Month: March 2008

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The Most Honourable The Marchioness of Giggleford

An invitation to all and sundry from His Serenity, Otenth Haakon Paderborn, Jarl of Orcadia, Duke of Murdann, Viscount Ormsby of Little West Sniggery and Giggleford, Thegn of Aa:

You are cordially invited to the Investiture of The Most Honourable The Marchioness of Giggleford, Soliel Snook.

Saturday, 29 March
1-3 pm SLT
Wyre Fairgrounds

A short presentation will be followed by revelry and silliness. Music will be provided by Radio Riel, with presenters Otenth Paderborn and Soliel Snook.

Orcadian court genealogists continue to put their records in order (duly forwarding their discoveries to Begonia’s Peepage), and they have uncovered a familial relationship between Lady Giggleford and I, which prompted me to bestow on my kinswoman the title Marchioness of Giggleford.

Our common ancestor is his Grace, James Guinne Ormsby, Third Duke of Murdann, of whom I am the great-great-great-grandson by his first marriage, to Lady Lydia Jane Maclachlan, and of whom the new Lady Giggleford is the great-great-granddaughter by his second marriage, to Lady Wilhelmina Sylvia Post, making us half third cousins, once removed.

Yes, it is confusing, isn’t it? I’m also both the great-great-grandson and the great-great-great-grandson of Sigurdr Oskrr Aas, whose daughters Eleanor Margaret Aas and Sif Gudrun Aas married, respectively, my great-grandfather, His Serenity, Otenth Heinrich Paderborn, Jarl of Orcadia, and my great-great-grandfather, Magnus Haakon Heidrun, Baron Wyre. I believe this makes me my own third cousin, once removed.

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De-specifizing Tenth Life

As far as I know, all my readers participate in the same virtual world as I. If so, you may read the official blog of the company that owns the architecture of said world, and know that they have decided to take a heavy hand with copyright (their own, but no one else’s, of course) and trademark. So I have begun removing all specific mention of said company and said virtual world and will make my best effort to use generic terms henceforth.

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March literary salon

As I am each third Tuesday, I will be at home tomorrow for conversation. The March topic is drawn from “The beauty of life,” an address delivered before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design on February 19, 1880, by William Morris:

‘HAVE NOTHING IN YOUR HOUSES THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW TO BE USEFUL OR BELIEVE TO BE BEAUTIFUL.’

What is the relevance of this “golden rule” to our first or second lives?

Please join me at Ormsby Hall, Caledon Murdann, on Tuesday 18 March, from 5:00 to 7:00 pm SLT.

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Relay for Life

The 2008 Relay for Life in our favorite virtual world effort was launched today. I encourage you to participate in events and to give generously to the fight against cancer. This year 20% of the donations will be going to non-U.S. destinations. (The SLRFL is associated with the American Cancer Society and there’s a real-life Relay for Life.)

I created a low-key team to bring together friends who want to quietly support RFL. Team Elizabeth Blackwell is named in honor of the first woman to receive an M.D. degree from an American medical school, in 1849.

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No comment

Over on the Official [our favorite virtual world] Blog, they have comments turned off on a post informing us of Group Chat Maintenance:

You may experience temporary disruption in group chat. The disruption will consist mainly of group chats ending and receiving errors when chatting within the group. Closing the group chat tab and reopening the chat should restore the group chat function.

And that would be different how?

[4/13/08 edit: removed link as well as name, because if they don’t want me using their name, they don’t deserve to get any search ranking from me, either.]

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Open space

Soon, Linden Research, Inc. will be selling open space (also called “void”) sims at prim parity with regular sims; i.e., for 1/4 of the cost (initial and monthly), you can have a sim with all the space and 1/4 of the prims of a regular sim. The one catch is that open space sims can only be bought by those who already own a regular sim.

I encourage anyone who likes the look and mellow nature of Wyre who is interested in renting such a sim to contact me. I would be happy to consider purchasing and renting out new adjoining sims.

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AM Radio installation finale

By pure chance, on Thursday evening I was half-way paying attention to the Caledon state channel when people started chatting about fireworks. As luck would have it, the weekly Unitarian Universalist worship service had just ended, so I decided to TP over. The fireworks in question were on a sim that was displaying an installation by the artist AM Radio (he of David’s Marat and The Far Away), and it was the final night of the installation. What luck! Here are a few of my photos, which cannot do justice to the work.

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The sky is falling (again)

Two very nice responses to recent articles in [our favorite virtual world]’s most notorious rag on gasp! content theft and open-sourcing code.

First, Miss Ordinal Malaprop’s straightforward analysis of new “copybot” scares:

There is nothing at all new about any of this.

Be sure to read the comments to see Second Life’s notorious antagonist in action.

And today we have Mr Barney Boomslang’s ranting sarcasm on the dangers of open source:

Oh my, the doom is near, everyone off to the bomb shelters, man the lifeboats, the sky is falling!

(No comments to entertain the masses on Mr Boomslang’s blog.)

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Overcome by fabulousness

Last night while acting as the Radio Riel host for a treehousewarming party for the Davies clan in Steelhead Harborside, I was quite overcome by fabulousness. (No, not mine, the home’s and the assembled company’s!) Luckily for me, Miss Myfanwy Davies was prepared to assist not only her guests but her event staff:

Just for the sake of a modicum of self-defense regarding the outfit, I plead temporary insanity by virtue of being egged on in Caledon state chat by Lady Edwina Heron and Lady Diamanda Gustafson earlier in the day. (The Caledon Second Anniversary treasure hunt prepared by said ladies and their minions being an enormous success and the occasion for the foolish chatter on the state channel.)

I’m sorry not to have gotten a photo that would do justice to the tiara and <ahem> lovely hair sent to me by Lady Edwina to accompany the tutu, similarly gifted. I was also holding a rather large, winged steampunk wand for most of the evening.