Valentine's Day

was exhausting. I'm going back to the lovely club I spent my evening at for a full shoot, so expect to hear all about it soon. In the meantime, have a preview.

I'll say this much, the party started at 7 and was scheduled for two hours. Everyone was having so much fun that the DJ finally packed it in around midnight. Now how many clubs do you know where that's true? I'm used to everyone running the minute money is handed out for "best in".

Fencing and Dancing

Today was the main event of the Caledon Games Fencing tournament at the Caledon Oxbridge arena. Having already taken the bronze in the latebird special, I had to get up early and defend my honor. I've been playing En Garde for a while now. I won't claim to be the best, but I learn something every time I play. Last time I was making a single mistake which cost me the match. The details would be somewhat arcane to non En Garde players, but if anyone really wants to know, I'll explain it.

Jayleden Miles was on hand to oversee everything again. I can't imagine how hectic organizing us must have been. Caledonians herd about as well as cats on the best days. So thank, Jay.

In any case, with honor on the line and good cards in my hand I proceeded to poke people with my trusty Thread of Fate, provided courtesy of Got Leib? Productions. This time I wasn't going to settle on a bronze and managed to come back with the Gold!

Vorwoda Hawksby, but I figured I would get a few shots in, too, before taking my esteemed co-champions Stereo Nacht (silver) and Darlingmonster Ember (bronze) somewhere a little more. . .Mature rated for a shot for this blog.

After that, it was off for drinks at the Green Fairy. Loyal readers will be happy to know that all three of us hit it off swimmingly. You can expect to see these champions working together more in the future. Ms. Nacht has invited the rest of us to practice at Transylvania Polytechnic with her team (but more on that later). She's clearly the intellectual of the three of us but she was a surprisingly good sport when it came time for the obligatory nude shot. I expect the sepia print version will be showing up in back rooms in Caledon and new Babbage soon.

 

We've really got a sort of naked Three Muskateers thing going. This was the real victory, not the medal but two great friends I can cross swords with again.

Just about the time things were wrapping up, I got word of a Queen of Hearts masqued dance over at the Bashful Peacock, where Jay was yet again helping oversee the event. 

Deciding to ride my fifteen minutes of fame I promptly made my way over there to meet the Caledonians. One of the very first people I ren into was Ms. Nacht's boss, one KlausWulfenbach Outlander. He prompty decided I was a long lost cousin and seemed quite eager to have the three champions practicing at his place (TPU - Transylvania Polytechnic University). There was much dancing and flirting to follow, including a reuinion with old friend Ceidru Gothly of Hare Courture.

After making a bit of a spectacle of myself (all part of the fun), I was able to approach no less than the Queen of Hearts herself for a dance. There were quite a few gasps at my forwardness but she delighted me by agreeing and proved a lovely dance partner until the last song.

Live from Caledon, I'm Professor Outlandish, Gold Medal Fencer.

Side note - I would love to post url links to all of the above places and people but Blogspot really hates the SLURL format. An in-world search for capitalized terms should do just fine.

News flash - just as I was finishing up, our oil paintings arrived. Here it is.

A little academic discourse and another outtake

My friend Patrice was nice enough to point me to the Alphaville Herald a few days ago, suggesting I might want to see if I could get a gig as a Post 6 Girl. Well, I'm working on that. However, a discussion of the sexual themes that seem too be prevalent in RP sims came up in a discussion of one of the articles. I started out planning a fairly simple post but it kind of got away from me. Here, is the entire comment/essay in its entirety.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that a couple of factors contribute to the content of SL more than any other. All of this applies at the recreational level, of course. Serious business and/or academic use has both a different user base and a different economic model.

The first is wish fulfillment. I'd say at first glance that 90% of SL avatars come in as the user's definition of physically perfect. That's probably the precise inverse of real life. Sims with strong sexual content will, likewise, cater most visibly to those things you can't get in real life. Even the bike designers featured elsewhere on Alphaville Herald are providing a wish fullfillment fantasy with their virtual replicas of massively expensive motorcycles. SL is seen as a safe, anonymous place to do things you couldn't do in real life. You can be a slave, hooker etc. without any of the real world fears of abuse, STD's etc.

The second is the monetary incentive. Every sim, RP or otherwise has to generate its $300 a month just to stay open. That can come from sales in stores, rental of land, user donations or (and this is a big one) paid out of pocket by a person or group. So sims that focus on fantasy fulfillment have to cater to those fantasies that are worth actual money to people in order to generate their teir. Basic supply and demand dictates that the harder to find a given niche product is, the more a sim owner can charge for it. Similarly, more users support more sims of the same type of content at the same price. Also, the more hardcore a given interest, ie the more of one's life and identity definition it encompasses, the more willing a player will be to spend money on it.

So taken as an average, Second Life looks a lot like people would imagine Hollywood to be. Everyone looks beautiful, has neat stuff, can have casual sex with two or three partners a day and generally live a simulated high life. Go to a big club any day of the week and you can see people trying to live up to their media defined idea of cool. Again at a first glance, places and items catering to that breed of cool probably occupy about as much in the way of SL resources as shows and movies selling the image do of mass media resources.

Individually, sims tend to rise and fall with the fantasy they fulfill. There are fewer Femdom type places than male dominant/femals slave type places because the latter fantasy is more popular with people who log on. When it comes to Gor, don't discount the fact that this is a huge, largely underground niche community that has made SL its home. In the same way porn made the VHS work, Gor (and Steampunk) is probably responsible for keeping SL alive in its early days. It gave people an experience they couldn't get elsewhere and they were willing to invest their energy (money) to have it. I can see where, after years of being told women are supposed to be treated as both equal AND objects of sexual desire, a segment of the male population would be willing to pay for the ego boost of being the "stronger sex" again. Let's make no mistake here, at 300+ sims, Gor, not 70's fantasy artwork, does a lot to define the sexual mores of the SL RP community at large.

Sl in some ways functions as a visible Collective Unconscious of Americans who can afford a computer and high speed Internet (75%+ of the user base at an eyeball). There is no nature, everything built was designed by a human hand to fill a percieved need in SL. Every avatar is a series of deliberate choices by the user about the image they wish to convey to the SL world.
Caledon has been larger than the entire original SL grid for years now and spawned several other Steampunk communities. In some ways, this rise could be said to prefigure the growth of the Steampunk movement in the public consciousness. At the same time, most of the original cyberpunk sims have fallen by the wayside as that style has fallen from grace. Those are easier to notice because they're the kind of things people are willing to discuss in public. How many people at your office wish they were a character from the James Spader movie "Secretary"? Well, they're not as likely to discuss that for the asking. Do Gor, the prevalance of collars, the continued existence of brothels etc say something aobut our culture at large that people aren't willing to admit? I don't have the research to back it up, but the possibility is intriguing.

Live from the grid, I'm Professor Outlandish.

I'll save the discussion on what my deliberate choices are trying to convey for a later time. Instead, have an outtake shot from the White House Ballroom:

 

This is one of several shots where I was trying to overcome deficiencies in the White House build. You can't see it here but the ceiling is entirely plywood. I was hoping I could get the rotation column in the back to lookk vaguely like Barrack and Michelle but no luck on that count either. The piano was gorgeous, but astoundingly hard to shoot and still get a good angle of myself in it.

This shot wasn't awful. We've got Steve looking at me, a gorgeous piano and plenty of gratuitous nudity. Given time I could probably have cropped it into something serviceable but I really wanted to get the article out. Every shot I don't use is a lesson for next time.

Updates on my mayoral campaign will have to wait. I have an En Garde tournament to compete in coming up in less than eight hours and sleep yet to be had.

Live from my nice warm bed, this is Professor Outlandish, thinking of you.

Maggie for Mayor!

That's right, noble readers, junior reporter Professor Outlandish is running for mayor of Hard Alley!

Of course every Mayoral candidate needs a platform, so here it is.

The Outlandish Party Platform:

1. Too much money is being spent on punitivie enforcement. Less cops on the street and more money to edutaction!
    A. This means making Hard Alley Reform School the best institution of its kind in the region.
    B. Additional money should go to vocational training for the Alley's most important careers: hooker, dancer, wage slave and freelance security professionals.

2. The public needs to know what's going on. Expect regular reports from the mayor's office on CMNF Naughty News. http://cmnfreporter.blogspot.com
I think you'll find my work there says more than any platform could.

3. Open door policy. If elected I will mainain regular office hours where I pretend to listen to the concerns of all citizens. Such concerns will be prioritized according to the amount of income they generate.

4. A dead sexy mayor who's not afraid to flaunt it!

The election will run all day on Feb 20th. Vote early, vote often and expect frequent news updates.

White House Outtake #1

What would a trip to the White House be without a shot of the iconic Air Force One. Well, it was down for repairs, but with a little help from Steve I managed to get up on the wing. This shot wasn't included in the main article for several reasons, not the least of which is a subtle costume malfunction. I also didn't care for the way my hair against the light colored airplane prevents proper contrasting. Oh well, live and learn.

Group Fun

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CMNF Naughty News. Live From The White House

I guess my CNN report caught someone's attention. Words can't describe my shock and honor at being invited to do my next report live from our Nation's Capital at no less prestigious location than the White House.Unfortunately everything that could go wrong for my camera elves did. We still got some good material but there will be a lot of outtakes on my personal blog this time.

Air Force One was down for repairs but I was met at Reagan National by the Presidential helicopter. I figured I needed to dress a little more formally for this report than the last one, so I went with silk gloves and stockings. No one complained. I promise you the Marines were saluting with more than just their right hands.

I'm not sure how well known it is but there are actually three identical choppers. All three fly at the same time for security, since no one can know for sure which one the President is on. We grabbed this quick shot while waiting for our Secret Service Escort. The fellow on the left there was my personal Secret Service Agent for the day, Steve. Keep an eye on him, you'll be seeing a lot of him in this report. Steve spent the entire day keeping an eye on me. I even handed him the camera for the last shot.

After disembarking I was whisked to the security station for a mandatory once over. Since there weren't many places to hide anything, I got through with a quick grope. . .er. . .pat down from the female agent seen here. I think her name was Stephanie. She was very professional. . .on camera, but I'm looking forward to a quiet drink with her the next time I'm in DC.

  

 My next stop was the President's office. The President has a lot of offices. This isn't the Oval Office but one near the press room. I was happily filling out all the bureaucratic forms that Steve needed to clear me for all access when Barrack "Barry" Obama himself dropped by! He couldn't stay for long and I wasn't in a hurry to get him into a scandal of Clintonian proportions but we had a chance to shake hands before Steve rushed me off. . .

  

. . . to the press room! This may have been the ultimate honor of the entire trip. Imagine, a junior reporter like me delivering an official press briefing for the White House! I'll spare you most of the gory details, or at least save them for the next section. Suffice it to say the press was much easier on me than they usually are on the White House Press Secretary. Oh, and that's Steve again on the far right.

  

 Outside I got to give basically the same speech to the general public on the White House lawn. As you can see in the background, they wanted me to promote the Bush/Clinton Haiti relief fund. So I am. Go by the White House or Google it. Haiti's always been notorious for corrupt government, rampant violence and one of the worst economies in the world. This disaster has ironically given them a new chance. To rebuild the country, the government is actually going to have to stand and deliver. A Haiti that works sounds as impossible as the fall of the Iron Curtain used to. 'nuff said.

  

 After a long day of briefing the press, Steve took me around to see the other sites. This is where my camera gnomes really fell asleep. Not pictured here are the famous ballroom, the under repair Air Force One, the limo fleet and a few other things. On the other hand, I did get to sit in THE Chair. The Oval Office, this desk, this chair are arguably the seat of power for both America and the world. Ok. . .I'd argue not the world but I wanted to make sure I didn't give the Fox News fans anything to crucify me for.

  

 Plus the obligatory close-up.

Of course no tour of the White House is complete without a stop at the Lincoln Bedroom. Sure, Lincoln never slept here but I just had to have a look at an 8'x6' white blanketed bed. By now my photography gnomes were already in the wlefare line, so I handed off the camera to Steve. As you can see, the Victorian furnishings reaaly are all they're cracked up to be. Personally, though, I needed a closer look.

 What a way to end my day. Live from the White House, this is Professor Outlandish, thinking of you.