Seriously?©

I’ll bet that most of you don’t even remember that this page exists… WELL IT DOES </drama>.  I’ve made some new friends at Plurk and one of them asked me in her sweetest, kindest way, to write another blog specc’ed as follows:  “500 words, justified alignment, no double spacing.  Due Tuesday 5pm.”  She’s so sweet, </swoon> (61 words so far, 439 to go).

I’ve had this one in the back of my head for awhile now, and since I have been poked with a sharp stick, I might as well share it with all of you.  The profile is the single most important improvement you can do for yourself.  Back when I was a n00bie (no comments from the peanut gallery), it was explained to me that if you want to meet people, the first thing you have to do is to put together an interesting profile.  The profile comes with different tabs, and today’s blog will focus on the first tab, known as the “2nd Life”.

Where To Begin?

Well, that’s easie peasie… you start at the top left and work your way down.  The first things you’ll see are their name, their picture, and their birthdate.  These three things are the first indication of the Go/No Go Transaction.  Is the person named “Cumsalot Sideshow”?  Is their profile pic a picture of live animal birth?  Were they born today?  All of these can potentially be gamebreakers.  I’m not here to tell you to discriminate based on their born-on-date, but “Cumsalot Sideshow?”  This may cause me to walk away without another thought….

The Secret

This is not a widely known thing, but if your profile indicates that you have payment information on file (usually because you’ve purchased LD at some point) then you have just opened up the eyes of the more Savvy (see what I did there?) dancers at clubs in SL.  Once a dancer notices that you care enough to buy LD for your pleasure, they may be inclined to focus their attention more on you in the supposition that you are willing to pay out the big bucks since you obviously have no problem buying more… use this to your advantage friend… do what I do and buy $0.23 of LD today!!

The Love of Their Life

The partner box… for all intents and purposes, you can ignore this (I’m going to catch hell for this…)

One More Sheep in the Herd

When looking through the list of groups that a person belongs to… pay special attention to the odd-ball ones.  Does the person belong to “Annamarie’s Girlfriend Club”?  Yea, that’s prolly just a group of friends who thought it would be cute to have a funny title over their head.  Did you spot the 15 bondage clothing designer groups?  Danger Will Robinson!!  How you proceed with this information is up to you, but keep in mind that groups are usually a good indication of what the person likes and where they frequent.  If you notice the HnS VIP Tag, you can be sure that they are good people (does that make up for the partner box comment?)

The Meat and Potatoes

At the bottom of page one, you will find the “About” box.  This is where you get a feel for the creative side of a person, because it’s the most important thing they can control on this page.  This is where you’ll either grab their attention and make them want to read the rest of your tabs, or else repulse them to the point of going back to figuring out if that’s REALLY a picture of live animal birth or not.  If you want my advice, make it funny and/or witty to the best of your ability.  DON’T use half of your available space to fill the box with ASCII art… ugh.. talk about vapor-ware.  What you will typically see are famous quotes (“I’m out of beer.  Guess I’ll go to bed” – Throbber), special dates (“I collared her on 9/9/09, she’s mine now”), and advertisements for their shop that exclusively sells purple jelly dongs (Hey, a sale is a sale).  These are all typical.. the real diamond in the rough are the angry, e-thug threats ( “If ANYONE fucks with my woman, I will hunt them down, find them, and make them wish that they were NEVER BORN”)… Seriously?  How are you going to do that Sherlock Holmes?  Are you going to crack the NSA database, buy a plane ticket to Florida and then show up at my house?  OH!!  You meant in SL… If you plan to make me wish I was never born in SL, you’ll need to bring a set of poseballs and ask me nicely to stand on one of them while your avatar makes it look as if he’s punching MY avatar.  I’ll do it for 200 LD.  Will that tide your e-fury?  You better hurry though.. I think your mom wants you to take out the garbage before dinner.

In Conclusion and Continuation…

This ends my coverage of page one on your profile, and breaks my dry-spell of blogging.  Thanks go out to KawaiiNicole for pressuring me and just like always, I swear that this isn’t the last time you’ll hear from me (It IS only the first page of the profile, after all).  I’m thinking that I might go back to exploring various places in SL and writing up my reviews for them like this blog was originally planned for… if you’ve got a suggestion, bring it to my Plurk page or leave a comment below (or both!) so that I know you’re still reading this dribble.  Until we speak again… I love you, and I mean it.

(947 words… not bad)

Seriously?©

If you are a devoted SL blogger like me (cue laugh track) then you are probably also a devoted reader.  Now, there are TONS of blog sites out there that do things correctly… hell, all you have to do is look at my sideboard over there and you’ll see some great sites to get you started.  But anyone with a computer and a keyboard can put a blog together and sometimes you delve into the flea market of blogs… cheap, sometimes a diamond in the rough, usually just a smelly old guy licking pennies and trying to sell you the “CHiPs Hummel Collection”.  I seem to have a penchant for filling you in on the details around you that you may be missing, so I’ll give you my take on the common people who blog.

This blog pertains to YOU, the person who doesn’t go as far as getting something like wordpress to express herself.. instead you make do with the tools around you (Facebook, MySpace, SLProfiles, etc).  Giving you a blog is comparable to taking the whole “Million monkeys in a room with a million typewriters and eventually getting the complete works of Shakespeare” thing, and reducing it to 3 monkeys, an Etch-a-sketch, and a ziploc bag of banana-flavoured Dip-n-Dots.

No one wants to know your mood is “Cantankerous” today… most of your friends don’t even REALLY know what it means anyways.  If you’re having a rough spot in your life, what makes you think that Rhiana wrote “Please don’t stop the music” for you?  Even if you feel compelled to associate your life with a popular song, telling your blogging audience the name of the song is sufficient… you don’t need to post the damn lyrics.  If I wanted to know the lyrics to your crappy life, I would google them just like you did.

If you are a DJ in SL (cause where else would you be a DJ?  It’s like saying “If you’re a stripper (I mean in SL)… no one reading an SL blog is an ACTUAL stripper… they’re all out lying to their parents about what they do for a living) then it’s cool to blog about where you’re playing and what the theme is… for God’s sake, don’t post your damn playlist.  If I missed your pretentious, self-serving, contrived and pedantic musical tastes… I really don’t need a recap… (“Oh shit he played Crazy Bitch… I wonder what THAT song sounds like”).  Maybe you can make a blog JUST about the bullshit music you spew out… just make sure to tag it as “EMO” so that I can ignore it in my search features.

Lastly, if you’re going to make a blog that is intended to keep people abreast of your happenings, I encourage it.  I personally might not be interested but I’m going to bet that someone is.  HOWEVER, if you’re going to blog about your personal life, make it legible and use proper English.  I read A LOT.  When I run out of books to read, I read shampoo bottles, matchbooks, Russian tech manuals, anything I can get my hands on.. and I don’t stop until it’s done.  I have a voracious appetite for the written word.  There is one novel, however, that I put down after about the 50th page or so, and I’ve never even been slightly interested in going back to it…. Dolores Claiborne.  This damn thing rambles on and on and the whole time it’s told by Dolores herself in her local dialect… it so annoyed the piss outta me that I didn’t even see the movie when it came out.  If your personal blog is written anything like Delores Claiborne, I will make it my personal mission to contact you in game and let you know EXACTLY what I think about your writing style.

There you have it.  Shout outs to my favorite bloggers Elle, Laryn, and Fae.  Stay tuned next time and we’ll see how else I can summarily judge your life’s accomplishments

+ +

Seriously?©

I love blogging, I really do. You can’t tell by the frequency in which I blog, but I get such enjoyment when people I don’t know stumble upon my stuff and leave comments. I also like it when friends ride my ass about my lack of new blogs. It shows that they DO like them and look forward to them.

This is part 4 of the 4 part series that helps you through choosing your club entertainment. I’ve already covered the DJ, the Dancers, the Club itself, and now finally, I’ll be discussing YOU. For some of you, this may be an eye opener, but take the criticism and improve yourself.. for THAT is the true Tenfold Path you should walk. Without further babble:

A Brief Comparison of Club VIPs

The Newb

I don’t know why it is, but one of the first things on the new person’s agenda is to hit the clubs. Most new people don’t know the finer points of shapes, skins, or AOs… but they can damn sure work the search engine to find “Strip, Sex, Club, Music”. Clubs are filled with newbs… not everyone has the advantage that I had as a newb where a more experienced woman took me under her wing and set me up with all the necessities to get by in SL. She took me to the store to get my shape, skin, AO, hair, lip piercing… all of it. She also gave me the best piece of advice that I think anyone can receive: Make your profile interesting. The profile is what clues people in to what you’re about (a light bulb just went off in my head… this is going to be my next blog). Newbs are harmless… except when they are….

The Alt

So yea…. Who here has an alt, raise your hand I suppose alts are OK… most people I know have one, and when you ask them why they made one, the answer is usually “So that I can be online without you-know-who knowing (usually referring to their partner/significant other). How does all this relate to the VIP? Well, I’ll tell you. While the “purpose” of an alt is usually to get away from someone, what usually happens is that they tend to end up in some of the same places as those they are trying to get away from.. and it’s usually not that subtle. For instance: Into the club walks Bartlebeee017… his rez day was today, he is wearing a noob skin, and he’s tipping everyone 200 LD each, talking a big game, and dancing with AleeshaLuv, also rez day today. Seriously? Do you believe that these two JUST met and happened to end up in your club dancing together and tipping big? They are here because one or both of them come here regularly and want to be together without anyone “knowing” but the whole thing just SCREAMS that something hinky is going on….

The Batman

You know who this is… it’s that guy who stands in the back with his arm-crossing AO on… not really saying anything… just kind of brooding. If you ask him a direct question, it’s gonna go one of two ways…

You: Hiyas Absinthe15. How are you tonight?

Absinthe15: /me nods his head

OR

You: Hiyas Absinthe15. How are you tonight?

Absinthe15: Sorry if I seem distracted, I’m working on refining this cyber exoskeleton that has been giving me problems recently…

WAT?

The Batman has a hidden, passive-aggressive agenda… he’s totally roleplaying a dark personality, BEGGING you to notice him though his emotes and through the way he kinda perches on the floor like a gargoyle… prepared to answer any direct question with what he feels is a titillating response, carefully crafted to pique your interest and cause you to spiral down into his world where he’s the dark anti-hero and you’re the awestruck civilian… It really is best to just ignore him… otherwise you are feeding his perverse sense of joy and encouraging him to draw everyone else in with his room-encompassing emotes (“Absinthe15 paces around the room, muttering something about that damn brass cog he has misplaced… he hopes that his special project will be completed in time for the VIPs to vote on him for the event”). Yea… he’s THAT guy ….

The Career VIP

I gotta hand it to these people… they are committed to winning contests like no other. Sometimes it’s men, but most often it’s women who are the Career VIP. They float around from club to club, entering event contests and walking away with the big prize (at least they hope to). Sometimes they run in a pack… deciding which of their number will win and only having her enter the contest while the others drum up support for their candidate. This pack is easy to spot because they all dance on the same chim… looking like a very well coordinated dance troupe. The Career VIP is very successful at what she does… she’s prolly got a 2k weekly tier, new outfits for each event, and still enough left over to tip the dancers a bit of her winnings. All in all a good life, but does she have time for her own fun? Who can say?

The Groupie

Finally, a VIP I can get behind and support 100%. Dancers and DJs love nothing more then The Groupie VIP. These people are here to support YOU, whether its financially, emotionally, or even if it’s just a quick handjob backstage before you go on.. the Groupie VIP is the one that I look forward to the most. Don’t know if this comes through on my blogs or not, but I’m KINDA a needy fuck (can’t wait to read the comments for this one). I enjoy the people (ok, WOMEN) who are in my DJ group (The “We All <3 Giskard” group… send me an IM and I’ll set you up in it so that you can receive updates about my blogs and DJ schedule) and when I’m at one of my gigs, it brings a tear to my eye to see those tags floating over the VIPs. The Groupie is there, usually following her favorite DJ or dancer around, and they tend to tip pretty well… showing their Linden Love, which in turn makes ME happy . The Groupie is the most appreciated VIP, imo. If you aren’t one, maybe you should try it out… if nothing else, but to satisfy ME (waits for Abfab to mention something about blowing myself).

Seriously?© kids, I hope that this series has informed you on the finer things in SL. Yea yea, I know you didn’t get them all in a row in the course of a week, but dammit I got business to take care of (and you know who you are). Where do I go from here you may be asking? Well, I may be answering that the next subject may be “What every n00b needs”… stay tuned and we’ll find out together.

Seriously?©

I always get confused on naming conventions, you’ll have to sort your way through it.  If you’ve been frothing at the mouth just waiting for me to post another “Comparison” blog, then have no fear…. Giskard is here to help you   If this is your first time, all you need to know is that this is part 3 of a 4 part series guiding you through the entertainment side of SL.  I’ve already covered your typical DJs and the dancers you may find in the clubs in SL, but now I turn my attention to the clubs themselves.  At this point in our narrative I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I work for Hooters & Shooters as a DJ, and I’m sure that the owner, Elle Kirshner, will be happy now that I’ve plugged both the club and her (lol innuendo).  I have had a few people come to me and ask “Which DJ am I?” or tell me “I bet I know which dancer THIS one is”… so to be fair, I will neither confirm nor deny your suspicions except to tell you this:  3 of you were right, 2 were wrong, and 1 of you needs to meet me at my place tonight for some “special tutoring”.  Now on to our comparison:

The MEGA Club

There are plenty of places out there that sell pre-fab clubs… the problem with pre-fab (not to be confused with AbFab) clubs is that the are REALLY big… for the most part this is a good thing if you’re an established club with a large VIP fanbase… but you’ve got to figure that if you’re an established club with a large VIP fanbase, what the hell are you doing buying a pre-fab club?  These things are monstrous and the first rule of SL communication is that local chat is only 30m, while shouting is 60m.  The problem arises when your stage is 150m from the dance floor because you thought the damn thing looked good centered while the stage should be against the wall.  So now you’re sending IMs out to every person in your club just so that they can know the contest boards are open….God forbid that the VIPs try to talk to each other without sounding like you have 35 “Hostesses” (see my last blog) on the dance floor shouting to each other begging for attention (AND YOUR LINDENS).

The Nostalgia Club

K, here’s a little background on me… in the 80’s I was in middle school.  I walked around in parachute pants, had silver wraparound sunglasses like Doc Brown in Back to the Future 2, and always had a pair of drumsticks sticking out of my calf pocket (parachute pants had a TON of pockets… and if you ever ripped a hole anywhere in these pants you had to throw the damn things out cause you can’t sew it back together and you sure as hell weren’t going to have your mom sew a “Keep on Truckin” patch on top of the hole to repair it).  At that age, I was into Dead Milkmen, Devo, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys… and Duran Duran (don’t ask).  I knew nothing about Ozzy, Van Halen, Rolling Stones (except that Devo covered a song of theirs) and others of the era and previous.  This is a long way to go to tell you that 80’s Clubs and Classic Rock clubs are not creating their playlists to keep ME in the club, but there are TONS of people who pine for days of yore… when INXS and Cindy Lauper walked the earth hand in hand with MotorHead and Foghat.  I have since discovered and enjoyed these genre, but my first love is not to be found here.  I’m sure there is a huge fanbase of ex-bikers and aged-out Yuppies who search and populate these clubs…. personally I’m waiting for a BarberShop Quartet Club to open…

The Skybox

Just like in real life, I’m not going anywhere I can’t see exits of some sort.  The low budget club is usually going to be a 1/4 Sim or smaller Skybox floating in a minefield of porn ads.  It won’t matter to you that the landscape is littered with ads for live SLex cams and Donkey Shows… cause you’ll never see the outside of the Skybox.  It’s small… it’s cramped… and the only way in or out is through a TP.  Lucky for you that the Skybox is usually enclosed to avoid you dancing with your significant other moments before falling 700m to your death on the ground below.  I don’t have anything against Skyboxes in general.. I enjoy living in them, but I wouldnt try to run a club out of one… where would your walk-up business come from?

The Club with a Heart of Gold

And here is where the majority of SL clubs fall.  I read somewhere that 92.7% of clubs that open in SL fail in the first 3 months.  Granted, I read that on the Post-It Note© sitting on my desk beside me where I wrote it down 15 seconds earlier, but it seems like a reliable source so I’m going to run with it.  Most newbies to SL want to run a club.  I’m going to say that one more time for emphasis… Most newbies to SL want to run a club.  There you have it… that’s not only a Mission Statement, it’s also a business plan for that 92.7% of clubs.  Clearly they don’t think it through, but they figure that with enough desire, anything is possible, right?  No, not right.  The club with a heart of gold wants desperately to be popular and make money, but the owners have no idea what they are getting themselves into the majority of the time.  They may be excellent builders and make a stunning place to look at, but if they dont have experience marketting their club then it’s going to fail.  Not all club closings are because of lack of planning… sometimes it’s all about the money.  If the maintenance on your sim is higher then the income of the club, you’re pumping your own money into it.  How long that situation lasts is up to you, the owner, but I don’t see the majority of club owners going into the business to donate money to LindenLabs every month.  This isn’t to say that you close a club after only a few bad weeks…. the economy being what it is mandates that you stick it out while the circle of money comes back around in your favor.  The club with a heart of gold prolly has great people working and running it… it’s a place where you really feel like you belong.  If that’s the case, tip the hell outta them.. not all clubs in this category fail….. you might be in the 7.3% minority.

That covers some of the more common clubs and perhaps you’ll walk away with your eyes a little wider… in any event, there are enough club types out there for you to find the one you like the most.  I knew 13 seconds into it which club was going to be my favorite   Stay tuned next time for a look at YOU, the Club VIPs… same Bat Time… same Bat Channel

Seriously?©

Hopefully you’re familiar by now with my commentary on Second Life DJs (http://secondlifeseriously.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/a-brief-comparison/).  I apologize once more for dropping off the radar, but when you’re working undercover like I am, you don’t always know when you’ll be able to come up for air and send your report in.  To keep you informed of what to expect when attending dance clubs, I proudly present to you:

A Brief Comparison of SL Dancers

The Brainy Dancer

The first thing you need to understand is that this isn’t Real Life, it’s Second Life.  In RL, the stereotype is that all dancers are stupid and only work in the club because they’ve got a spectacular rack on them.  In SL, EVERYONE has a spectacular rack and hiding behind many of those racks are some very smart people.  To me, that’s a turn-on, but it can put-off some of the VIPs out there who are only looking for women who meet THEIR expectations (In SL, every woman is expected to be 18, strung out on Spanish Fly, single, fiercely loyal yet not expecting the same from you, and lives close to you in RL).  Once you can figure out what your favorite dancer is saying, you might actually get to like her a little more.

Typical Chat

Hey thanks for the tip, Billy17.  Of course you know that one of the main Socratic Paradoxes is that Virtue is sufficient for happiness, but by the same token I believe that your tip of 16 Lindens will make a fine substitution in the interim.

The Needy Dancer

The economy in SL is currently in a downturn, just like in RL.  Times are tough, but not so tough that you’ll be leaving the Dust Bowl with thousands of your fellow “Okies” in search of land, jobs, and dignity in California (fear not… everyone has their own Rose of Sharon out there to help them in tough times).  The needy dancer has a 5k weekly tier to pay and lets you know that it is somehow your responsibility to help her through these tough times… so you better get on it.

Typical Chat

Oh my God… I don’t how I’m going to make my tier payment this week…I just bought these shoes and no one here loves me enough to put a few LD in my jar I guess *pouts*.  Jerry12, don’t you think I’m pretty anymore?  When is the next dancer auction?  Damn times are tough… I need to get partnered so someone will split my payments ….

The Scattered Dancer

This dancer is the one where you really need to sit back and squint your eyes when you read their emotes and chat… because it LOOKS normal from a distance, but when you drill right down to it, you’re really not sure what they might be talking about after all.  Changing tense, changing case, and sometimes even changing gender, these dancers try their hardest yet somehow still manage to confuse themselves by the middle of the sentence.

Typical Chat

/me drives her hips downward into the loving arms of Jeremy09, smiling on this face and beating the oiled chest with happiness.  I know that that he likes it because of the applause and winks from there to here and back again ya know -+

The Hostess Dancer

Seriously?©  What is a hostess supposed to do, anyways?  BESIDES filling my screen with shouts and requests to tip the DJ and herself, what does she really DO?  Typically the hostess is right down there on the floor with the rest of the VIPs… maybe she has a tag above her head, but one thing is for certain, she’s got a tip jar and she wants you to know about it.  Speaking as a DJ and sometime dancer, I know what these jobs do, and some people work very hard at them… but hostess?  The hostess is the one who turns on her dance loop, then sits back hitting her macro to spam your local chat with demands for money and expectations of appreciation to herself and the DJ whose coattails she is riding to success.  There’s no better way to explain it then to just show you her chat log files:

Typical Log File

• [20:00] Event starts
• [20:00] /dance loop on
• [20:00] shout: DON’T FORGET TO TIP YOUR AWESOME DJ AND HOSTESS
• [20:10] shout: DJ %dj_name% ROCKS !!! HOOOHOOOHOOOHOOOHOO
• [20:20] shout: DON’T FORGET TO TIP YOUR AWESOME DJ AND HOSTESS
• [20:30] shout: DON’T FORGET TO TIP YOUR AWESOME DJ AND HOSTESS
• [20:40] shout: I LOVE DJ %dj_name% !!!  ROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRR
• [20:50] shout: YOU’RE AT THE BEST PLACE IN SL, %club_name%.  TP ALL YOUR FRIENDS !!!  *BABY GIGGLES*
• [21:00] shout: DON’T FORGET TO TIP YOUR AWESOME DJ AND HOSTESS
• [21:10] shout: DON’T FORGET TO TIP YOUR AWESOME DJ AND HOSTESS
• [21:20] shout: SEND YOUR REQUESTS AND LINDEN TO THE #1 DJ IN SL %dj_name%
• [21:30] shout: DON’T FORGET TO TIP YOUR AWESOME DJ AND HOSTESS
• [21:40] shout: THIS IS MY TUNE !!!  ROOOOAAAAARRRR !!!!!
• [21:50] shout: DON’T FORGET TO TIP YOUR AWESOME DJ AND HOSTESS
• [21:59] shout: THANKS FOR COMING OUT TO %club_name%!!!  STICK AROUND FOR ANOTHER GREAT EVENT
• [22:00] /dance loop off
• [22:00] Event ends

Once again I hope that I have helped you become a more informed traveler in Second Life.  Today I realized that this installment won’t be the last… I’m going to cover typical clubs and then finish off my series with a comparison of YOU, the VIPs… stick around.  If you like it, let me know… it’s always nice to know you’re loved

Seriously?© I’m a DJ in SL. I’m not saying I’ve been doing it forever, but I have some experience. Because of this little bit of experience and a lifetime of listening to RL DJs, I feel that I am qualified to comment on the following:

Some Common Types of DJs in SL

The Skating Rink

This person has spent too much time around those crappy DJs that work the roller rinks and Matterhorn rides at the carnival. They usually want to add that false air of excitement that can only come from a diet of churros and over salted pretzels hastily eaten between lustful thoughts of underage sex and urinating in a half empty bottle of Gatorade. Typical day includes waking up at 3pm, shaking the fleas and deer ticks out of the clothes on the floor, and making his way to the communal shower in his trailer park to wash away the previous night’s debauchery. On the plus side, he gets to play all of his favorite music such as “I Want to Move it, Move it” and “I Got the Power” 15 times a day.

Typical Live Break

HEY EVERYBODY, WELCOME TO THE BEST PLACE IN ALL OF SL !!!! OH SHIT ITS SO AWESOME HERE THAT YOU ARE LUCKY TO HAVE FOUND US WITH THE PATHETIC TRAFFIC WE NORMALLY GET ON THIS SIM !!! IF YOU WANT THE MUSIC TO GO FASTER, GIVE ME A /HOO !!!!!!

The Over Explainer

This guy must have read the “DJing for Dummies” book, because he runs it by the numbers and is fascinated by the behind the curtains activity going on. If you request a song from him, you better be prepared to specify the exact artist, song title, publisher, and product number from the Sony catalog… otherwise you’re about to enter a 20 minute discussion on the pros and cons of the original versus the remake versus the a capella version versus the bootleg garage recording from the original master tapes which surfaced in 1997 while cleaning out the attic. Its better to just email this DJ the exact song you want played… otherwise this way leads to madness.

Typical Live Break

The song you just heard was the “Crazy Bitch” by Buck Cherry and the next song youre about to hear is “Love Me Dead” by Ludo, a small alternative band from St Louis, Missouri. Ludo gets their name from a character in the film Labyrinth. It started when the duo of lead vocalist and guitarist Andrew Volpe and guitarist Tim Ferrell played occasionally around St. Louis. Deciding to pursue Ludo full-time, they expanded to a five-piece group in 2003 with Tim Convy on moog, bassist Marshall Fanciullo and drummer Matt Palermo. Ludo recorded their self-titled debut album, Ludo, and released it on their own indie label, Redbird Records in August of 2003. For the next few years, the band toured extensively with other midwestern bands, such as The Dog and Everything, Anything But Joey and Upside. This exposure brought them moderate indie success. The band returned to the studio in 2005 and recorded the EP Broken Bride. Broken Bride is a rock opera about a man who travels through time to attempt to save his wife from dying in a car accident in 1989. The opening track, “Broken Bride: Part 1,” was a song that originally stood alone before evolving into the full opera. In recent years, Ludo has been putting on themed concerts at The Pageant in St. Louis. These include HalLUDOween, A Very Ludo Christmas, and Cinco de Mustache. Their fun outlook and interactive shows gained the attention of major labels Capitol Records and Island Records. Oh shit, that song ended while I was talking about it, well this next song youre listening to is “Birdhouse in your Soul” by They Might Be Giants. They Might Be Giants started in New York when….

The Crowd Interacter

This poor guy must be light on friends, because he has decided that YOU are to be his new BFF… to do that, he’s going to play various contests and games to force you (hopefully) to interact with him… things like “Who’s having a good time” and “If you love the DJ make some noise”. In the end, this guy is mostly harmless as long as you don’t open yourself up to providing the deep personal information he’s looking for, as seen below

Typical Live Break

Whew, I’m a drunk SOB tonight, anyone else out there drinking like me? Hey, here’s a great idea for a contest, send me an IM confessing some sexual activity that you love to have performed on you and I’ll announce the best one to the crowd. If you talk slow and use my name when describing it, I’m pretty sure you’ll win the big prize, know what I mean?

The Sexy Voice

Vapid… that’s the best word I can use to describe this DJ. Now, I’m not saying that every DJ with a sexy voice fits into this category, but I AM saying that there are DJs out there who have absolutely NO talent and are getting by solely on the way their voice sounds. They have no clue how the software works that they are using, no idea what a playlist is even all about, and if you asked them who came first, Ozzy or the Jonas Brothers, they would ask you if Ozzy was one of the Wiggles. They are probably hot to look at, perhaps even have sexy animations, but when they open their mouth, you can’t POSSIBLY expect to walk away smarter then when you started.

Typical Live Break

Mmmmm, hey there sexies…we are shaking our asses and playing the hot creamy music you request… next up is a band I think is from Pittsburgh or something… Ram Stine *giggle* or however it’s pronounced. Oh I’m so horny up here… if you stuff my tip jar, I’ll make sure to please you however I can… mmmmm

So you see, there are a variety of DJs to choose from… be informed… make good choices. That’s all for me today… if you like what you’ve read, drop me a comment and let me know. Peace Out, Fuckers

Special thanks to Elle Kirshner for mentoring me and to Wikipedia for info on Ludo. Remember kids, plagiarism is a crime. Cite your sources.

Seriously?©

How long has it been since I wrote my first exploration blog here? It seems like forever ago and Im sure you’ve all been frothing at the mouth for a new one…. so as not to disappoint you, I’ve done this for you.

So I like to read other people’s blogs, and I’ve always been a peripheral fan of Steampunk… so when one of the blogs I read mentioned this place, I jumped all over it. Not only did I jump all over it, but I also added pictures for those of you out there who cant stand my writing style

It all starts here

You see that? It’s a totally sweet Steampunk airship. I love the details involved… even the little things like tying it to the ground is something you might say “Well yea, of course it’s tied down, it’s an airship” , but it’s a detail that didn’t have to be there… it could have just been sitting on the ground, BUT IT WASN’T.

And since no one wants to see the blonde guy standing around staring at stuff in his pictures, I brought along a friend (thanks Mena) to spice the pics up…

Prepare to be boarded

Prepare to be boarded indeed… and to have your poop deck swabbed… and other such nautical innuendos (lol seamen). Apparently all of the cannons on the airship work, though I’m not sure what they are supposed to do, per se. I don’t believe the ship actually flies, but hey, I could be wrong. And how do I take pics on a ship without the following

Insert Celine Deon

So while I’m here, why not check out the workshop out back? I love that the whole sim here is devoted to Steampunk… tons of whirling gears, brass, glass, and tubes. So behind the hangar is this great place full of more of the same technology

Pfffftt Who even reads warning signs?

Yea, thats a body in one of the tubes… don’t ask.

This may not be safe ....

I didn’t see any signs specifically saying “Don’t sit on the naked singularity that powers this sim” so I figured it must be ok, right?

Where to go next ....

After the fun was had, I decided to check out the lighthouse (Damnit I love lighthouses) that sits in the mouth of the harbor outside. First a little about that

How cool does that look? And since we are Steampunk, the entire place is run on…

No detail left undetailed

The lighthouse is very cool and is built to be a functional living space as well… with a library and even small pictures of Victorian rabbit-like people… i dont know the story behind them, but they were fascinating to look at… and on the subject of rabbits…

Through the looking glass ....

yes, that is a HUGE bunny we are sitting on… don’t ask me what it has to do with a lighthouse… it’s prolly associated with the pictures of Victorian bunnies on the bookcase….

In the living space, there is great Old-timey furniture (yea, I cant put a specific name to it like my Gal Pal Elle can, but I’m pretty sure Old-timey covers the genre). Once we completed our adventure, there was nothing left to do but bask in our exhaustion outside in the hammock (still Victorian style)

The end of the adventure

Thanks for sticking out the dry spell with me…. If you have any other cool places for me to check out, I’ll be happy to take a look.

Steamforge SLurl

Lighthouse SLurl

Seriously? ©

A few things to discuss, bundled into one blog for your viewing convenience.

So I’ve been DJing now for a few months… I can tell that the whole “New and Shiny Giskard” thing has worn off because attendance at my events has been in a decline. Friends tell me it’s just a cycle… or maybe it’s because school is out…. or perhaps its that holiday in Germany that is affecting it… but my events have been showing fewer and fewer attendees. Other DJs at the same clubs seem to be doing pretty well still, and maybe thats because they’ve built up their following before this decline started. Or maybe it’s just that people are over me already? I know, I know.. look at the primadonna shed tears because he’s not the star he used to be… thats not really it (ok, maybe thats a little it), but it would be nice to think that this is a decline all over SL and not just the parts that relate directly to me.

The SLex blog took off pretty well… I got some great comments from both friends and strangers, including some people asking me if they were mentioned in it, some people who KNEW they were mentioned in it, and one who was pissed because she WASNT mentioned in it.. well, you can’t please everyone all the time… but damnit I’m sure gonna try On the subject, I have decided to keep doing what I’m doing, not settle down, stay frosty, and enjoy my Second Life. Maybe Phase II is the one I’m most comfortable in, so we’ll see how that goes.

My exploration in SL isn’t going as thoroughly as I had hoped it would when I started this blog, but thats a good thing too. I have filled my nights entertaining myself and others and just haven’t had time to go off exploring (which of course would be Phase III). I tend to see new places (and strangely the same place over and over.. just with different girls each time) as I go out with other people, so perhaps I should start commenting on those places. What do you think?

Seriously?©

OK, so I haven’t completed another search of SL yet… I’ll get around to it.  In the meantime, this issue has been bothering me the last couple of nights so I thought I would comment on it.

So I’ve done my share of SLex… it’s like an integral part of the SL experience, and I felt it was my duty to check it out.  It’s fun, I enjoy it, I think I’m pretty good at it.  Friends tell me I’m still in my SLex stage, w/e that is, but I’m starting to see what they are talking about.  I have found people that are interested in casual SLex, and I have found people that only want committed, monogamous SLex.  Right now I can name 2 people who would have SLex if I would only commit to them, two people who want to SLex in the hopes of it leading to a relationship, one person who is committed to someone else so CAN’T SLex, one person who would prolly SLex but never has time, and one who wants to be chased before she will consider SLex.  Sprinkle in the few random SLex that are floating on the periphery and you would think that I could occupy all of my free time, right?

If that’s the case, why have I been alone the last couple of nights and logged off out of boredom?  Sure, most of you will say “Hey dumbass, if you wouldn’t treat woman like blah blah blah…” and then you’ll sit back in your smug little self saying how I deserve what I get.  Thats fine.  Chances are I’m not trying to SLex with YOU anyways, heh.  Regardless… what is your advice?  Think I need to just settle down?  Think I need to relight the fire and do my best to serve the needs of the many?  Why not leave me a comment here and tell me what you think?

First, a little history of myself in a past life:

I am a pVper from way back in the Ultima Online days… There was nothing more fun then hunting people down and tormenting them until they cried themselves to sleep. Yea, I was THAT dick. I would run you down from the other side of the world just to kill your character and then sit on your corpse until you came back and I could do it again.

From UO, I went into the world of MUDs and continued my relentless stalking of other players to torture and kill, which lead me to EverQuest and the pVp servers they provided for us to spaz around on. Since EQ, I have only played MMORPGs that provide some aspect of pVp (Player vs Player) because that is what I love most of all… no computer monster is going to have the skills and intelligence of another person when it comes to trying to kill me while avoiding being killed by me at the same time. Below are movies I created in my more dickish days (not saying I won’t someday return to those days… just not interested in that now… I’m Giskard Kessel, DJ extraordinaire… why ruin a good thing?)

Now flip to the present… I came to Second Life to help my friend by DJing for him in the club he wanted to build up from nothing. I knew going into this that there was griefing and player combat of a sorts, but I wasn’t interested in all that.. I was here to help. So, I hung up the old name and habits and started fresh with Giskard. Well, last night I’m DJing at HnS for Rave Night and I got to experience griefing from the other end. Some guy shows up and starts spamming the area with floating pictures of Mario, Nazi Flags, and other shit… making it impossible to see anything in the club. The crafty part was that they dropped an object which made itself look like it belonged to a different person and almost got THAT person banned by mistake.

Now for the irony… On Friday night, one of my friends who pVps with me in other games created an AV in Second Life and I’ve been showing him around. Well last night was his first night seeing me as a DJ and what do you know… he’s there when the griefer is and witnesses it as well. I’m not saying this to imply that he was involved in any way, cause I know that isn’t the case, I’m saying that to show that we two griefers in other games were both griefed in SL at the same time.

Lesson learned: Had this been a full on pVp game as we (myself and Biddy) are used to, we could have dealt with this in the manner we are accustomed to… I’m not really upset or anything, because it is a bit humorous to see people go to all that effort to try and piss other people off. Did it ruin the night? No… I still made good tips and so did the lovely dancer Carley who showed up to work with me. Would I want to do it again? Prolly not…

Seriously©

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