Oh now that was FUN!

Playing Second Life's 8th birthday convinced me of one thing for sure... I have a great group of friends and want to thank you all :)

and this song kinda sums up the sunny summery feeling for me.  Love you all xoxo

Sun of a Gun :)

Fear of Rotten Tomatoes

I remember the time when I learned that New Order was borne of Joy Division.  I was 16, talking to a guy I quite liked and I was waxing lyrical about my love of JD.  He asked if I liked New Order and I said yes, but not quite as much, ‘cus they were quite different. He said he thought the same and that it’d all changed after Curtis died.  I kinda shuffled off, relieved that I had not said anything to let him know I was so ignorant.

I’m telling you this, not just to point out to you all what a musical imbecile I am (I’m sure most of you already knew that anyway) but because I’m sure you’ve all been in similar situations.  The realisation that everyone else seems to know something you really should have already known and you’ve just made yourself look a prat.

I find often with new DJs that they are nervous of going out and finding new music to play and I believe it’s this fear that is at the root of it. 

The fear of looking an idiot in front of an audience.

The fear of rotten tomatoes.

Well I wanted to encourage you all, as I do the baby DJs.  If nobody ever put themselves out there, we’d have missed out on some great stuff.  I’ve learned a huge amount from Second Life DJs – a lot more than I ever learned in my first life from going to clubs or talking with friends.

I don’t exactly relish the rotten tomatoes (tomato relish?), but in a way, it reminds me why I’m alive and keep trying.

I’ve never liked these sl clubs where the conversation revolves solely around some obscure little spin off band from some even more obscure little band formed by the grand-nephew of Bob Dylan and Lennon’s Grandma.  It’s up its own arse, not fun and let’s face it... all about the fragile egos of the people talking.

Long live variety, healthy discussion and no missed opportunities. If it sounds good to you, stand up and be proud and take the tomatoes – they’re good for the complexion anyway J

(I’ll be taking some tomatoes tomorrow at SL8B 4pm – 6pm UK time, DJ Stage Two. Stock up folks.)

FEMINISM - A FATTIST ISSUE?

If I were to ask you which current British female celebrities were the skinniest, I wonder who you'd come up with?

Kiera Knightley? Victoria Beckham? Cheryl Cole?

I have no particular comment to make about the build of these ladies, I believe in personal choice, I'm not saying skinny is wrong or unnatural - some people are skinny just as some are fat, BUT!

This is wrong...

How anyone in their right  mind can consider that either of these women are a good advert for losing 21 pounds of belly fat is beyond me.  

These adverts are from Facebook and are simply placed to attack the already low self esteem of young women who think OMG, if Cheryl Cole had to lose 21 pounds of belly fat, god knows how much I need to lose.

I'm disgusted, truly.

Kiera will be next, I'm sure (I'll let you know if I see it).

I don't know what anyone else thinks, but I feel that Facebook along with other websites aiming themselves squarely at a young market have a moral obligation not to allow advertising that is potentially harmful to it's visitors.  What next? Diet pills? Steriods? Fags? Easy earnings through Escorting?

I'm not a kid any more but it's not the first time Facebook advertising has left me with my mouth hanging open in shock and if they keep it up, I'll be voting with my feet.

I don't tend to go on about feminism per se.  I'm not the kind of person who sees feminism as a way to bash men either (this has nothing to do with women's relationships with men in my mind) but it has a lot to do with healthy minds and healthy bodies.  Young women are not encouraged to respect themselves, to love themselves and to love and support each other. 

Skinny is king!  Long live minimally clad tiny celebrities, small or non existent sense of self worth and slim pickings.

/rant off

MEN! They just steal your diving ball don't they?

I sometimes wonder if men and women come from the same planet.  Speaking as a woman with some empathy for the numerous and wholly ridiculous situations that men find themselves in, I find that I can wince sympathetically but still have no idea how they arrived at this point.

Yep, men find so many ways to put themselves in the dog house with us girls and yet... they still seem to have no idea what these invisible and unspoken 'rules' are.

Take last Tuesday for instance, when I arrived at the club, Josie was dancing with her friend and sometime dance partner Demos doing a rather raunchy kinda tango thing.  I was delighted at first.  Having sold my furniture, 3 babies and all my jewellery to buy the dance machine, I like to see it used.

Then, on her behalf, I began to feel idly pissy.  He was obviously 'away from keyboard' and so I commented to Josie on it in chat, she said that she thought he'd gone to sleep.  Let's pause for a moment and then revisit that thought...  They were dancing a raunchy tango and he'd gone to sleep.

I said well, if he'd gone to sleep during dancing with me, I'd have gotten off the ball and let him do that mad flailing ridiculous dance that Thom avoids by ensuring he knows exactly when I'm going to get on and off a danceball (sensible boy).

Josie absorbed this and thought about it a little and then leapt off and did her own happy dance - all the girls cheered etc.

At the end of Claire's set (which was fab) we were saying our byes and stuff and somehow the idea that the guys might like a bit of a dance and cuddle with Demos came up.

*Grins*

Graz was first up, going for a sweet and romantic dance where they gazed into each other's eyes, Josie was strutting her funky stuff there in the background.

Thom leapt on next, chose a sexy crotch grinding dance and managed a few minutes before coming back to me and whispering 'He tried to touch me Meri'

Graz decided to have another go, but this time as 'Fat Graz' (See 'Fat Graz dances nearly naked and greased up on pole' photo in the AAi picture viewer for further reference)

And then Marlboro was encouraged to take his turn.  We thought that not knowing Demos he might be feeling a bit shy so gave him plenty of encouragement.

Which he didn't seem to need...

And in fact we all left the club while they were still dancing together. Aww I do love a happy ending :D

So, the moral of that story to any sleepy dancers is... Nobody puts baby in a corner!

***

Next up I have more photo evidence of a way life is unfair to women, while giving men every chance.

This huge sandwichy type meal is the egg bacon and mushroom sandwiches being eaten by my Ex/Housemate/Pal for his breakfast.  I should mention at this point that there is not a pick of fat on the man.

This was my breakfast... a single medium sized banana.  So why, oh why is life so unfair? Why do my bits wobble and jiggle and flobble and his not?  Someone needs to have a word with the God of calhorrific content and point out that if he doesn't care and I do, then I should be the skinny minnie.

***

Back to Josie dancing...  this time with a very awake Cosmic, the pair of them steampunking it up with another sexy dance, this time at Graz's set at the Cavern Club.

***

Last night Thom went out drinking and gambling, 'cus that's just the sort of guy he is (choruses of 'Poor Meri' please)  Seriously though, he'd gone round a friend's place for a cards night with a few cans.

I went onto SL alone and was determined not to get into any trouble of any kind at all.  First off I wandered aimlessly and bought a new dress, as you do.  Then I got bored and went and found a free photo studio and took a new picture of myself which I played with in photoshop for a bit before uploading it.

Then I started IMing with Sero who was also bored and then Graz who wanted to show me his stripey deckchairs which he'd put out at the Killing Moon for his set tonight after Mossy's at AAi.  So we all congregated and sat on said chairs.  Shauna arrived, followed by Ryann and I took a photograph (sadly before Clairey arrived).

We all spent the evening randomly dancing to random tunes played by Graz and falling over in a very organised way :D

I had fun, thanks you guys.

***

That's about it for me this week, hope you had a good one too :)))

Mucho luvo, Meri xox

It's life Jim, but not as we know it

So I was on Facebook the other day, not something I do very often and I saw this advert in the right hand column...

What happens here, stays here!  Really?  That hasn't been my experience at all and I'm not sure that's a very honest premise to sell Second Life on.  It's like saying, come into SL, cheat on your partner, nobody will ever know.

Make virtual memories that won't come back to haunt you!  Oh, so SL is a place with no consequences, the people there have no feelings, I can act however I like and not have to worry about the aftermath.

To be honest, I was more than a little shocked and those of you that know me can attest (lol) to the fact I'm no Mary Whitehouse.  It seemed immoral to sell Second Life in this way.

I think the correct advert should have looked something like this...

****

Last month Thom and I celebrated 3 years in world and together.  It's been quite a ride :)  Thank you to all of you who came along to our party and made it special for us, we appreciate your friendship every day.

Mossy did us proud, playing all of 'our' songs and some that he'd chosen himself. It was a lovely evening and we loved every minute of it. Thank you.

***

AAi is proud to open it's airspace to brand new satellite venue, The Cavern.

AAi Manager Graz Firecaster got the building bug and decided, together with Claire Elgund to build a tribute to the original Liverpool Cavern in Second Life.

At the end of April, Graz and Claire hosted a Merseybeat night at the newly built Cavern as a launch evening and it went with a swing!

We all boogied for 3 hours to the great tunes played by Graz and Claire and I hoped there would be many more evenings this good in the new place.

I think they did a fabulous job - it's not a completely faithful reproduction, but it has all the main points of the original build and is an artistic tribute more than an attempt at accuracy.  It's a lovely place and you should go have a looksee :)  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Clockwork/199/42/1999

It's quite exciting to have a new venue under the AAi header and you can be sure that some of the regular sets will take place here.  Anyone interested in doing an appropriately themed set should contact the Grazcaster to discuss please.

***

Finally... thought for the day "Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad".

Norm Papernic

Wowowowwow!

Yesterday was Guilty Pleasures - A festival of bad taste at AAi.  It was an idea that Cisa Batista and I had talked about a while ago, perhaps even six months but time went past so quickly.  I started talking about it again recently with Claire Elgund and she too seemed to think it would be a good idea to have a go.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to just do it (tm Nike) and sent out a plea for DJs to play an hour long set of the songs they secretly enjoyed but would never usually play in SL.

9 brave souls in the end decided to play...

I got Graz to do a flyer for it and slotted everyone with minimum mumbles into time slots, it really was a total pleasure.  No in-fighting or competing over slots, no awkwardness - just everyone making themselves as available as they possibly could and fitting in.

So yesterday just before the first slot at 5pm GMT (9am SLT) I met Pixie at the club for her set.  I was a bit nervous but she wasn't having a bit of that and was totally enthused about showing herself up in the name of fun and frolics.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I was surprised that people began to arrive even before the music started, but it was a very happy feeling.

All 9 DJs managed to play and the club never stopped swinging for the whole 9 hours.  Almost no issues arose, despite Graz Firecaster having awful computer problems and managing to make a new one out of the spare parts of two dead ones.  (Major thanks to Cosmic Beres at this point for offering to step into Graz's slot when it looked like he wouldn't be able to return).

I didn't take anywhere near as many photos as Claire, but I put a few here that I took just to show the efforts people had gone to and the kinda fun we had.

Aramos took us along the highway to the danger zone with his mostly 80s themed guilty pleasures set with more than a hint of Top Gun about both him and the music.  CutoutKylie looked on in awe.

Thom, Cos, Becky, Josie and Lady MeriGaga boogying for ABBA's approval during Thom's set.

Agnes nearest the camera spent a good long time at the club, staying til the wee hours to support us, also pictured my ass :)

The lovely Claire with blue hair and Graz in his Elvis and fro garb :)

We made some new friends... Boo (in addition to our other Boo), Atanau, Gray and many others who I think we'll be seeing again.

DJs not pictured but still massively valued - Pixie Arcana, Cisa Batista, Iggy Soup, Talisin Llanfair (Tal) - you were all beyond wonderful and I loved every set.

I'd like to thank everyone for putting themselves forward and out and going over and above the call of duty in the name of fun, friendship and naff tuneage.  You're all beyond awesome and I love yous.

M xoxox

SCREAMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My dearest Second Life Friends

In case you were not aware of it, please never ever uninstal any version of the Second Life Viewer you have on your computer.

I am currently using Phoenix, I have Firestorm pre Alpha downloaded - Imprudence as a backup and V2 somewhere (I can't find it at the moment but anyway...).  I decided therefore that my needs were well and truly catered for and uninstalled the Second Life browsers I had hanging around - a beta, a release candidate etc - all old browsers.

Guess what it did? (Are you ahead of me here?)

It uninstalled all of my IM and Chat logs :(

I raged, I checked my recycle bin, I stormed, I restored my computer to yesterday, I cried, I checked the Second Life Jira to find that Second Life is the only piece of shitty software in the WORLD that uninstals your user data without even asking you.

If you uninstal MSN, it doesn't delete your conversation logs - no program does.  It's a travesty. It's a liberty. It's a massive oversight.

We embrace Second Life as our actual Second Life.  The conversations I have with my friends are precious to me and if I could turn on conversation logging in my First Life I would surely do so.  The ability to go back and re-read conversations I've had makes me happy, I can relive memories moment by moment instead of relying on my sometimes dicky memory.

Yeah I'm sure that makes me sound a sad sap but, it's the truth.

Now they're gone... I'm running some free file recovery software but I don't know if it will help at all.  If you are a friend of mine and you feel the same about IM logs, maybe you'd like to a) back yours up for yourself and b) take your IM log with me and make a copy and email it to me? (see comment below)

That'd be really kind.  Thank you for reading my rant.  Bring back the sunshine! xox