In the Service of Her Majesty The Queen

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Scryler, Jan 11, 2009.

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  1. GuardianAngel82

    GuardianAngel82 Senior Member

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    Good Night...uh...Day...

    Sweet Dreams! ;)
     
  2. Scryler

    Scryler Night's Wordsmith

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    I hope you had a good day and the night went well.

    Lots of excitement tonight at work. There is an alligator wandering around the office property. It's about 4 ft long and appears to be injured, as it is limping. We are callilng animal control in the morning.

    This is totally the wrong time of year for aligators to be roaming around, so why it is here is a mystery.

    So the garbage stays in tonight since it was not far from the dumpster and that area is so poorly lit. And so does staff.

    Last night I heard an owl hooting. But the sound I heard that preceded the 'hoot' call sounded just like an eagle screaming. The 2 calls were so close together that I think it was just the one bird. The rhythm of the calls didn't sound like 2 birds either. So I guess I heard the 'screetch' of a screetch owl. I guess.

    I got 8 hours of sleep today. Better than I normally do.


    To who all who sleep tonight on this side of the earth,

    The Nightly Mission:

    Be glad you live in a house
    with study doors and sleep
    soundly.

    Wake up in the light.

    May the Lady smile
    on me and you too.

    G'Night.
     
  3. Scryler

    Scryler Night's Wordsmith

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    I hope you had a good day and the night goes well.

    With all the alligator excitement, totally forgot it was a full moon last night.

    And another Friday night. I do not feel so bad about not having a reason to put on my dancing shoes tonight. Mainly, I think, because tonight is now my day, if that makes any sense. Strange.

    I've been thinking some about Second Life. For many people, I think it is a rp game. They can create multiple avis, each with its own personality, history, interests, and so forth. I think this is particularly true in the vampire clans where rp is the major focus to begin with. In some respects, it is similar to any video game where fighting isn't the primary focus. And in SL, there are plenty of places where you can fight, if that's your thing.

    I don't have any experience with multiplayer online games, except SL, so I don't know how much social interaction there is in those games. SL has a great deal of social interaction, is as much a social network as a game. That's where, I think, the problems happen. In that intersection between game and social network. When someone takes something too seriously.


    To all who will sleep tonight on this side of the bright earth,

    The Nightly Mission:

    Stay in reality and sleep deep
    when it is time, forsake the dreams
    for awhile until you are grounded.

    Wake up and examine where you are going.

    May the Lady smile
    on me and you too.

    G'Night.
     
  4. Necroticpus

    Necroticpus Cthulhu Ftaghn!

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    I used to have a buddy that is way too far gone into Second Life. He throws a large portion of his paycheck at it every payday. At one point not so long ago, he spent $450 for a round trip airplane ticket from Minneapolis to Phoenix to go meet this woman he connected with. They met in an online vampire coven. His plane landed at 6 PM on a Friday in Phoenix and he was leaving at 6 AM Saturday morning. Makes sense. I can see that. $450 for 12 hours in Phoenix. Maybe they were going to go on a vampire date, hunt and feed on the blood of the living, then board the plane back to Minnesota. My only question is how can they survive during the daylight hours? Maybe they are the new form of vampire that don't have any of the traditional disadvantages of the disease.

    Ya, I've pretty much written him off. The game is more real to him than his life. He ignores everyone who used to be his real friends for the chill of undeath that only disembodied strangers on the internet can give. I expect to hear from other friends in and around Minneapolis how he has taken his life at some point or has joined a real vampire suicide cult that is waiting to transcend to a better life when the mothership comes down and takes them all away to Legosi, the utopian vampire twilight planet, where human cattle roam freely and wish for nothing more than to become a vampire's pet slave and the landscape is dotted with rivers of AB positive blood.

    We've all tried to talk him down out of his mental illness for a few years, but it's no good. We don't exist to him anymore, except as potential feeds or cattle. The only thing he's interested in is auto-erotic asphyxiation and throwing himself down stairwells to prove that he is immortal. There's nothing more to be done except to wait and watch the obits daily.
     
  5. kio11

    kio11 Established Member

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    are you joking about his mental illness? if not then im sory. i was also playing second life for a good deal of my unemployed time. never payed anything for it though. i always wondered how those people in the game are actually are. that game is overly harmful.
     
  6. Necroticpus

    Necroticpus Cthulhu Ftaghn!

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    I am undead serious. *zing*

    It takes all kinds of people to make more statistics in the world. He will become another of them, unless he really turns into a real vampire and they make a 4th Blade movie starring him as the main villian.

    Anybody that pays $450 for a 12 hour round trip flight is unstable. Anybody who pays $450 for a 12 hour round trip flight and thinks they are a vampire is unstable and unredeemable.
     
    Last edited: Sep 25, 2010
  7. Scryler

    Scryler Night's Wordsmith

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    Scryler rises to the bait. I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later.

    Hard to know when you are serious or not, Necroticpus.

    Everyone on here that reads my 'thread' knows I belong to a vampire clan on SL and even got 'married' to someone who rps as a vampire, among other guises. And 'divorced.'

    I do not think most vamp clans view themselves as covens, although I have met one or two who belong to clans that do combine the 'coven' aspect with the 'clan' aspect. Some clans and clan members are only interested in increasing their numbers, thus increasing the bloodlines developers' finances, but many are more interested in the social and erotic aspects of clan rping and consider themselves as 'families.'

    Emotional involvement with someone on SL, whether vampire related or no, can become very intense. I don't know why, and have thought about this a lot. There seems to be more going on there than just an attraction between two fantasy personas. And some do try to take it into their real lives. Like on any online social network, some succeed, most do not. Meeting away from your home and for a short period is actually a smart thing to do when you don't know if your attraction will become something more in real life.

    I am a piss-poor vampire. I don't hunt. I am 'monogamous' (granted, a laughable concept considering everything) and I spend very little money. Currently, my main focus is creating a place where I can have surroundings that I could never afford or attain in my real life. I haven't learned yet how to make my own textures so I have to buy those.

    Places like SL, Facebook and others are changing the way people meet and make friends. I don't know if this is good or bad, but it is happening. Younger people spend more time texting than actually talking to their friends. The online social networks do provide for in depth communication and friendships, but texting is very limited and extremely shallow. It is hard to guess where things will go in society, but this is happening nearly worldwide. There are many studies currently in progress about the current and future impact of online communication/socializing.

    Just think, Necroticpus...you could have your wilderness retreat, complete with bears, wolves, log cabin, whatever...and you could determine 'who' can go there, set your own 'rules.' And you wouldn't have to leave your own home. Make you shudder? Well, there are many who are doing just that.
     
  8. GuardianAngel82

    GuardianAngel82 Senior Member

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    It's not a substitute for real human contact. It's not even as good as a phone. No true human feedback. Good for pretending to be something you are not, though. ;)
     
  9. Necroticpus

    Necroticpus Cthulhu Ftaghn!

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    I enjoy being an enigma wrapped in a mystery.

    It's quite the paradox. The more one uses the computer for socialization, the more isolated one becomes.

    It might seem that I am poking fun at you or others that engage in this particular kind of behavior but that is really not my intention. I'm 41 years old and more than a little bitter that my former friend thought so little of himself that he refused to carry on and deal with his real life in healthy ways and created another one to avoid his real life and leave the other one behind.

    By the way, I am not joking about my former friend Paul. He created another life, a second life, a virtual life, one that is more real to him than the real world. And going off to meet some chick for 12 hours across the country can't be considered serious in any fashion. I'm not making judgments about you, I'm just reporting what I've seen it do to one formerly mostly stable person. I mean, seriously? Throwing yourself down stairwells to prove that you are immortal?! He's officially been turned, not into a vampire but a full blown whack job.

    I will concur that he had some issues before he started down the Second Life road, but instead of seeing it and using it as a recreational passtime, he immersed every fiber of his being into it, left his old life behind and recreated himself into whatever he is now, a person who believes he's a vampire, fantasizes about Brad Pitt/Antonio Banderas stepping out from the "Interview With A Vampire" movie to sweep him off of his feet through auto-erotic asphyxiation and feels the need the prove himself a real vampire by surviving self-inflicted falls down stairwells. These do not strike me as actions consistent with a rational mind.

    But, who am I to judge? I see ignorance in almost every person I meet and fantasize about different ways of removing them from the world for everyone's benefit. We all need to get our potion one way or the other. The difference is that I am not going to act on my fantasies and lend myself to vehicles that would bring it about, as much as I would like to, because it is wrong. I couldn't care any less about it being unlawful, only that it's not right. Plain hobbit common sense.

    I suppose I could subscribe to Second Life like he always tried to get me to do, and remake myself in my fantasy image. To me, it would seem a conflict of interest. If I create my utopia online and then have to leave it to do real things in the real world, it may blur the lines of reality for me and for wanting to remain in the virtual life, actually make me create my Second Life in the real world, which would do nothing positive for the environment or community around me. Quite the opposite.

    You know what the things are that make my blood boil and fantasize about things better left alone? Technology, Ipods, typing on phones to "communicate", calling "social networks" communication and the rest of the world's refusal to see what's wrong with it, even though it can't be anymore directly in front of them. Stupidity. Tonight's fantasies will be very vivid for me again. Now I'm all worked up again.

    "What's that, Mother?"

    "I'm trying!"

    "YES! I KNOW!"

    "No! Not her! I like her!"

    "NO!"

    "NO!"

    "NO!"

    Lol. Just teasing. I'm a kidder!
     
    Last edited: Sep 26, 2010
  10. Scryler

    Scryler Night's Wordsmith

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    This could be quite an interesting discussion, but I doubt if it will. Not if it is upsetting to people.

    Well I can't disagree with you on that GA82, but SL is a godsend for some people.

    I know of one man who lost an arm. Despite what things 'should' be like, it is difficult for people to get past that. He was very lonely until he found SL. Now people get to know him and appreciate who he is long before they know he has only one arm. He has met many of them on cam or in rl. He has friends, real friends, now.

    And then...the other side of the coin I guess...I know a woman who has multiple 'alts.' I know personally of 4 of them. I suspect another 2, maybe 4 more. Each one, according to her, has a different 'personality.' Some are 'female,' but one or two are 'male.' To me, that's playing a game. She doesn't see it that way, just thinks she is exploring different aspects of herself.

    And then there is me. I seem to have limited rp abilities. I am more or less the same online, on the phone, at work, in person, with some variation common to everyone. So why do I bother? I like building. I fell in love. I like connecting with people who live in other states, other countries, other cultures. I think I express myself better in writing. Sometimes.

    Falling in love. I was told when I first started going to SL that people often fell in love. I thought to myself "That's crazy," and blew it off. And I fell in love. I have been struggling with that ever since. I have learned a great deal about myself in the process. Some of what I've learned has not been very flattering.

    Memories, particularly those concerning emotional issues, can be very distorted. But when you have written something and go back later and reread it, well it often is an eye opener. I can be selfish, petty, inconsiderate and even vengeful. I don't think I ever truly realized that about myself before. I can be other things too, of course.


    Quote from Necroticpus: '...he immersed every fiber of his being into it, left his old life behind and recreated himself into whatever he is now, a person who believes he's a vampire, fantasizes about Brad Pitt/Antonio Banderas stepping out from the "Interview With A Vampire" movie to sweep him off of his feet through auto-erotic asphyxiation and feels the need the prove himself a real vampire by surviving self-inflicted falls down stairwells. These do not strike me as actions consistent with a rational mind.'

    Necroticpus, if all this is true, I'd tend to agree with you.
     
  11. Scryler

    Scryler Night's Wordsmith

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    I hope you had a good day and the night goes well.

    Well, I am going shopping at the WalMart Super Store tonight. I guess I am going to become one of the late night weirdos you see stalking the aisles. Hopefully, I won't be muttering to myself or waving my arms around much.

    Maybe I should really get into it, dye my hair blackest black, wear striped tights (red and white) under a flouncy (black) short skirt, tear the sleeves and collar off one of my (also black) tee shirts and put on black combat boots (or platforms). Stalking the aisles in style.

    I could dress like that, but I don't think I'd make it out of my house before I changed my mind.

    My cat, Alex, has decided that he will not drink his water unless it is 'fresh' from the spigot. Chlorine and all. I have no clue why.


    To all who will sleep tonight on this side of the still bright earth,

    The Nightly Mission:


    Sleep in a bed,
    surrounded by
    whatever makes
    you feel warm,
    happy and safe.

    Wake up and
    wiggle out of
    everything. Or
    not.

    May the Lady smile
    on me and you too.

    G'Night.
     
  12. GuardianAngel82

    GuardianAngel82 Senior Member

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    I'm not sure the falling in love aspect is all that strange. Most people's personalities come through in the characters they play.

    The exceptions to that rule are sort of scary, but they are in real life, too.
     
  13. kio11

    kio11 Established Member

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    yeah sl is really helpful to some people. others just get addicted to it. people dont need technological or electronic stuff to fuck up their lives. they do it without those anyway. do these things drive us crazy? they would, if we were not already crazy to begin with. natures need, greed, lust, envy are emotions that have much stronger and worse side-effects compared to technology. those were the emotions that drove our lives into shit before people invented the stuff. computers bring our bar slightly up.

    also mate, at the age of 41 you shouldve figured out already that moments of bliss cant be valued by money. sometimes you get in debt for hundred thousands and it does you nothing but ruin. sometimes you pay 450 to see someone worth living for and the last thing you want to hear is someone asking if it was worth 450.
     
  14. Scryler

    Scryler Night's Wordsmith

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    I hope you had a good day and the night went well.

    Someone called in sick so I worked tonight and am by myself on this shift for the first time. We'll see how the night goes.

    I have been reading up on lying. Nearly everyone lies to some extent, but it is interesting to read what wikipedia has to say about habitual liars. And about psychological manipulation. It is also interesting to see what the research says about children and lying.


    To all who sleep tonight on this side of the earth,

    The Nightly Mission:

    Counting your blessings is
    better than counting sheep
    when you are having problems
    getting to sleep. Certainly beats
    counting your problems.

    So sleep knowing you did the
    best you could for the day.

    Wake up and start a new one.

    May the Lady smile
    me and you too.

    G'Night.
     
  15. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    I would hazard a guess that it's not 'nearly everyone' but 'absolutely everyone, routinely.' In the limited reading I've done on the topic, it is said that people are basically conditioned to tell white lies daily, and for no particular good reason.

    I don't think anyone is ever really completely known to another person ... even old married couples who have been together for 70 years have secrets they keep from one another. It's just human nature.
     
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