Both Moggs Oceanlane and Deadlycodec have added comments in the past two days but I can't get Blogger to let me publish them! All I get is as error message:
We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.
When reporting this error to Blogger Support or on the Blogger Help Group, please:
* Describe what you were doing when you got this error.
* Provide the following error code and additional information.
bX-p2ixs5
Additional information
blogID: 796214310334781259
host: www.blogger.com
uri: /moderate-comment.do
Bummer! The Blogger Support and Help Group offered suggestions but they didn't work. Double bummer!
And I mention this why? Well, seeing as a whine an awful lot about the horrors of censorship, my failing to publish comments might be interpreted as the very act I abhor. I keep telling my American colleagues that the First Amendment is one of the most beautiful constitutional additions to any constitution and that it is vitally important to protect it. So I'm doing my bit for democracy by at least proclaiming that I am not censoring stuff!
Of course, maybe it's a plot by the people at Blogger...
Showing posts with label Moggs Oceanlane. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moggs Oceanlane. Show all posts
May 21, 2009
May 19, 2009
SLebrity Update: How Can I Spin This..?
Blogger and Plurker Moggs Oceanlane offered to do her bit for promoting the frequency of the word SLebrity by letting me know that her friend Valiant has added it to the Urban Dictionary. As of today, it isn't there yet but maybe soon...
On the downside, I checked the Google hits for the word and it now stands at 1,940. This represents a minor downturn in its use and I still hold out hope for a resurgence.
On the downside, I checked the Google hits for the word and it now stands at 1,940. This represents a minor downturn in its use and I still hold out hope for a resurgence.
Jan 14, 2009
Sixteen Random Facts About Siggy You May Not Know
A serendipitous virtual encounter with Moggs Oceanlane ended in my adding her blog to my list of "places to visit when I'm feeling like avoiding real work." She issued a Plurk challenge to "Post your RL pic and 16 random facts about your person."
Well, an appeal to my ego always works simply because;
1. I am far more shallow than I may seem. The concept of "depth" doesn't apply. If I appear to be deep in thought about, say, the vicissitudes of the Manichean heresy against the backdrop of postmodern revisionism, I'm actually more likely to be thinking of large breasted women. Naked.
Having addressed the first random fact, here are the rest:
2. I firmly believe that shit happens; that shit happens all the time; that shit happens to everyone; and that shit always happens with a vengeance. This is so true that when anyone asks you any question, simply answering with the word "shit" is going to work 99% of the time. (Q: "Hey, Sig, how are you feeling" A: "Shit.")
3. I'm absolutely sure that Chaos is the natural order of things. This is a corollary of 2, and the only way to explain the perversity of the universe. In a vain, pointless attempt to dissuade us from committing suicide, Mother Nature ensured that our brains are wired to assume that there is order and purpose in our existence. This, however, is shit. Order and purpose are pure illusions - only there to stop us from (a) realizing that life is meaningless and (b) sticking our heads down toilets and repeatedly flushing until we drown.
4. I always buy belts so they fasten on the third hole.
5. I prefer the window seat on a plane. That way if there is an horrendous crash, I can at least see it rather than sit wondering what the fuck is happening.
6. Like all men, I am driven by the desire for three things: Sex, Food, and Money. And money is just a way of getting to food and sex. And I'd rather have sex than steak.
7. My cute British accent is only cute if you are not British. Otherwise I don't actually have an accent.
8. I have taken a piss out of the door of a moving locomotive while traveling at 70 miles per hour. I'm not necessarily proud of that but I was (a) drunk, (b) young, and (c) unable to find sex, food, or money on the train.
9. My "stripper name" would be Candy Levant. For those who don't know, your stripper name is (a) the name of your first pet and (b) the name of the first street on which you lived.
10. I have been officially reprimanded by guards at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Prado Museum in Madrid, and the South Australian Museum in Adelaide; each time for nothing worse than trying to take photos. I failed to get ejected from the National Palace Museum in Taipei so my "Bad Boy of Culture" status is waning.
11. I actually helped oust the Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian by taking part in a protest in 2006. This wasn't a political choice but I wanted the cool T-shirt the people were all wearing, and once I'd bought the shirt, people came up to me, shaking my hand, hugging me, and taking pictures! Once I was recognized as "an international protester" supporting the People, I couldn't just walk away so ended up on the front line waving my fist with all the other protesters. I still have the cool T-shirt but Chen Shui-ban doesn't have his job.
12. When I was 14-years-old, I made money at my old school by selling pornography from the Tuck Shop. It was an all-boys Catholic Grammar School (those who went to such an establishment know what I mean) and so there was a demand for porn that I felt I could meet. A friend would steal the porn from a newsagents and I would then sell it. Capitalism at its finest, I think.
13. My three favorite books are The Metamorphoses by Ovid, Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis, and The Magus by John Fowles. I have many other "favorites" but these are the ones I re-read at least annually. I actually travel with Ovid (the title of my yet-to-be-written book - Traveling With Ovid.)
14. When terrorists crashed into the twin towers on September 11th, 2001, I was stranded in South Beach, Miami, FL. Stranded. I had to stay there for three days, trapped by the beach, stuck in the bars, and forced to eat out at expensive restaurants. Shit happens - but sometimes your shit isn't as bad as other people's shit.
15. I can go from being outrageously arrogant to irritatingly depressed. This, of course, is fairly normal for human beings but I mention it because I like to feel normal.
16. My favorite fruit is the banana. It looks good, tastes good, and has a really really cool name. In fact, I suspect banana is one of my favorite words. Well, that and sex, food, and money.
So there you have it: Sixteen glimpses into the soul of an avatar. Now go away and make your own list and remember to send me the link. Hey, I'll show you mine if you show me yours!
Well, an appeal to my ego always works simply because;
1. I am far more shallow than I may seem. The concept of "depth" doesn't apply. If I appear to be deep in thought about, say, the vicissitudes of the Manichean heresy against the backdrop of postmodern revisionism, I'm actually more likely to be thinking of large breasted women. Naked.
Having addressed the first random fact, here are the rest:
2. I firmly believe that shit happens; that shit happens all the time; that shit happens to everyone; and that shit always happens with a vengeance. This is so true that when anyone asks you any question, simply answering with the word "shit" is going to work 99% of the time. (Q: "Hey, Sig, how are you feeling" A: "Shit.")
3. I'm absolutely sure that Chaos is the natural order of things. This is a corollary of 2, and the only way to explain the perversity of the universe. In a vain, pointless attempt to dissuade us from committing suicide, Mother Nature ensured that our brains are wired to assume that there is order and purpose in our existence. This, however, is shit. Order and purpose are pure illusions - only there to stop us from (a) realizing that life is meaningless and (b) sticking our heads down toilets and repeatedly flushing until we drown.
4. I always buy belts so they fasten on the third hole.
5. I prefer the window seat on a plane. That way if there is an horrendous crash, I can at least see it rather than sit wondering what the fuck is happening.
6. Like all men, I am driven by the desire for three things: Sex, Food, and Money. And money is just a way of getting to food and sex. And I'd rather have sex than steak.
7. My cute British accent is only cute if you are not British. Otherwise I don't actually have an accent.
8. I have taken a piss out of the door of a moving locomotive while traveling at 70 miles per hour. I'm not necessarily proud of that but I was (a) drunk, (b) young, and (c) unable to find sex, food, or money on the train.
9. My "stripper name" would be Candy Levant. For those who don't know, your stripper name is (a) the name of your first pet and (b) the name of the first street on which you lived.
10. I have been officially reprimanded by guards at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Prado Museum in Madrid, and the South Australian Museum in Adelaide; each time for nothing worse than trying to take photos. I failed to get ejected from the National Palace Museum in Taipei so my "Bad Boy of Culture" status is waning.
11. I actually helped oust the Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian by taking part in a protest in 2006. This wasn't a political choice but I wanted the cool T-shirt the people were all wearing, and once I'd bought the shirt, people came up to me, shaking my hand, hugging me, and taking pictures! Once I was recognized as "an international protester" supporting the People, I couldn't just walk away so ended up on the front line waving my fist with all the other protesters. I still have the cool T-shirt but Chen Shui-ban doesn't have his job.
12. When I was 14-years-old, I made money at my old school by selling pornography from the Tuck Shop. It was an all-boys Catholic Grammar School (those who went to such an establishment know what I mean) and so there was a demand for porn that I felt I could meet. A friend would steal the porn from a newsagents and I would then sell it. Capitalism at its finest, I think.
13. My three favorite books are The Metamorphoses by Ovid, Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis, and The Magus by John Fowles. I have many other "favorites" but these are the ones I re-read at least annually. I actually travel with Ovid (the title of my yet-to-be-written book - Traveling With Ovid.)
14. When terrorists crashed into the twin towers on September 11th, 2001, I was stranded in South Beach, Miami, FL. Stranded. I had to stay there for three days, trapped by the beach, stuck in the bars, and forced to eat out at expensive restaurants. Shit happens - but sometimes your shit isn't as bad as other people's shit.
15. I can go from being outrageously arrogant to irritatingly depressed. This, of course, is fairly normal for human beings but I mention it because I like to feel normal.
16. My favorite fruit is the banana. It looks good, tastes good, and has a really really cool name. In fact, I suspect banana is one of my favorite words. Well, that and sex, food, and money.
So there you have it: Sixteen glimpses into the soul of an avatar. Now go away and make your own list and remember to send me the link. Hey, I'll show you mine if you show me yours!
Jan 3, 2009
Second Life SLebrity - Word of the Year 2009
I try to keep my real life very separate from my Second Life experience. That way I have a virtual clean slate - you judge me on what you discover about Sigmund Leominster and what he does. The minute I say "as a policeman in real life," "as minister in real life" or any permutation of "as a in real life," you begin to judge and make assumptions, either consciously or subconsciously.
However, I'm not too worried about saying "as a linguist in real life" because that's a phrase most folks will either misunderstand or have no reaction to. I doesn't mean I speak lots of languages (I speak British English and American English, so I am bilingual) but that I work in a profession that deals with "language" as a whole. I am interested in things like grammar, pronunciation, etymology, meaning, and lots of other weird and wonderful topics. I get paid to do this, so that helps ;)
All this is simply a preamble to commenting on the word SLebrity, which, after a year of living and working as a writer in Second Life, I discovered only a few days ago. How can that be? It seems such an obvious portmanteau that I'm surprised I didn't coin it myself many months ago.
Well, one reason for not coming across it is that it is still a low frequency word. When you perform a Google search, you get a figure that tells you how many examples of the search term are found. SLebrity has the following:
Results 1 - 10 of about 2,730 for slebrity
By contrast, sesquipedalian gets 104,000 hits, pareidolia gets 127,000, and even Sigmund Leominster gets 4,870! So, apart from the fact that I am clearly more of a SLebrity than slebrity,you get the idea: SLebrity is still a neonate in the world of words.
Top of the search list is a reference to SLebrity in the - surprise - Second Life Wikia. Here it is defined as, "a portmanteau of SL for Second Life and celebrity. It refers to an avatar who has become notable in second life media, though not necessarily in the wider world."
Then comes a blog post entitled SLebrity Inc. June Promotional Contest, which refers to a contest held in June 2008, the results of which I sadly do not know and have no intention of finding out just yet because I have a life.
Moggs Oceanlane mentions the word in her December 2008 blog post about annual Second Life lists, in reference to Vain Inc.'s Best of Reader's Choice Nominations.
However, I feel that it is an under-used, under-valued word that has the potential to make it big. SLebrity can become a Slebrity! All it needs is a little promotion and tender loving care. And because Slebrity is, like real life Celebrity, a pointless, trivial, and ultimately irrelevant thing, I'm going to make it my Cause for 2009: Slebrity for SLebrity!
Not for me promoting the causes of cancer kids, starving Africans, abandoned kittens, whales, Welsh, or any one of a million celebrity-endorsed money-making schemes. No, I'm standing low and going for goal - nothing! A pointless campaign for a pointless reason purely because I want to. It's an existentialist wet dream writ large. And what's more, I can measure it so as to be able to prove whether what I have done over the year actually achieved anything. So here's the starting point:
January 3rd, 2009: The word SLebrity generates 2,730 hits.
All I have to do is to remember to check this again at the end of 2009 and see how many hits appear. And because it is based on objective crawling by the Google search engine, even you, dear reader, can check that I am not lying. The results of my promotion are objective, repeatable, and verifiable. Real science, ladies and gentlemen, not some crystal ball gazing or self-justified rationalization from a self -appointed "guru" who's trying to persuade you how right his or her predictions were. Nope. Real science.
And here's the really sweet thing: I can't lose! If the figure goes up, I claim victory in proving that I can promote a word to new heights. If the figure stays put or drops, I claim that I have demonstrated how shallow and pointless SLebrity is. It's a win-win for me come the end of the year.
You can help. Use the word "SLebrity" whenever you can. Use it in your blogs and articles. Add it to your profile. Buy my T-shirt - "I'm a SLebrity!" And most of all, come back in one year to see if my "Prediction for 2009" comes true.
However, I'm not too worried about saying "as a linguist in real life" because that's a phrase most folks will either misunderstand or have no reaction to. I doesn't mean I speak lots of languages (I speak British English and American English, so I am bilingual) but that I work in a profession that deals with "language" as a whole. I am interested in things like grammar, pronunciation, etymology, meaning, and lots of other weird and wonderful topics. I get paid to do this, so that helps ;)
All this is simply a preamble to commenting on the word SLebrity, which, after a year of living and working as a writer in Second Life, I discovered only a few days ago. How can that be? It seems such an obvious portmanteau that I'm surprised I didn't coin it myself many months ago.
Well, one reason for not coming across it is that it is still a low frequency word. When you perform a Google search, you get a figure that tells you how many examples of the search term are found. SLebrity has the following:
Results 1 - 10 of about 2,730 for slebrity
By contrast, sesquipedalian gets 104,000 hits, pareidolia gets 127,000, and even Sigmund Leominster gets 4,870! So, apart from the fact that I am clearly more of a SLebrity than slebrity,you get the idea: SLebrity is still a neonate in the world of words.
Top of the search list is a reference to SLebrity in the - surprise - Second Life Wikia. Here it is defined as, "a
Then comes a blog post entitled SLebrity Inc. June Promotional Contest, which refers to a contest held in June 2008, the results of which I sadly do not know and have no intention of finding out just yet because I have a life.
Moggs Oceanlane mentions the word in her December 2008 blog post about annual Second Life lists, in reference to Vain Inc.'s Best of Reader's Choice Nominations.
However, I feel that it is an under-used, under-valued word that has the potential to make it big. SLebrity can become a Slebrity! All it needs is a little promotion and tender loving care. And because Slebrity is, like real life Celebrity, a pointless, trivial, and ultimately irrelevant thing, I'm going to make it my Cause for 2009: Slebrity for SLebrity!
Not for me promoting the causes of cancer kids, starving Africans, abandoned kittens, whales, Welsh, or any one of a million celebrity-endorsed money-making schemes. No, I'm standing low and going for goal - nothing! A pointless campaign for a pointless reason purely because I want to. It's an existentialist wet dream writ large. And what's more, I can measure it so as to be able to prove whether what I have done over the year actually achieved anything. So here's the starting point:
January 3rd, 2009: The word SLebrity generates 2,730 hits.
All I have to do is to remember to check this again at the end of 2009 and see how many hits appear. And because it is based on objective crawling by the Google search engine, even you, dear reader, can check that I am not lying. The results of my promotion are objective, repeatable, and verifiable. Real science, ladies and gentlemen, not some crystal ball gazing or self-justified rationalization from a self -appointed "guru" who's trying to persuade you how right his or her predictions were. Nope. Real science.
And here's the really sweet thing: I can't lose! If the figure goes up, I claim victory in proving that I can promote a word to new heights. If the figure stays put or drops, I claim that I have demonstrated how shallow and pointless SLebrity is. It's a win-win for me come the end of the year.
You can help. Use the word "SLebrity" whenever you can. Use it in your blogs and articles. Add it to your profile. Buy my T-shirt - "I'm a SLebrity!" And most of all, come back in one year to see if my "Prediction for 2009" comes true.
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