Pixel Scoop

Today I’m not going to relentlessly mock anybody, nor am I going to make up a terribly crude rhyme. I won’t even rain down on multiple virtual marriages. Today I actually want to lose all my man points with a very public display of sentiment. Call it social suicide, if you will.

Today is one year since I met Jenee. No, we didn’t have a pixel wedding, we don’t have pixel children and we don’t departner every week, get with someone else, end it with them after twenty four hours and come back for another go two days later. What we have actually is a fantastic relationship that I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to take from the virtual world into a very real one. I am very fortunate indeed to have met someone so incredibly perfect for me.

For the record, prior to Jenee I “didn’t do” the online thing. Something about her changed all that. I still can’t put my finger on it, to be honest, but there is something so completely amazing about this girl that keeps me on my toes constantly.

I won’t make you all want to puke by going on and on…besides I would like to at least keep half a man point back if possible. I just felt something of a need to boast, if you will, about being officially the luckiest fella in the world to have bagged myself (and managed to keep for a year so far) this absolutely incredible lady.

Jenee, every single morning I wake up believing I couldn’t possibly love you anymore than I do, yet every single night I go to bed proven wrong.

I will return tomorrow with some incredibly offensive material in order to attempt to salvage some man points!

Another dreaded invite,
For another dreaded do,
Must you marry all the time
And make me suffer too?

I don’t sit there cooing,
I am mostly AFK,
Or looking through inventory,
And throwing things away.

The first time was ok, I guess,
The second not so bad.
The third and fourth were kind of dull,
The fifth and sixth quite sad.

Seven was the worst, I think.
Eight and nine I missed!
Ten was fairly funny,
As I turned up really pissed!

I slept right through eleven,
Think I slept through twelve as well.
Thirteen, that was the longest
And fourteen was just Hell.

Before you go through fifteen,
Please just heed the words I say,
You’re not obliged to marry
Every av that looks your way!

This is new to me. Companies offering to organise the perfect virtual vacation for you (for a fee of course) in game. Now, call me a cynic here, but let’s break this down. We can ALL teleport. Nobody needs a flight anywhere, nobody needs a cruiseliner to get from A to B. Nobody needs to sit cramped up in a pressurised cabin for half a day to reach the most perfect beach in the world. So it’s clear that these people needn’t organise, as real world travel companies would, your transportation to this perfect vacation location.

So what else is there for a travel company to do? Find the perfect spot and a great hotel maybe? Ok. Well beach holidays require a good beach. And let’s face it, there aren’t any shortages of those in game. The place search function is almost like a brochure I guess. Explore. Find a beach. TELEPORT to it. Pool holidays require a pool. Adventure holidays require adventure and exploration. Activity holidays, they need bikes and canoes and all that good stuff, right? But surely all of that can be found, without paying someone, just by teleporting around. Even if you can’t be bothered to search for these places yourself, there are a million (yes, I know I exaggerate) blogs out there with lists of fantastic places to go! And guess what…. they DON’T charge!

Anyway, I just wanted to rant. And now I have done. Amen.

This pixel pregnancy thing doesn’t half confuse me, you know. From my reading around it seems, in essence, that a woman pays “Virtual Pregnancy Clinic” a ridiculous amount of Lindens for her pregnancy (see and I thought getting pregnant was free). They then give her a package, say six weeks (wow is it just me or are pregnancies getting quicker…my Mum gave me a load of bull about me being stuck in there for nine months or something). They provide her with appointments, some shapes to make her look progressively more pregnant as time goes on and some random unborn foetus pictures from google images (which she will then coo over in her picks for all to see). Then comes the prim baby and, well….the less said about that the better.

But, I decided to look further into it to see if there was something I was missing. Of course, upon spotting a pregnancy test on SLX I couldn’t resist. The funny thing is, I wasn’t aware men could get pregnant either, so imagine my surprise when…

Now, this wasn’t the only pregnancy test I could have used. They even have pregnancy tests that let you choose whether you’re pregnant or not…. hmm, imagine all those panicking teenagers in toilet cubicles with their best friends who would have paid anything for a real life version of one of those. Now, doesn’t being able to choose whether you’re pregnant or not sort of defeat the object of a test? Anyway… once I’d got over the hysterics of being told by a little prim test that I was pregnant (what I mean of course is once I had broken the news to my bewildered parents) I looked towards DNA testing to establish the maternity of my unborn child. Unfortunately, and much to my shock, nobody has come up with DNA testing in game yet. And so my pregnancy progressed.

I found myself some foetal pictures that looked vaguely like spaghetti hoops to stick in my profile and finally I gave birth to a two headed prim baby called Bob who weighed seveteen hundred pounds. Well… of course I didn’t… but that really is about how bizarre this whole in game pregnancy thing is.

I don’t get why someone would want to pretend to be pregnant in game and wear those daft attachments that shout out to everyone along the lines of ‘My imaginary baby is moving inside. I’m pregnant everyone. LOOK AT ME!! LOOK AT ME!!’ It’s all a bit, well….. desperate. Can you imagine if in real life, as soon as you had your first scan, they attached a huge speaker to your ass that screamed out to the world the development of your pregnancy. “Hey world, today I threw up like fifteen times and now I’m craving charcoal with tomato ketchup?” Why pay some clinic to play ‘let’s pretend to be Mummies and Daddies’ with you? I just do not see an appeal. I thought people stopped playing let’s pretend games once they reached like eight? Hmm, maybe that’s just sane people.

Floating around various stores (as I tend to do when I decide I have nothing better to do with my time and I’d like to spend Lindens on things I will probably never use again) I have noticed something happening more and more! So many clothing and skin stores are now putting out fitting rooms/changing rooms! I really fail to see a purpose in this other than to eat up a prim allowance for no reason whatsoever.

I just don’t understand their purpose. Firstly, if people can cam through your house walls to see you getting jiggy on those recent Bits n Bobs purchases, camming through a ‘curtain’ won’t be an issue! In fact, such is the nature of the game that, with such small spaces as fitting rooms, people’s cameras probably automatically catch a glimpse of you squeezing into those pixel pants in a changing room just as they’re turning around! Secondly, what are you hiding? I mean, really? Is it that you don’t want people to recognise your skin seams as freebie? Maybe you don’t want people to see that, by default, your avie has no genitals. Well let me let you into a little secret. You’re definitely not the only person who is genital-less by default! Don’t worry. We won’t all point and laugh at you. And even if you just don’t like having your avie naked in front of people (which some don’t) then…. why would you get changed in a store at all??

Personally, when I change, I put on one item in place of another and I never have to show my pixel torso at all…and I certainly wouldn’t use a changing room for any purpose in game.

At first I thought maybe decorative, not intended for use. Maybe everyone would see that. But no, people actually use them! It baffles me. Perhaps there should be a notecard giver handing out notecards to anyone who enters these changing rooms. It could say,

“Welcome to SuchandSuchaStore. Please note that these changing rooms will not prevent people from seeing you getting changed. Please also note that nobody actually gives a sh*t about your pixel tattoos, virtual body, freebie skin, demo clothing and so on and so forth.” Then if the aforementioned avatar does not vacate, they should be sent flying 1500m in the air for a lesson in ‘OMG WHY?’ studies. In my humble opinion, of course.

Guess what? You’ll never believe it. But I am going to bitch again. This time it’s people reselling freebie stuff. It kind of annoys me that people do this, knowing that newer avatars will not be completely aware that the stuff they’re going to buy is all over Second Life™ completely free of charge.

Now people buying full permissions stuff, digging out the decent stuff, creating good looking outfits out of it and mixing and matching and then boxing it up to look a bit more, well, chic I guess, is one thing. I personally believe it’s worth paying someone to sift through all the substandard free stuff out there and to find the decent stuff. That is what I personally believe people should be paying for when they go to stores like this.

My complaint is with people who just buy it, throw it all up in the same prims it came in some megaprim box they call a store and charge unwitting newbies (who, let’s face it, may very feasibly have just spent the last 16 hours on a camping bench somewhere to earn ten lindens) for the same stuff they’re a teleport away from getting for free. It’s like charging for air in just one country. “Oh wow, you want some air? Umm, well here in Norway we’re going to have to charge for that. Say ten dollars for a day’s worth. Though if you head on over to the UK, well you might get it free.”

Alright, I exaggerated again. Nobody will stop breathing or die if they don’t get their tacky free gangster style t-shirts. But the principle is the same. Sort of.  Maybe. Hmm… Let me ponder.

Hi everyone! Some of you may or may not know that Josue has been out of town for two weeks now. He left some articles saved and I have been posting them for him while he’s gone. He thought it was a great idea to leave me with his login information to Pixel Scoop! Muhahaha! Oh, live and learn!

So, here’s my idea. Since we all sit here day after day and listen to Josue rant about the game and the people that play it I thought it would be a good idea for his readers to listen to his girlfriend reveal some things about him for a change!

So let’s get started!

*Grins and rubs her hands together*

Introduction and background first.

My in-world name is Jenee Marten. I have been dating Josue for close to a year and have met him in real life too, so what better person is there to give you all the dirty little details? I don’t mean THOSE kinds of details, sheesh!

Oh he’s going to spank me for this… LOL!

Onward!

1. He doesn’t shut up! Holy hell, give that man a mic and hands free and you’re in trouble! Even if he’s just cleaning out his inventory he’s got to tell me about every single object, “What is this?” “Why do I have this in my inventory?” “Oh I remember this now, but why did I keep it?” When he works I hear about every task he does in detail, “Ok, so first I have to move this over here, then pick this up, etc” One night after he’d been out drinking I listened to him tell me about his dog for close to two hours. I didn’t interrupt; I just let him ramble while I painted my nails LOL!
2. Word wars. This man is a walking dictionary! It’s just too bad that he’s British and I’m American so 90% of his words are incorrect. Whose idea was it to call a shopping cart a ‘trolley’?! A trolley is those train things you ride on when you’re in San Francisco. ‘Raunchy’ means gross or disgusting not sexy! And how on earth is ‘router’ pronounced like ‘rooter’? Does ‘out’ sound like ‘oot’? Also, replacing a ‘Z’ with ‘S’ or adding a ‘U’ in words is a common misspelling amongst Brits. Example - the word ‘favorite’ becomes ‘favourite’. Even my Word is telling me that ‘favourite’ is incorrect with the little red squiggly line underneath! I win!
3. Feet are banned! Yes, you read that right… for some reason he’s squeamish about feet. He doesn’t scream like a little girl when he sees them but he would just rather not look at them or, God forbid, touch them. So I guess for the rest of my life I won’t get a foot massage after a long day at the office. Poor me.
4. The forbidden color. Josue is a die hard football fan (soccer for us Americans). Manchester City’s color is light blue and their rival team, United, wears red. And because of this, and this alone, red is forbidden. You will never see him wear red and he scowls when I do! My car in real life is red and the first time he saw it he looked over at me and said, “I can’t believe you drive a red car, I’m going to have to buy you a new one.”
5. Toys. Ok, we’re not talking about the good kind of toys, like the ones that I get delivered to my door in discreet brown paper wrapping. We’re talking about gadgets and stuff. Josue will buy things in game just to see how they work! Sometimes expensive items and he’ll just take them out, play with them for a few moments, say “Oh, I see how this works now”, puts it back into his inventory and never see it again. What is it with men?! He could’ve taken me out and bought me a dozen sexy lingerie sets for the price of that thing! In real life he’s worse, here’s an example. One day he’s complaining about a socket on his laptop that doesn’t seem to be working anymore. What would a normal person do? Take it to get fixed, right? Not Josue. Next thing I know he had ordered himself a brand new laptop and was starting to browse the desktop computers. He sent me a link and said, “I think I’m going to get this one. Look at the blue lights!” All I could do was roll my eyes (thank God webcam wasn’t on) and say, “That’s nice, babe.”

All in all, our quirks are what make us unique. The fun part of any relationship is discovering them! I have had a blast learning about Josue. Everyday I find out something new about him. And I think I’m already in enough trouble by sharing only a few so I will leave this for now.

Babe, when you read this I want you to know that even though I think you’re totally insane I also am completely positive that you’re perfect for me. I love you so much, you are everything to me.

- Jenee

It takes a certain level of arrogance, I feel, to appoint yourself Overlord in the war against griefers. But it seems there are no shortage of people doing just that. There are an increasing number of groups in game who claim to be there to protect us all and so on. What the real purpose of these groups is, in my humble opinion of course, is plain and simple ego-boosting, power tripping and a fairly pitiful excuse to use their pixel guns ‘for the good’ of avatar-kind. I can’t decide what I find more pitiful…the fact that people set them up or the fact that others (in some cases in their hundred) join them!

Some of the most popular ones, in their group charters, are somewhat excessive too! Take this one, for example. “The Griefer Slayers are all about killing every annoying Griefer in SL!!! So if you hate Griefers and think they should all die, sign up for this group.”

Erm, is it just me that thinks that’s a little excessive? Granted, griefers are assholes. But death?! Wow… if the death sentence can be applied for prim littering then we have some serious proportional punishment problems.

But as well as being a little psychotic, I think anti-griefer groups just encourage the griefers, personally. These pathetic little people who wander around shooting stuff and leaving spamming style prims all over the place thrive on the attention they get from it. You know… the ‘Oh look at me. I can’t do anything at all in the world other than leave this crap lying around…so that’s what I will do’ types. Ignoring them, I find, often serves as a wonderful means of getting them to go away. Responding does nothing more than encourage it.

So to the Anti-griefing groups, seriously… stop wasting you’re time. You’re not frontline soldiers. You are not mafia. You are not missionaries. Give up the game. Ignore the griefers and they will go….