Referencing you-know-what

I’d like to think that maybe somewhere someone read my blog and decided to give this virtual world I am talking about a try. I haven’t had many readers lately, but it used to be well visited, and even some of those running the virtual world came by, like Torley You-Know-Who.

The other day I was eating in a world famous American hamburger restaurant - I drove there in my car, an Italian automobile produced in Turin. And as I walked over to a table with my tray of French fries, their trademark chicken burger and a widely known brand of dark brown soda, taking care not to spoil anything on my new sports shoes with three stripes, it struck me how hard it would be to describe our world if we would have to leave out all the brand names. Or what a jumble of ™ and (r) and (c) we would find in every text, making it almost illegible.

In any case, the world’s most used text program - yes, I also use the most used operating system, albeit not the latest incarnation - doesn’t make it easy at all to add those little symbols, and I hate to say it, but the provider of this blog doesn’t help much either. And so, thanks to new rules laid down by the people who run this virtual world I am talking about, it is now extra hard to write about it. And maybe the next visitor to this blog won’t know what this world is I am talking about, and therefore cannot give it a try.

But is that my loss?

Have To

Really, I have to finish that bus I am building. One or two textures, tweak the freebie script, done. And I should absolutely finish the jacket X. ordered from me. It’s simple - just add the logo, there’s nothing to it. Come to speak of jackets, I really should get cracking on opening a new store with a new collection, a new look and a new presentation.  But I have this other great idea as well, never done before, and it could be a great success. Before doing anything actually useful with that idea, let me first design a logo, devise an advertisement campaign, write stirring promo texts. That’s the fun part - as soon as that’s done, it will be a non-starter just like everything else I did.

I have in my inventory a bus, an armored vehicle, some cars and trucks, a command module and a truck to load it on, all unfinished, plus lots of clothing textures in need of tweaking, and I have on my harddisk some nice logos, some good ideas for clothing… and in my head I have plans on a much grander scale. And none of it happens. None of it happens because I feel I have to work on it.

It’s the story of my life - as a kid I used to come home from school, feeling all positive and good about doing my homework after tea, and getting it over with quickly, to get that nice feeling of having finished your work for the day. Then, after two cups of tea, my mother would ask me if I didn’t have any homework to do… and out went all the good intentions. Needless to say I hardy ever did homework. I dilly-dallied, I procrastinated, and I haven’t been able to snap out of that since then.

And so, in Second Life, I end up travelling around, being a Mentor and helping anyone who needs it. Anyone except myself.  Newbies come to me and tell me of their great plans - delve into scripting, build fantastic architecture, make pets with AI programmed in - and I give them pointers about how to realize them, where to turn to, whom to consult. At the same time I realize that no video tutorial, no poster board, no web link, no SL Wiki article, no Resident is ever going to be able to help me realize my potential.