Don’t be lonely this Valentine’s Day. There’s a single fella floating around Second Life who would give his right arm to set up sim with you.

Yes, this guy is looking for SLove. And RLove too, it seems. His classified reads:

“Hi, Single 34 year old Lonely Guy=( Looking 4 a RL+SL Match SOME1 SPECIAL 2 CREATE MY SIM WITH 2GETHER ,Never Married, No Kids, SEEKING SAME! Don’t Drink, or Smoke, HomeBody, Humorous, Affectionate, Inquisitive, Fun, Even Tempered, Marriage Minded 4 Dating  in PA USA. Loyal, Sensitive, Loving, Intelligent, Thoughtful, Understanding, Deep, Logical, Motivated & Has Time & Willing to Make Time & Effort to Pursue a Meaningful Relationship, UnShelfish, Sincere, Honest & Upfront , Flawed =), Dependable, Caring, Patient, Creative. Analytical, Interested in a Future & Family. I am Slim 6′ Enjoy PC, Video Games, Movies, Tech, Spiderman, Sopranos, Napoleon Dynomite, Michael Jackson, 80’s, Freestyle, & Dance Music, & Conversations.  No quitters, not Stubborn,no Drama It be nice 2 have a Building Partner in SL & RL too =) Communication is key! I am not your typical guy! No, Not a FruitCake more like the 40 Year Old Virgin I am in Search of a Soul Mate in Search of me.
My SL Name is CoolnessCat Magic
If  interest Holla=)”

[Note: Excessive capital letters are nothing to do with me. I copied and pasted!]

So, the 40 year old non-fruit cake virgin is looking for someone to build with in real life. And what does “unshelfish” mean?

Anyway, I’m not here to make fun of him. Really. Ok maybe a little bit. No, wait. That’s mean. I’m not here to make fun of him.

Though personally I would never run a classified like that. I have no issue with dating in SL and I have no issue with the crossovers into RL either. None whatsoever. But a classified in Second Life with a view to meeting your life partner from it strikes me as odd. Maybe I’m just a miserable cynic.

Anyway, single ladies…. CoolnessCat Magic is your man )

[WARNING - RANT FOLLOWS]

Ladies, Gentlemen, toons, nekos, furries, spampires, robots and whatever the fuck else is roaming around Second Life, if you’re not grown up enough to sort out your pixel problems without the help of a virtual attorney (whose real life qualifications probably fail to exceed ‘basic literacy’) then really, log off. Ctrl Q, trust me it works wonders.

What is with the number of lawyers springing up in Second Life? A quick sift through classifieds and place search and you’ll find dozens. And these people claim to help you settle disputes over ownership following a “Second Life break up,” as an example of a service. Umm… how exactly does that conversation go:

Attorney: That brings us to the $2500L sex carpet.

Him: That’s totally mine, completely mine. Hell, she got the animated shower and the script error-ing virtual labrador. The carpet is mine.

Her: No, you can’t have the carpet. I have a new partner now and I need the carpet!!!!!

Him: Absolutely not… hand it over NOW?!

Attorney: Ok, this is complicated. I am going to have to consult with the object properties. Excuse me. I won’t be a moment, I just need to right click this.

[INSERT AWKWARD SILENCE OF AROUND 20 SECONDS AND LOTS OF TENSION]

Attorney: The carpet is hers.

Him: What?!?! How could you decide that?! Ridiculous decision.

Attorney: I am afraid that in the eyes of the law, that carpet is hers. Largely because it’s no trans.

Seriously, people! Get a grip! And if you need help sorting out land issues or have been screwed over by a land baron (another service some of these ‘attorneys’ claim to assist with, go to Linden Lab! In fact, if you have a Premium Account you will probably get a response from LL faster than a virtual lawyer anyway!

I don’t get it. I really don’t. Is “Second Life Attorney,” bullshit for “Has freebie suit, needs Lindens?”

Anyhow…. rant over.

I was looking around on the Second Life Jira earlier on and interestingly, it seems the Jira requesting that ‘multiple partners be enabled,’ has the same amount of interested as one that wants restrictions on unverified accounts to prevent the use of alts to sell copybotted content. So if we take the jira as gospel, we’re exactly as concerned about having more than one partner as we are about stolen content. You can find the Jiras I am referring to here and here.

Now, I’ve heard people complaining that they desperately want the multiple partners feature before. But I have a good reasons that it should never, ever, ever be incorporated.

It could very feasibly lead to bankruptcy. The rate at which people partner and departner in Second Life is incredibly. If you can imagine that the total cost of getting partnered and then undoing it is 35L, assuming that this would be the charge per partner, some people are going to be penniless quickly. Relationships with four or five people in that break up/make up twenty three times a day are going to seriously leave some people in the financial faeces.

I don’t get it… the multiple partners thing. If you have multiple partners, you’re not exclusive with one person. So why would you want a partner name for anyone in your profile? Is that space not intended to declare exclusivity? It kind of loses a lot of its meaning if there’s ninety one people in the list, don’t you think? Crikey, I have enough of a problem remembering what day of the week it is – I can’t imagine remembering multiple partners’ names.

Nah, if you want a twenty person marriage, get a freakin’ group (and some psychological help).

Oh well, to each their own.

Second Life profiles are the cause of more bloody drama and bullshit than I care to even waste my breath writing about. And people rarely mean what they say in their profiles. Here are some common profile lines and their translations from bullshit to English.

I DON’T DO DRAMA!!! This is actually bullshit for, “omg, omg, omg, omg I love a good fight. But only when I’m not involved!!!!!”

RL AND SL ARE SEPARATE COMPLETELY BUT I AM SINGLE. This is bullshit for, “My wife is deaf and so she can’t hear me sitting in the next room jerking off while cybring with a Neko who has a picture of a 22 year old blonde model in her profile, though in actual fact is probably a 59 year old obese man who grunts when he breathes.

I SPEAK TYPONESE!! This is bullshit for, “I have no originality or imagination and I re-use the same lines that I stole from someone else over and over and over and over again.”

MY IMS CAP ALL THE TIME, SEND ME A NOTE CARD. ‘This is bullshit for, “I once left a spammy object rezzed and it sent me loads of those green IM things and when I logged in it said my IMs are capped.”

CUSTOMER SERVICE BY NOTE CARD ONLY. This is bullshit for, ‘I’ve already got your money. Now f**k off.’

Et voila. Did I miss any?

Alrighty, I am blogging this because I love the venue, the people there and I think that this is a refreshing competition.

Straight from the note card:

Thank you for your interest in The Lyrical Cafe’s first bi-monthly Slam Contest. We are looking for shining stars like yourself to bring your best work and hope that your performance will be stellar.
*****************************************************************************
As with any other contest there are Rules that must be applied and they are as follows:

- Your work must be original, your very own creation.
- All poets must send a copy of the poem they are reading to staff with their entry form.
- You cannot deviate from the work you submitted or that will cause immediate disqualification.
- Your work must be three to five minutes in length.
- Your entry form must be turned in on or before February 25th.
- If you are offensive during your peformance, you will be ejected from the sim.
- If you are performing, you must be at least ten minutes early or be put down as a no show.

On the lighter side of things, we want you to enjoy yourself but here are some tidbits of information that might be of interest to you:

- All  will be judged on four categories; delivery, creativity, content, and originality.
- The judges will score between one through five in each category.
- You have to stay for the entire event in order to qualify.
- There will be a total of three judges on the panel.
- This will be  a bi monthly event that will be held by the Lyrical Cafe.
- Your name will be displayed as the winner until the next contest.
- If you win you cannot enter your name in the upcoming contest; you must skip at least one.
- There will be a total of four Slam Poetry contests ending on August 28th.
- The schedule this year will be February 27th, April 24th, June 26th and August 28th @ 4pm SL.
*****************************************************************************
Note: We are looking for raw energy, passion, and those with the ability to draw the crowd into their performance. We are looking for those individuals who can knock the socks off the panel.
Break a Leg!
~ Lyrical Cafe Staff ~

And just in case you’re wondering where Lyrical Cafe is, it’s here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Peaceful%20Dreams/38/161/25

Ok, so this might technically not be Second Life related. But I can make it Second Life related later on. It is, essentially, my rant about the iPad (or the oversized iPod Touch).

Let me start by saying I love Apple. I have an iPhone 3GS and I love it more than I love my dog. Ok, not quite that much, but I do love it an awful lot. I would also like to add that I have a good Hewlett Packard laptop. I feel, with these two, that I am fully equipped to get by online both portably and from home.

Steve Jobs called it ‘revolutionary,’ and ‘magical’. I call it a big iPhone. And while the iPhone is awesome, it is awesome because it does everything you can imagine and makes phones and has text messaging and fits in your pocket. Have you ever dreamed of owning a phone doesn’t make phone calls and would never fit in your pocket even if you wore giant gangsta baggy jeans with pockets the size of small houses? No. Me neither.

Apparently it’s magical because you can:-

- Surf the web (like you can with your iPhone or laptop)

- Play games (like you can with your iPhone or laptop)

- Watch movies (like you can with your iPhone or laptop)

- Read digital editions of publications (like you can with your iPhone or laptop).

Anyone else seeing a pattern emerging here? If you wanted something portable and pocket sized, a smartphone would do the job. If you wanted something to sit on your desk, a laptop would work. So what’s the point in the maxipad iPad? Apparently it ‘bridges the gap between an smart phone and a laptop.’

THAT’S NOT A GAP THAT NEEDS BRIDGING! It’s like trying to bridge the gap between fries and potato wedges. They are both good…. both similar but different enough that you can appreciate their differences. There is nothing in the middle! There is no need for anything in the middle. And there is certainly no need for anything in the middle that will cost upwards of $500 ($640 if you’d like your wedges with 3G internet capabilities)!

Now, watch how I loosely relate this “the iPad is shit,” post to Second Life!

Will the iPad run Second Life? Technically, yes, it should. I already have Touch Life and Sparkle IM, both of which offer limited functionality (more funciontality in the case of the cheaper Touch Life, actually). But they let you check IMs, respond to IMs etc which is the core thing I would need while on the move. So the question of whether or or the iPad would run Second Life “properly,” that is to say with all the trimmings and pretty graphics, was a big one for me.

Hamlet Au wrote up a good article about this on New World Notes. Check that out here.

While I agree that the added power of the iPad (when compared to the iPhone) should mean a graphically rich Second Life experience is possible… there’s one tiny little problem. Second Life will not truly be portable with this device. Firstly, unless you get the 3G version (more expensive) you will only have internet access when in range of a wireless connection. And even if you do get the 3G version, 3G is not yet fast enough to run a graphically rich Second Life. Hell, it’s not fast enough to download a music track particularly efficiently. So yes, the iPad might run Second Life…. but only when you’re in range of a wireless connection. Just like a laptop does.

So that reopens the question – what’s the point in the iPad?

Rant over…. from me at least. But it seems a certain Nazi Dictator has something to say about it too…

….and if it’s the last thing I do, I will bring them to you! Not literally… but photographically.

But it wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. Today was the first time since I started using Second Life that I have toured the newbie zones and infohubs and NOT found a single naked blingtard. So I figured I’d take a quick trip to Zindra. There were sure to be naked blingtards there, right?

Surely one of these dots MUST be a naked blingtard?

I tried the busiest locations and believe it or not, almost everyone was dressed. At least partially. There’s more frikkin nudity on the PG sims!!!! Given that information, I headed back to the PG and mature regions and came across plenty of people. But the naked one were not blingtards and the blingtards were fully clothed.

Yes, all from the "non-adult" sims!!

But I had promised a naked blingtard. So I really had only one option…..

The things I do....

So, promise kept.

Now, is it an appropriate time to suggest that you should all make me feel better by posting your own naked blingtard impressions? No? Really, no takers? Not even if I make it a challenge?

No?

Oh well.

Not the chirpiest, but I just spent an hour messing about with video editing software so it’s going up anyway

Endings from Josue Habana on Vimeo.

The music, by the way, is Simon And Garfunkel’s ‘Bookends.’

Ok, ok… I will compensate for the absolute not remotely amusing video by posting something about naked avatars wearing bling tomorrow (or something similar)!

Check out this classified….

The full text of the ad reads like this:

“-Are you suspicious of your husband, wife, girlfriend or boyfriend of being unfaithful, cheating, having multiple lovers and secret affairs?

We are SPYGirls and there to help you put an end to the stress, worry, fear and anxiety from infidelity to uncover the truth.  Our private agents will keep you informed throughout the investigation.  We work accurately and effectively to complete the investigation with our cutting edge state of the art technology and to give you further discreet information by providing enough evidence.

To visit the office or schedule an appointment IM Raysa Jolbey

For further information or any questions, IM REYNA Moleno , Raica Elcano or Lacy Muircastle. Our consultation is free.

visit: www.spygirlsagency.com

Keywords: Private Investigation, detectives, sleuth, cheating, marriage counseling, surveillance, detectives, secret agents, case, surveillance, investigation, investigators, observation, avatar locator, stalking, private eyes, private detectives, information.”

Ok, so ‘Honeytraps,’ and detectives in real life are nothing new. But pixel spies to check out what your partner is doing? One has to wonder what this ’state of the art technology’ is? Do they have a secret Linden on board? Have they hacked into the servers to get logs of everyone’s IMs? No. I doubt it. The most ‘advanced’ technology they have is probably the mysti tool.

I wonder if anyone actually pays for this service? Insanity.

5 Questions and a Shamless Plug is all about asking the same 5 questions to uber cool people. So how on Earth could I possibly proceed without getting Eggy’s views? For anyone not familiar with Eggy (Adric’s feline companion and star of ‘Living on a Prim,’) check out this link for plenty of Eggy goodness. In the meantime, here’s the interview….

Why have you not had sex with Philip Linden?