Groovin' Weekend

Okay, last entry I gave you the sort of overview og the weekend, but I wanted to go into a bit more detail.

If you're sick of reading about my SecondLife, you might want to stop reading here...

It's just so cool, the way SL and RL mesh for me! I spent all day Friday working and waiting for 2:00 am, when I could go home and get back in-world. When I do, it's like I never left.. only a lot of stuff has happened that I have to hear about.

Plus, weekends LAST LONGER in-world. Days cycle, like, every 2 or 3 hours in-world. So even if I'm just bombing around the world (because all my friends are off-line) on a Friday night/Saturday morning after I get off work, I've seen 1 or 2 sunsets and sunrises. I feel like I've lived an entire weekend before I go to sleep Friday night!!!

So anyway, my weekend begins in earnest on Saturday. I'm meeting Lisa and Regina at the theater to catch SILENT HILL Opening Weekend! This is HUGE for me! I missed STAY ALIVE at the theaters because of time/money/circumstance, and I was a little afraid that I might have to wait for dvd for SILENT HILL, as well. But stuff worked out just fine, and I GOT TO SEE IT!!!

And that's cool enough! But it just so happened that I got to have some cool, intelligent conversation about the movie for a few minutes after, as well!

Then I hop in the car, and I'm on a mission: I need to get in-world in time for the opening of the club I helped create!

Now don't get me wrong, the opening of the club is not my triumph, personally. Tam is the genius behind the vision! And this chick's SMART!!! And then Brian's also a genius, because he was able to physically (in cyberspace) create the building itself. THESE TWO are the heroes in this little story.

But I'm super proud to have been a part of this team!!! And both of them are quick give me props for my small contributions, so I don't feel guilty thinking of the club as "our" accomplishment. (But I have no actual delusions about just how small a part I actually played...)

So anyway...

I totally want to be there to celebrate with my friends!!!

So this is my mission: Get in-world for the Opening.

But...

...I have a side-mission: Brian and I need smokes and beer.

It's been a while since we drank, and I got paid Friday. So beer just seems like a groovy idea for tonight, Celebration night. Then, we need smokes. Brian's low on dough until next week, and we've both been smoking a LOT more than we usually do, so if I score a carton of cigarettes, that'll help the next week go by more smoothly.

Plus, you know... IT'S THE WEEKEND.

Oh, and I have a Netflix movie I need to drop into a mailbox. (Our complex doesn't have an enclosed Outgoing box, and the 2 times I've chanced dropping my movies off in the complex mail box, Netflix didn't get the movies. TWICE in just over TWO YEARS. Coincidence? Probably; but I don't take the chance anymore.)

Okay, so this should be a one-stop trip. There's an H.E.B. just down the street from our appartment... AND there's a drive-by public mailbox in the parking lot!

So first I drop off the Netflix movie, then I roll into H.E.B.. They're having a sale on beer, so I'm able to load up for less than I expected!

But they don't have the smokes I'm looking for.

Scheiza.

Okay, there's a Texaco down the road that I KNOW has the smokes I'm looking for, and plenty of them. It's a little bit out out of my way, and will cost me about 15 minutes. But once I've procured the smokes, Brian and I are set for the weekend!

Now, the weather's all Summer-y, and I've popped in my "Summer Jamz" mix cd, so I'm kind of getting a whiff of some of teen-dom. This, after I've FINALLY gotten to see a good Horror flick IN THE THEATER on OPENING WEEKEND...

I'm having A GREAT DAY!!!

I snag the smokes, roll home, slip into my Comfy Gear and log into SecondLife!

In-world, Brian and Tam are dancing, the club's not packed but it's got plenty of dancin' folk, and Tam reports that she's happy with the attendance tonight.

SCORE!!!

If she's happy with the way Opening Night went, then it was a success!!!

After a little while Tommy shows up and joins the fun! I have IM conversations with him and Tam and a couple other people while Brian and I are laughing and shouting down the hall to each other.

So there's more danincing and chatting and laughing and fun.

After a while, after everyone else goes to bed (in RL) Brian and I go to a screening of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW in-world!!!

I meantioned that last time. But it was REALLY fun!!! I mean, it's 1:30 am or later in RL. Nobody's awake except US at this hour. But in SL, there are some other freaks sitting and watching this movie with us, yelling at the screen and laughing at each other!!!

It's a GOOD life!

Then yesterday, had the Family Dinner thing with Mom, and that was groovy. And we burned some dvds for her, which took up the slower computer -- the one I usually use for SL when Brian and I are both home. So Brian -- generous cat that he is -- pops in BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE on the PS2 (it plays better than the dvd player in the living room) and takes over the burning process, allowing me to use his computer to go in-world!!!

(I WUV my bubba!!!)

So I get to hang with Tam and others at the Shark Pit, dancing and chatting. After the first dvd is burned, the pc decides to act wierd, so I'm sort of in-and-out of Brian's room. But that's cool when you're dancing in SL! To any in-world on-lookers, you're dancing with them. You might be slow to respond to questions, but it doesn't hurt the atmosphere or the vibe any.

Some hours later, the dvds are burnt and Brian has -- VERY GENEROUSLY -- decided to let me continue using his pc while he goes in-world on the slower one -- the living room one!

That means that ANYTHING I do in SecondLife, ANYWHERE I go, the graphics are just about as good as PS2 graphics! I get to experience the world the way the creators intend it to be experienced.

Meanwhile, Brian's such a geneous in-world that he's still wicked-skilled!!! I'm on his computer and he's on the living room computer... He STILL creates circles around me!

He's THAT GOOD :)

[He would humbly argue with me -- something along the lines of "Aw, now... I'm OKAY, but..." -- but he never reads my blog... Too busy in SL :) ]

But it would still be a while before I joined him on our Build Land. I was dancin' with Tam at the Shark Pit :)

Eventually, the later it became, the Pit crew was own to Tam, a woman named Loki and me. The ladies decided to go to another club, so we all teleported there seperately. And it was the COOLEST feeling when we all entered the front door at THE SAME TIME...

First of all, this club is in a city, and the teleport landing spot is ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE CITY from the club. So you have to make your way through (or OVER... you can fly in-world) streets made to look exactly like RL Amsterdam.

And if your TerraWarp Belt is set on 2 (out of, like, 5 -- and Speed 1 will make you shoot around like a rocket), you're gonna bump into a lot of stuff.

Okay, the secondly... You know this sensation, it's happened to you before SOMETIMES in your life:

You're out with your friends, you're running around, having a FANTASTIC TIME (you feel like a teenager again... or like a GOD), and you get seperated momentarily, but you agree to all meet up at the same place. It could be the mall, it could be a dance club, it could be a movie theater. But you're all arriving in different vehicles and you've all left at slightly different times.

Then you get there, and you're walking past the sidewalk, walking toward the front door... And you look over and see your friends doing the same thing at the same pace. You ALL just happened to arrive at the SAME TIME, completely independant of one another! And you feel like a rock star or something!

And none of you says "Oh, there you are" or anything like that. You just notice each other and keep walking, each of you probably feeling that same cool vibe.

And where you're headed is actually quite a bit inside the doorway, so you all just keep walking, and the distance to your destination inside somehow makes you feel like you're a rock star in a movie about being a rockstar, and you've just entered the building and you just keep moving toward the stage, to that crowd that's cheering you on inside...

I KNOW I'm not the ONLY person who has experienced that! Right?

Anyway, that's what it felt like as I'm walking into the club (on a computer that has crystal-clear graphics, even when you're entering a new region [with visual data that needs time to render]) and I look over and see the ladies also arriving at the same time, and then the three of us take our own path through the loby and to the dance floor, and then we ARRIVE... people dancing and chatting to each other, the party that has just been warming up until WE got there :)

Yes, yes, I have a HUGE ego. I've been told this before. But truly, that's the way it FELT.

Better still, we're there only for a few minutes when we hear that it's Pajama Night... :)

You don't need details about this... Just imagine you're in a room with hot women, you yourself are a hot male, and EVERYONE is in their pajamas :)

THAT'S a good room to be in.

This entry's going on FOREVER, isn't it?

Anyway, let me cut to the chase...

So I'm up until 7-ish am this morning, and I set my alarm to 2:00 pm to give myself 6 -- rather than 5 -- hours to sleep. I hit the Snooze a few times this monring (MY "morning", mind you) and then I finally decide to get up and I turn the alarm off.

Then at 3:00 pm, I wake up again...

I had dozed off after I killed the alarm...

I have to jump in the car at 3:30 pm to make work on time...

So I jump into some clothes, throw on my No-Time-To-Make-Myself-Purdy hat, and race to work. In the car, I've still got my Summer Jamz playing :) And I get to work about 5 minutes late, and my boss in in the room when I show up.

He's in mid-conversation, though, so he says Hi to me and continues talking.

10 minutes later, I'm caught up on everything I have to do IMMEDIATELY upon arriving at work, and I'm able to join the conversation.

So for me, this weekend seems to have been about me racing around from one place to the other, conversing and laughing, and feeling cool.

And now it's time for me to race home from work and hop back in-world... and feel cool :)

Here's hoping YOU feel cool very, very soon, too!!!