One does not simply walk into Marketplace

Things have gotten a bit heated up my way, as in the mid- to upper 90's. According to the Murphy's Law principle that dictates the inner workings of bookmobiles, this is also when the air conditioning gives out. Usually on the first day of summer, just in case we might miss the point.

So yesterday, after roasting like a peanut for the better part of an afternoon, I finally settled down in the computer chair at home with no plans whatsoever. I'd just finished adding to the clothing line, the new poster wasn't due yet, and I hadn't heard back from the one person wanting a custom job. I figured it would be a night to just chill and hang out for a change.

This pleasant fantasy carried me through all of the time it took me to boot up and check my email.

Therein I saw not one, but two complaints from two different people in regard to our affiliate vendors. We give them away for free on Marketplace, and whoever sets them up gets a 20% cut of sales. We have dozens of WIN affiliate vendors out there, and they make up a good chunk of the gym's income. So if there's a problem, in these days of monolithic tier fees, there's a problem.

The problem, in this case, was that every affiliate vendor being direct-delivered from Marketplace was vending the exact same set of products. Whether one ordered the MMA gloves, boxing trunks, boots, bikinis, whatever, the vendors were only dispensing women's boxing robes. A nice product, to be sure, and one I think I can be justly proud of. But when it's not what the customer is expecting, quality control becomes a moot issue.

So yeah, a problem.

And, as it turned out, just the beginning.

The first step in troubleshooting is to recreate the problem. So I logged into SL and bought a couple of vendors off of Marketplace to see what they'd do. At the same time I was talking to the customers who had complained, assuring them that I was on the case and all would be sorted out eventually.

And just then, a friend IMed me.

And not just any friend, but a friend whom I adore and have not heard from literally in years until just that very night.

SL has made me a happy multitasker. At the top of my game, I can hold three conversations at the same time (if one is in voice) and still build up a quick little something for a photo shoot if need be.

But I had so much to do. A problem unresolved is a hair in my mouth. I can't rest or think about anything else until it's solved. And I couldn't stay logged in under the Abel Undercity account to solve it.

I wanted to stay and stay, and catch up, and have a laugh with my friend.

I had to go.

As if I didn't already feel like enough of a heel while making my excuses, another friend, one all too used to my "hello, I must be going" schtick, said "hi" just then too.

And I was leaving both of them in the lurch in order to go play with Satan's Little Beta Test, the Second Life Marketplace. So, not only am I a heel, I'm an idiot as well. Choosing fiddling with Marketplace over quality time with friends is like choosing thumbscrews over a nice slice of chocolate cake.

I could forgive the interface for being ugly if it wasn't also slow. Then there's the matter of bulk delete, which doesn't work at all. This was especially problematic during the transition from magic boxes to direct delivery, because switching over from a boxed item to a direct delivery folder unlisted the former. Very soon, anyone with a large number of items ran up against a limit of only 100 unlisted items, with no more being allowed until some were cleared off. Without bulk delete, this means clearing items off one at a time.

Did I mention that it was slow? Perhaps "glacial" is the better term. The combination of lack of bulk delete and slow response time is what turns Marketplace, for a vendor, from a necessary evil into a massive, grinding time-suck.

Not to mention the almost-random error message (I say "almost" because it comes up 100% of the time if you're a hopeful soul attempting a bulk delete despite all past history) that kicks you back to the front page instead of the one you had come from.

As the night drug on,  the annoyances became so commonplace as to become mere irritations.  But at the back of my mind I kept thinking about everything I was missing out on, for the sake of getting the damn thing to work properly.

It's times like these that really have me reconsidering the notion that Second Life is something I do for fun.

My place in the Care Bear Corps

For the explanation of that title, see here.

So I Googled "Lantern Corps personality test," and now I'm sharing results. Woo. I'm a wild man.

Your result for Which DCU Lantern Corps Is For You?...

Indigo Lantern Corps!

Take Which DCU Lantern Corps Is For You? at OkCupid

Who knew I was such a nice guy? :p

Allons y!

I missed the turn of the year and decade* here on the old blog, so best to dispense with the year in review (you're welcome) and look to the year ahead (sorry).

Another Day, Another Doctor:

Spoilercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

First off, big props to BBC America for not making us wait to say goodbye to David Tennant as The Doctor. Both episodes of The End of Time aired Stateside the day after each did in the UK. It was a fitting sendoff, taking a darker turn than usual as The Doctor grappled with his mortality right up until the very end. Tennant's last words as the Doctor took the form of a haunting final plea: "I don't want to go."

Heavy stuff, and a hard act for the new Doctor, Matt Smith, to follow. Mercifully, the slate seems to have been wiped clean for his new incarnation, Tennant's Doctor having given his goodbyes to every major supporting character from Sarah Jane Smith to Rose Tyler. Thus we might be spared another unwieldy "Companions Assemble!"-style mashup in the style of The Stolen Earth/Journey's End.

The BBC has also posted a preview of Smith's upcoming turn as The Doctor to YouTube:



My first take is that I really, really hope there's a Plan B after "hit the Dalek with a stick." The Doctor looks like a tweedy college professor (even with the gun; remind me to introduce you to some of my old professors), and that seems to work for him. After all, call yourself "The Doctor" and eventually I suppose you can expect an occasional academic turn.

As with all Doctors before him, fandom seems to be taking a "wait and see" attitude for Smith's following Tennant's wildly successful run. I'm eagerly awaiting it myself.

More Human than Makehuman:

My favorite piece of software still under development, Makehuman, seems to be back on track after two setbacks in 2009. The first came from without, as their original site was attacked by hackers, necessitating a time-consuming move to Blogspot. The second was self-imposed, as the original mesh model was replaced with a newer one. The alpha 4 release just came out a couple of days ago.

According to the road map, alpha 5, originally planned as the final alpha release and including the pose engine, has been bumped down the hierarchy, with the pose engine and transition to beta now set to follow alpha 6. Perhaps wisely given the events of last year, Makehuman has declined to set a date for future updates. But barring disaster the end of the year should find us, if not at, then at least much closer to the final release version of an open source alternative to Poser and DAZ3D Studio.

Comic Relief:

More and more I feel like it's time to explore alternative outlets for my favorite medium, comics. As I get older, big crossovers in superhero books feel less like events and more like attempts to pick my pocket. Don't get me started (again) on the meaninglessness of a character dying. At least The Doctor has a built-in "out" for that.

More and more it looks like the only thing I have to look forward to in the comics realm this year is another visit to Wizard World Philadelphia, which seems to have learned its lesson from last year's fiasco and looks to be putting a good show together this time. Of course, given the current financial realities, I can't say if I'm actually going just yet.

Still, a guy can hope.

Here's to 2010. May we all see 2011.

UPDATE: Forgot something else planned for the year ahead, assuming the principals can stop fighting in court and take it to the ring where it belongs. My call for Pacquiao vs. Mayweather is Pacquiao. He's got the speed, and I don't think Mayweather has the tools to counter him. Hopefully they'll take their corners on March 13th and we'll see.

* - I know, I know, math purists, but what can I say? People like watching multiple digits roll over (cf. the Millennium).

PSA: Just Say No.

The holidays are looming large ahead of us. That means celebration, festivity, and frolic.* And as always, when we gather with friends, there's always the possibility of temptation, of doing something that we know we'd later regret.

So when your host opens that drawer and pulls out its contents, it's perfectly natural to want to go along, to not be the party pooper.

But this is not the time for comity or compromise of principle. As your friends and loved ones plunk down on the sofa, ready to take in the offered contraband, it is time to take your stand.

Warn them.

Stop them any way you can.

Under no circumstances can you call yourself a friend if you let them watch The Star Wars Holiday Special.

I'm serious. There are good movies, bad movies, so-bad-they're-good movies, and awful movies. Then there is The Star Wars Holiday Special in its class of one, where we can only dream of it being merely awful. If the dread Necronomicon came with a dvd insert, the first selection on the menu would be The Star Wars Holiday Special.

I have come back from that dark land, where Bea Arthur tends bar at Mos Eisley, and where Harrison Ford joins the final sing-along at the end looking like he wants nothing more than for a very heavy set piece to fall on him, to warn you.

Don't do it.
* - Whether you want to or not. FROLIC, DAMMIT!

My dream library project: Putting tools into as many hands as possible.

A public library, a good one, is always more than a mere collection of books. Libraries are a hub of the communities that have them. They act as founts of knowledge, crucibles of human thought, and the foundries of creativity. In a library, one seeking the tools to engage the world will find them.

With that principle in mind, picture, in the lobby of your local library, a box. It's open, with the top torn off like a supermarket candy display. A hastily-scribbled note taped to the box simply says: "FREE! TAKE ONE!" You reach into the box and, instead of candy, you pull out a flash drive. A cheap one, say, no more than 4 gigs in size. The kind they hand out as promotional items at trade shows.

You take it home, plug it into a USB port on your computer, and (perhaps against your better judgment) turn on the machine.

It boots up to a desktop that you've never seen before, but this is no hijack. You're clearly still in control of what's on the screen.

A quick exploration of the menus reveals what you suddenly have at your fingertips.

A full office suite. Powerful Photoshop-level graphics programs. 3-D applications, both simple and complex.

Game engines of all sorts.

And that's not all. There are audio and video editors.

And so much more, that it seems like, with time and application, one might be able to create almost anything.

A box full of these little drives, there for the taking on a library table, all free and legally available. All unasked for, but discovered by people who had never thought to seek these tools out.

Putting aside, for the moment, matters of funding such a project, or its feasibility. What wonders would grow from such a scattering of seeds?

Don't try this at home.

When a shitty, inexplicably popular franchise needs to be bashed, sure, you could just sit on the couch and mock it between handfuls of Doritos. But are you really bashing it? Are you applying the full spectrum of sheer scorn that needs to be heaped upon this insult to the collective intelligence of humanity? Or are you just winging it as best you can within your limited scope of insult humor while trying to avoid choking on a Dorito?

In cases like this, it's best to call on the movie bashing professionals at RiffTrax, for quality MST3K-style acts of cinematic destruction:

I am that which I used to mock.

So yesterday morning I found myself alone with both breakfast and the remote, my wife still feeling tired and having gone back to bed. I'd had more than my fill of Michael Jackson coverage (here's the latest: He's still dead), so it was time to head into the outer limits of basic satellite service.

At 5 AM it's mostly a trip into infomercial hell, of course. I had no urge to have the question "Is Colon Detox Hype?" answered, and so too did other such siren calls go unheeded. My normal refuge, Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, was showing something like Home Movies, a crudely-drawn sitcom featuring annoying kids, self-absorbed adults, and not a single speck of actual comedy. Plus for some reason everyone on the show, from the tall to the small, wears footie pajamas 24/7. Seriously.

Finally, shelter was offered in the form of VH1's 120 Minutes, which used to be the MTV show for the latest in alternative rock and pop. Now it's a nostalgia show, its content very much unchanged from the days when it came on after Headbangers Ball.

I had just taken a sip of my coffee and was nodding my head to the beat of the Pet Shop Boys when realization hit me: Here I was, wallowing in nostalgia for my youth, just like the forty-somethings I used to make fun of during my youth. Only now the bands in question were Sonic Youth and Depeche Mode rather than the Grateful Dead and Manfred Mann.

Ah, well. I guess somewhere in my brain it will always be somewhere between 1987 and 1991. It's the karmic price I pay, I guess: Leaving myself an open target for the next generation of smartasses, as those middle-aged men before me.

I won't be going so far as posting "The Circle of Life" or "Sunrise, Sunset" here, but I am willing to throw out some Love and Rockets:



And if I'm playing Love and Rockets then I have to follow up with Sonic Youth (with special guest Chuck D):



And follow that up with XTC:



And end it all with a bang with Wendy O. Williams and The Plasmatics: