I Tickles Gemini…

I Tickles Johna…

I Tickles Lalelu…

( And Lalelu Tickles I ! )

I Tickles Lil…

I Tickles Trodden…

I Tickles Seth…

I Tickles Sok, while standing on a box…

I Tickles Zell…

But, what happens when I Tickles I?

…I wonder why?

I decided to give it a try. I created an account, and arrived on Orientation Island. Looking back, my expectations were low. I doubted I would be able to create something that looked like a child, but I figured I’d get as close as I could, and role-play the rest. “What name should I pick?” “Childs” just to help other people get the idea.

I ended up with something that looked like this:

I looked around Orientation Island. I went to Waterhead and got some ideas about where to go next. A notecard in a billboard at Waterhead listed some Linden picks. One of them said “Free Ice Cream”. I followed the landmark, and got a free cone in a very realistic ice cream parlor. It was very nice, but it occurred to me that I was alone.
So, I brainstormed other places I might find other “kids”. I used the in-world search to find “adoption agency” and “foster home”. There were several. The first two were interesting but empty. The third one was a place I found very inviting, and immediately I made some friends there.

I spent a week or so hanging at this adoption agency. There was a playground, an reading and activity center, a train kids could ride, some camping tents (at some point I figured out that “camping chairs” on the home page’s world map were stupid), and a little house where I could wash up and tuck my little avatar into bed. How cute! I later found out that the bedroom was not for orphans but instead belonged to the owner’s son. Oops! He didn’t mind, though. Also at the adoption agency there was a pool with a water slide, though I didn’t have a Swimmer yet. So I became good at the hover-float technique.
At some point, Gemini came along and showed me some other places besides the adoption center. In his office at The Vortex, he suggested that I buy a wig. Boy, was he right.

I didn’t go back to the adoption center much after that, and, like the ice cream parlor of my first day, it has since closed. Much has happened in the last 1000 days. I’ve taken some long, unannounced breaks, but I’ve always come back eventually. I’ve made several extended-duration family role play arrangements, the longest of which is ongoing. Domineck and Randy are Adz’s virtual adoptive fathers, and David is is virtual brother. Adz now has a treehouse, a bedroom on RanDom island, and a secret headquarters. My inner child has room to play and grow. I built a separate identity for Adz. I created some content for SL that fits into the child-like-avatar-wearing (C.L.A.W.) niche market. I created a website that helps new users pick a good last name, and declared Adz the owner of that, for better or worse. Along the way, Adz has changed appearance with only a few tweaks here and there.

Even though the prime focus of my first hours and days in SL was my avatar shape, this is not the most important thing I’ve gotten out of SL. Rather, it has been the like-minded friends and the acceptance I’ve gotten in my virtual community.

And good friends who understand me, know who I am inside, and, for some reason, accept me anyway.

It is all very good for my health.

Thank you all. Happy New Year.

I am experiencing some Internet troubles that won’t be resolved for a few days. If I enjoy anything in SL today, and this is a long-shot, it will have to be parked in a seat with lots of time to fill the cache. No moving. No streaming audio. You may notice some missing scenery in the first snapshot, above. I won’t bother with snapshots today since they’ll look like Arthur.
Cyr Eel! Cyr Turtle! Cyr… Little Boy! ))

“What shall I call him?” he said to himself. “I think I’ll call him PINOCCHIO. This name will make his fortune. I knew a whole family of Pinocchi once—Pinocchio the father, Pinocchia the mother, and Pinocchi the children—and they were all lucky. The richest of them begged for his living.”
After choosing the name for his Marionette, Geppetto set seriously to work to make the hair, the forehead, the eyes. Fancy his surprise when he noticed that these eyes moved and then stared fixedly at him. Geppetto, seeing this, felt insulted and said in a grieved tone:
“Ugly wooden eyes, why do you stare so?”
There was no answer.
After the eyes, Geppetto made the nose, which began to stretch as soon as finished. It stretched and stretched and stretched till it became so long, it seemed endless.
Poor Geppetto kept cutting it and cutting it, but the more he cut, the longer grew that impertinent nose. In despair he let it alone.
Next he made the mouth.
No sooner was it finished than it began to laugh and poke fun at him.
“Stop laughing!” said Geppetto angrily; but he might as well have spoken to the wall.
“Stop laughing, I say!” he roared in a voice of thunder.
The mouth stopped laughing, but it stuck out a long tongue.

Maybe if I am good and I read my books and study, someday I will be a real boy.

(( Adz identifies with famous artificial boys, David featured in A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), and D.A.R.Y.L., a 1985 film by the same name.
In the photo, Adz stands and reflects on his limited existence. heheh. ))

By the way, it is a coincidence that my little brother is named David. However one of the first things I did upon meeting David was give him a “My name is David!” gesture complete with an audio clip from the film.

Source: http://www.myheritage.com/face-recognition Suggestion by Crap Mariner.

I have been waiting and waiting for experiments with these grids to complete successfully so I can finally release an overall summary. Today I have decided to just give up and release the summary. If some miracle happens and I am able to finally connect to these remaining two alternate grids, I will post and update. But someone would have to talk me into it again — I’ve stopped trying to connect as of today.

I also have some Launcher Icons I created in GIMP, based on the respective grid logos. I will now release those.

Here is the summary table.

CentralGrid	Alive and well. I connect instantly. Here is a launcher icon for you.
OSGrid	Alive and well. I connect instantly. Here is a launcher icon for you.
DeepGrid	Unable to connect. Since January. Multiple client versions attempted. Multiple home regions attempted. Multiple login URI’s attempted. You see, their website is sparse even though the design is promising. So, I cannot find login URI information on the official site. Instead, I have tried three different login URI’s, always based on what it says in someone’s blog, or in an update to the opensimulator.org wiki. Each time, my hopes are dashed when I am still unable to connect. The error message varies, but it is always terminal.
OpenLifeGrid	No response from website. Simple as that. I was going to write about the difficulties in getting a username, but it hardly matters now. Here’s an launcher icon in case they ever come back to life.

Apologies to the two grids i was unable to connect to. I gave it my best shot. Now… I see there are new grids listed at http://opensimulator.org/wiki/OpenSim:Grids. I’m tempted to try.

Again, no political statements here. LL still gets my $31/mo., not to mention Adz’ Dad’s private island.

Happy grid-hopping.

-Big Adz
))