Winter Things- Stacey Cardalines Reporting...

 

Most people hate winter, but I'm not one of them. I love snow, cold, and all that other stuff that turns people off from the Cruelest season. If I have firewood, drugs, and remaining vacation days, a blizzard is one of my favorite things. I may be twisted, but if the normal people can't throw snowballs at each other, eff 'em.

I like winter on SL even more, because SL isn't cold unless you open the window to your computer room in January. I went to a winter sim today, and- as you can see from the pictures- I had no problem at all casting aside my business dress, putting on a hockey shirt, and climbing snowy mountains with nothing but pantyhose on my legs and heels on my feet. That would equal frostbite in the real world, but in SL, it just meant that Stacey had less things to do in her inventory.

I set out to find a snowball fight sim today, but there aren't many of them, and the ones that exist have it somewhere that I couldn't locate. I gave up, but the sim I gave up on it at had ice skating, so I figured WTH? 

The sim is called "Christmas Skate Rink And Holiday Market Christmas Shopping," which is the kind of name that made me think that the sim owner may be ESL. I checked, she isn't, and she appears to be a Vampire. That might seem odd, but Vampires are/were people too, and there's nothing in the Vampire manual which prohibits vampiric enjoyment of winter sports. If Dracula went to Alaska instead of London, I don't think Van Helsing would have beaten him. I went to the sim during sunlight hours, so I'm safe. It may turn into Salem's Lot after dark, I don't intend to find out.

This vampire had a skating rink, so I was all in. I'm a terrible skater in real life. This is embarrassing because I live in a hockey state, but it is what it is. I can only skate if there is a much larger person standing right next to me who might not fall with me if I lose my footing and panic-grab for his arm. You don't see figure skaters wearing hockey helmets, and if that sort of competence/confidence exists in a woman somewhere, the very balance of nature demands that there must also be a klutz woman walking the earth who screams in a panic a lot and falls before she gets on the ice. I fill that role in nature.

I was a hockey cheerleader, both on SL and in (real life) high school. It's easier on SL, where I could wear next to nothing, and where the hockey league carved out a large section of the arena for the cheerleaders to operate in. We were sort of our own show, somewhat akin to that old "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out" joke, just with dancers. The only time I was on the ice was when I posed for the league calendar.

In high school, we were kept in the bleachers and reduced to stomp/clap-type cheers. We were mostly just trying to keep warm and not get hit by errant pucks. The girl right next to me got a puck to the nose once, and I'm still somewhat haunted by it. It did damage. She went from Prom Queen level to maybe a step above Sea Hag in one deflected slap shot. If you can imagine a blonde, rich-school 110-pound cheerleader with a Toucan Sam nose, that was the end result. I felt badly for her, but better her than me.

Either way, skating wasn't required of me as I performed these services. This is a good thing because the Traumatic Brain Injury that would have resulted from me pursuing skating never came about. Otherwise, this article might read "Cambot dongo at the banana patch" and- denied a career in journalism- I might have resorted to a life of crime. Fortunately, for all of us, it never came to that.

Becoming an expert skater on SL is as easy as jumping on a poseball. I started off in skates, but I got my skates at a sim where they assumed everyone was 6 foot 8, so they looked silly on me. I'm pretty short. Any game like SL that relies on the willing suspension of disbelief (I can teleport! I can carry 30,000 item inventories around with me!) will survive me skating in heels. I did have a hockey sweater on, so I score points there.

They have casual singles skating, pairs skating, and trick skating. You can bang out some pretty cool moves with even the simple menu. I didn't try the pairs menu, as I went to the sim by myself. I do my dirt by my lonesome. The pictures of me skating in this article are mostly from the Trick Skating menu. I didn't fall once.

They also have a little market there with some cute things. Some of it is Christmas-themed, but not so much that you think you went back in time a month. I was a big fan of the campfire with the warm-your-hands animation. You can kill some time at this sim, both touring and skating. It is one of the few vampire-owned skating rinks that I choose to recommend.

If winter comes and goes and you haven't gone skating, I can't even do business with you, dog.

Christmas Skate Rink And Holiday Market Christmas Shopping = http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Loon/46/189/106

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A Visit To Tex's Tree Farm- Stacey Cardalines reporting...

 

A lot of people get their trees from Wal-Mart, or a gas station, or some vacant lot where a bunch of trees are stacked against a fence. Someone playing SL can order one from the SL Marketplace, None of these is a good option.

Unless you are a complete zero, you instead want to head out into the country, find a cut n carry tree farm, and hack down your own tree with a big ax like a goddamned man! A girl can cut a tree down too, but it's more fun to tease men. Societal expectations can cut both ways, and a girl can get away socially with saying "Like I'm gonna cut down a tree..."

My husband has a pretty hard job, and he likes to rest on his off days. That's all well and good, but we have to drive from Duxbury to West Bridgewater- about 45 minutes in the car- passing several Wal-Marts and Home Depots on the way- and get our tree from a farm. There is a "Sorry, kids. Mommy gave up this year" vibe to get a tree from a gas station, and I won't do that to my kids. I also only choose the tree, after which my husband cuts it, carries it, ties it to the car, drives it home, and fits it into the stand for the kids and I to decorate. God made my husband bigger and handier, so blame him.

Once you shame your man into doing the cutting, you need to find a place out in the sticks where you can go all Jack Torrance on a spruce tree. Fortunately, Stacey has taken care of that for you.

Tex's Tree Farm = http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Larsen/110/144/103

Tex's is unique in that you can go there, find a tree that is ostensibly growing, and take an axe to it. It will then be moved into your inventory (after you give Tex a little Linden Love, of course) and you can do what you wish with it after. 

Even if you don't have a house or a business to decorate, there are worse ways to spend a December day than walking around a Christmas tree farm. There is a Ghetto Christmas aspect to this, but it beats sitting in a tavern... although I'd recommend sitting in the tavern while before going, so you are properly Jolly.

There isn't much time left before Christmas, so hustle out to Tex's Tree Farm and get you some!

Added SLE Bonus: Fun Christmas Tree Facts!

- Christmas trees date back to medieval Latvia and Estonia, and non-Christian decorated trees may go back to the caveman days. Evergreen trees were decorated in ancient China and Egypt. 

- The custom spread through Germanic territories to Western Europe, usually by the upper classes. Trees are referenced in 1400s Portugal and 1500s France. 

- The Christmas tree came to America with German immigrants. Our founding fathers failed to get in on this trend early, as North America's first Christmas tree was put up by Hessian soldiers stationed in Quebec. Remember, Massachusetts was founded by people stuffy enough to ban Christmas in the 1600s, and the only things they hung off trees here were Witches.

- Your typical Christmas tree is some form of evergreen conifer, like pine, fir, and spruce. Some folks use juniper or cypress, and wouldn't The Starry Night look cooler if Van Gogh had painted some tinsel onto the cypress?

- The star and the angel that you see on top of Christmas trees are symbolic of Bible stuff. The star represents the Star of Bethlehem, which guided the Magi to the manger where Jesus lay. The angel represents God's messenger, Gabriel. You know him from the Annunciation, which was when God, through Gabriel, told Mary that she would bear Jesus. I'm agnostic and apologize for the religious stuff, but it is good for one to know such things.

- Elaborate snowflakes are the most common non-religious tree topper.

- Christmas trees generally go up, even unintentionally with non-religious people, along the lines of Advent, which is the 4th Sunday before Christmas. This coincides with "right after Thanksgiving" in the US.

- The tree tends to come down around the Epiphany, aka the Adoration of the Magi, which is when the Three Kings found Jesus.

- Traditionally, the tree went up on Christmas Eve and would come down on January 6th. This time span is what we now know as the Twelve Days of Christmas.

- The Twelve Days Of Christmas song uses a pear tree, not spruce or fir.

- Queen Victoria and her Germanic Albert were sketched with their children by a Christmas tree in 1848, which boosted tree love in the UK and the USA.

- The first White House tree was put up by Benjamin Harrison in 1889.

-Teddy Roosevelt, an ardent conservation guy, refused to put up a tree. He was unaware that a tree farm generally plants more trees than they cut down.

- Thomas Edison's assistants invented electric Christmas tree lights. Candles were used before then, and fires were common.

- The Rockefeller Center tree first went up in the Depression, when construction workers pooled their assets and bought a tree. The tree is presently topped by a 500-pound crystal star. The tree has been up to 100 feet high and has 30,000 lights.

- Oregon produces the most real Christmas trees. China produces the most (80%) artificial ones.

- Balsam Fir and Scotch Pine are the most popular trees, although it varies by region.

- 35% of trees are sold at garden centers/retail stores. 25% from cut/carry farms, 15% from tree lots and 15% from non-profits.

- Every year, Boston is given a giant tree from Halifax, Nova Scotia. This is a thank you for Boston sending aid to Halifax after a 1917 explosion destroyed half of the city.

- "Christmas tree" came in 8th in a poll of American's favorite smells. They were one spot higher than perfume and one behind bacon. 

- Several murders and beatings have been committed by a husband and wife debating "white lights vs multi-color lights." I've struck my own husband over this debate.

- American songbird Taylor Swift was raised on a Christmas tree farm.

- "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" was written by Johnny Marks. Marks is an obscure artist, which is amazing because he also wrote "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" and all the songs in the Rudolph animated special, including "Silver And Gold" and "Have A Holly Jolly Christmas." He is also the author of "I Don't Want A Lot For Christmas," which means that Mariah Carey owes him a little somethin' somethin'. Of course, he was Jewish.

- Since 9/11, the most famous fire in New York City involved a homeless man putting a Bic to the Fox News Christmas Tree.

- Charlie Brown was once ridiculed for buying a small tree for the Peanuts Christmas pageant. However, small trees have since become fashionable. and are often referred to as Charlie Brown trees. In the real world, that would get Charlie laid, but the Peanuts cartoon beats the hell out of that poor kid, and I always expected to see him shooting up the high school in some special. Lucy consoled Charlie Brown by telling him that "Everyone knows that Christmas is a racket run by some big eastern syndicate."

- "I own a cat" ranked higher than "I am not a Christian" among people surveyed about not having a Christmas tree, and by a large margin. An indoor tree, filled with shiny things to swat at, is irresistible to a cat.

- The American carol "Oh Christmas Tree" is actually a remix of "O Tannenbaum," a German song that doesn't mention Christmas and which may be about a faithless lover.

- A freshly cut tree will drink a quart of water a day.

- Christmas trees take 7-10 years to mature..

- Christmas trees are involved in one-tenth of one percent of U.S. residential fires. Cut and carry Christmas tree farms figure into .027% of ax-related injuries in America, an impressive number considering they are a seasonal item and that America has a lot of lumberjacks.

- America has since come correct on conifers.  America produces about 35 million Christmas trees a year, with Europe being good for another 60 million. 

- Americans spent 2 billion dollars on trees in 2016, making a liar of whoever said "Money doesn't grow on trees." We, sadly, spent $1.8 billion on fake trees. The average price of a tree in 2017 was $73, and that price is about the same today. 

- America has 15,000 tree farms, not including Tex's Tree Farm, which is animated. They provide at least seasonal employment for 100,000 Americans, including journalists like me who have a boss going, "One Christmas tree article? Please?"

- A third of these tree farms are, like Tex's, chosen and cut. This is good because axes and chainsaws are always fun. No holiday is lessened by chainsaw use.

(pause)

OK, maybe Arbor Day.

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This Year, Falloween Fell On A Weekend... Stacey Cardalines Reporting...

Who doesn't like fall foliage? It's one of the few non-syrup reasons I go to Vermont. Autumn colors are my favorite colors, and I even like the air best in fall. I have turned down pretty good jobs in real life that would move me out of New England, partly because I would greatly miss the change of the seasons. People from Maine or Cape Cod often joke about how the tourists all bail before the best season comes, and fall foliage is a big part of that equation.

I'm easy to please with Autumn. I'll be upfront with you that this applies to SL as well. Looking at leaves while playing a game like SL- where you can do virtually anything that can be animated- may seem dull, but if something brings you enjoyment RL, why not check it out in SL? That is actually a pretty good policy to follow, as long as you keep an open mind for new things, or even things you just may not have thought to check out. That's why the gods gave us the SL Enquirer, we do a lot of the leg work for your imagination.

You lose a few things between RL and SL when leaf-peeping. You don't get the crisp fall winds, the smell of falling leaves, the sounds of leaf blowers, the cooling air... the whole October aspect. Some of this can be offset by leaving the window open in your office when playing SL, at least if you live in Massachusetts. We can't add "three hour drive into the mountain forest," but they have driving sims in SL, so you could just go to a few of those to recreate that part. You can even drink some cider or eat some pumpkin pie as you play SL. I can't do all the thinking for you, but I have done enough to kill this paragraph. I have like seven pictures to frame this story around, and tangents are both a writer's best friend and her worst enemy.

I drag my husband along checking leaves if I can't talk any of my girlfriends into driving to the Berkshires in real life. He goes, and claims to enjoy it, but I think he enjoys it like I enjoy going to things that he likes, such as monster movies or car races. "Yes dear, it's wonderful." He knows I'll at least feed him at some point, so it all works out. On such things are happy marriages built.

I went to Falloween by myself, but I usually work solo if I don't need a model. I do my dirt all by my lonesome, as the song says. I'd recommend that for serious Fall folks. A yapping friend or a disinterested spouse are distractive variables, and I don't care if "distractive" might not be a word. Hardcore leaf peepers know of what I speak, and they know that I speak words of Truth.

The good people at Cherished Melody must be fellow lovers of Autumn because they turned the sim out in full fall foliage regalia this year. The sim is known as Falloween, at least for this month. I went through it this morning, and it is lovely. I'd guess that the sim owners are New Englanders, but you never know. I went to a Plymouth sim once, and the owner turned out to be from friggin' Germany.

They have a path that winds through a fall forest, and there are little surprises along the way. Said surprises include a scary graveyard, a witch house, a castle sort of building, and perhaps a few other things. They also had an Autumn-themed art exhibit with pictures of girls in various orange and black. You could spend a good amount of time just checking that stuff out. The graphic artist was quite talented. In fact, whoever put the sim together is pretty talented his or her bad self. They hit Autumn out of the damned park.

Falloween is not a massive sim, you'd have difficulty getting lost in it. However, it was laid out cleverly, and you can kill some time strolling through it. If you need a temporary chill spot to do some messaging or chat to a friend, this would be good for it. If you own spooky clothing, this would be a good sim to go to and just pretend to be part of the exhibit. I do it now and then, people get spooked if the exhibits start talking to them. I didn't do that here, I was there in a bathing suit- as much as I love Autumn, I tend to let go of Summer with great difficulty. Stacey sometimes goes to her SL Enquirer job straight from the beach, player.

However, the real reason you go to this sim is to stroll around and enjoy the various leaves. You could conceivably do this on SL in July or January, but October is when you should be doing it. I don't know how long they keep this sim up, but there is a season for everything, and you should already be heading to this place. I don't write these articles for exercise. I actually write them for money, but helping out my readers is an added bonus.

Falloween = http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cherished%20Melody/39/174/26

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Charlie Don't Surf: A Visit To The Titan Surf Club- Stacey Cardalines Reporting...

 

Surfing is a glamorous sport. You play basketball on a square of concrete. Football, American or European, is played on an often muddy field. Boxing is done upon a sweaty patch of canvas. Skiing, which happens on a snowy mountain and is also glamorous, is freezing cold. Surfing is generally done where the sun is shining and the beach living is omnipresent. Unlike other sports, you could set out to go surfing, decide not to surf at the last second, and still have a wonderful day at the beach. Try that with, say, collegiate wrestling... you're sitting indoors on wooden bleachers around a bunch of smelly gym mats.

That's not a problem at the Titan Surf Club, which is the aesthetic opposite of collegiate wrestling. TSC has a tropical island setting. It looks very much like the shore of the island that Gilligan and the Skipper crashed the SS Minnow onto. If you go there alone, you stand a chance of eventually befriending a volleyball.

Of course, you aren't at TSC to talk to volleyballs, you're there to surf.

It's not that different from surfing in real life, other than you're not in the ocean, you don't need balance, you don't exercise skills, a shark can't eat you, you don't get wet, you don't have to hang around with Spicoli-type people, you won't drown... OK, it's very different from surfing in real life.

What you do is get a surfboard, hop onto it, paddle out, meet the waves (TSC has a perpetual swell coming in), and see what you can do with them. I don't really speak Surfer and will not be able to name the moves I was doing, but I'd go up on the lip, inside the tube, back out of it, and onto the beach. I'm don't know for sure if it is possible to wipe out, but I didn't wipe out, so I assume it is impossible.

There are only two waves at the sim, which is good in that they are always there and ready for surfing, but is bad in that a great part of surfing involves analyzing incoming swells, picking the right one, etc... but that is a small complaint. It is easily offset by "You can show up there and be surfing in 2 minutes, with no prep time at all." 

The waves are pretty cool in and of themselves. They never roll towards the beach, instead of staying in the same place. They do a neat job of simulating the wave breaking, so you can hit it with your surfboard and ride the lip or the tube. Other than aiming the camera as I was moving, I had no difficulty getting pictures of myself at the height of my ride. 

Someone should make a sim like Apocalypse Now, where you have to lead a helicopter attack on a Vietcong stronghold in order to take the beach to surf at. I'd do it myself, but I'm more of an Idea Girl and have little talent for building things. They should also make surfing sims with one really bad wave, 40 feet high, the kind that did in Patrick Swayze in Point Break.

I should add that I am a bit of a storm chaser in real life, although I chase ocean storms instead of tornadoes. Hurricane Henri just missed my state (Massachusetts) and I was too lazy to drive through a hurricane into Connecticut. So, I was in a bad state of mind when I went to check waves on SL, although Titan Surf Club stopped that well enough.

I apologize for wearing a one-piece swimsuit. I don't know how T&A alters my viewership. I work as a wrestler, and a lot of my swimwear is aimed more at the ring than at the beach. I may rock some side-boob in some shots, I'm not sure. "Properly utilizing your tits" never came up in Journalism school, although it probably should have. Maybe if I went to Barbizon...

Titan Surf Club = http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Titan/140/145/21

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Paradise Of Fun Zoo- Stacey Cardalines reporting...

 

Most people never see exotic wild animals in person. I live pretty far in the country, and my animal sighting list goes pretty much dog, cat, raccoon, squirrel, mouse, skunk, turkey, various birds, and fish... nothing that the Discovery Channel is going to send a film crew out to document. I've seen sharks and whales, but I live at a beach and those are not unusual things there. 

What would be unusual is for me to stroll around suburban Massachusetts and run into a Rhino. Rhinos, who are much feared in Africa, are bad things to run into. They are very aggressive and territorial, and would most likely kill me rather than tolerate me moving through his realm. It would care very little if I told it, "No no, you have the wrong country, doctors in America don't think that your powdered horn cures impotence." I don't even think it would eat me, just kill me, mostly to let me know how things get done in Rhino Town.

I'd rather not be smashed into pudding by a livid horned monster who weighs 3400 pounds. My car, which would end your life if I drove it over you, weighs 2300 pounds.

So, a rhino isn't what I want to see walking around suburban Massachusetts. To spare you from other tales of animal violence, I am also not disappointed by the lack of lions, cobras, leopards, cheetahs, hippopotami (?), komodo dragons, alligators, polar bears, wolverines, anacondas, chupacabra, and Godzillas living in the moors behind my house. Giraffes don't have a reputation for violence, but I'd still rather not have one walking around by my rhododendrons. Africa, Japan, Indonesia... you can keep that stuff, guys.

That doesn't mean that, in a controlled environment, I wouldn't enjoy looking at a rhino. It's an amazing, even beautiful creature. I'd pay good money to go somewhere safe and stare at rhinos and lions and other things I don't see in American suburbia. That's why people make zoos.

SL, which reflects real life even when the tigers walk on two legs and talk, is naturally going to have a Zoo go up somewhere at some point. I found one while playing in water parks. You'll get a water park article later when the photographer and I return and I am wearing a more flattering swimsuit. But we did find a zoo.

Paradise Of Fun is a sprawling entertainment complex. It features a water park, a zoo, a mall, and a food court. I went through all of them, but... c'mon guy, there's a Zoo!

It's not a long walk, but it's full of cool animals! Sorry about the exclamation point, but everyone is a kid when they go to the zoo. Unless the adult likes to go on safari a lot, an adult and a toddler have about the same amount of in-person elephant watching time. They're both children, in that sense. I shall therefore conduct myself as one, which my boss here at the SL Enquirer will tell you isn't actually all that unusual. There are very few fully self-actualized adults in the field of sportswriting, and when you throw in the virtual world part... you're lucky that I can even write at all.

POF Zoo is a large circular area where you can move from exhibit to exhibit. You first run into some flamingos, and they are across from the elephants. They have three elephants in a cage that looks about the size of the one that they have UFC fights in, but it is tough to be cruel to virtual animals. You can't jump into the cage with them, even if you are a well-trained cheerleader with pretty impressive hang time for a white chick.

Never fear, because the next exhibit is the Lion and Tiger one. This one has a very short fence, but if you hop over it for a selfie, you sort of hover above the animals. Do note from my picture in the article of this exhibit that at least one mother had no problem at all bringing an infant to a lion den with only a 3-foot fence (which a journalist was able to hop over) between her and both the Ghost and the Darkness. She lived, by the way... I saw her at the Food Court later.

If you survive the Tiger exhibit, your next stop involves tropical birds. Unfortunately, the one that looked like Toucan Sam had no breakfast cereal to offer, so f*ck him and his exhibit.

Across the lane, we have giraffes. Three giraffes also occupy a Hell In The Cell-sized pen similar to the one housing the elephants. You'll notice that the giraffes were the only creatures who we didn't have to zoom the camera into their cage to get a good picture of them, one of the few benefits of being taller than your cage.

There's a river after the giraffe exhibit. As a true investigative journalist, I dove into the river to see if it had sharks or whales or Nemos in it and was an exhibit in itself. No such luck.

My next stop was Zebras and the previously mentioned Rhino. They were in cages, there's no way to jump in, I tried. I have a Slap animation I was going to try out on the rhino, but the zoo designers were one step ahead of me. I'd recommend not putting a striped animal like a zebra behind bars, which in a two dimensional game appear as big stripes. I could barely see the fellow.

They had a gross exhibit with spiders and snakes, but I only hung around long enough for one picture. I don't like spiders and snakes, even virtual ones.

Monkeys were next, I got a pretty good shot of one through the bars. He was funky like a monkey. You really can look at him in his cage and understand why the monkeys hate humans so much in those Planet Of The Apes movies. There were antelopes after that, they were boring, and that was all she wrote for the Zoo.

We'll be back for the rest of the park later, but for now... life's a Zoo.

Paradise of Fun Zoo  =  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Meadows%20Landing/152/131/23

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SL Drama- A Trend that continues across the grid- Stacey Cardalines Reporting...

 

As often as we see "SL is virtual, but there is a real person behind that avatar" statements in people's profiles, and as right as they may be, we also have to remember that SL is a game that we play for fun. No one wants any Drama in a game we are playing for fun, and all but the most sociopathic among us seek to avoid Drama. It doesn't always work out that way, even for well-meaning people.

Life is not One Size Fits All. What you think is funny may offend some other person. You, in turn, may take offense to them casting judgement on you. Some third party may want you both to shut the uck fup. There may be some fourth party who doesn't like the way the third party looks, and there may even be a fifth party who jumps in just for the hell of it. The next thing you know, we have a World War going on.

Drama can be born of innocent circumstances. I happen to know a journalist/dancer named, uhm, Tracey who got into Drama once without evil intent. She worked at an island sim where there were certain taboo behaviors were overlooked, but not all of them. A vendor who does business on the island would throw her outfits now and then, with the dancer getting free gear and the vendor getting free advertising. Symbiotic as can be. Sounds pretty drama free so far, right?

One day, Tracey got a new outfit from the vendor, who is sort of in BDSM territory. "GERMAN SLUT" was the brand name. What could go wrong?

There are many sorts of German sluts (and nice German girls, we hate no one here at the SLE). The field is narrowed somewhat if you take into account that the vendor wishes to reach a global market, 99.9999% of whom would be unable to distinguish between different sorts of German sluts. "Bengesko niamso,"as the Gypsies say.

In the end, after the marketers and Roma get through with it, you have three archetypes. "Beer Hall Maiden," which looks like you'd have to be named Helga or Brunhilde to wear it effectively. There is the "East German Stasi Officer" look, which Tracey thought she was getting, and the "Wehrmacht/Rommel" look, which- unfortunately for Tracey- was the immediate ancestor of the East German Stasi look, fashion-wise.

A quick glance would assuage most concerns. There wasn't going to be enough of Tracey covered to offend many people. Bra, thong, garters, stockings, fishnet... and a nifty little hat. Not a swastika to be seen. The kind of outfit a girl could throw on without worrying too much about and hop out onto a dance pole in front of a crowded club.

Unfortunately, the "nifty little hat" had an Iron Cross on it. The Iron Cross is a military decoration that goes back to when Prussia was fighting Napoleon, but it was also popular in WWII. The Germans were busy people during WWII, and it is not a far leap at all from Nazi Regalia to Nazi to Holocaust. 

Remember the hypothetical person we were discussing earlier, who comes on to SL hoping to have a good time and avoid any drama at all? Well, he found some drama, dancing right in front of him in a Let's Glorify The Holocaust costume. He is well-versed in Nazi regalia, to the point where he would recognize an Iron Cross, even if it was on a short-but-not-that-unattractive dancer who was 95% nude. Unfortunately again for Tracey, the hat was the last thing she took off.

Boy, do people get angry when you dress like a Nazi these days! "The dancer had no idea what she was wearing and had no intent of offending anyone" matters very little in those circumstances. It is never going to be a Great Tip Getting Day if more than one of your customers is saying "Maybe they should toss <you> in an oven." Again, people log on to SL for Drama Free stuff, not to have a Nazi dancing in front of them, making casual small talk.

"Tracey" is logging on to SL right now. She seems innocent enough, but trouble just finds some people...

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Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn... Escorting In SL- Stacey Cardalines Reporting...

"I've always considered writing to be the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like f*cking — which is fun only for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling. Nothing is fun when you have to do it — over and over, again and again — or else you'll be evicted, and that gets old." - Hunter S. Thompson

 

This is the first thing that should go through the mind of anyone who is thinking about life as an Escort. You will be stepping into a world of Rote Sexualization, and something that was once fireworks-in-the-sky awesome will be slowly ground down to you dressing as a cheerleader in a squalid motel room and sullenly climbing onto some ugly fat guy who is more than twice your age. You and he met five minutes ago, when he yelled "Hey, slut!" out of a car window. There's a reason this man is paying for sex, but there is also a reason you are taking payment for it. It's not for me to judge. I have some remarkably shameful things on my personal resume...

 

(lost in thought)

 

Sorry... where were we?

 

What I can do for you is get out on the street, talk to some escorts, and get some insight into just what this sort of life on SL entails. I can also try to find out, as the SLE Staff Assignment Log entry asks for this article, "Why would someone take it up?"

 

This article may be somewhat skewered demographically. I don't do much whoring, on either end of the transaction, and am not familiar with the processes of getting or being a prostitute. I have ideas where, while researching this article, I might find streetwalkers. I really don't have any idea at all where I may find a more high-end, organized pimping service where the girls have dental plans and 401Ks or screw Charlie Sheen. Therefore, we may get a more street-level view of the oldest profession, which is probably where someone thinking of taking up God's Greatest Game as a job or lifestyle is going to start off/end up anyhow.

 

Most of the girls who I found practicing this trade had an understandable desire to keep their names and faces out of this article. Even if the shoe fits, no one wants to be known as the girl who blew someone while sitting on a toilet. I shall respect that. That is why this article will be more me speaking of things in general, rather than me quoting the streetwalkers by name. No Van Morrison/Caravan outing in this column... "Sweet lady of the night, I shall reveal you!"

 

The pictures with this article are models posing as strumpets- I'm the brunette, the blonde is SL Enquirer model Courtney, the redhead is Divas dancer Lynda and none of us work as prostitutes- because the real deal girls are smart enough not to appear on camera. We're not listing any sim names which welcome prostitution, because at that point we become involved indirectly with pimping, and we're a family-friendly newspaper who really shouldn't be doing stuff like that. 

 

While the movies and TV shows may make Escorting seem like an exercise in Female Empowerment, the truth is a bit less Female Empowering. An escort is often someone who has no other options that he or she is aware of. Life deals us all a hand, and we have to make the most of the cards we draw. Sometimes that makes you the President of the USA, or sometimes it leads you to the No-Tell Motel. The devil, as they say, is in the details, and you should always read the small print.

 

On SL, it may be less tragic and more functional. This very reporter refuses to use a credit card to buy Lindens for a video game. I also have a job at this paper that pays my SL bills, and I have it because I have a talent for finding, investigating, interviewing and photographing SL stuff. I had a friend who knew Lanai, the boss of this paper, and I got a job. I had options when I started SL. Some people don't have journalistic skills, and employment is a hard thing to find on SL. You can only go so far with freebies, even if you shop like a MFer.

 

However, any girl who can make a pretty avatar and who can talk a good game has at least one option. It's nothing you'd brag about to Mother. "Mom, Dad, awesome news... I fellated three businessmen today!" It beats starving, but it's nothing that Mom is going to be bringing up at the PTA meeting.

 

The role play aspect is a strong motivating factor on SL. Face it, most of us have mundane lives. Get the kids off to school, do the laundry, vacuum, afternoon shift stocking paper towels at the grocery store, church on Sunday... one can understand how a woman with that RL might seek a bit more spice on when establishing a fantasy version of herself in a virtual world. A boring housewife can push a button and become a wild sexual icon with men all up and after her, throwing money. When I spoke of "no other options" earlier, I left out some things. Some people do Escorting just for the role play aspect of it. 

 

Once you perform the moral gymnastics necessary to start off in the business, the money is OK. You can buy a new dress, some nice shoes, go out shopping with friends... like a normal person. Just when your normal friends are reaching for their credit cards to get the funding for a new hat, you need not do so. You've paid the piper in a different manner, with a special kind of currency. Your friends need not know a thing. As this column frequently advises our readers, "Do your dirt by your lonesome."

 

One of the hookers and I got to talking about regular stuff, and we found out that we had the same mesh body. We got it at the same store, roughly about the same time, and paid the same amount for it. I work as a journalist, and I have a side job as a professional wrestler. She's a prostitute. To get myself meshed, I had to research and write 3 lengthy articles for Lanai, and also had to fight a really mean Czech girl at a Saturday afternoon arena show. I got held upside down, then driven down on my head until I was unconscious. For three days after, I was unable- even with prompting- to remember my own birthday or middle name. That's how I was able to buy my mesh shape. The escort? "One word, lady... bukake. Three Japanese guys. It took seven minutes. I was at the Maitreya store a half hour later."

 

A lot of the hazards associated with RL escorting do not apply to SL. I don't think that you can be arrested for hooking on SL, unless you go to some heroic lengths. You can't catch any diseases from sex on SL, at least not physical ones. Escorting on SL is not like Grand Theft Auto. You can't have your fun with a lady of the evening, then hit her with a flamethrower and get your money back. That doesn't mean that someone won't try...but you will not fall victim to the Long Island Serial Killer or the New Bedford Serial Killer on SL, unless it is part of the role play. You're probably not going to end up marrying Richard Gere either, but if the risk is low, why not shoot for a high reward?

 

There are various sims devoted to attracting streetwalkers, and the men who love them. Most of them are seedy, by design. Sim owners sort of aim towards a stereotype when trying to attract a niche business, and the sims reflect it. If you are hunting for a hooker, you probably want to focus on shadowy, urban sims more than trying to get a Happy Happy in a small town that looks like it drifted out of a Norman Rockwell painting. I can not recall a single episode of The Andy Griffith Show where Andy and Barney had to kick a couple of prostitutes in the ass to get them off the corner in Mayberry.

 

My research did lead me to learn that high end girls operate out of private clubs, usually classier strip clubs or BDSM sims. Group membership often involves an annual fee, and the girls are battle-tested and runway-ready. You can't just walk in off the street with a noob av and work at these places, even if you can write sex better than that Fifty Shades Of Grey author. These places often have a sort of House Mother who makes the girls look like the club and customers want them to look like. Hell, when I was a cheerleader, I was given a ton of gear and outfits, and we weren't f*cking anyone. A brothel will often spare no expense to have very well-made girls, and the expense is not the only thing passed along to the customer. 

 

I should add that the Grand Slam Breakfast on this topic of SL Escorting would be someone who uses SL to set up RL prostitution interactions. I'm no lawyer, but my guess is that this is highly illegal, perhaps even on a Federal, interstate level. I didn't find any of those kind of girls in my research, but the day ain't over yet.

 

In the end, it matters very little how one practices her craft. Whether you are laying on silk sheets at the Playboy mansion or sucking/f*cking/long haul trucking through a series of shoddy hotel rooms, you are all sisters in a special club, one that goes back to Neanderthal times. After overcoming a few language-based difficulties, you could talk shop with a girl holding the same job in 200 BC Mesopotamia and basically be telling each other the same story. Life is funny that way. 

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