find decent oriental skins in SL - never mind FREE!
I always buy my hair and shapes here so I was particularly (and very pleasantly) surprised to find this
Go get :)
XingZ
A window into the Arab moment
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Freebie Alert
I found two very nice little Futon Beds, which I would have happily paid money for, selling for Zero Lindens.
Sleep tight.
XingZ
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Apocalips%20Japan/19/31/25
Saturday, June 13, 2009
The Sex Business Is The Exploitation Business
Friday, June 12, 2009
What Errol Morris' Eye Missed Part V
What Errol Morris' Eyes Missed Part IV
Let's just rename them the MacArthur Idiot Grants
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Utherverse makes pitch for adult users
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
What Errol Morris' Eyes Missed Part IV
The psychology of forgery is different from the psychology of apocrypha. The forger wants to create something which fools some group of people in the present into believing that an object was created in a time or place differently from where it was created. The creator of apocrypha wants to change history itself. Many fakes are are intended to do not merely slip in with the rest of the flotsam and jetsam of the past, but to change the way that past is viewed. The word for creation of apocrypha of this kind is "hoax." And this is a word that is not prominent in Morris' essay on the subject, even thought that is what is implied by the thesis that the paintings that worked were too modern. van Meegeren perpetrated, not forgery, but a hoax.
One of the most famous hoaxes comes from palentology, the "Piltdown Man" that had a primitive jaw and a large brain, very different from the skeletons coming to light at that time. It was also in England. The reason this is important is that Europeans wanted man to be smart early, and European early. What makes this an even closer parallel is that Dawson's collection of antiquities contains numerous fakes and hoaxes, many of them using the same techniques as the Piltdown Man. The combination of racism, wish fulfillment, and techniques which would not have passed tests even at the time, is much the same as the one which van Meegeren used. Just as with van Meegeren, Dawson fooled particular people, and chose his first circle of victims carefully, because many experts would not be fooled. The Piltdown man was suspected from the beginning, but remained believed in until 1953. almost 40 years later. van Meegeren's late Vermeers had defenders up until the 1960's, almost 30 years after he perpetrated his hoax.
Do not trust wrapp seiling
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Ah yes, the joys of people you shouldn't touch with a ten foot pole
[22:00] Lillie Yifu: You know better than that.
[22:00] RedHot Quintessa: what i aint doin shit
[22:00] RedHot Quintessa: im reading info on ur contest
[22:01] RedHot Quintessa: who fuckin banned my girl
[22:01] RedHot Quintessa: ur a bitch u know that?
[22:01] RedHot Quintessa: i was there to find out how to wim a gierl for a week
[22:01] RedHot Quintessa: stupid cunt
[22:01] RedHot Quintessa: ids that how u treat ALll women weho come to that fuckin hole?
[22:01] RedHot Quintessa: FUCK U
[22:02] RedHot Quintessa: have a nice day ill save myself a thousand this way
[22:02] RedHot Quintessa: :)
-- Instant message logging enabled --
[22:00] Lillie Yifu: You know better than that.
[22:01] mandisssohottttt Constantine: better then what...i never said a word
[22:01] mandisssohottttt Constantine: wtf
[22:01] Lillie Yifu: walking in with frelancing tags
[22:01] Lillie Yifu: shame on you
[22:01] mandisssohottttt Constantine: sexy bitch is a freelance tag?
[22:01] Lillie Yifu: Your slave had "hire me" in her profile
[22:02] Lillie Yifu: you had "looking to hire escorts and dancers" for another club
[22:02] Lillie Yifu: you know better than that
[22:02] Lillie Yifu: your slaves also know bettter than to sear at someoen
[22:02] mandisssohottttt Constantine: we were just looking at the girls babe..but that fine ..
[22:02] Lillie Yifu: I don't believe you
[22:02] mandisssohottttt Constantine: i dont really care
[22:02] mandisssohottttt Constantine: whatever
[22:02] Lillie Yifu: kk
[22:04] mandisssohottttt Constantine: uve got a lot to learn about making people feel welcome to a club when they did nuthing ..all i do is tip there...check ur damn records u dumb ass
[22:05] Lillie Yifu: I've been an escort on sl longer than you have.
[22:05] Lillie Yifu: No club, anywhere,
[22:05] Lillie Yifu: allows peopel to come in and frelance
[22:05] Lillie Yifu: unless it is a camper farm
[22:05] Lillie Yifu: nnone
[22:05] Lillie Yifu: none
[22:06] mandisssohottttt Constantine: ur more then wlecome in my club..i dont eject people for tipping my dancers
[22:06] Lillie Yifu: If I walked in there trying to hire people away from your club, you'd eject me
[22:06] Lillie Yifu: if I called one of your employees "dumb cunt" and screamed fuck you! i hope you would eject me
[22:06] mandisssohottttt Constantine: ur right but since i didnt u could have given the benifit of the doubt
[22:07] Lillie Yifu: I read yourprofile
[22:07] Lillie Yifu: I read your slave's profile
[22:07] Lillie Yifu: they left zero doubt
[22:07] Lillie Yifu: zero
[22:07] mandisssohottttt Constantine: ur really a trip...
Monday, June 8, 2009
Track Lighting Working
Quick Addendum (big words to start the week)
XingZ
Sunday, June 7, 2009
An introduction and a thank you to Lillie
This is the first of what will become an irregular posting of any decent freebies/bargains I find on my travels around SL. There will be absolutely no tat here and most of it will be of an oriental bent ;)
At the moment I'm furnishing my new home in WuLin and I have been amazed by the quality of free furnishings you can find in SL.
To begin with a visit to Abaditiker http://slurl.com/secondlife/City%20of%20Magic/205/206/22 will bring you to a ‘cupcake’ packed with the most amazing Japanese furnishings, dive in and amongst the things you can receive are: Meditation Pillows (yeah yeah everyone does those); A Japanese Painted Bridge (full size not a painting :)); Bamboo Love (a nice vase with, yes bamboo in it); Black Tea Table and Seating (think tea house); Blue Dragonfly Print Living Room Set; Red Cuddle Rug and more... also a Ten Minute Camp for a rather nice Buddha Picture.
Please have a good look around while you’re here.
Secondly I have The Zen Garden and Imperial City at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kamalakara/177/203/36
Here you will find Four Lucky Boards giving Asian Furnishings as follows: Outdoor Seating, a (very nice) Large Buddha and a Japanese Garden Lamp, more Outdoor Seating, a Japanese Drawer Unit, and some more Tea House Seating. There are also two Midnight Mania boards which each contain a Large Asian House and a 'Guess and Win' with various instant prizes, for example a Shinto Shrine, Buddha Heads, Large White Indoor Seating Unit.
You can Camp for Two Hours for a 'Three Storey Asian House' - which I did a couple of weeks ago, time well spent :) There are also various 50% off bargains scattered around at the moment - including houses, I picked up a Tea House I had had my eye on for a while for half its’ usual price – now to find somewhere to put it... .
Lastly, whilst you’re here, if you have a garden, don't miss the 'Field of Dreams' Free Flower Emitters lot's of flowers for very few prims and FREE.
Yeah!!! My initial came up on the lucky board and I won the 'Lion Bench 2 Seater' – I’ve been after that for ages!
Please look around this shop too it has some lovely items at very reasonable prices.
Now for some clothing:
At Legends of China http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kamalakara/177/203/36 for the princely sum of 10 lindens you can buy an Incredible Traditional Chinese Dress called 'Spring Lotus Tang Princess' it’s pink and very pretty and if you're a fan of Wuxia films this is the place for you, beautiful Chinese clothing at rather frightening prices, but always one or two on offer for pennies. Worth repeated visits.
Lastly today: =Feel China= http://slurl.com/secondlife/Teffelaw/11/205/22 has a 1linden more modern looking but equally beautiful Turquoise Dress which can be worn several ways from Ball Gown to Mini Skirt and a totally free Traditional Chinese Fan.
I’m pleased to have got all that off my chest, more when I find more.
XingZ
Another "we are just waiting for the next vr post."
One reason SL keels alive is that most new ventures want heavier restrictions on sexual content, which is one reason people are here, they can have their sex lives, or some simulation of them, here.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Group Chat Bork accepted not assigned
Moon in the House of Resonance 3
Sometimes, I wake up. Sometimes, I just can't stay asleep any longer. This was one of those times. Once I am not asleep, which is not to say awake, the first thing that is forced upon the consciousness is the litany of possible reasons I can't sleep any more. The first ones are the ones that, if promptly corrected, would allow me to go back to sleep. Like, the blanket has uncovered my feet. Then there are the ones which, if I make a rapid foray into the world, might allow me to go back to sleep. Such as, going to use the toilet. Then, these exhausted, the awful thing happens, I try and go back to sleep, hoping that I was just not a sleep for long enough to realize that the thing I needed to do to get back to sleep is… get back to sleep.
And then, not being asleep, even if I try a few times to avoid it, I wake up. I am poundingly awake, my sinuses stuffed, by head crawling with small insects of pain. I am, not only not asleep, but not going back to sleep. At this point I begin mechanically heading to the bathroom. I walk down the hall, control over my life and my muscles growing with each step, until by the end I am making quiet footfalls in precise rhythm. When I get to the bathroom, the door is locked. I can see the rim of light from the door. There is some one there. I do not freeze, but quietly retreat to the room, put the rest of my clothes on, and return.
The door is still locked.
I knock. There is a startled banging. Someone did not want to be disturbed.
In an interval that was so brief that it was my turn to be startled, the door swung inward to the cramped space, though far from small for an upstairs bathroom. There, towering over me, is sharp features and pale skin carrying a slight flush, his curly blond locks in a state of slight, but noticeable, disarray. I notice the way his ears stand away from his head, and the way his shirt slightly clings to his body. It is hastily tucked into his jeans. He slouched, as many very tall people do. He looked more enormous than any other time, our very mismatched heights for the first time were, mismatched. I was standing a great deal closer to him than I had before, and I could feel the lazy warmth that he radiated.
I was, suddenly, very awake.
Now you the reader, may have guessed what was going on. However, by that time in my life I had never lived with a man. I did not know their habits, and I was very much puzzled by what I saw, or what he was thinking.
"Look, I uh…"
His eyes were fluttering slightly, as if recalling the English language from the back of his mind, dusty from some disuse.
"Just a minute."
I slide by him, our fronts brushing past each other, with the clothes dragging on each other. I was closing the door, but looking only at his face. His eyes were locked on mine, even as the door provided a horizon. They seemed to set behind the edge which seemed stationary, while his face was moving.
I read a book not long ago. You know the one I mean, that one. Yes, the one about effluvia. It says it is about sex, but really, what made people read it, is that it describes the pouring of bodily fluids in various circumstances with a loving detail that fascinates people who think about them in secret but are too embarrassed to talk about them in public. I won't go into the details of my sitting there, even though we all spend a larger fraction of our lives than we want to think about waiting for our bodies to expel waste.
At such moments everyone has their routine, of looking, reading, staring at the floor, contemplating their failings. It is when this routine is violated that the moment is memorable. Nothing says that there is a "we" like a divider between it. Space, time, emotion, or, in this case, a white door.
A white door that loomed large in my vision as I looked at it, whose angles seemed progressively more like a montage of Dali and Picasso. It towered over me, and the very purity and perfection of the woodwork and painting was oppressive. It's corners hung over me. I imagined for a moment it was a gallows. Now you know, I have never seen a real one in the sense of a working gallows. I've seen paintings of them, I've seen reconstructions of them. But hanging? No it is something that exists in stories, like the dead women in Raise the Red Lantern.
I know something was out side of the door, and I startled when I heard his soft upper end of baritone voice.
"Are you alright in there?"
"Ummm, yes." Many of the key moments in my life have centered around what goes on in bathrooms. There is something sacramental about how we cloak them in white, and it is one of the few places where we have actual right of privacy. My mother would barge in on me anywhere, and I mean anywhere, but in the bathroom, and then when I was on the toilet. When I first heard the expression "worshipping the porcelain god," I thought it meant something else. The idea of being that drunk didn't occur to me.
"I was beginning to get worried." The last syllable lilted upwards. There was a powerful nasality to his tone that came from being from a New York-esque upbringing. By which I mean Miami, where many people migrate to from Manhattan. My parents thought about doing this once, booked the trip, and arrived in the wake of a hurricane. That ended any Caribbean living dreams.
"No really." I just have a strong sense of vertigo. And I am wondering what is on the other side of that door. I had a unique sense of dread about it. I thought about this as I went through my particular ritual that involved pulling out reams of toilet paper and repeatedly wiping myself in a figure "8" pattern until I was beyond positive I was clean. I flushed, went to the mirror, and looked at my face.
It was not flush, but as pale as I had ever seen myself. For the first time, I also realized how round my features had become, how they filled the mirror, and despite my own misgivings, brought a light. It was at this moment that I also realized that I was smiling.
"I will be out in a minute." I waited for my ba's joke of a woman's minute is like a man's month. Or something of that kind.
"Take your time." It was without impatience. And then "You know there are 168 hours in a week."
"Yes."
"That's right, you told me that one."
"No, I said I was never late to class, merely 167 hours early for the next one."
"Yeah, that once a week lecture was brutal. You were always on time to everything else."
I began primping my hair and looking at the small blemishes on my skin. "That's because the first hour he just summarized the reading." I turned on cheek and checked the waning pimple. It was at that moment, when straining to see it, that I realized that my head had cleared and I felt… health. Or at least healthish.
"I never did the reading until the end."
"I remember you tripping over the table outside class once you were so busy reading."
He waited.
"I must have looked like a dork or something."
No, but this conversation is. Why is it that people fill the air with this? When there is…. everything. Everything to talk about.
"Can we wait until I am out? I want to pay attention to you."
A longish pause pause pause pausepause.
"If that is the case, you would be the first one. Ever. In the history of the world."
I shuffled out to the door, and as I was opening it went from clunking around Lillian, to graceful ballet Lillian. It was like turning on a switch of a make up mirror, the lights went on. I could feel my smile beaming inwards, and my eyes open.
"That's because I'm, not your parents."
There had been that long conversation already. We'd had several of those expository conversations. I was bored, to, tears. But not yet Bored. To. Tears. With the them. This was not a day to be repeating the kind of empty exchange. My chest felt. I could feel myself breath, not in my usual steady rhythm, but in something else. It was a waltz, a time in three, and it held me in it's resonance.
I opened the door. I saw a very surprised face. He almost rolled back and feel on to the hall table behind him. But managed to extend a hand in an ungainly fashion and grab the door frame. It was at his shoulder height, which was about at the level of the top of my head.