Geeks Coming Out Of The Woodwork

I haven't played Tringo for days and I have taken to swallowing cough syrup to calm the jitters. I have sent a couple of e-mails to support before I logged on here to get the scoop. I guess we can safely multiply that by 20,000 and come up with an estimate of the number of e-mails support has gotten over the last three days.

So, as a poor substitute for my Tringonitus (where one plays Tringo all night) I am up reading these posts and became pleasantly amused by the geeks arguing over what they think the hold up is and what they think the pros ought to do to fix it. Jezus, isn't that always the case, whether its a fucked up batch of spaghetti or a video game, there is always some geek who should have been asked for their adivise, who coulda done it better, who never has to do a rewrite or scrap the first pancake. They are worse than a bunch of old ladies. Shut up already! FFS!

On a lighter note, I actually read a book this weekend. I went back and played Civ III (like a maniac, up all night). I hear Civ IV is coming out. God help me. Tomorrow is Monday. I might get some work done. I didn't work at all last week. Bad cold, you see. Not bad enough to keep me from logging about 70 hours of SL! LOL So maybe I needed a break.

I have kind of been on an SL BENDER. Well I created a new nightspot, then Thursday I had my Grand Opening. It was a smashing success, although I think my new friend Max Case might have had something to do with the big turnout. Thanks Max! I owe ya!
Anyway, the place is called Auntie Mae's Parlor. Its up in Juanita on the new continent. Its just a bar. No fancy lights, no bling, no 140 prim hair necessary. We sure did have a good time opening night. I met a lot of cool people, most for the first time. We laughed alot and traded some objects and scripts. We admired some original artwork that somebody brought. And we talked about stuff like SL babies and memories of old bars we used to hang out at and stuff like that. The excitement was almost too much, I tell ya! Well, anyway, that was the anticipated highlight of my 70 hours of Tringo and building. Can't remember the last time I put in a 70 hour work week in RL. Can't remember the last time I had that much fun without a hangover either!

Another thing I've been thinking about is the professional players. I think there are more of them than any of us imagine. I think that number is going to continue to swell as the sun sets on Final Fantasy IX, Star Wars Galaxies, and a couple of other aging MMORPG's that attract professional players. The value of the FFXI currency (the gil) has fallen dramatically. Let me compare it to the Linden. 1000 L = roughly $4.13 US Dollars this week or last. 1,000,000 Gil = roughly $24.00 US, or $172,083 Gil = $4.13 US. Do you hear that sound? That is the sound of thousands of professional players jumping off the sinking Final Fantasy boat and swimming to Second Life. Now you ought to be thinking about how that is going to affect the Linden. It's going to be interesting for sure, but generally, the more money moves, the stronger the currency. You know what else is going to be interesting? A lot of these people don't speak English! But that's also cool. We may end up with ethnic concentrations in SL beyond Fur and No Fur.

To conclude this ramble, I think I shall do something totally GEEKY. I think I shall suggest that additional servers be set up to handle the load. I don't think ppl are going to volutarily de-bling or give up their 140 prim hair, ya know, so maybe multiple servers could help even out the load. Personally, I love the fact that there are no limits on SL. I love the fact that if I have the lindens I can build as big as I wanna, wear whatever I wanna, drive whatever I wanna without crashing the damn thing. So far, so good. Then, oooo, this would be cool, you could VACATION on other servers. OOOO stop me before I geek again!

If you read this far, dang! What up? LOL Maybe you got something you could add to this aimless blog-like post? Like I dunno...anything? You're obviously thinking about SL or you wouldn't be here. A linden for you thoughts?

Elielia Matador
Recently Addicted SL'er
Owner of Auntie Mae's Parlor in Juanita

Every time people post that at the end of long entries, and I get to it, I think "damn. I *did* get that far." I either read too fast or procrastinate too much, or a mix of the two.

I know nothing...absolutely JACK...about Big Hardware Issues, so I won't even comment on the server bit, mainly because whatever I said would probably be wrong...even something so vague as "You think that will help?" (I didn't just say that...please don't beat me!)

But what I *will* say is...welcome to SL, as it were. I'm not really into the whole Tringo thing, but your bar sounds interesting...you should look us up at the Don't Panic Coffee House sometime, if you get the hankerin'. Coffee, books, comfy-looking chairs with questionable sit poses (hey, they were freebies, garwsh durnit), and usually a nifty folk or two hanging around arguing with Marvin for a pan-galactic gargleblaster. I'll have to stop by Juanita at some point, too...I'm always looking for new places to visit.

As for the downtime? I wonder if anyone's started a post about What We Did When Second Life Was Down. I...watched a movie, went out to a bar to see a blues band play, saw a professional theatre production, posted an entry in my blog, and *gasp* did laundry. It's...almost like...no, I couldn't say THAT. Being productive was only a side effect of being bored. But I was out of cough syrup.

But I, like you, got a kick out of a lot of the "helpful advice" posted among the "OMG LYNDRENS U SUCK I WANT MUH $$$$$ BACK!!!!" I have enough faith in the people who run the game to think that they probably had a decent grip on what the problem was, and despite popular opinion, *were* (and are) competent enough to fix it with enough coffee and ITunes pumped into their systems. If I remember correctly, the same band who sampled "What we have here is a failure to communicate" also crooned "All we need is just a little patience." (And YES, I too pay $40 a month for the game. So I dunwannaHEARIT.)

And since this blog-like post has managed to garner itself a pointless, blog-like reply...I'm gonna wrap it up and...go fix spaghetti. ANY SUGGESTIONS?

*grins*