One Small Step, One Giant Leap

It seems like forever since I posted on here.. seems to be a running theme with me. I thought I would blog in the past to share experiences and memories, but sometimes, RL and SL team up to give me damned little time to cogitate and set my thoughts to print - I guess life is that way in general. Unless you make the effort, the opportunity passes me by.

Honestly, I sometimes think this is one of the best ways for me to actually put a lot of thought into a subject, and wrangle it around for context and examine my own feelings. As much as I think when I post I am expressing my thoughts on a subject that I feel strong about.

One of the things that I noticed yesterday was how I felt really optomistic. It was the 40th Anniversary of the moon landing, Apollo 11, and the giants of Armstrong and Aldrin, and the oft forgotten Collins, that traveled to that heavenly body, and were the first of mankind to truly experience it. Sure Collins didn't get to set foot there, which is a shame, but his contribution is no less important.

Some people say that the space program did nothing but waste money and time and resources, and goad the generations that have followed to continue wasting money and time and resources on an endeavor that can only get people killed, instead of concentrating the aforementioned items to people that are here, now, suffering, hurting, or otherwise just not getting those resources for use.

Imagine if that had been the attitude of Columbus, or any of the other ocean going explorers and the governments of those times. Imagine. What would our world look like today if we never looked beyond our borders, and really thought about what was over the horizen. And then never tried to see what it was.

The recent passing of Walter Cronkite, one of the most well known journalists/reporters/ and television personalities of the 20th Century, and an avid supporter and the main voice for coverage (in many ways) of the Apollo space program, has had a lot of attention, and many news shows are playing interviews from the last few years. Walter made mention in one of these interviews that in 500 years, the event that will be remembered as much as anything else will be Man Landing on the Moon. Like Columbus, in 1492, widely credited for finding the New World (widely, though some say inaccurately) (if Lief Erikson had had a better publicist, or didn't try to keep the knowlege to himself (I don't know if he did or not) he would have gotten the credit 400 years before, right?).

Where was I? Yeah, 500 years from now, man landing on the moon will be what people remember, and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, constantly referred to as the First and Second humans to walk on the surface of the moon, hopefully will also be remembered for pushing the frontiers further into both imagination and exploration of what we can accomplish if we have the impetus of both imagination and desire to see across that next horizen.

I look back over this period of time, and I truly hope that there is a push to continue the exploration of space, and not some underfunded half-baked attempt to make it look like something is happening, when all we're doing is dragging our feet. Granted, without Warp Drive, Hyperspace portals, stargates, or Time Warping starships or gateways, I think we can safely say that the exploration of space is going to be something that will have to happen at a slow, steady pace. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.

Oh well, I've babbled a lot about a topic that I'm just scratching the surface of. In the final analysis, I think its what we have to do. Give ourselves options for both resources, and just in case, options, for we are not a terribly wise people, as a whole. I think there are those among us that are wise, but I think as long as politics is a driving force, expediancy and greed will tend to hobble the development of mankind.

Neil Armstrong took that small step by one man, and left a foot print in a place very few have ever been - for all mankind. In the end, my dreams and hopes took root in a future that may never come, but I can sleep better at night knowing that foot print is there, leading the way into what I know is a better future, if we can only follow in those footsteps.

D

Starfall - the new blog

Just yesterday, I started a new blog for the new place - its called STARFALL. Here's the link:

http://starfall-home.blogspot.com

We'll be posting stuff about Starfall - DJ Schedules, events (pictures and happenings), and whatever pops into our little brains *grin*

Kaj posted pictures of the Grand Opening last night on there, so pop on over and see what's there.

We're pretty much duplicating the event schedule from the previous venue. I really hope that everyone enjoys what we've done.

If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Love,
Dehr

Starfall - The New Home for the Wharf

At 4PM this evening, DJ Blaise will begin the party that opens the new club - its the Summer Solstice, and what better time to open the temple up to celebrate the summer!

We're calling the new place STARFALL. Its a place to hang out and do whatever. Its not just for when you want to dance and party. Bring your friends over - we'll be adding some features over the coming days, so Please, have a good time and enjoy!

DJ Blaise starts the celebration at 4PM, and at 6PM I'll be playing some of my rawkin' tunes, and hopefully keep your weekend alive a little bit longer.

My personal thanks, by the way, go out to the following folks, in no particular order, but with as much gratitude as possible for making our new place a reality:

Koen, for donating the land and making room for our new home. A great new friend.
Kyne, for building his little fingers off, being a good friend, and not scratching my eyes out for getting him into this xD Oh, and being a smexy nekoboy!
MTD - Builder, wiseman, wiseguy, all around sexy elfin beast!
Merrick - Textures, advice, enthusiasm, and reminding me that this is for all of us.
Ima - Textures, humor, and everything you do

So many other folks, and I can't say enough to express how much this means to me. Thank you all!

Managing to get by for the future

Up until this past Sunday evening, things were pretty good, I suppose.

I had a great job Managing at the Wharf, lots of friends.. I had just celebrated my 2nd Rezday on SL - Saturday.
Then the Wharf closed the next day, on this past Sunday. We were all a bit dumbstruck.

I was given ownership of the group, and all of a sudden - I'd gone from being the Manager to being something else. I was the guy that a lot of you turned to looking for what we needed to do.

I am a good planner - when I have most of the variables. I get a bit fuzzy when the way forward isn't that clear - who doesn't? But I felt this burning desire to push forward to get back what was lost. And that kept the motion forward going.

I could dwell on the sense of loss, hurt, anger, confusion that sort of hovered around like a cloud the first few hours. Hell, I took the whole thing rather calmly. I didn't know any more than anyone else did. But I think I had worked a few things out, so it wasn't quite a shock. And I truly understood WHY it happened. But I'm not going to dwell on that.

To be honest, we find ourselves in a situation that could not have been better than if we had left things the way they were.

Friendships have grown closer, and new ones are forming. With change comes opportunity. And this is a golden one.

People started to pull together Sunday night. And it kept building. The sense of support I have felt in the last 5 days has been humbling. It has nearly brought me to tears to be honest. It has shored up my determination to do everything I can to make this new "wharf" or clubhouse or whatever we want to call it - work.

This merry band of misfits that we are, and all the friends and party-goers that we have and will entertain, that's what I want to give us back - a place for us to gather, have fun, hang out, joke, and experience each other in that intimate way we have come to enjoy so much.

We needed a new home. We've got one. We're building the new club. It WILL be done soon. I won't give an exact date, but soon is certainly within the next week, if not this weekend.

In the meantime, we can party on our good friend's Vince and Darla's "Crypt Dwelling" Clutch Cargo, like we have the last few nights. Or if we want, we can play on someone's land, have a house party. A lot of those that have clubs or are involved have made offers to let us use their places. That's really cool.

The point is.. I've felt a strong bonding, a feeling of togetherness through out the last 5 days that has left me at a loss to express to everyone what it means to me.

I just hope I'm up to the task of giving you back a place that you want to hang out together.
With all of us pulling together, it is NOT just me. I'm more just a traffic cop standing here, watching friends both old and new pull together to create something better for us all.

You are all throwing your passion into building the new place. And its going to be awesome.

The biggest contribution everyone can make, truly, is to look forward - not behind. Look to the future of what the Wharf has become, and see that we've actually grown stronger and closer for it.

If you are reading this, keep your eyes on the notices. I'll let you know when the new place opens. And we'll have one hell of a fab party *grin*

Dehr

PS - Koen- thank you so much for your support, and giving us a home.

Boldly remaking the Final Frontier? Star Trek has arrived on the big screen

Anton Yelchin as Pavel Chekov, Chris Pine as James T. Kirk, Simon Pegg as Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott, Karl Urban as Leonard "Bones" McCoy, John Cho as Hikaru Sulu and Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Eric Bana as Nero in Paramount Pictures' Star Trek - 2009

Well, I can't say I was apprehensive regarding whether the new Star Trek reboot film would be good or not. It seems that there is enough inertia behind director/producers like JJ Abrams that they at least attempt to produce something that is watchable. Star Trek, in this case, is not only watchable, its pretty darn good.
I won't get into spoilers here, so don't worry about me blurting out a key plot point.
What I will say is the movie is rather well cast. Most of the actors were transparent to the roles they were in, with the exception of the appearance of Leonard Nimoy - I'm not spoiling anything there - it has been ballyhooed that Spock/Nimoy appears in the film at some point.

Something I have to say - I attempted to avoid as much of the media hype for this movie as possible. I largely succeeded. Early on I did surf IMDB for the cast members, at least for the Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, etc. And I did indulge in a few of the trailers that were released last year and about a month ago.

Often times I find that the information put in place to promote a movie either spoils it, or somehow dilutes the enjoyment. My main reason for avoidance is - I didn't want to dwell on whether it would be a good remake or speculate on whether this was "true" to the original actors. That would not be fair to this film, other than - it is incumbent upon whomever is remaking a franchise to pony up to the table and deliver the goods - if you are going to "remake" the original, be as fresh and interesting as you can, advertise it for what it is, and (in my opinion) try to honor the spirit of the original. Otherwise, what is the point? You could have renamed it whatever you want - and it would probably do just as well. Of course, there's no such thing as bad press, and everyone loves to rubber neck at a crash site, right? Some movies rely on that if they are going to suck.

This one, happily, didn't.

Eric Bana plays a Romulan named Nero - I didn't realize he was in the film until I saw the credits. I was aware I had seen the face before somewhere. Transparent to the role. I am not a big fan of Eric Bana, but I'm not a detractor either. He was good in Troy, and though I didn't care much for the film, the Hulk.

Zachary Quinto plays the part of Spock far better than I had thought. I expected him to be more like "Sylar", if I'm being honest. He doesn't have Leonard Nimoy's ability to maintain an impassive face, at least as was portrayed in the original series. But all things considered, he gave a rather good performance.

Chris Pike makes a good James T. Kirk. I can't say I heard of him before this movie, which is ok. But he does the role credit.

Anton Yelchin - the fresh faced Pavel Chekov of the film - he had some techno babble, was very geeky eager, and they played up his faux-Russian accent quite heavily. I can't say I was over thrilled with the character, but I was not put off by it either.
Simon Pegg plays Scotty, and he wasn't bad, though maybe in future installments, they will actually focus on the man and the character more, rather than the sound byte "I'm giv'n 'er all she's got Cap'n!".

Karl Urban was wonderful as McCoy. I can't say enough how much I enjoyed his portrayal. I have become a fan of his from this role.

John Cho's Sulu was developed in a mid-range way. I guess they didn't want the characters to be taken too seriously, yet tried to give them weight and merit. But overall, he wasn't bad in the role at all. He wasn't gay enough *laugh* though.

Zoe Saldana playing Uhura - I am ... conflicted here. I won't say much about this, but I can see what they were doing and why. Zoe Saldana gave a good performance, no doubt. But - well, you decide if I'm being over critical for the way her character was slotted in. But of all the characters, I'm not sure this one is as true to the character portrayed by Nichelle Nichols. Not the actor's fault, but a matter of plot/scripting.

Another person to note - Bruce Greenwood was an excellent Captain Christopher Pike. I can't say enough of how much I enjoyed his portrayal of this character. In a lot of ways, he should have gotten more screen time than he did. Excellent job.

Overall, the Enterprise herself got a facelift on the outside. Its a very familiar design, more "artistic" than the original series version. They didn't dwell much on the details of the ship, so I would not go in expecting that. Interior shots of Engineering didn't seem to jive well with the sort of ship it should have been, but then, I guess pipes and tubes have to be routed from somewhere.

Anyway, long story short - I'd see this film again. Probably will. And if you've seen it, and want to discuss, let me know and we can talk about all the things I didn't put in this review.

Speachless, or introspective?

After I posted last week, I realized that was the first post I've done in a long while on my blog. I had been posting a lot on Mondays, and occasionally through the week, but the last 2 – 3 weeks I haven’t. I guess the Wharf Blog has been getting most of my attention, since I spend a good portion of my time in and around that beloved place.

I don’t think its been from a lack of things to say, or situations to comment on. I think I’m too busy doing - well - everything, and I run out of time to put my thoughts into a readable format.

Of course, my RL has been a storm of activity through my RL job. That has demanded I spend an inordinate amount of time in the last month dealing with that situation. And when I log into SL, I'm rather busy. And that got me to thinking – man, I spend a lot of time on SL.

So let’s do the numbers – between Hosting, DJing, and Managing throughout the week, I devote about 20+ hours of my time to those activities. That’s not including DJ set prep times, promoting or dealing with issues for the Wharf, sets running over an hour or more, or blogging and promoting for that prosperous pile. It is hard to quantify some of those hours because they are intertwined with everything else I do. (By the way, I’m not complaining – It’s a combination of the best jobs in the world. I love it).

Often times it’s a matter of priorities. I spend time with my various friends, whether its bouncing from/to clubs, hanging out at their place, or meeting up at The Wharf. I frequent other venues as well, like the Aqua Lounge or Centerfold, to hear my friends play.

I am increasingly busy when I'm online, though. Especially today, Friday - I have a set to put together yet - I think I'll do a boogie/funk/disco set, maybe. I've been thinking hard about how I can vary my sets more. I used to drop into other clubs all the time to hear what others are playing. I've not been doing that quite so often of late.

My passion for the Wharf and the satisfaction I get from that whole portion of my SL continues unabated. It’s challenging sometimes.

One GOOD thing is, Ima has shown herself to be a competent, fun-loving and capable person at hosting, so she's helping me out a few nights a week for my sets (for the past month, I’ve been without a regular host because the time difference for buster was just too great), and for the Wednesday night set. That will take 4-6 hours commitment off me from the hosting side, and/or making my DJ sets less stressful.

Overall - I guess I don’t really have a point to this ramble, other than – you put time and effort into things you have to, and into the people and things you love, and you hope that the time is worth it. I think it’s worth it. I would rather spend my time sharing with these people I have found that are so awesome - this family of wonderful, crazy, brilliant, funny, and messed up missfits - my brothers/sisters and friends.

Alternate Routes

I meant to blog on this last week, but I honestly was so exhausted at that time, that I have only just recently come to terms with how I dealt with the issues and how it affected me.

Over the last month, as many as 6 of my friends have, one way or another, revealed themselves to be alts of other characters that I am friends with. A few, I discovered by accident, another I discovered on my own, and the others I was completely taken by surprise.

I guess the common theme here is, SL (and the internet in general) allows you to annonmously adopt other personae, allowing you, if you so chose, to explore parts of your own self that you feel this simulation affords you that freedom to do.

I try to take it in stride. I know some people take it more seriously, and consider such a discovery to be a horrible betrayal of trust.

I guess I try to take a reserved or pragmatic approach. For me, I sort of consider it a private matter, as long as the "deception" did not involve using me or my friendship at a tool to do someone else or me harm. Do I LIKE that a friend has with held that he's had an alt interacting with me.. no, I don't "like" it. But if they have not abused me, worked against me, or tried to gain some advantage over me or my interests and friends, its not as big a deal to me.

I would hope that my friends realize the sort of person I am, and not with hold this sort of thing from me. I'm not going to call them down for being less than forthcoming over a private matter. Things aren't always cut and dried, but it depends on how I was treated and how they behaved in this other persona.

I know that there are indeed those that simply use their alts to experience SL in privacy when their "main" avatar possibly becomes 1) too popular 2) embroiled in "drama" or 3) genuinely dislike their avi and they want to no longer "be" that person.

One friend makes no bones about his identity - in fact both of his avatars are a dance team - its fantastic to watch Fire and Ice. I can't say enough how much of a grin I get out of it.

I guess, in the end, we are on SL for our own reasons, and despite what we may think the reasons are of those that are "close" to us, we don't always know what is going on behind the eyes of the avatar we're talking to. Each and every avatar, for the most part (bots not included) has a brain somewhere on the other end of that connection, making decisions, feeling emotions, experiencing connections with others. I've always said this is a giant playground of non-accountability and fantasy exploration. The only people you will have to account to are those that you abuse or hurt if you are not careful in what you do. If you don't really care or think SL is just a game, then you will not really get the point I'm trying to make. But if you do care about the people that you interact with.. just remember they do have feelings, and your actions have consequences. Sometimes those consequences are mild or even beneficial. Others can be massive flaming conflagrations.

In the end, its your choice how you chose to interact with others, and the amount of respect you chose to show, and its none of my business how you do those things unless you chose to make it my business - so tread carefully on my emotions please, if you are an alt.. honestly.. you're not an alt are you? Are you?

"Are you your own alt?"

I reserve the right to be upset and emotional if I find out you are an alt, regardless of my declarations in the article above. XD

Plans are a wonderful thing if you make them

I can't get over how things work out sometimes. Between Friday night and Sunday night, it was a strange and cool journey - really, you just don't know how things will work out. I'm just going to talk about Friday here.

Friday - I didn't mention to very many people that I was home sick on Friday - I won't get into the sordid details, but suffice it to say I was not at my best. In fact, I spent a good portion of my time in bed or on the couch watching TV or sleeping. By the time the afternoon came around, it was closing in on time for Esmi's set at the Wharf, and my set was still far off, so I logged on and got to listen to him spin, and mostly just sit back and enjoy the sounds from someone else's play list that I haven't had the opportunity to hear much lately.

Finn did the heavy lifting as Host, which was fun to watch. And it made me feel better. I think I mentioned in the Wharf blog that at the end of Esmi's set, the crowd started talking about how there wasn't a lot to do, and where could they seek entertainment.. and that's when Esmi and I think Finn gave me a nudge and "suggested" that I start now, and play tunes for everyone. Considering my earlier statement about being ill, I had hardly even started to prep for my set - I had some ideas, but really, I didn't have a lot of idea what I was going to do. But that's never stopped me before. So, I kicked it into high gear, started throwing tunes into the cue, grabbed the stream, and away we went.

I played a lot of requests Friday - and I love doing that, and I love announcing it. Sometimes though I am trying to DL a song for someone, and miss the opening of the song request, because sometimes there's a variable lag between you transmitting it to the stream, and when its actually playing on SL - and that sucks when you're busy and still want to mic an announcement, dedication, or tell someone who requested what.



Something to note - sometimes, its hard to fit requests into your set, if the styles of music (slow, fast, angry, lovey, hard, soft, dance, metal, etc). But in this case, I had a lot of good requests and I picked up on "topical" comments, and moved some songs in as I needed them. I don't think I had more than a half hour's worth of songs ahead of deadly silence at any particular time during the first 2 hours I played. But I will say everyone enjoyed the tunes.
The things I like most about requests - 1) it helps you get to know your audience and what they want to hear, 2) it exposes you to different music 3) Its a danger element because you just don't know sometimes if the song you are putting up is going to be something that fits.
At one point, Esmi and Finn were identical bunnies. It was disturbing. Especially when they started making reference to their ears being semi elongated and such.. I don't know how else to put it, but bunny smex is rather disturbing. I have felt that way since the bunnytube vid on Ches's blog a few weeks back.

Anyway - like clockwork, Malden popped in at the start of the usual Friday 6pm set, and started doing his awesome hosting. And things kept on rolling and picked up steam. We had a great time.

One of the things that happens sometimes is that people start to roll into the Wharf during your set at the end. Now, if you have something planned to do after the end of your set, its great to go ahead and end the set at the usual preset time. But when you have people rolling in, and swelling the crowd, it makes sense to keep going.
And I did that, for another 45 minutes or so.

But eventually, you have to pull the plug. My energy levels started to fade rapidly after 7:30, but I ignored it and kept going for more than an hour, until I started to feel like I did that morning. I realize Mal was very tired, and I should have been more considerate of that.
I consider that a lesson learned on my part, both in consideration and in taking care of myself. Its important to make plans, and sometimes you have to deviate from them, or operate totally by instinct or whatever. But when you do, you leave out important details.

Yeah, Friday was fun, but it felt weird when it ended. But I still love it when a plan comes together.

DJ Night Sunday - and The Wharf

Sunday – I had the honor and privilege of playing during DJ Night at the AquA Lounge. It was unbelievable! A packed house, over 50 avi’s were present at the start, rockin’ out during my hour set.

I was a little nervous at first- I wanted to make sure I put my best foot forward – there was a lot of lag – I had to reset my graphics preferences to a lower setting simply because it was such a packed room – I haven’t seen anything like that since the Mardi Gras party at Ironhorse. Another reason for a bit of nervousness – I have never played with that sort of expectation before. I mean, I play at the Wharf and Migs, and I have a lot of friends there, and its really more relaxed.. but this crowd was mostly all new people, and I guess it was more of a mental thing, wanting to do well. I think I did great, and I think I played a strong set. The crowd seemed to dig my stuff, and I know I had a freakin’ awesome time.

Thanks to my friend Kaj, and to InsyX, Sasch, and all the great staff at Aqua for their support. I had a fantastic time, and I hope I get the honor again.

Later at the Wharf, Fuzzy had his set at 4PM, with me hosting. The crowd was sparse at first, with all the other events going on such as DJ night - but in the end it was a good crowd, and it worked out great.

And then I played my 6PM set at The Wharf, too, right after Fuzzy. It was a little slow for part of it, but things picked up and it was good. Charley and Gage were once again among us after their RL adventures xD I could write a whole post about that, and how I feel so great for them.. But that's more of a private thing, and my oblique references will end here.

Its one of those things - you have good friends in a place that you love. Our friends we consider close like family, and I thank them all for their friendship and support.

Kewl Friday, Bizarre Saturday

It was quite the weekend, from Friday to Sunday night late (for me at least). I had my first Friday without playing at the Wharf in the last 3 months. This was an adjustment for me, as I always felt that I had a decent crowd draw, and did a good warmup for Kaj on Friday nights. Maybe that will change in the future – but for right now, its nice to know that I can sit back on a Friday evening and enjoy just hanging out.
We all speculated about 2 of our dearest friends, and whether they were having the time of their lives, or if they were hating every moment.. We thought it more likely that things were going well, but.. people speculate when there is a lack of current data – and even if there is, they can still view the data through a smoky lens – the opposite of rose colored glasses. I was wishing the best for them – I said I had everything crossed that could be crossed. and I was really hoping the best. Turns out that, yes, things were fantastic for them. I just grinned ear to ear when I heard about it. I’m still grinning about it.

Anyway, Kaj, displaying his usual awesome DJ might, played an awesome set. I was able to spend a lot of time chatting with friends and all the great people that come through the Wharf for the party. As with most parties, this too ended, and it was late, but me and my man went and spent some time, just the two of us. And life was good.

Saturday was strange. I hate it when people don’t get along – and I walked into one of those situations when 2 of my friends were on different wavelengths over a really stupid joke. I mean, Unicorns? Come on. Well, in the end, it did not turn out well. It might have been worse. I just wish there was some way to fix it. But I guess that’s not my place – I’m only elven in a very human sort of way, and when you have strong personalities involved, emotions running high, and personal codes of honor or whatever, then it gets even more complex. I really believe that even best friends can take a joke too far, but there is personal responsibility on both sides, and someone can cry “enough”, before we reach def-con 1. Stupid Unicorns.


Finn found an awesome skybox - its a rabbit warren, and its so awesome! I snapped a quick pic prior to beaming out to go to my set, and I'm glad I did. Kewl, ain't it?

I had good set @ SDC – The house was packed, and the Euro crowd was awesome. Towards the end of the set, the crowd thins out considerably – its 3am in the morning when I finish. Dodgey was there for my entire set – it was a wonderful surprise to see him there.
I hosted for DJ Blaise at the 6PM set at the Wharf. It was quiet at the start But things picked up within a half hour, and we had a good crowd. Blaise did a fantastic set – he’s become one of my favorite DJs, since he plays a lot of the stuff that I love to listen to. I wish I wasn’t playing at the same time he is, so I could go to listen him play at his other venue.

Finn, Sebastiian, and a few others like Dodgeguy, were in rare form, shifting into avis that were hilarious and cute, if not weird and insane. Dodgey make a big splash by becoming The Staypuft Marshmallow Man, from Ghostbuster - Finn mentioned this in his blog entry - and I laughed and had a ball watching the shifting game of avatars that Finn, Sebastiian and some others played. I just stayed my own little ol' elfie self - I might have taken off my glasses - and watched the parade of awesome.

Oh, Chester and MTD1952 Timeless decided to mudwrastle (yes I said wrastle instead of wrestle) with Chester using his super buttonpushing ability to dominate the circle of mud. I think Mikey let Chessy win, but I can't prove that. You can see the mudpit in the middle of the Wharf in one of the pictures.

Wild stuff. Fun stuff. Good memories xD