Elwood Abernathy

Work

2009-07-04T16:18:00.000-07:00

When in the Course of the human work week, it becomes necessary for one to drink 29 cups of coffee, check email 344 times, and add 92 twitter friends, all while avoiding one's superiors; we must assume that one is living separate of the station to which the Laws of Nature entitle them. In the case of such a circumstance in which one's day job is not as sweet as they wish it to be, there is no choice but to break free of the cubicle thinking that has kept us in its clutch.

Age Play

2009-02-07T16:50:00.001-08:00

Okay I really need to address the issue of age play. If age play is defined as sexual activities between children or between a child and an adult, that is against the TOS, completely, and is grounds for terminations of all accounts. With this I totally agree. If age play is defined as having a child avatar, that is permissible in the TOS and is reasonable, for those who want to do that. In my mind there is no difference between a child avatar, or a furry avatar, or a robot avatar, or a fish, tiger, etc etc. Now many do not agree with this. I respect their opinions, but their opinions should not force standards on the whole grid. There are those who want no furrys, for whatever their reasons. I created a furry avatar so I could go to Luskwood and other places and see the sims and community from a furry prospective. I created a child avatar so I could go to childrens sims and see the community from a child's perspective. What is the difference. While signed on as my child avatar, I was approached MANY times by ADULTS looking for sex. I would simply ignore them and either sign off or TP away. Most of the childrens sims that I visited do not allow sexual behavior. And avatars are routinely banned from the sims if they engage in such behavior. This is a controverial issue, open to many differences of opinion. However the Lindens, under the TOS, allow child avatars - "Please note it does not violate this policy merely to have a child-like avatar. It is not our intent to banish child-like avatars in and of themselves." So I say anyone who doesn't agree with child avatars, stay away from them, if you cannot trust yourself.

Anarchist

2009-02-07T16:44:00.000-08:00

My problem is that since I am a premium customer and pay lots of tier, (not me so much, the tenants really pay the tier, I just make sure it gets to Linden Lab on time, I do pay my portion for my castle and surrounding gardens and grounds though.) I just am not going to take orders from any Lindens. So does that make one an anarchist? I do not mind following the rules, though, as outlined in the TOS, but then again I would not purposefully grief anyone, it is just not in my nature to grief and be a pain.

Business is Good

2009-02-07T07:37:00.001-08:00

Business is good on the mainland, or so it seems. I have actually been at full occupancy from time to time, and never below 95% for a few weeks now. I have even been able to slowly increase rents.
I do not know what this means for second life as a whole, but at least for me it is good.

Late Tier

2009-02-05T06:35:00.000-08:00

The lindens will freeze a premium account after 7 days of tier non-payment, for whatever reason, whether it is their fault or the customers fault. Of course, they put the whole responsibility on the customer, even when their flawed billing system is in error. If a customer has been paying tier, some hefty tier amounts, for years, and all of a sudden there is a problem with billing, the account will be frozen, along with all other alt accounts that they can find. This puts the customer in a tough position of risking losing their inworld business and/or land, without the means to come inworld to try to either rectify the situation by earning more lindens, or cashing in existing lindens in the account, or whatever. Free account including bots never have to worry about such a thing. The answer is for everyone to go free, get rid of their land holdings, and use the service just for fun and socializing. An alternative would be that after seven days of non-payment, the lindens would simply sieze the land and use it to pay the tier fee if after one month the balance owed was not rectified. It is amazing to me that so many restrictions are put onto paying customers, when half the time the billing problem is not the fault of the customer. I have on numerous times been a few days late in paying tier because my credit card company does not honor the charge. THEY DO NOT TRUST LINDEN LAB, or their billers, thinking the charge is fraud.
So perhaps I will go free, after three years of supporing the service through my premium fee and tier fee, and never have to worry about losing anything, continuing to use the service to socialize and hang out.

Back to Blogging

2009-02-01T14:32:00.000-08:00

I've decided to start blogging again about my second life experiences. I stopped back in August and deleted the blog because of a controversy over an avatar I created; that avatar was banned for being underage, which of course he wasn't. But the lab's policy of strike first and ask questions later was invoked against the avatar. Now the Linden's in San Francisco have a copy of my driver's license and birth certificate. My question now is, how do they store it? Can I trust everyone who works there to not steal my identity? Of course there is no answer to the first question, they simply will not say. The second question; well I guess we all are at risk, those of us who have provided documentation. By the way, I am sure we are a minority. I am convinced most avatars are age verified through the voluntary system, in which one provides numbers that supposedly are matched through data bases. Yeah right. I am one of the few avatars who are verified through the INVOLUNTARY system of providing documentation. Provide the documentation or else lose your land, your account, your lindens, everything.
Many more avatars are not verified at all, and many of them just go around the grid creating havok.
I am a 2 1/2 tier customer, who has a reputable in world rental business. This is how we are treated. When this was going on back in August, I im'd a avatar who I had met along the way, he seems to know about these things, and the response back from this avatar was that there is simply no other way to speak to the Linden's over a banning, but to submit a ticket. Which I did immediately.
Well at least when you meet me inworld you can be sure I am a proper age verified and gender verified avatar with Linden Lab.