Smashed Explorer

A surprising development

2008-04-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

Well, surprising unless you had inside knowledge about my half-arsed looking for land. I hadn't been going at it very seriously, just seeing if anything would come up. And it did - a 512 sq m plot in Cape Wrath, too good to miss. So I've got land! In Caledon, most beautiful land on the grid!

More surprising perhaps is that I went and got a pub. Well, I like pubs, everybody knows that, so it felt like a natural thing. I had problems thinking up a name and ended up sort of naming it for myself - that's what a lack of imagination does to ye, I suppose.

But do come on over, relax, have a drink, play some En Garde. That's what I set up the place for. Open all hours, it is. None of that "last orders" rubbish here.

Meme

2007-12-08T15:30:00.000-08:00

Looks like I was tagged with that meme about 8 random facts that everybody else has been doing. Guess I picked the wrong day to glance at the blogs, since I feel compelled to answer it. Maybe someone will actually read this.

Here's the boring truth about my RL avatar:

1. I live on an island on the southwestern coast of Norway. This seems to be regarded as exotic by people in foreign lands. I live at the place my last name is for - and my street address shows it. I've never (apart from a year's compulsory military service) lived more than 10 kilometres away from where I was born. I like it here.

2. The local accent which I speak is of a sort that it might be argued my English is better. English is my only foreign language, though I know a bit of German and it can generally be puzzled out -and for some strange reason it's easy to understand when someone speaks it at me.

3. I work at an aluminium smelter. This may be one of the most steampunky jobs anywhere.

4. I wear conspicuous boots in RL as well as in SL. My liking for ales also transcends the barrier between Lives, but I don't have the opportunity to drink that often in RL. I'm not bald in RL though.

5. I wasn't "born in the wrong century" - I like my modern medical science and dentistry, indoor plumbing and broadband internet. Caledon is just for fun.

6. I don't watch TV and many celebrities are quite unknown to me.

7. I envy all those people who get an education and enjoy it. For me when I've tried it it's always been about being impoverished, bored and anxious and hating my fellow humans. I enjoy working.

8. I don't have a single braincell that can be used for creative work. Excellent memory, but things like writing are painful - like permanent writer's block. Creating anything three-dimensional is right out. I just can't wrap my mind around it.

I refuse to tag anyone, because there probably isn't eight people in SL who haven't been tagged already; and besides I don't like these chainletter memes so I'm not about to inflict them on others.

New Land

2007-03-01T12:36:00.000-08:00

In my telescope, I spotted what looked like a new continent to the east. New and pristine land! Unspoiled by the savages with their casinos, strip malls and strip clubs!

I travelled across the void in my trusty airship to Explore.
Oh dear. The western parts of it were defiled by the blight already. Which should be expected. The foul curse of No Entry would make travel difficult in the defiled parts, while gaudy For Sale signs littered the plains.

It looked better inland, where the rolling plains were empty.
I was joined by a few of Caledon's bravest, eager to Explore this new found land. Travelling eastwards with miss Nabila Nadir, we came to the eastern edge of the continent.

As I looked out into the void, I was put in mind of the works of H.G. Wells.

"The sea stretched away to the south-west, to rise into a sharp bright horizon against the wan sky. There were no breakers and no waves, for not a breath of wind was stirring. Only a slight oily swell rose and fell like a gentle breathing, and showed that the eternal sea was still moving and living."

Mr Smashcan Explores something

2007-02-05T17:44:00.000-08:00

There were five of us - mr Mesmer, miss Lightfoot, miss Begonia, mr Sputnik, and myself. To say nothing of the Cthulhu. We were in mr Sputnik's Cabinet - a device that appears on the outside as a rather smallish Police Call Box of the type that will fit one or maybe two people in relative comfort (and twelve to fifteen in extreme discomfort), but on the inside has room for quite a large party (and having a very well-stocked bar, it may indeed be a party in every meaning of the word).

It is the nature of the Cabinet to disregard the laws of space and time, which is quite convenient. As long as one avoids causing paradoxes by changing the past, of course - for some reason it seems to be quite common to attempt to shoot one's grandfather, and that causes all sorts of situations. One never knows who'll be able to turn up to the funeral, for instance.

Mr Sputnik received a distress call from a Frogstar ship, whatever that is - and we soon arrived in The Wastelands. An aptly named place, if ever there was one. We alighted in a bunker where a sign advised - well, ordered - us to put away all weapons, and I reluctantly hid away my gun. It does not do to upset the natives.

Well outside, we were treated to a bleak, depressing world. Even the most mis-managed colony should never look like it. We quickly encountered some of the natives, who though they seemed to consider cannibalism quickly turned out to be both talkative and relatively friendly. (There was a mr Spoonhammer there who must have been a descendant of a gentleman I've met in Caledon).

We left the natives to continue their discussion of horseless carriages or whatever it was, though supplied them with some books for moral support. They had warned us about the lack of water, and indeed, not a drop to drink anyway. The ground was a sandy desert with strips of tarmacadam -presumably old roads - and ruins. There were copious sink-holes, down some of which there were pipes spewing a hideous green ichor. All under a remorselessly burning sun. So much for my ancestors' legends of Ragnarok, in which Fenris Wolf eats the sun!

In our quest for the distressed ship, we further encountered an empty, desolate pub with a mechanical bartender and not an ale on tap, and an unspeaking trader with some kind of music box. One of the natives, a mr Jimador, I believe, joined us and explained where there could be found a starship. We promptly followed him and within a short time encountered a large crater, down which we found a rather ominous looking "Nuke", and a sort of coffin labeled "Forbidden knowledge". Subtlety is not the way of the future.

Reaching the conclusion that there was nothing to be done for whomever had sent out the distress signal, we made our way back to the place we had arrived. A sort of command post held various maps, the labels on which suggested that the Russian Empire had at some point in this timeline fallen to Marxism. Thanking mr Jimador, we left that distressing place by Cabinet.

It is clear to me that we must do whatever is in our power to avert this future. Cannibalism, desert sun, empty pubs, the horror!