Racing with Willy

Of course I had to have the jeep AM Radio has built. Willy looks fantastic, I love to have a jeep for desert driving, and the money you pay for it goes to charity. Wudda deal.

I called on Cake to come along and try it out in The Husk. And would you believe it: Cat came in-world the second after. Knowing her thing for cars, I invited her as well. Soon we were all gathered.

”Let’s drive,” said Cat, and I asked if they’d seen the film «Death Proof». Turned out none of them had, so I gave them advice to do so while Cat swooned over Thelma.

Soon we drove into another film. Jamie Jetaime, who was out in the desert to fly his kite, got a bit scared when we stopped next to him. ”Hiya. Tell me you’ve never seen «Faster Pussycat» please,” he said. ”Oh, we see it all the time,” answered Cat, and the huge gun she wore on her back didn’t do much to calm his nerves either. ”Well remember, I can always tp,” he said, feebly.

”Three strippers seeking thrills encounter a young couple in the desert. After dispatching the boyfriend, they take the girl hostage,” Cake quoted from IMDB, before asking: ”Where’s your girl, Jamie?” Just as Pipaluk came along, he called us bloodthirsty and escaped up a tree. Cake wondered if Pip was his girlfriend, something she quickly dismissed by saying he looked like someone that listens to Coldplay. She then climbed in to come with us.

Pip had the cutest hick-up I’d ever encountered in-world (also the first). She, on her side, was more than ready to get rid off it, whereupon I crashed full speed into AM’s table – but no one would believe me when I said it was just to scare Pip. Anyway, Pip being a tough gal, it didn’t help the slightest.

Cat invited her friend Marion, who then invited Robin. Now that we were more than Willy had room for, Cat rezzed our Primouth 1958 and, being who she is, said: ”We could have a race.”

Now that was a challenge. I had no choice but to accept – or lose my face forever. Cat reved up the car, lit a ciggie in a very cool way, and said go! Into the desert we went.

Without a track, it became a matter of the most elegant and skillful driving, brushing the other one’s hood ever so lightly. I had the rougher but lighter car, so it was easy for Cat to tip me over when we met. Rolling around like a turtle on its back, the hardest thing to endure was Cat’s spite: ”Go on, call the cops! Look at you lot! Hah hah, I think I won that one. Hey, like my exhaust?”

I got up, fixed the car, and muttered a few bitter words about revenge. ”Take it to the dump, Tess,” was Cat’s friendly advice, but I showed her. When her car stopped, I drove around her in circles. On top of that, Marion had trouble getting into Cat’s car, so I offered her a ride in a car that worked. ”Pah,” said Cat.

Back on track, she called me a road hog and asked how ”the old rust bucket” was doing. ”I know a good scrap metal merchant,” she shouted, but now there was nothing stopping Willy – while Cat stopped again. ”Sand in the motor,” I asked her. ”Yes, but we look nice,” she replied. ”Such a pretty car, you shouldn’t have taken it out of Miami,” was my reply, ”it’s not made for rough driving.”

With that, Cat said ”I’ve had about enough of this,” and got out of the Primouth. ”Enough of being beaten,” I asked, but she just winked me at, saying ”Hardly, my dear.” Robin rezzed a flying, Roman boat, and we all took the skies.

Carfagna vs. Carfagno

The woman on the left is Maria Rosaria Carfagna. She’s Italian, and she’s the Minister for Equal Opportunites in the Berlusconi government. This is about her vs. me.

Not being a great fan of Berlusconi, I was quite amazed when I heard his government had a Minister for Equal Opportunities – and her name was Carfagna! Well, that’s not bad I thought, and I got even happier when I saw how beautiful she is.

On prime time Norwegian television, we once had a minister saying to the author Liza Marklund: “There are few as beautiful as you that call themselves feminists in Norway,” thus proving that feminists by some still are considered to be the ugly women. So a beautiful feminist in charge should be good.

I started doing some research on Carfagna. Turned out she’d participated in the Miss Italia contest in 1997, saying: “That competition makes you as a woman.” Hm, well, okay. Then she worked as a voluptuously underdressed eye-candy showgirl on one of Berlusconi’s TV channels, and she was photographed topless for calendars and skimpily dressed for men’s magazine Maxim.

Well, I worked as a showgirl too in my early SL days, and I still do at The New Champagne Rooms, so I’m not the one to raise a finger against that. And as long as you feel you’re in control, I don’t object to women getting photographed looking sexy either.

What pulled my heart down was Carfagna’s statement that she’s actually an antifeminist. This she said to il Giornale: “Antifemminista, semmai. Il femminismo ha fatto credere alle donne che la libertà dipendesse dall’indipendenza, dall’autonomia. Invece dipende innanzitutto dalla disciplina, dalle regole.”

Meaning she believes that women’s liberty depends not on independence, but on rules and discipline. I’m not really sure what she means by that, but gee – independence is such a big part of feminism, making sure that women aren’t tied to a man for surviving. How can rules and discipline substitute that? What rules? What kind of discipline?

Then, of course, it’s quite strange to be the Minister for Equal Opportunites and call yourself an antifeminist. If Carfagna does her job, if she does create equal opportunities, she can’t help being a feminist, whether she likes it or not.

She proudly describes her family as “traditional and conservative”, and states that she is a firm believer in family values. That’s led her to oppose certain gay rights, and she says that matrimonial rights should be tied to reproduction. She managed to arouse the fury of Italian gay and lesbian rights groups by refusing to back gay pride parades this summer on the ground that “gays no longer suffer discrimination in Italy”. In Italy, they don’t even sanction civil partnerships between two women or two men. So how can she say that?

I think my view on the Berlusconi movement seems to stay the same. Even with a Carfagna in charge.

Koinup portrait photo contest

The web community Koinup and Ananke Media Systems arranged an SL portrait photo contest, and yours truly was asked to be one of the three judges, together with Anna Tretiak and Bella March. To choose winners weren’t easy, but eventually these tree made it to a shared top.

«Anticipation» by Jaxi:

«Beo with feather mask» by Lano:

«Paper flowers» by DahniElla:

You can read all about it and see all the runner-ups here.

Carfagnos of Arabia

My distant relative Cat Carfagno and I went on a desert expedition the other day. Our mission was to find the lost oasis and city of Zerzura, long rumored to have existed deep in the desert west of the Nile River in Egypt or Libya. In writings dating back to the thirteenth century, the authors spoke of a city which was ”white as a dove” and called it ”The Oasis of Little Birds”.

”By the gate you will find a bird sculptured. Stretch up your hand to its beak and take from it a key. Open the gate with it and enter the city. You will find much wealth and the king and queen in their place sleeping the sleep of enchantment.”

Well, like so many explorers before us, we haven’t found Zerzura yet. But we’ve found many other interesting things.

While walking towards a lonely tree, we suddenly discovered something very unexpected next to it: a sewing machine on a table, and two pieces of blue cloth swaying in the wind, one attached to the table, the other to the tree. It puzzled us quite a lot, but then we understood.

It was of course The Mythical Sewing Machine of the Saharan nomadic people the Tuaregs, famous for wrapping themselves in blue clothes. This is where they come when the fashions change or they simply need some new stuff.

As if to prove it, we even met a Tuareg dressed in her finest festive clothes. Her name was Klaar al-Les, and she was more than happy to let herself be photographed while sitting in the stranded jeep that was also present at this strange place, together with a plane and a, erm, boat, as well as a table with certain scientific instruments.

It was quite obvious these were things left behind by our forerunners, people like Ralph Bagnold, László Almásy and Patrick Clayton. CC, being a builder of certain skills herself, was particularly impressed by the plane’s motor.

The place we’d reached seemed to be a fairly popular hang out for the local natives. We learned that it’s called The Husk, and there are wild stories of a person called AM Radio connected to it, said to be the one having left behind all these things. At certain times, they claimed, you can see his shadow instead of your own …

With our trained anthropologist minds, CC and I quickly dismissed this as nonsense. The name «AM Radio» of course derives from when an explorer showed a radio to one of the natives in the 1930’s.

What puzzled us most was the boat. I know Almásy found ”The Cave of Swimmers” and that this area of Sahara once was filled with water. But why would anyone want to bring a boat now? My mind was racing and the sun was beating. Suddenly, when I looked up, I thought I saw CC floating in the air. The desert can make you see strange things – it was time to get some sleep.

CC had given me a rucksack large enough to live in. Still, we also had a tent, and slept in there for the night.

The next morning, we walked around to take a last look at the place before we continued our expedition. It was then CC noticed something suspicous about my shadow. It didn’t look like me, but like someone with a hat carrying things (sticks?) on the back … Puzzled, we continued our search for Zerzura.

Cars and girls – part ıı

As promised: Part ıı. As you clearly remember from part ı, we searched for a car around the whole grid before we ended up back at Primouth. Silly us. But when we finally found our car, there was no doubt in our hearts. “That’s my baby,” said Cat when we saw the flaming red Primouth 1958. “Come to mama!” It matches her shoes, see?

I paid Cat half the price, and let her do the shopping. Then we went to a sandbox to try it. Suze called, and volunteered to take part in the testing. It was to be a strange session.

Turned out it wasn’t enough to just rez the car and hop in. It was something about first rezzing the wheels, then sit on the wheels – or was it those black things? – before the driver put on the top of the car, and sat down where, and …?

It was an equally fun and frustrating experience. We got extra pairs of wheels, Cat ran around with the hood on her head, and we were quite clueless on how to get up and drive like Thelma & Louise.

Luckily, next time I met Cat, she’d learned perfectly well how to do it, and we got the ride of our lives. Please see links in part ııı.

Cars and girls – part ııı

Yes, I know it’s a bit weird with a part ııı before part ıı, but I’ve put up some driving photos on my Flickr page. I will tell you what happened before these sometime very soon.

Cars and girls – part ı

I guess it’s biological: Cars and girls are in love with each other, and you can read that as you wish. Anyway, having heard about the fab sim Primouth, where lovely cars were said to be for sale, I made my way there.

I hadn’t been there long before I met this nice guy Dex Trenchcoat, looking like he’d stepped right off the set from a 50’s movie with his brasers and hat. I took it he had a little more than a normal interest in the classic cars on display.

”We have a driving club called the Road Hogs,” he told me. ”It’s all very informal. Basically, we get together every week or two to drive along the Linden Roads from place to place. From, say a night club to a mall or an info hub. The roads are narrow, but heck yeah, they’re good to drive. It’s my favourite way of exploring the grid – and it gives you a sense of how large the grid really is.”

At this moment, I saw Cat come online. Knowing she has a thing for cars, I tp-ed her over.

She ducked straight into it. ”On the Road SL style,” she said. ”Sounds good. I like the idea.” I tried to put in a word about my bicycle, but that was dismissed long before it became a real topic.

”I encourage others to drive the Linden Roads,” said Dex, and gave us a starting point for the Ross Infohub and some freebie cars. ”I should warn you, however: There is a glitch that can end a trip real quick. They’re called bad sim crossings.”

Cat and me agreed that would add some spice and unpredictability, and went on to ask how much a nice car would cost us. ”I’d want an open top. A 50’s US jobbie. I don’t mind paying for anything stylish. I have to be stylish,” said Cat, and I suggested we’d split the bill. ”We have to buy a car and a shopping bag full of Winstons. You can’t drive a car without ciggies,” said Cat (who else?).

This turned out to be the beginning of a long and weird search for The Perfect Car for me and Cat. Weird, because we ended up where we started. But that’s embarrassing, and I won’t bother you with all that. Instead, I promise to give you full accounts of our driving adventures in SL. We have, I promise, the coolest car on the grid.

To be continued.

Du kleines süsses Kekskrümelchen du

I have no idea what this headline means. It’s German, and all I know is that German speaking people gets very happy if you call them a kleines süsses Kekskrümelchen. An image search for Kekskrümelchen leaves me no wiser. But whatever – as long as it makes them smile.

That’s really one of the funniest things of being in Second Life: Learning words and phrases in different languages, and then show them off. This time it happened while I was dancing with Cat 2 (yes, I know two Cats, quite confusing), a Schweizerdeutsch, Schwyzerdütsch, Schwiizertüütsch, Schwizertitsch (this is great!) and her friends that sang love songs.

Here’s another fave: Na du bist aber ne kleine süsse Schnullerbacke. Isn’t that lovely? Would you like to be my little Schnullerbacke?

I felt had to contribute, so I IMed my German friends Cake and Peter to ask them for phrases. “Tell them you are rollig,” said Cake. I so did, – “ich bin rollig” – and got an immediate response from the girls. “You said you’re in the mood for sex,” Cat 2 revealed. Cake!

Peter was none the better: Mann, hast Du einen geilen Arsch! I think you know just as well as I what that means. Then: Na Süsse, wie wär’s mit uns beiden? Which means: “Hey cutie, how about the two of us?” According to Cake, “that is so old fashioned and macho, that it’s cute again.” Two more from Peter: Hallo Sahneschnitte (”Hello gorgeous”) and Baby, lass Deine Titten hüpfen (”Baby, let your tits dance”).

Yesterday, Cat 2 called me meine süsse versuchung, which means “my little temptation”.

[14:34] Therese Carfagno lächelt

Our Africa

”So what goes on in Africa?” Caterin asked, just after I’d tp-ed her over to see Virtual Africa and meet my friend Alanagh Recreant, the mastermind behind the sim. As it turned out, quite a lot of things goes on in Africa.

Recently, they’ve expanded and brought in a whole lot of goodies, and Ally was more than happy to show us. ”If you want to adopt a meerkat,” she started, as that’s something you can do at the starting point. Of course – who doesn’t want a meerkat? I paid 250 and named her Caterin. ”Hm, not sure I approve,” Cat said, so now I’ve named her Lisa instead. She’s very cute: She wants to play, hides, digs, eats bugs and comes when you call. My little baby.

Ally first took us to see the Porcupine Theatre. ”Here, we’ll bring African musicians,” she said. Caterin sat down in one of the chairs that were very comfy for a theatre, and seemed to enjoy it. ”And on the other side of the sim there’s an open kraal for story telling where we’ll have writers and publishers,” Ally continued. I’ll have to introduce her to Selina Greene of Book Island.

We then went to African Rain, a club built and designed by the talented, gifted, wonderful et cetera Eshi Otawara – and it’s really a treat. A huge flower is the centrepiece here. Cat and I changed into some African fashion, a leopard and a giraffe patterned dress respectively.

”The only African musician I know well is Abdullah Ibrahim, jazz pianist,” Cat said. ”Maybe I can ask him to come perform here,” Ally said. ”You can co-host!” Cat laughed a little nervously, and said Ibrahim was a major league performer. ”We have major league guests. Maybe we can invite VIPs, like CEOs of companies, and have big tickets sold to them – in support of Africa’s access to virtual worlds,” said Ally, always the entrepreneur.

She then had to bid us goodbye, and Cat and I danced the night away African style.

Shakespeare in Second Life

Someone is playing Shakespeare in Second Life, and I think you should do like me and go see them. What they’re playing is «The Mousetrap», the so-called play within the play in «Hamlet», and it lasts half an hour.

The SL Shakespeare Company was founded by Ina Centaur last summer. Not only that: She also built a copy of The Globe, the theatre where The Bard staged his plays some 400 years ago. However, the first version of The Globe quickly turned out to be too small, so now they have a huge build where more than 120 persons have been present at the same time. It’s situated on the corners of four sims to avoid lag – the actors are in one, the audience in three others.

So what’s it like? Well, of course it’s primitive; lag is a huge challenge, the sound disappeared for a few minutes in the show that I saw – but it’s also brilliant. The stage is beautiful, the avatars and costumes look lovely, and the voice actors are doing a great job. Most of the time, I had a truly theatrical experience.

It’s also brilliant simply because they are doing it. That someone wants to use SL to stage Shakespeare is exactly what we need now and in the future, if we want our virtual world to become what we hope it will be. Yes, SLSC is a bit primitive, but they are the pioneers, they walk in front, and are the ones that one day will do something very beautiful. In November, the plan is to stage a full version of «Hamlet». Fingers crossed lag is gone from SL until then. (Hm, well, yeah. Right. Lol.)

Look here for their homepage and May schedule, and here for the article I wrote about them in SLNN.