OBLEE @ the Basement Club

That is correct!!! The one and only Oblee will be playing live for one hour some of his fantastic tunes.

I can hardly believe how lucky I am to have just have said hello to him and we chatted for a long time. What a cool guy with so much talent. 

I hope you will all stop by and enjoy this one of a kind artist.

Oblee is well known in the Second Life community for his appearance in the Drax Files World Makers and he plays at many venues in Second Life. He also has performed at many of the SL-Birthday celebrations including the recent SL17B and of course many real-life events as well.





Please check out some of the links I provide and listen in. I am absolutely over the moon and need to get some fresh air so I can believe this is happening to the Basement Club.

  

Tune in to some of his music here on his Youtube Channel and find out for yourself and you will easily be convinced how cool his music is. 

OBLEE YOUTUBE

OBLEE OFFICIAL WEBSITE

The Return to the Blake Sea

Today I took a little trip to the Blake Sea, a must-see if you own a boat or plane. Or just go and look on foot, after all, avatars can breathe underwater as well.

I took off in my little flower-powered plane from Hollywood Airport in Second Life (not to be confused with Hollywood, California) and I had to pedal really hard to get it up in the air. I finally did and made it above the 100ft level.
From there you have to fly south and then east in order to get to the famous Siren Isle.

Siren Isle used to be a hidden gem at the southern part of the Blake Sea and you could bring your boat there and just sit and enjoy the quiet ocean. Accept for the seagulls and the waves you could not hear much at all, other than an occasional plane flying overhead. 
Nowadays it is a different story and it is packed with hoodlums trying to make a quick linden on the side with advertisement and just plain stupidity of sitting there naked or harassing other avatars.

It is just bull when you can't find a spot to land here.

The region is totally owned by the Lindens and they would have control of what goes on there but do they even know? They do not make any lindens off all the visitors there and at the moment I was there today 24 avatars sat around in their boats on the isle or in the air. 

I seem to get recognized everywhere I go.

At one point that crazy chick was trying to knock me off the sky at the same time when I heard a voice call out " Princess Anj...." and then I realized that the chick was just an avatar trying to be Wonder Woman. ( Or was it a guy? You never really know anymore.

See you all later!

Well, time for me to take off and explore another fun place I used to go to. On a side note, most of the avatars here were long time residents, so you cannot blame the dumb games on them. Now the Lindens could make quite a penny here is they charge rent to the avatars that live here for free. 

Oh, one more thing...what is the missing letter here? I am so ADHD and OCD that I needed to squeeze this in here...please let me know your answers.

I might give a clue...ok then come Friday to the Basement Club at around 6PM SLT and you will figure out the answer.

Some timely questions for a Sunday.....

Be so busy loving your life that you have no time for hate, regret, or fear. ~Karen Salmansohn

That is such great advice and sounds so easy and simple, but is it? Now Albert Einstein would argue with this and say time is just an illusion and past, present and future are one. I can easily travel in time with my mind and I know you have done this yourself. Think about past memories from childhood. 

When we say “time flies when you are having fun” or feel that the boring meeting never seems to end, we use the prospective timing. In the prospective timing, we feel time moving faster when we have interesting experiences while it drags when the brain is not entertained. Time tracking all fits into the neurological time, which is all time that has to do with the brain. 

Did I lose you yet? Nope, you are still here...good! 

There is another dimension of time which is biological time. The days and nights that pass and things grow and die. We know that nothing lasts forever or does it? I really don't know. We could easily go into the physical time of counting the hours and days and weeks and here we are in 2020. We as humans have created a tool to measure time for our own sanities to keep track of the hours spend on anything. Work, play, and family time we track this by using the good old fashioned clock, whether it is digital nowadays do not matter, the concept has not changed and relatively speaking: Time stood still on that.

Pictures were taken at Brick Lane

Presentism is the opposite view. In presentism, there is only now — the present — and nothing else. The past is some previous configuration of the universe that does no longer exist and the future is some yet-to-be-determined configuration. Is the flow of time than merely an illusion?

Tick tock...tick tock...
Life is counting down on your internal clock.
Memories that feel as if they occurred yesterday
turn to flashes of moments that seem to fade away.
People you once knew
walk by without a clue.

Remember Santa Claus was once real to you and you cannot deny that, think back in time when you suddenly realized that all this time you believed in an illusion?

The Naked Sun

The Naked Sun 2020, Installation by Wizardoz Chrome (aka Alba Rocca)

"In this Installation, you can see a few machinima of mine, linked
to the same feelings that the book of Asimov has created in me.
These machinima contain video clips mainly focused on Art in Virtual worlds.
 Art is one of the major means to transmit feelings,
and often in machinima, it does so without using words...

These machinima contain collective installations or artistic works 
of individual artists, linked by a soundtrack,
which is also the background “leitmotiv” in evoking emotions.
The title of the machinima is generated by the name of the collective Exhibition
in which the artists have shown their works or, in the case of a single artist's work,
by the name of the Installation and/or by what the artist wanted to express. 

The machinima is displayed on the walls of a citadel, I created by Photoshop.
It is inspired by the colored village of Manarola, located in the coastal area of 
"Cinqueterre", UNESCO World Heritage Site within Liguria (Italy).

On the walls of this City, you will find the Shadows of "Inhabitants" and "Things".
It is an "Empty" City on the outside, but “Alive” inside the Houses.
It recalls the current situation of isolation caused by the Covid19 Pandemic."

It is a "City" that expresses the desire
TO GO OUT INTO SUN
leaving behind 
DOUBTS, FEARS, LONELINESS, and SHADOWS 

If you have not gone and seen this installation then it is time you should. The city gives you the feeling of life but in a quiet way from the inside. We all have been experiencing this in our own cities, so this is easy to put yourself right in the middle of this.  A sharp increase in cases among the under-40 age group in comparison with early phases of the pandemic blamed by experts on so-called “second wave behavior” as younger age groups – who see themselves as less likely to contract a severe case of the disease – have let down their guard. Don't let that warm sun fool you. 

A second wave of the virus was expected to come in the fall or winter, as with most influenza-like viruses, but that doesn’t mean another wave can’t hit before then. It is up to everybody to do their part and follow the guidelines to flatten the curve. We are all in this together.

Our Names do not appear...

I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair streams black, the merman in his armored body. We circle silently about the wreck we dive into the hold. We are, I am, you are by cowardice or courage the one who finds our way back to the scene carrying a knife, a camera a book of myths in which our names do not appear. ~Adrienne Cecile Rich

We can love, love, love, but sometimes, that love isn’t returned. That’s not our fault. We chose to love. They chose not to. This does not mean we are unlovable or unworthy of love. We’re not idiots, fools, or weak for loving.

Rather, we have courage. Because we chose to be vulnerable and self-sacrificing; a requirement for love. And when it was over, though the echoes of the painful experiences reverberate in the depths of our being, we picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off and we keep pressing onward.

A goal made in many hours of PTSD therapy was to never apologize for loving people, even if that love is never returned. To be unloving is the other person’s problem, not mine.

Celebrate the fact that you are able to love. There are many people in the world too scared to take a chance on love in the first place. It doesn’t matter who you love or if they love you back. The fact that you can love is what’s important.

On the other side of this, you should never say that you are sorry for letting go of someone who hurts you. Understanding an unhealthy relationship holds you back from reaching your full potential is a huge step forward. Be proud and surround yourself with people who celebrate your courage. Imperfections are what makes you beautiful and unique. They should be embraced. Never say you’re sorry for a quality that makes you imperfectly perfect.

pictures were taken at JAMBO! - A Voyage To Africa 

If the truth hurts, the benefits of honesty far outweigh the initial sting of the truth. Once you have apologized for that then you are NOT obligated to do this over and over again for the same thing. Over apologizing or saying I’m sorry when it’s not necessary reduces self-esteem over time. It’s important to keep in mind that the trauma you suffered was not your fault and it will take time to heal. 

Shame is part of being human, shame is often part of PTSD recovery. At its base, shame drives the fear of not being good enough, plus a sense of humiliation, both of which are very powerful messages that affect all aspects of life. Shame can feel enormous and incredibly catastrophic, but that's just it: Shame is only a feeling, which is tied to a thought.

Do I feel shame? Yes, daily I feel shame for all actions I do and even telling the truth of admitting that I love and that I let that love go because it was not returned. Will I apologize for it? Hell NO!!!

"I Had A Dream And You Were There"

“I had a dream about you last night... you were a giant slinky and I watched you fall down the stairs.”

"This is an installation about losing someone and missing them. It is a creative manifestation of thinking about someone and wishing that they were here. It dwells on a moment in our dreams and wanderings when we feel like someone we lost is with us again.

The artwork is not about any specific person, nor is there a person in a physical form depicted in the installation. Instead, personal items are left to be discovered around the exhibit, such as a book or a piece of clothing. After all, we do not always have to see someone to feel them." Exhibit Name:  "I Had A Dream And You Were There"

“I had a dream about you. I was sitting on your couch, relating my succession of ideas on subconscious influence. I asked you what they meant, and you told me that free associations were a bad way to advance my artistic career.”

“I had a dream about you last night... you kept meowing at people and licking yourself it was not unlike you normally.”

“I had a dream about you last night... You turned red, then green, and then blue. You told me you were trying to fit in with the m&m's.”

Fiona Fei is a Chinese American artist, classically trained in oil painting and electronic media.  Much of her early years were spent painting landscapes and portraits using oil paint on canvas.  However, she developed a love for non-photorealism over the years. 

In continuation of her love of non-photorealism, she now produces Chinese ink-brush art in Second Life and exhibits my work around the grid.  Please go and visit this exhibit in Second Life, part of the Hannington Endowment for The ARTS.

“I had a dream about you last night... You replaced all the people in your life with kittens. It felt more like a prediction of the future.”

Hard-working girls?

Hard-working girls? Of course, we are, well not in the sense that you may be thinking of. The urban dictionary describes them as:  "A woman who’s always working hard and doesn’t need a man or have no one to depend on to help her. She accomplished all her with no handouts."

The world has changed in the part that women need to stay at home and take care of the kids and cook and clean, well no. There are still countries where women have no rights at all. I won't mention any here because it is a search you must do alone if you are interested in this. And the idea that we don't need a handout I have to disagree. As people, we all need a handout in the department of encouragement. There is nothing wrong with that telling someone you have done a great job whether they are female or male.

As women, we are still looked upon as a weaker part of society. Ladies, listen there are some things we as women cannot do but woot there are things some men cannot do. Are we not equal after all? As women, we do not have to prove to anyone that we are strong, because we already are. For me, I do not believe in all the women's movements because they sound like a bunch of loud yelling PMS females that have nothing else to do. What are our rights? We do have rights that promote a position of legal and social equality of women with men. So what is all the fuss about? 

As a woman just like any man, you must work hard for what you want, that is a human condition. Nothing is given for free. Educate yourself, work and most of all live happy without regrets.
At least we have boobs that men love :) 😜

** P A R A P I N A **

Opening, Wednesday, 24 June 2020 12:30 pm SLT 21:30 French time
Aneli Abeyante is pleased to present you
Theda Tammas Iono Allen
** P A R A P I N A **
DJ JadeYu Fhang 12:30 pmslt
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Holland/142/23/3502

This was such an amazing installation, I hope you get to see it as well. The dancing statues were perfectly in rhythm with the music. You felt you were there with the people dancing around the statues.

Just an amazing creation of art and movement. It always leaves me in awe when I see things like this created in the virtual world here in Second Life. The talents that people have shown points to that they are highly educated and intelligent because this takes a lot of skills to create. 

Iono Allen is a MachinimaMaker (Art machinimas) so go check out his videos on Vimeo.

You can also see some of Theda Tammas artwork on Flickr. Two absolute one of a kind artists.

Great Set at the SLBirthday Celebration with DJ Dandy

Our very own DJ DANDY from the Basement Club performed a perfect 2 hour set at the Second Life Birthday Event today from 9 to 11am SLT. So many people from all over the world and that is what makes Second Life so special because it brings the world together.

The music was great and you could feel the genuine vibe of people having a great time. Please do stop by the Basement Club on Thursday Nights for some more great tunes played by DJ DANDY. 

Happy Birthday Second Life!

Hard to believe that Second Life has been around for 17 years. So, it has to be something great if people keep coming back to it. For me, it has been a long road of almost 9 years of this. I am so lucky in a way, I documented all of this in this blog from day one.

I made several goals along the way:

1. Build something that is mine. ( well almost, a few things here and then.)
2. Work in SL ( yeah I became a host )
3. Become a DJ ( yeah I did that )
4. Have an art exhibit ( yes, done that )
5. DJ at the Birthday Celebration ( yes, I did last year and will this year. Thank you SL )
6. Have an exhibit at the Birthday Celebration ( yes, it is there )

So, in order to celebrate all of this, I am giving away my little exhibit car. Yes, it is very modest and you probably can get it on Marketplace very cheap, but here is the thing, if you like photography why not photograph it and ass it to the group and win?

www.flickr.com/groups/amretreat/
Take a picture of the car and you
Become a Member of the Retreat-Basement Club Group
Post your picture in the Flickr Group
GOOD LUCK
Contest ends soon

One sim at a Time

I'm not living, I'm waiting.

Like a serpent, the country road turned, 

hands follow the symmetry of bends

feeling passion upon fingers burned

worshipping minutes and hours spent.

For she is the road that takes me far

no other maiden can or will.

Sometimes I write poetry and don't finish it and then it sits in the field of my mind and waits. I heard the saying if we wait until we're ready, we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives. I realized today that I have stopped living life. I literally just trying to get to the next day, just living in the thought of tomorrow. 😱

I'm not living, I'm waiting. The trouble is I'm not exactly sure what I am waiting for. I am kind of scared of what it might be. I try not to broadcast every high and every low ( well sometimes I do, they are cries for help, I am scared.) I am trying to live. I don't try to convince the world that I have a life. 

To understand the constant ups and downs of a person with PTSD you must swim in the same waters that drowned them. I do understand however that way too many people do not have that time to wait and find out and that takes us back to the poem and the road that turns like a serpent and if you do not turn your wheel you will fall down the cliff. You will never know if you just wait and flowers can grow on something even if you never finished it. 

The importance of "Self Talk"

For every problem you try to hide, let them go like balloons in the sky.

We spend way too much time trying to analyze our problems and fill the hours with why and how come. Some things you cannot change and you have to let go. Maybe someone you loved does not love you back, let it go. Love is like a balloon easy to blow up and fun to see grow but hard to let go and watch fly away. Self-talk is important and you should really do this every day. Oh, I hear you saying how selfish that might be. No, it is not! In order to love others you have, you must love yourself first. 

Dear Me: 

You've been through a lot. I know it is hard, but I am proud of who you are. You are strong, brave, and smart and you were given the gift of a beautiful heart. So keep going strong and try not to stray. Everything you're praying for is on its way. You are too amazing not to feel good about yourself.

You may not exactly be where you want to be in life, but your worth is not determined by your success, body, or what others think of you. You are worthy because you are you. So hold you head up high and start loving yourself right now. 

Never be a prisoner of your past. It was just a lesson, not a life sentence. One more thing I want to tell you ~ You are enough, only a fool would think otherwise. "

Stop and Smell the Roses

“Stop and smell the roses” may be a cliché, but new research suggests it’s sound advice for finding satisfaction in life.

Acknowledging the value and meaning of something—an event, a behavior, an object—and feeling positive emotional connection to it.” So go ahead and smell the roses. I find that many times people do not understand that the little things mean a lot. 

Often this means enjoying the wonders of nature – looking at stars in the night sky, feeling the wind blowing your hair, smelling flowers growing near a busy street.
But the flowers do not have to be roses.
While this expression relates to roses, it can be anything rather small or even commonplace. These things may seem small but they can give us great joy.

Maybe it could be the person who is struggling and today for a short moment they are not. That is a reason to be grateful and smile. You might think that none of these things are necessary and it only matters where you wind up. 

For some people this may be true, but if you find that for your health and peace of mind, it’s time to stop rushing and start noticing what’s urging you on and making you crazy in the process...

Stop. Breathe. Smell the Roses!

Travels with the fluoxetine-fed parrot at the SL17B

You are invited to see my current exhibit, part of the SL17B. This is all starting on June 19, 2020. Come and explore, relax, and have some fun. There is so much to see.

ONE SIM AT A TIME

It is not a disease!!!

So recently after my Second Life video came out about PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) someone told me: "Oh you have that disease." I was really appalled to that because I do not have a disease. That made it sound like I am contagious of some bad virus like the C19. Sad that some people are so ignorant and do not search for answers if they really don't know what something is.
Let me clarify a few things.

1. We are not weak. Suffering from PTSD as a result of trauma is not a mental weakness or moral failure. Rather, it is a result of some traumatic thing that happened to us. The fact that some people develop PTSD after a traumatic event, and some people don't, really has no correlation to the person's physical, mental, or emotional strength. Got that? Alrighty...it is not a disease!!!!!

2. We are not all combat veterans. PTSD can be caused by any type of trauma, not just the horrors of war. Physical, sexual, emotional, or any other kind of abuse, can cause it as well as things like car accidents, natural disasters, and illnesses.PTSD is hard to understand even when you have it. Learn some of the facts that PTSD sufferers would like for you to know about the disorder. It is not a disease!!!

3. We did not ask for the trauma that caused our PTSD. Someone suffering from PTSD is not to blame for having the disorder. We were victims of trauma who developed the disorder as a result. The trauma wasn't our fault, and having PTSD isn't our fault either. And if you do not want to be my friend because you are afraid you might catch it, go and leave now...

4. We cannot just "get over it." PTSD has physical symptoms; it affects our bodies, not just our minds. Telling someone with PTSD to "get over it" is like telling someone with epilepsy to "get over" having seizures. It doesn't work. Or telling a cancer person ok you had enough cancer now so stop it.

5. We want you around, even when we don't act like it. Sometimes we want to isolate and withdraw from daily life. That doesn't always mean that we want to be alone, though. We may feel comforted by just being in the same room with you, even if there is no interaction.

6. Management of  PTSD is possible, but it doesn't always feel that way to us. Having support from you and seeing that you believe we can recover is the best thing you can do for us.

There you have it. Now for those of you who are friends and think you know, you don't. One thing is for sure you can either stick around and support me or cut the strings. I hate silent treatments and sayings like "I better let you deal with this alone" or "I talk to you when you are over this meltdown."  Even a cancer person does not need someone who cannot support them. And no you cannot catch this because PTSD is NOT a disease.

Home Invasion by Naria Panthar and Timm Novak

The Retreat's secret Hang-out was not featured in the Second Life Destinations Video, but now for the very first time, it is open to the public.

Thank you Naria, Timm, and Victor for stopping by...always fun to watch you guys.

Please do take pictures and add them to the Retreat Group Flickr Page...I may give out some prizes.

I spend most of my time here alone, but I felt it is too pretty to just be selfish and enjoy it for me, so I decided I would show this off as well and only those people who actually read the blog would get access to it because I leave the landmark at the end of this blog entry.

Come and relax under the stars outside or go inside and get cozy by the fireplace. Pet the kittens, but do not feed them they are all on special diets. There is a free gift for all who would like to grab it, it is the "all you need is a cat" sign.

The voodoo doll I do not recommend touching, it is evil...no I am kidding. Play some Greedy outside with friends or just enjoy the quiet sounds of the waves.

Visit the Secret Hang out today: TELEPORT