BigPond Pulls Out of SL. Disappointing...but understandable.

The problem with business on SL is that business doesn't understand what people do well in a virtual world. They love well. They LOVE well! Story after story, and no real clear way on a profile to indicate what they are looking for, if they role play, is SL is welcome in their RL or not--database searchable. FB sucks at this kind of complex interface search also, but at least they aren't pretending to be something they're really not. Second Life, if you want to be a social media player, let people be real when they wanna be real. Help us find each other. Give us some basic tools. You can do better.

BigPond has gone. We are missing visionaries.

Twins! The Second Life to Real Life Kind!

I have the pleasure of announcing the first set of twins that came from a Second Life relationship into real life! Kasi and Sig, we wish you courage and lots of laughs...you'll need them...

Women Just Like You

I'd like to propose that journalists please stop writing about every cheat, divorce, and murder coming from online love affairs. Look. I have seen a statistic that I can't verify that states 1 in 8 marriages in the US are coming from online relationships. It wouldn't surprise me if it were true, given how much time is spent late at night, alone, searching lists of profile pics, or taking fallible, unreliable, and mysterious tests to replace the magic moment of love, which goes beyond self-reporting, and shallow wishes.

Regardless of my issues with profile-based dating, the number should only get higher, and it should be studied globally. On the upside, particularly in the more effective world of virtual dating, it's cheaper, greener, and quickly eliminates those in the game who aren't true blue.

I know so many real life married couples who met on Second Life that I can assure you the numbers and locations are popping up like measles on a map.

There is absolutely no reason that a woman my age and beyond can't go online and meet the man they missed in Real Life. All you need is a belief in manifestation, and off you go!

Red Hot LIE--Free Yourself From Scams

Dating website misled singles
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=927907

Directors of a dating website engaged in misleading conduct when they created fake profiles and sent messages to users to flirt with them, a consumer watchdog says.

The consumer watchdog alleged Jetplace engaged in misleading conduct when it created and published fictional dating profiles on its website, which targets single adults.

Jetplace allegedly used the fake profiles to send "flirt" and other messages to registered users.

He said the site was a successful online community and members had found soul mates, become engaged, married or enjoyed satisfying casual encounters.

Yeah, but it's hard enough finding love, having the cards stacked against you does not help. Nobody wants to play the fool. Quit wasting people's time.

He's a Head Hunter. The Real Kind.

My husband is from Borneo, and was adopted by a Pom and a his wife, an unusual and liberal Malay. He couldn't be kept--his mother, a fourth wife, had nothing. He's from the Iban . It's reported that his grandmother had full tribal tattoos.

If you didn't click, the sentence you want to know is, "Today, the days of headhunting and piracy are long gone and in has come the modern era of globalization and technology for the Ibans".

He grew up mostly on his own in Australia, running the timber business and living in the apartment that used to be offices. The building was originally an indoor soccer field, and so the bathrooms--lockers--had six toilets, six showers, and four sinks in the color of the time, rust. It was strangely familiar to me, growing up in the 1970's. Somewhat by choice, that's where I lived during my entire pregnancy. We've since moved and are in the process of buying a house.

At the moment, Australia (thanks to China's need for raw goods) is the only developed country that's growing. Real Estate prices here have risen fast, and due to a housing shortage are unstoppable. Even if you can find a house, you have to get to it first. It's like SoCal was before the crash, both in price and in what you get for that price. Ridiculous.

But we're working on it. So as we shape shift from Rose Cottage forward, I might be posting weekly for a short while. The next few steps in the process are actually quite easy, but only apply to someone who thinks that they have found what they are looking for---real love from a virtual reality--one that they wish to manifest into a real life long term affair. Sounds easy enough, and it is, if you are ready to manifest the real deal.

Life is not without risks. Enjoy.

Rest Your Mind

Remember to take your naps. Change your sleep schedule if you must, if you can without affecting work. If you don't work, or are otherwise needing a focus, this is a perfect outlet, a way to decide your time.

I was awake during the hours that Matchsticks was off work. As he was living in his families timber yard, he would be online about 5:05. He was also an insomniac at the time. Lonely, I guess, and really talented, and bored. But we'd be together from then with occasional pee breaks, and coffee and food. Usually, he'd stay up until about 3 or 4 his time, then catch a few hours of sleep and go back to cutting wood. I was amazed he had kept all his fingers. They're important, you know, for typing.

I had rotated my sleep as we were anywhere from 12 to 14 hours different, depending on daylight savings in both the US and Australia.

We'd fall asleep together online. I'd know because of his breathing.

Rest your mind, what you seek is on the way.

Courts Leash Net-Love Mums

I can't say this surprises me. What is worse? When fathers abandon their kids for their internet love. Unfortunately, I know SL to real life love cases when this has happened.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/924117/internet-dating-relocation-rows-escalate

The explosion in popularity of internet dating has caused a new crisis among estranged fathers, a national men's rights group has told ninemsn.

Men's Rights Agency director Sue Price said the service has had "an awful lot" of complaints about internet dating from fathers.

"Mother wants to go off in the wild blue yonder with someone they hardly know and take the children interstate, and sometimes overseas," she said.

Ms Price estimates around 20 percent of men who contact the service have an internet-dating related problem, usually when the mother of their children wants to leave the area and relocate to meet with an internet lover.

"One of the greatest problems in Australia, particularly with our distances, [is] mothers in particular seem to think they can move without agreement — they don't seem to understand that by moving away they are breaking the bond or relationship with the father,” Ms Price said.

She said sometimes the fathers did follow their estranged partners, but away from family and support networks, "it isn't always successful for them".

Men's Rights Agency welcomed a decision by the family law division of the Federal Magistrates Court, sitting in Newcastle, which found that under shared parenting laws a child was entitled to stay close to their father.

In that case, the mother of a three-year-old girl met a new lover on the internet and sought the court's permission to move from Sydney to Queensland, The Australian reported.

The father of the child protested the move, saying it would seriously disrupt his relationship with the child.

The mother at the centre of the case met her younger 25-year-old lover on the internet.

Her age was not revealed in court, but she has a 10-year-old son from a different relationship.

The decision has been viewed as a win for fathers, who said that old custody laws enabled many mothers to move away after divorce, destroying relationships between children and fathers.

Shared parenting laws introduced by the Howard government in 2006 have made relocating more difficult for mothers.

Ms Price said women shouldn't be stopped from finding new love and relocating to start relationships, but she said children should not be "dragged along".

Instead the children should stay in the same area and be cared for by the father, she said.

"Mum can go off and have a relationship or fling if they want — but leave the care to the father who is offering stable home life."

As well as issues arising from internet dating, Ms Price said the Men's Right Agency received many calls from fathers worried about their partner's internet addiction, which she said led to neglect of their children.

I'm A Cougar

Yes, I am, although I am quite sure Courtney Cox bears no resemblance to me.

You can see that Second Life has an unusual demographic from the graph above. Not that it matters--all sorts of people of all adult ages are in world. I've met a couple who both play in their 70's.

As I've stated, I didn't know the age of my now husband when I met him on Second Life. He didn't know mine. I've never been one to see age like most people, probably because I'm not sure I ever recognized, ever really saw myself aging. And on Second Life, you can be any age, although most people seem to migrate to the mid-twenties. It might be a better reflection of who I am, stuck there forever.

Sometimes people get lucky and meet someone that loves them regardless of their real life age. Sometimes Second Life would be the only way for those people to recognize each other.

I think had I met Match first in my real life, I would have missed him completely. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Dating on SL is Green, Green, Green.

Not just kinda green, dating on SL is very green. The amount of CO2 you emit on a proper date begins even before you hit the car, while you're still at home with the lights on blow drying your hair.

Given, CPUs require energy, and most is still brought to us by dirty means. No system is perfect, but Second Life is certainly a cheaper, more efficient way to date.

I'm not suggesting there is any replacement for real human love. That is, after all, why I came to Australia. For a date.

But before that first date, walking of the airplane to meet Match for the first time ever, we had many.

Our favorite was dressing up like pirates, hopping on one of his many ships, and going to Help Island to drop off a few cannon balls. We'd always end up inviting n00bs on board. We'd jump off the ship and pull out our treasure chests. We'd chat it up with random people from around the world, inevitably changing clothes and hopping into our cop car, the dueling 18 seat buses, Cessnas, tiny UFOs, motorbikes, tanks...

After becoming creatively exhausted, we'd move on to our hang out, the place we met on Second Life, called Korea. It's not really Korean, but of course using that name you'll find Koreans there looking around.

The Korea on Second Life has an empty downtown, a courtyard area where everybody hangs out, a small pagoda, a few islands.

It's where I was born my first time on Second Life. It's where I first saw Match. It's where we met.

The first time I saw him I wanted to know him. I always watched for him even before he really said anything to me. Come to think of it, at that point I didn't even know if he was really a man as I hadn't heard his voice.

All of the pleasures, the unwrapping of the gift, are just as powerful as Real Life dating. Trust me on this, if you meet someone you like on SL, you'll feel nerves when you log on. You'll feel nerves when they crash and disappear, wondering if you'll ever see them again---if it really was an error. You'll ask your friends if they think he's a good person (*or she). You'll do exactly what you always do. Because guess what. It's just you, being you in a costume.

The benefit to you for the loss of immediate personal contact? Lower CO2 emissions for your love. Your risks and costs are mostly negligible. You can always walk away, just be polite and THEN hit the x.

It's Late at The Rose Cottage

...but the roses are in bloom here in Sydney. It's Spring you know. We're heading full on into summer, bugs and all. Today it was so hot we had to go to the park at 9AM, and STILL the baby swing was too hot.

I see some kind of dawn awakening, an idea that virtual communities of the future will live more like people of any community, beyond even what we've learned from Open Source/Linux. People will be governed. Hey, the money is real, they've gotta have say. Like two seats on Linden Labs Board, paid positions. Linden Labs can select the final candidates to check them out first. Then, they run for the seats, a proper office. We make it all an affair to remember.

It's just people, doing what they do, and they need governed, not managed. They need better social networking tools, particularly since Linden Labs claims they're in that trade. Face it: you go to Facebook for old friends, but come to Second Life for new. What better place to create a new group of friends that just might hold the man of your dreams like mine did. Make Second Life dater friendly. Give us the ability to check a few boxes that clarifies what we're looking for on SL, and if it is SL only or for real life as well. This is easy, use the wasted classified tab on people's profile.

I mean, people find love on Second Life anyhow, it just makes it harder. But SL brought me to Sydney, which brought me to baby, and husband, all from Second Life. That pic up top, that's the sandstorm we had last week. The color is not edited, just the lizard was put in. The adventure at Rose Cottage continues...

Toss you Mind to the Wind and Let it FLY!

My first crush, Carl Sagan, lives again in this stunning piece of art.

I can't stop watching it, and if you've seen Cosmos, neither will you.

This was when I realized as a child that any outcome is possible.

NYT today: BLUR THE LINE BETWEEN WORK AND PLAY!!

The top emailed story on NYT: Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27tools-t.html?em

That's it, finally, a basis for understanding why play is work and work is play, even for adults. Second Life is the perfect environment for "mature dramatic play", to help teach people of many ages how to control themselves better, to be better people, to love better, to interact better.

What a great article! Please read it. Some of the finer points here:

At the heart of the Tools of the Mind methodology is a simple but surprising idea: that the key to developing self-regulation is play, and lots of it. But not just any play. The necessary ingredient is what Leong and Bodrova call “mature dramatic play”: complex, extended make-believe scenarios, involving multiple children and lasting for hours, even days. If you want to succeed in school and in life, they say, you first need to do what Abigail and Jocelyn and Henry have done every school day for the past two years: spend hour after hour dressing up in firefighter hats and wedding gowns, cooking make-believe hamburgers and pouring nonexistent tea, doing the hard, serious work of playing pretend.

In the end, the most lasting effect of the Tools of the Mind studies may be to challenge some of our basic ideas about the boundary between work and play. Today, play is seen by most teachers and education scholars as a break from hard work or a reward for positive behaviors, not a place to work on cognitive skills.

But in Tools of the Mind classrooms, that distinction disappears: work looks a lot like play, and play is treated more like work. When I asked Duckworth about this, she said it went to the heart of what was new and potentially important about the program. “We often think about play as relaxing and doing what you want to do,” she explained. “Maybe it’s an American thing: We work really hard, and then we go on vacation and have fun. But in fact, very few truly pleasurable moments come from complete hedonism. What Tools does — and maybe what we all need to do — is to blur the line a bit between what is work and what is play. Just because something is effortful and difficult and involves some amount of constraint doesn’t mean it can’t be fun.”