The mood today? Dark
Somehow I don’t look so moody here, but looks can deceive. Oh, and my right should attachment is missing. ((sigh))
Archive Page 2
26
Jun
The mood today? Dark
16
Jun
Some recent images
Sometimes images pile up on me but I don’t have the drive or time to do a full blog post about them. Still they are cool images I’d like to share with my readers.
PS: No swastikas on the plane. Go doesn’t truck with Nazis
Here I am impaling Heath with my fishing pole.
A cement factory on a sim.
Ravishal and Izabella relaxing on the mountainside in Aintree
ABBA chills out at the Club Neptune at the bottom of the sea.
10
Jun
Can’t touch this!
Can’t touch this!, originally uploaded by GoSpeed_Racer.
Just because I am in a silly mood . That’s Gomem Desoto btw in the red outfit.
Hammer time!
06
Jun
Virtually Forever
Virtually Forever, originally uploaded by GoSpeed_Racer.
Normally I write this blog as if I am speaking as GoSpeed. For this post I step back and adress you as the person behind the avatar.
To me, GoSpeed is a virtually manifested construct of my mind. She has a shape, is textured, accessorized, and is mobile. She also has a “life” of her own that is unique from the Keyboardist who drives her around the grid. I experience Second Life through the eyes and ears of my avatar. The world is presented on my screen and the sounds and music come through my speakers. I interact with others via text and sometimes voice chat. When I am GoSpeed in world I behave differently than I normally do in RL. In most cases for the better and maybe in a few for the worse. There are some who play their SL avatar as if it was themselves. What they do, how they look and what they say is a near mirror image of their real selves.
In the last case I would think that if their avatars were taken away by force or simply abandoned out of boredom then the users don’t seem to lose much. But for the rest of us our avatars are like friends or family. We make them different enough that so that they begin to “feel” like another person when viewed from a distance. To further their identities we make blogs for them, take pictures of them, create an email account with their avatar names, etc… At some point they reach a point where the number of hits on Google is more numerous than your real life name!
So at what point does your avatar become eternal (in a relative sense)? If Second Life were to disappear or if you quit SL, what becomes of your avatar? Your creation in SL is gone for good. The body will die, but perhaps the spirit will survive? Will you migrate to other worlds? Will having to recreate a new avatar in a new world be traumatic when you can’t get it to look like your SL avatar? Trying to recreate GoSpeed in There.com, Twinity, Open Grid, or HiPiHi would be an exercise in frustration, even if Sezmra Svarog were to provide the textures for the new worlds. GoSpeed’s appearance, clothing and other items go a long way to defining who GoSpeed is. Losing those in a move would most likely redefine GoSpeed to a certain degree.
GoSpeed, along with many fellow SL users do live outside SL in active communities like Twitter, Plurk and Ning. There’s no avatar per se, but for the most part we all seem to conform to our regular behaviors.
Is there an afterlife for GoSpeed? Perhaps, but no doubt she’ll be a changed entity as a result. New worlds dictate new rules and new behaviors. How Go adapts will reveal how much she changes.
GoSpeed
Kissing Jezabell, originally uploaded by GoSpeed_Racer.
The last and sweetest kiss at the Kissing Booth for the Relay For Life event yesterday. Thanks to Ravishal, LaDonna, Tymmerie, Zoe, Honour, and Jezabell for coming out to make donations and get a big smooch from me 
. I raised about $1,300L!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gospeed_racer/sets/72157605386874966/
Arminasx’s report from the field:
27
May
IN YOUR EYES
IN YOUR EYES, originally uploaded by GoSpeed_Racer.
They say the eyes are a mirror to the soul. Others say they are a window to the world. Like glass or mirrors you see your self reflected back in the gaze of another.
25
May
My Celebrity Look alikes
Beyonce Knowles 97% !!!!!! How’s that for a match???? Aya I can see too, but Elisha? Maybe the nose is similar.
23
May
Gone West Memorial Park
Intrigued by Zoe Connolly’s post on her new aircraft I decide to check out the sim to see what other aircraft are available. A nice big airfield with all sorts of aircraft present was what I found. Sadly it was only one sim, a void sim or two would be nice for the pilots! While the planes were interesting the greenery off in the distance caught my eye. on closer inspection I see it is a memorial park dedicated to Mannie Madonna. Mannie was well known for his large, drivable and live aboard yachts. Mannie sadly passed away a few months ago 
The park is pretty extensive covering nearly 3/4 of one side of the sim
Lots of pose balls to be found so I called Rav over to pose with me. He’s such a compliant guy around the gals <wink>.
More below the fold….
17
May
New word for the day
I am at a party that is overflowing with god-awful sound gestures. Now don’t get me wrong, I like funny gestures used sparingly, but at parties my god it gets frakkin tedious! A new word popped in my head and I immedieately Twittered it where it got a favorable response. The Word : Soundtard . A Soundtard is anyone who excessively uses loud obnoxious sounds and gestures. Use the word, spread it around, put a name to that boorish behaviour.
Many of us in SL portray ourselves as separate entities, or an extension of the real self. But did you ever wonder if sometimes it was the other way around? Yes, GoSpeed is fictional. Even here on this blog there is no RL intrusion so the waters of fiction and unreality still flow undisturbed and pure. Something happened the other day that drug me out of world and had me face some very weird circumstances. It made me ponder, how much of GoSpeed is GoSpeed and how much is it the keyboard operator steering me? Where is the line between the two (if there even is one)? Let me tell you what happened:
It was a Thursday night and I was talking to LaDonna Upshaw, a very dear friend of mine. I was testing out one of her new couches as she was building pieces for a coffee table when it happened. The normally sharp, crisp sight of her house suddenly went soft, fuzzy, the dark. It quickly passed and light returned to my eyes. Everything changed, the world was soft and muted, but infinitely detailed. Before me was two monitors and a keyboard. I saw scraps of paper with scribbled notes, business card, speakers, a cellphone, sunglasses, a coaster with a border collie picture. A look to the left, another computer, running KONA Radio! I had only seen the SAM3 interface remotely before. Or did I? A Look to the right, another computer,powered down. My hands! Black, feminine with red nail polish. I look down and see my arms, the rose tatoo on left bosom, my lap. I am here! But where was I? Sounds! Music! It’s is KONA Radio coming from the speakers, and from the headset sitting on the computer to the left. I feel! My right hand settles and touches the keyboard. It is stiff, but gives under pressure with a clicking sound. It was then I noticed the screens again, on the left was a black and white picture of me!
Then the other screen gets my attention. Oh, sweet, Jesus. It is a window into my world. I am on the other side. I see LaDonna typing away, lines of text filling the lower half of the screen. She’s typing to me. “Go, are you still there? Are you OK? What’s wrong with your avatar?”
My avatar, MY AVATAR! I then spot myself still on the couch. “I” am still sitting but “I” am ghosted, transparent even. My animations were off and “I” was froze. Dear God, what am I now? No, No, I am here. Am I? The enormity of the situation hit me, and I felt it as a wave of feelings. Physical too as I grew weak and felt a touch of what? Fear? The word adrenaline popped into my head. My face, my armpits began to sweat. I am out of my proper place!
I hear a voice. A child’s voice and footsteps coming up stairs. “Mom!, Dad!… Can I go outside to play!” WHAM! Darkness. Back on the couch. The world became sharp, bright, colorful again. I look up at LaDonna and see her standing over me in a posture of concern, still typing away. “LaDonna, I do not know what happened. I cannot explain it”. Maybe lag? Yeah, that is it, lag.
What did happen? I am left to ponder…….
GoSpeed
