Episode 55 – When Good Sims Go Bad

Beth was back in the Da Vinci Island sim. Beth loves the Da Vinci sim. It has gadgets. It has multiple transportation systems. It has treehouses. This time she was showing a friend around. They took the helicopter ride around the sights.
P “Look! Pirates!”
B “Look! Castle!”
P “Look! Volcano!”
B “Look! Ubiquitous bleedin’ shopping mall!”

They flew a bat to the batcave and splashed around in the water. They teleported to the undersea tunnels and clambered about stalking Nemo
P “Look! Turtle!”
B “Look! Shark!”
P “Look! Neptune in his watery kingdom”
B “Look! What’s he doing with his trident?”



And of course they scampered off to the Rocket and took the trip to Mars. They looked good – piloting that mighty, thrusting beast and bending it to their will
P “I’nt we intrepid, sis?”
B “We intrepid as, cuz!”
And that was when things started going wrong. First off, Beth’s point of view started wandering around the capsule of its own accord, and the whole rocket appeared to be shaking violently. Beth clung onto her seat. The shaking got worse. Then everything froze and a nasty little message came up saying she had been booted out of SL. Bugger! Bloody grumpy sim…

Beth logged back in. Of course – it wouldn’t be back into her seat in the rocket, would it? Of course not. Beth rezzed in to find herself plummeting through the atmosphere and into (inevitably) the sea. She picked herself up off the seabed and flew out (it’s just routine now, Beth doesn’t even think about it) She hovered about and toweled herself off while she waited for P to arrive on Mars. She accepted her tp and the two gallivanters happily donned their space helmets and took a Mars Rover for a spin. Then they popped into the Control Centre and made themselves at home. For a sweet girl, P looked distinctly evil sitting behind the big control desk. All she needed was a big furry cat and a couple of henchpeople.

P “Let’s go to Inner Space”!”
B “Sure!”
They tp-ed over and Beth found herself buried up to her waist in the floor. No amount of wriggling or “Stop animating my avatar” helped at all. She was stuck. “This sim really is in a bad mood today,” thought Beth. So she did the ol’ mini-map trick – double-clicked a couple of pixels over to the side of her yellow dot – and hey presto! She’s dangling from a gantry above a pit of doom. Switching to ‘Fly’ she did a neat maneuver that had her flipping, James Bond-like, up onto the gantry and with a quick click she was sitting inside the Blood Buggy. P tp-ed in next to her – and they were good to go
Now, a couple of people had recommended this ride – “Just like that ‘The Fantastic Voyage’ movie, with Raquel Welch” they’d said. “Are you sure it’s not gross?” Beth had enquired. “Oh no!” they’d assured her. “It’s great!”
They’d lied.
It was completely revolting.
Beth had clicked into the front seat of the Blood Buggy, so had a magnificent view of platelets, anti-bodies, frothing plasma, blood clots and other capillarity wonders. This was not Beth’s idea of a good time. She closed her eyes for most of it and waited for the ride to be over.

P “Hey Beth. Why have you stopped?”
B “Huh? I didn’t do anything!”
Beth opened her eyes to find the Blood Buggy slumped over on its side against the vein wall. Clicking every menu she could find did absolutely nothing. If this was part of the ride – it was rubbish, thought Beth. But more likely, the sim was knackered and this was a glitch. Perhaps the sim had PMT? Eventually, Beth gave in to the inevitable – they had to hit ‘Stand Up’ and walk out of there.

Wading through gore and dodging viruses was more than Beth could stand. She decided to try the mini-map trick again – but this time with her cursor poised over the ‘Fly’ button. Hovering outside the sim was a revelation. The cardio-vascular system was laid out like a big, liver-coloured subway map – but suspended in mid-air and miles above the ground. Shown in all its naked, backstage rawness, it may even have looked worse from the outside than from within. This is the side of a sim a SL resident shouldn’t see, thought Beth. It’s like seeing Jonny Depp on the toilet. Beth shut her eyes again and waited for P to get somewhere solid and send her a tp.

Eventually Beth and P ended up on a sofa on a beach, listening to birdsong and being accosted by cats. The sim didn’t appear to be in ‘hate mode’ and was leaving them be. Perhaps the sim was chagrinned, having been caught with its pants down. Perhaps if it stopped slapping her around, Beth wouldn’t feel compelled to go off and complain to others about its behavior. Perhaps the sim thought “Maybe I’ll be a bit nicer to her. I wouldn’t want her to go off and write about this in a blog or anything…”

Episode 54 - Dating Dangers

Beth has a terrific crush on someone in her Contacts List

Beth is discovering that the road to SL love (of any imaginable description) is replete with technological potholes and communication stumbling-blocks that, unfortunately, RL has left her entirely ill-prepared for. Alas, Beth is seriously considering worship-from-afar to be the only sane option for the foreseeable future. Here is the sorry tale to date:

Much to her amazement, despite the walking anomalies and the tendency to bond intimately with any nearby body of water, Beth somehow managed to coax the object of her affections into spending a little time alone with her. Something that she hoped might be broadly interpreted as a ‘date’ of some sort, should he perchance choose to incline in that direction.

Beth tried to impress him by taking him to the beautiful Sagrada Familia sim in the Hermetic Palaces region. “Come on” she thought, “Barcelona, posey architect, balloon ride – gotta beat a nudist beach into a cocked hat. I can show off my stunning intellect as well as my astonishing good taste. Surely he’ll go for that?” Beth had thought ahead and planned meticulously. She practiced teleporting in. She worked out the straightest and least embarrassing route to the balloon ride. And best of all – she discovered that there was no water in the vicinity - except the sea at the very edges of the island. Beth felt prepared and confident.

Why didn’t she share her plans with her SL friends? Perhaps one of them would have pointed out the glaringly obvious pitfalls that awaited her.



Poor Beth. Why did she imagine that piloting a balloon would be any easier than walking or flying around? Did she even stop to consider it? And what about the lag? This is a sim of the most elaborate cathedral in RL, picked out in miniscule detail. There are more colours, swirls, curlicues and fiddly bits than a Drag Queen Frock-Off in the middle of Mardi Gras. So not only did Beth’s balloon lurch around the middle-distance like a drunk on a trampoline, her pc had nowhere near the speed necessary to rez the sim in time for her to see the oncoming architecture – causing her to crash into spires and take the noses off gargoyles right, left and centre. Beth’s ‘date’ was not looking particularly impressed. In fact he looked decidedly queasy. And he laughed rather a lot. But not in a good way, she feared.

When they eventually landed (Beth spotting the sea rezzing below them seconds before they hit, and executing a heroic but bone-jarring sideways landing with about as much dignity as a skier ploughing into a snow drift) her companion proposed a drink and a nice sit down might be the next order of the day. Thanking the techno gods profusely that her companion was not, at this moment, reaching for a towel and his emergency tp Landmark, Beth readily agreed to anything he might care to suggest.

He took her to a Steampunk Music Night. The party was in full swing when they arrived. Thankful for the mercifully short and straight walk into the building and over to an empty table, Beth sat and determined to make the very best of this Alternative History opportunity. If the mechanical aesthetic of the Age of Steam really had perpetuated for another century, Beth tried to imagine if this is really how she would have been spending her evenings in RL. The venue was small and ‘intimate’ (ie no room to swing a neko). It was crowded and the atmosphere manic. The tightly-packed participants – genteel ladies, gentlemen adventurers, cats, foxes, mercenaries, steelmill owners and engineers – were all dancing wildly and joining in with songs about zombies, train wrecks and Tom Cruise. People were swinging from the chandeliers, burlesque dancing on the bar, and on stage a DJ in a kilt danced like a frenzied Pogue on speed. The patter in local chat was rabid, riddled with in-jokes, baffling and mainly downright incomprehensible. Trying to hide the fact that she was clearly out of her depth, Beth attempted witty banter and wry observation on her companion and tried to calculate a dignified exit route through the tumult for the moment it would be needed.



Just as she was starting to relax, to her horror, Beth’s companion (very politely and with knee-melting grace and charm) asked her to dance. Beth blanched visibly and her bowels turned to water. Steampunk dance balls? Beth had barely got her training wheels wet on the nice, conservative couple’s dances at Bella Vida. How many ways to embarrass herself might lurk in that innocent-looking intan? Beth stumbled out an apology. Her ‘date’ looked a little miffed. Beth babbled something about ‘all the people’ and ‘how hot it was getting in here’, and prayed for an SL-wide crash to bring her salvation. Her gracious companion must have taken this as a hint and suggested taking her to a different sim – outside and in the sunshine. He also mentioned that there was a device there he thought she might enjoy. Beth blinked and gulped but knew he was too much of a gentleman to be suggesting anything untoward. A gadget, perhaps? Beth loves gadgets. A new ride? Beth is having a peculiar love-affair with any and all of the many and varied modes of transportation in SL, so if her date was suggesting a new way to float, zoom or skedaddle around a sim, Beth would be thrilled to bits.

Her gentleman friend poofed off and sent her a tp. ‘Mexico 2’. Beth was intrigued. She took a deep breath and clicked on the teleport. After the whoosh, Beth found herself dappled with sunlight, surrounded by green, and inches away from the broadly smiling face of her erstwhile companion. Her first thought was “Yay! No water!” Then she plummeted 60 ft through the forest canopy and hit the dirt with a thud. She received a concerned and apologetic IM
He “Oh Beth, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise the platform was so small. The tp I sent you must have made you miss the edge. I really am very sorry”
She “Um, no worries. I’m fine. Er, where are you. Exactly?”
He “Stay there. I’ll move right to the middle of the platform and send you another tp. Then you should be able to land…”
But unfortunately, it transpired that there is a gap between the tree and the middle of the platform. Beth’s ‘date’ plummeted 60 ft through the forest canopy and hit the dirt with a thud. Both of them cast about sheepishly and Beth found her mind filling with comforting thoughts of tidying her inventory and deleting old notecards. Surely the evening couldn’t get any worse…



About 10 minutes later - after flying up the wrong tree trunk, getting wedged underneath the platform, overshooting, narrowly missing a ziggurat and various other dismal failures to reach the platform – Beth finally found herself standing next to her companion and a bright green Flying Fox. “Oh yes! This is more like it!” thought Beth. She jumped aboard and plummeted earthwards (but in a far more dignified and interesting manner than previously) However, moments later she had landed. “Hmmm” thought Beth. “It takes me all evening to get here, I think I’m in for a wild ride, and in a few seconds it’s all over. Story of my bloody life, or what…”



The object of Beth’s fondness decided (quite sensibly, in her opinion) that now might be a good time to call it a night. As nothing had gone disastrously wrong and no technological challenge had flummoxed her for several minutes, Beth found herself agreeing that this would be an appropriate high-point to end on. Their closing farewell IMs at least confirmed in Beth’s mind that the two of them were still friends, much to her relief. She decided to continue harbouring deep, unrequited affections for this avatar, but considered it safest to leave it at that. Nursing a bruised heart, a tattered dignity and a badly twisted knee, Beth limped back to the safety of the Botanical Gardens and a night on her own, out of harm’s way. She might not be going on any more ‘dates’ with her paramour. But she might very well be sneaking back to Mexico 2 in the very near future to play on the hang glider…

Episode 53 - Beth comes to terms with her disabilities

Since the moment she hatched into SL, Beth discovered she was saddled with not one, but two, physical handicaps. She can’t walk very well. No, let’s be honest – she is total crap at walking. Faced with a curved path, Beth’s heart sinks. She tries to walk as slowly as she can and asks her Operator to vibrate the l or r direction key maniacally. But still she drifts gracelessly over into the road, or the hillside or the wall. Holding the direction key for more than a fraction of a second results in her whirling dramatically and shooting off at an angle. Her Operator is developing RSI to go with her growing addiction to SL-ing.

Beth also suffers dramatically from morbid hydrophilia – an unholy affinity with water. Perhaps her avatar is constructed from wetons or dripsels. But if there is so much as a glass of water in a room – Beth will dive headlong into it. Imagine the problems she has near rivers and seas? She curses the SL sim-builders with their positively unnatural obsession with gorgeous beaches, babbling brooks and all those thousands of tumbling waterfalls. Perhaps it works the other way – perhaps all the water in SL has Bethophilia – but either way, the attraction is as fatal as any Bunny Boiler scenario.



So in spite of her sparkling wit, her devilish repartee and her unusual Victorian Librarian Transvestite look – Beth consistently destroys any possibility that new friends on SL will take her in the slightest bit seriously the moment she attempts locomotion in any way, shape or form. You can just imagine how far down her estimation has plummeted with regards to getting an actual date on SL. Helpful people have offered her new walk AOs, tips and advice on changing the graphics and general pointers in abundance on achieving the simple joy of wandering around aimlessly without falling off the sim. Or they have just laughed themselves stupid as she ploughs over a cliff or into the river. Sadly, all to no avail. Beth blames her equipment. But this is generally scoffed at (“a bad workman blames his tools” attitude abounds) – and she knows that, secretly, everyone thinks she is a total dork. Beth has resigned herself to living in a cruel and discriminating world (or at least to the fact that she has chosen a very bad crowd of friends – but who are probably no more than she deserves anyway)

Beth’s Operator, however, fails consistently to ‘take the shame’. She cannot tolerate her avatar’s relentless inability to walk down a corridor in a sensible manner or stay away from riverbeds. Fully recognising her decision as one more sign of an addiction flourishing like a fungus within her rapidly composting brain, Beth’s Operator determined to attempt a technical solution for Beth’s maladies. On the advice of a trusted tech supporter, she actually took herself to a RL consumer electronics suppliers to buy her first (and probably only, ever) gaming joystick.

Now, Beth describes her Operator as an obese, alcoholic sad-sack, well-travelled down the road to mental and physical decrepidity. So you can imagine the trauma to be faced by one of such advanced age and obvious technical ineptitude, who would venture thus into a typical retail outlet populated by pimply children high on Gen Y. The contempt, as Beth’s Operator bumbled through the transaction, was palpable. But she did it – and Beth is delighted. OK, she only falls in the water about a third less often than she used to. And she still has to take four steps in any one direction before stopping to make a course correction – but she can do it a heck of a lot faster and with distinctly more accuracy than before. But the main reason behind Beth’s child-like joystick joy is that her most-used commands are available at the touch of a button and her Inventory is right there on the trigger! Beth’s Operator can now safely save her wrists for other applications in RL (ie - cooking food, putting on clothes, washing up a cup now and again - that sort of thing) And she will just have to learn to live with pulling Beth’s face out of a wall every so often, and those endless offers to pass her a towel…

Episode 52 - First Contact with the Lag Monster

Beth has been happily trudging around SL for a few weeks and has been picking up the local lingo. She now understands that things ‘rez’ into view (i.e. when she teleports into a new sim she is surrounded by amorphous brown and grey blobs which she can spend the next 10 minutes guessing about - will they will turn into trees, buildings, spaceships or a naked couple going at it like knives? Unfortunately, Beth's Operator does not have a gaming PC…) She also knows that things are made of ‘prims’, that dances come from pose balls and pose balls come from intans, and that it is often better to get a 'male casual walk' (or AO) unless you want your female avatar to move around like an oversexed prostitute on heat. She has also come to understand that just about any mistake is forgivable if you blame it on things being ‘laggy’.

So, Beth had heard about lag but was not sure if she had ever experienced it. Lag is a bit like ‘flu in that respect, lots of people say they have it and take a day off work. It is only after you have been laid up in bed for three days, so desperately ill you think your face is going to fall off and you’re crying for your “mummy” - that you realise EXACTLY what flu is all about. And so it wasn’t until the day the Lag Monster grabbed Beth by the derriere and dragged her into the torpid, stinking pit of Lag Hell did she comprehend just how torturously embarrassing the experience can be. This is what happened:

Beth had met up with a lovely woman who wanted to introduce her lovely friend who owned a lovely jewellery shop. The friend was indeed lovely, and so was his jewellery shop. In fact, the whole area was lovely and they were a lovely couple. When they invited her over to see the apartment Beth was delighted. She was not worried by any ‘dodgy’ thoughts as they were both so lovely. She simply determined to be on her best behaviour and have a lovely time.

Things started to go wrong on the short trip to the apartment. Beth's strange walk was proving stranger than usual. Sometimes she couldn't seem to move, and then she’d shoot forward moments later at great speed. Sometimes she would appear to have walked several yards, only to find herself in some sort of ‘instant replay’ mode with the distance she thought she had covered still to be traversed. Hoping for the best, Beth ignored the signs and ploughed on gamely. The next challenge was the security fence. To get to the apartment the three of them had to fly over an invisible barrier. Beth found her flying to be as seriously impaired as her walking. After a period of flashing around the middle distance like a bumble bee in need of an anger management course, the lovely couple took pity on her and sent her a teleport. The whoosh seemed to last an inordinate amount of time and when she arrived, Beth found she had real difficulties even turning from left to right. The lovely couple proceeded to show her around the lovely apartment. Beth was beginning to suspect some sort of a trick. She would aim for a door and it would move before she got there. She would enter a room only to discover she was actually still outside it. She would walk up a corridor to find herself trapped inside a pot plant that she swore had not been there moments ago. She apologised profusely to the lovely couple, who blamed it on lag.

So now Beth knew the nature of the technological crisis but, as usual, had no real idea of what to do about it. Much later she would learn tricks like ‘logoffandonagain’, reduce your screen size and turn off every single, little tiny application on your desktop. But for now Beth thought she must be trapped in an old episode of ‘The Avengers’. In some sort of perverse, twisting house of mirrors – unable even to communicate with the other two as local chat was only allowing her to type about one character a minute. The house continued to turn against her, mocking her feeble attempts to seek help and find a way out. She heard the words "Watch out for the hot tub" but had no concept of the vicinity of the object until she was splashing around and soaking the carpet. Finding herself at a complete loss as to how to clamber out of said hot tub, Beth tried to levitate with the fly button. She really should have known better. The next thing she knew she was careening about the apartment at head height, narrowly missing the christmas tree and ending up – somehow - halfway through a window pane wriggling like an insect trapped on a pin. Beth had reached terminal embarrassment. She can't remember how, but she got a message to the lovely couple and she tp-ed herself out. The whoosh took so long, she feared she had completely pixilated. But she made it back to her secret changing room in the sky, apparently in one piece. She logged out and Beth's Operator put her head between her knees and took some long, deep breaths. With great trepidation Beth logged back on again and spent long minutes apologising lamely to each member of the lovely couple. They seemed to understand. But Beth seriously doubted that she would be invited in for a cup of tea again.



Beth quickly genned up on anti-lagging tips until she felt she had sufficiently inoculated herself against future bouts. She was determined not to let the Lag Monster spoil her SL fun. After all, who knew what the *next* lovely couple might have in mind for her when inviting her back to their apartment? If Beth found herself wriggling like an insect on some future occasion, she certainly hopes it will be down to something far more interesting than the Lag Monster!

SLers guide to NZers - New Zealand Shut for the Holidays

For the two weeks around christmas and new year, New Zealand packs the tent and the bbq, shoves the kids and the dogs in the back of the car and heads for the beach. Summer is seriously underway in the RL southern hemisphere. The pohutukawas (*1) are in full bloom and people head for their favorite camping grounds and family bachs. A bach is a kind of ‘beach cabin’ used just for holidays. They tend to be either flash, new and recently built by wealthy NZers or rich Americans with a Lord of the Rings fetish. Or they are shonky, barely-maintained shacks that have been in a family’s possession for several generations now.

(*1) a prolific, gnarly coastal tree with blood-red flowers that bursts into life in the last two weeks of December. NZers, being on the whole a practical and pragmatic people, call them ‘Kiwi christmas trees’)



This year Beth has use of one of the later types of bach, right on Bob’s Bay in the lovely town of Whaknga (*2) During the day, Beth pretty well has the place to herself, as most of her adopted countrymen are off picnicking like crazy, playing rugby or indulging in the time-honoured Kiwi tradition of slaughtering wildlife. Yes, NZers are keen hunters and fishers. Deer, pigs, possums (*3), hobbits (*4), each other (*5) – Kiwis like to get out there and bag one for the pot.

*2 Quick lesson in pronunciation – wh = f, as in fat; a = ah, as in arse; k = hard ‘c’, as in kick; ng = nasal ‘ng’, as in ring. So Whaknga = fahk-nah

*3 Deer, pigs and possums were all introduced by well-intentioned but bloody idiotic colonizers and now cause havoc with the native flora and fauna. Hence NZers feel duty-bound to dispense with as many of them as possible to make up for their predecessors’ mistakes.

*4 Hobbits are also considered a pest – their enormous hairy feet trample crops and knock out fences with monotonous regularity. Since the success of the LOTR movies, hobbits have become even more uppity and some are even demanding the right to be treated like people! But that is unlikely to happen any time soon…

*5 Hunters shooting each other is also a regular feature of NZ life. Whether this is down to ‘friends’ settling old scores or the stubborn refusal of your average Kiwi bloke to get his eyes tested or admit to needing glasses, it’s hard to say…

And of course, new year’s day - the Glorious 1st – means that dolphin-hunting season officially opens to much merriment and celebration! Now most people seem to have this romantic notion about dolphins being cute, cuddly, friendly creatures –very photogenic and with good TV presence. SL shows worrying signs of having fallen for this misconception. You can hardly move for gamboling delphinidae in some sims – leaping out of the water at you with sinister, leering grins. However, Kiwis know them for what they really are – cunning, vicious gangsters, misusing their considerable intelligence for thoroughly bad purposes. The mayors and councilors of most coast towns in NZ are enmeshed in a constant battle against illegal gambling, credit card fraud and dodgy pyramid-selling schemes. Bob’s Bay is crawling with these denizens of organized crime. So Beth is very happy to do her civic duty by taking pot-shots at the crafty blighters whenever they have the audacity to break surface and laugh disparagingly at the local populace.



So while the RL northern hemisphere and much of SL wrap up warm in hats and scarves, and trudge through Winterfestivaly streets knee-deep in snow drifts, Beth intends to spend the next couple of weeks toasting her toes in the sunshine, sipping Marlborough pinot gris and grilling dolphin steaks on an open fire. Season’s greetings to you all.

Episode 51 – It’s not only the men who can be a nuisance

Beth was having a wonderful time exploring Victorian science-fiction sims. She was playing in rocket ships, getting up-close and personal with Bessemer Convertors, taking submarine rides and generally behaving like a Big Kid. She was wearing her riding breeches and a red hat and thought she was the bees knees. This is what SL is all about, she was thinking.



A female avatar failed to get out of Beth’s blundering trajectory quickly enough, so a conversation ensued
Me “Hi A….! Are you enjoying yourself?”
She “Hi Beth. Yes I am”
Me “This is a great place. So much to do and see!”
Top right screen: ‘A… has offered you friendship’
Whoa there missy, thinks Beth. That’s a tad forward. I’m only saying “hi”. Beth ignores the pop-up
She “Oh yes. Some of these sims are really pretty”
Me “There’s a really cool helicopter ride. I recommend it”



She “I sent you a friendship offer. Did you get it?”
Beth resorts to ‘lame’
Me “Oh – um. Maybe not. But I haven’t worked out what everything does yet!”
The pop-up is still there. Big and blue. ‘Accept. Decline. Accept. Decline’
She “I’m from Scotland”
Anxious not to re-emerge too swiftly from her warm bath of SL sim-iness, Beth tries to draw A.... away from RL conversation.
Me “Thomas Stevenson was Scottish. I think they’ve recreated one of his lighthouses near here”
She “Did you get my friendship offer yet?"
The pop-up throbs as a dozen lies put themselves forward for consideration. ‘Accept. Decline. Accept. Decline’
Me “Um. Hang on . I’ll have a proper look. I’m gonna climb the lighthouse later. SL is great, isn’t it? You can behave like a Big Kid all the time!”
She “Have you got any kids?”
Yikes! Beth couldn’t give a flying monkey’s shit about this woman’s RL. Especially her kids. What was wrong with her, Beth wondered? Has she not looked around? Does she not have eyes to see?
Me “Er. I’ve got a couple of dogs”
Beth is quickly exhausting her bucket of RL distraction lines. And still the pop-up glows and pulses. ‘Accept. Decline. Accept. Decline’. There is nothing in both worlds that Beth wants more at this precise moment than to decline this woman’s friendship. But how? She doesn’t want to be rude. But this woman is going about it all wrong. Beth starts to recall snippets and warnings about people out to get newbies. Is this woman one of them? Has she got evil intentions towards her? Is this all some wicked ploy?
She “I’ve got three kids”
Oh god, nooooo! This is no calculating cyber-villain. This woman is just, tediously, torturously, terminally boring! She’s just come on to SL to look for unwary people who will listen to her banging on about her f**king kids! Presumably because everyone in her RL neighbourhood would rather hide in their house than take the risk of running into her on the street. Beth has to get away. The awful realisation hits her that this scenario could potentially be worse than being stuck in an Irish bar with a whole bevy of sweaty poets…
And still the pop-up of Damocles hangs there above her head. ‘Accept. Decline. Accept. Decline. ACCEPT. DECLINE’.
She “My kids showed me how to get into SL. Don’t you want to be friends with me?”
Beth imagines what she would like to do to this woman’s bastard offspring if she ever got hold of them. But then she decides that they have probably suffered enough, considering… ‘Accept. Decline. Accept. Decline. ACCEPT. DECLINE’. What should she do? She’d never thought to ask anyone what you do if you didn’t want to be friends with someone. Is it a major commitment? Can you get rid of them later? Will they know? Can they still find you afterwards and continue to force you to listen to their dreary life story? Beth was starting to panic. What to do? What to do?
She “And I have four grandkids! Why haven’t you accepted my friendship yet?”
Because I would rather tp into the Ancient Rome Gladiator sim with no weapons or even the first clue what the rules of the game are, rather than talk to you for one more nanosecond you boring cow!, thinks Beth
‘Accept. Decline. Accept. Decline. ACCEPT. DECLINE’. Beth crumbles.
Me “Oh look! There it is! Silly me…”
Beth hits the ‘accept’ button and crosses fingers, toes and legs. Maybe she has bought some time. Maybe someone will know how to get her out of this later.
She “We took the grandkids to Majorca with us this year”
Beth brain forms the truly terrifying image of this woman producing a virtual handbag and pulling out a textures folder bulging with snaps of her and the brats on the beach. Beth can take no more. She falls back on the worst excuse going
Me “Oh sorry A…. I have to go. There’s someone at the door”

Bloody, battered and totally despairing of the socially inept depths to which she was forced to sink, Beth poofs to her secret changing room in the sky. She IMs her nearest online contact and wails about her predicament. She is told that just deleting the Scottish woman's contact will allow her to sink into blissful anonymity once more. Beth makes herself feel better by picking through her ‘To Sort’ folder and imagining what might yet be in all those unopened boxes. But that little niggle still jumps in once in a while. “There’s someone at the door”
Oh, puh-lease….



.

Episode 50 – Bloody poets...

Beth is seriously considering forming a SL Group called “No Poets” so she can have the label hovering over head when she goes out. This might give them an unequivocal message, perhaps dissuading them from bothering her or following her home. Now let’s get one thing straight right from the start. Beth is a big SL girl now – she knows there are people in here indulging in all sorts of sensuous, wicked and licentious activities – poetry being one of them. And she is a tolerant person. She knows there are a lot of people out there wanting to write poetry – and a lot of people who want to read it. She has no problem with the fact that these people need to meet up in order to indulge. And knows to expect a certain degree of ‘checking out’ in public places. She doesn’t mind people flicking a few stanzas around on Local Chat to ‘test the waters’. She understands that she might receive the odd IM from some misguided soul who imagines she might be ‘up for it’. She knows there are poetry clubs. She knows there are group readings. Heck, we were all young once – Beth freely admits she has tried poetry herself. But it’s not for her. Beth knows there is a place for poetry in any and all worlds. But she is never going to respond well to a direct encounter with an actual poet. Especially this kind:

Beth was returning from the Blarney Stone after seeing Joaquin Gustav – a fabulous French guitarist who is most certainly on her recommended list of things to do in SL. She was buoyed up on Guinness and in a splendid mood, humming along to the catchy Spanish tune Joaquin had encored with. Then the IM came…
He “Hi Beth. I hear you are a writer. Would you like to see my poem?”
She “Oh, hi N…. Um, I’m really not a great one for poems”
He “I’d like to show it to you”
Beth is getting a bad feeling already. What is it with some guys and this urgent need to have you look at their poems?
She “Hey, really N…. I’d be the worst person to ask. I’m no poet”
He “I’d really appreciate it if you could take a look. I’d like your opinion”
Beth had heard of embarrassing incidents where poets had forgotten to check their avatars after a reading session – and had left the building with their poems still poking out for all to see (and accepted it as just one of those things that happens in SL, something everyone can have a good laugh about) But Beth is not prepared to indulge someone who wants to thrust his poem in her face, unbidden
She “Really It wouldn’t be fair to give you a critique. I’m not the person to ask”
He “Its long”
She “I’m sure its enormously long, N…. And I can tell you’re really very proud of it”
He “Lots of other writers want to see it”
Beth groans at where such illogic and misdirection might cast up. She glances round for an escape route.
He “I can send you a copy – I have it on a notecard”
Beth’s stomach turns at the thought of a copy of this guy’s gnarly ol’ poem turning up top right on her pc screen. Honestly, don’t they get it? She knew it wouldn’t be anything special. They never are. As far as Beth is concerned, you’ve seen one poem – you’ve seen them all.
She “Thanks everso for the offer N…. I’m sure it’s really nice. But straight out – I don’t want to see a copy of your poem”
He “It’s a romantic poem. I really think you might like it. Please take a look”
Beth throws up a little bit in the back of her mouth. Beth is proud of her live-and-let-live approach to most stuff life throws at her. She prides herself on being able to hunt down a rational explanation for most things. But when it comes to romanticism, she runs up against a total no-no. Beth has to get away. And now...



She “N…. Somewhere out there is a woman who is gonna love your poem and will read it for hours. But seriously, you haven’t met her tonight. I do, however, wish you all the best with it”
And with the briefest “Gotta go” Beth whooshed off to the Botanical Gardens. She stared into the waterfall until she had washed away the lingering, slightly malodorous image in her head of this wretched creature: dishevelled, ratty-haired, standing with his limp poem dangling between his fingers – a pathetic and pitiable creature who probably deserved sympathy and understanding. Beth tried, but she couldn’t muster it. “Nah,” she thought. “Bloody poets…”



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