Narrator describes a special visit as a child.

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(This will be the last official posting on “Phantom’s Republic.”  To continue seeing creative works by the man behind Phantom Republic, please check the blog or YouTube channel listed above)

Contemplative Moments

with Jay Ketcherside

The “real-life” guy behind Phantom ventures into the wonderful world of YouTube with a new parody … “Readin’ the Headlines with Sister Sonja,” a venture into the excuse-ridden mind-vomit of a Southern Pentecostal woman who lays in bed all day, crying about the world outside.

Watch her recount the following real life headlines from 3/19/10:

– Maryland to Secede from the South

- General blames Yugoslav Genocide in the ’90s on Gays in the Military

- House to Pass Healthcare Reform

There’s already a lot of criticism about the project (as there generally is anytime anyone at LL posts), so instead of filling this page up with html links, I’m just going to focus on one that I found today on Ordinal Malaprop’s blog (posted way back in December).  His post is a “line by line” critique of the program based on the LL’s claims in its own blog.  His major complaint is that regardless of how Linden Lab tries to sell this new program, it is nothing like the now-defunct “First Land” program they had many years ago (where a new resident could get a cheap 512m2 lot).

He lists the new rules of Linden Home living … you can live there, but you can’t sell it, can’t doze it and build a new one, can’t buy the house next door and merge the property, can’t terraform, etc.  He compares the whole experience to staying in “a hotel room: a comfortable and inexpensive place to stay for a bit when visiting a foreign land, but if one plans to remain there and do anything worth doing, one moves on.”

Most of the criticisms seem to be in this vein … “I don’t like it, so new residents won’t like it either,” “it isn’t anything like First Land,” “no one in their right mind buys Mainland,” etc.  I’ve heard a lot of people waxing nostalgic about First Land, but all that program did was create Anshe Chung and make the rest of the mainland look like the dumping grounds for Legoland’s bad ideas.

Second Life has a real problem: thousands of people sign up for their free accounts every day, and only 1% of them log back in again.  Even fewer register for a premium account.  For those that try to explain this phenomenon, some give as many different reasons as W gave for invading Iraq while others pretend it is simply one of the great unexplainable mysteries of the universe.

But, most of us – I think – can point one reason or another we logged on again.  I, for starters, couldn’t escape an empty infohub after being spat out of Orientation Island … until I saw a quite spectacular avatar (to my newbie eyes) that was floating in the sky, and who nice enough to give me a rudimentary explanation of how to get around SL.  I spent the next afternoon exploring and the next three years living two consecutive virtual lives.

But, on that first day – I was getting exasperated.  The controls weren’t intuitive, and that big empty sim didn’t seem much different than getting lost in a stripped-down version of Myst.  I certainly didn’t understand all the hype that was going on in the media about this new virtual world.

A lot of first day residents feel similarly confused.  They haven’t quite figured out how to explore the massive grid, and have no “safe place” to return to.  Trying to find a place to live wasn’t easy when I started – First Land was out of inventory and on the brink of being canceled, and it took a few hours to figure out where I could find a place to stay, how I could rent it, and how I could put out things that I purchased.  Most people – in this ADHD society – want things turn-key, easy, and intuitive.  Needless to say, in 2006-2007, starting a virtual life in SL was anything but turn-key.

Linden Homes is away to correct that – to stem the flow of the 99% who choose to never come back.  Coupled with their slicker new avatars debuted back in 2008, SL is becoming more turn-key.  To start off in this game with a nice body AND a cute little home on a nice Sim to boot … the tide should start to turn.

What the rest of us have to do is get over ourselves.  Those-who-relogged definitely have the EQ edge over those who didn’t (perserverence, curiosity, long-suffering patience,  etc.), but we don’t own Second Life … we just power it.  We jumped the hoops and stayed on board, but clearly more people have to do the same for SL to thrive and grow.  Collectively, most of us resist the change LL brings from time to time, but after a while … most of us embrace fully.

Of course, LL has another nefarious motive … <<gasp>> … making money, but alas, the reality of Second Life is servers, real real estate, staff, and positive cash flow.  One of the creative tasks their team has tried to unravel is how they could lessen the “ne’er-returneth” rate, and improve the percentage of “re-loggers” … and to get more people to sign up for a premium account.  For them to find new ways to make money off of us only increases their financial stability, while improving their rate of return does the same for their legitimacy in the gaming world.

Although I agree with Ordinal’s notion that new residents will eventually move on to more sophisticated environments, Linden Homes is still a step in the right direction in getting new residents to stay online a little longer.  Linden Homes isn’t for everyone … but, it accomplishes its first goal of being a great First Home.

1 – Shareta Osumai, 2 – Elderglen, 3 – Tahoe, 4 – Meadowbrook

This layout was inspired by a scarf I recently made for my store Adjunct. I’ve also been working on another collection of scarves that will be released through another new girls clothes store I’m opening soon called Lucy In Disguise. I love a bright colored scarf to give you that pop of color. It’s an essential in any man’s wardrobe. I can see my electro scarf worn on a cold winter day or even with swim trunks for when the chilly night falls on the beach. So this scarf will serve you well all year.

I’m really excited that I discovered a new men’s shoe store called 2 Real. Both pair of shoes featured in this layout are available there. The place has only been open for 6 months but it looks very promising. I am a sneaker fiend. I have almost every sneaker available, mostly from Hoorenbeek. It’s nice to have another store to shop at.

The Pro Spec shoes are customizable and you can change every part of the shoes to almost any color you could imagine, which is a major plus. Another plus the shoes fit perfectly. I did very little adjusting. They fit almost perfectly the first time I put them on.

If you haven’t heard already there’s a great Shoes & Accessories Hunt happening right now. It still has 2 more weeks left. My store is participating of course and you can snatch the superstar sunglasses worn in the second electro look. Just go to my mainstore and look for a yellow boot. There’s also some other great things available. My fave thing I picked up was the sweater cap with hair by Zenith. Sensual Mistery has some nice shoes. Also a nice lock of hair necklace by Flavor! Designs.

Look # 1

Hair: Gritty Kitty – Duck – Red
T-Shirt: [name pending] – Stripe V
Scarf: Adjunct – Electro Scarf
Shoes: 2 Real – Pro Spec
Glasses: Emery – Sunglasses Motion – Fuscia – Rosy Lens
Eyes: CL – Blue Eyes
Skin: Belleza, Jonas, Pale
Pants: Emery – Denim Singer #1

Look #2

Eyes: CL – Blue Eyes
Jacket: AOHARU – Leather Riders – Black
Skin: Belleza, Jonas, Pale
Pants: Adjunct – Camouflage Fatigue Pants
Scarf: Adjunct – Electro Scarf
Shoes: 2 Real- Diagonal – Black
T-Shirt: Adjunct – Basics – Deep V Neck – Fuscia
Hair: Adjunct – Ben – Chocolate
Glasses: Adjunct – Superstar Sunglasses

The lone wolf, the man who walks alone in life. Mark Everett of Eels sings in his song, Lone Wolf, “I am a lone wolf, nobody needs to get too close to me, you’ll only see this truth, I am a lone wolf…”  This song as well as Fresh Blood by the Eels were inspirations I drew from for this layout.

My personal challenge was to create 3 looks that gave subtle hints and nods to wolves and werewolves without literally putting on a werewolf or wolf avatar. Not an easy task! I had to dig in some pretty seedy places to find some of my pieces.

I knew right off that I wanted some graphic wolf shirts. I also knew that these are about as far away from fashion as it gets, and well, just flat out in bad taste. So another challenge was to dress these up with the right combination of accessories and clothes that looked fresh and fashionable. My search for graphic wolf shirts led me to Tressy’s Creations, where I found a good selection. I purchased 2 30 linden tees and was expecting the worst in quality, and Tressy did not disappoint. The shirts came without an underpants layer and my pants were low rise. My solution was to create a quick underpants layer using a solid color closest to the bottom of the shirt, which looked fine. But what can you expect for 30 lindens?

The wolf belt buckle on look #3 I found on Xstreet for 100 lindens which was a little pricey for a pic of a belt buckle slapped on a prim cube. I got creative, which is what Second Life is about, and placed it on top of an existing belt. So I had the belt on my pelvis layer and attached the buckle on my stomach layer.

I really like the beards I used in this layout from Discord Design. They have a huge selection to choose from. One of the things I like about facial hair in general is it ages my avatar. I get accused of having a teen avatar a lot because I like to keep my avatar thin. I refuse to look like a pumped up gym monkey and so this facial hair makes me look more my real life age. I’m gonna keep it for a while at least.

The more subtle accessories to give myself a wolf man look were Cheerno’s Exmore gloves and Atomic’s Hybrid Cat Eyes in red. The Exmore gloves create paw-like hands, with nice rumples on the wrist. The red cat eyes make me appear that I am possibly changing into a werewolf. I also like the hint of fur around the hood of the +Grasp+ jacket.

Thank you Fiona for your kind introduction and thank you for reading my first post at Phantom Republic. I hope you enjoyed it. I look forward to bringing you the latest trends in men’s SL fashion. I have a lot of interesting blog entries in the works so keep your eye on this blog! This was my first attempt at SL fashion blogging so hopefully things will only get better from here.

Look # 1

Beard: Nick by Discord Design
Hair: Lorenz by Pocket Mirrors
T-Shirt: Howling Wolf T-shirt by Tressy’s Creations
Plaid Shirt: Off Shoulder Shirt, RedPlaid by Mr. Poet
Shoes: Patagonia Boots 2.0, Used Wheat Nubuk by Hoorenbeek
Eyes: Hybrid_Cat Eyes, Red by Atomic
Skin: Belleza, Jonas, Pale
Pants: Milano Jeans (without suspenders) by Adjunct

Look #2
Eyes: Hybrid_Cat Eyes, Red by Atomic
Hoodie: Everyday Hoodie, Black by Atomic
Skin: Belleza, Jonas, Pale
Pants: Black Sweatpants by Adjunct
Gloves: Black Exmore Gloves by Cheerno
Shoes: Moccasins, Black by Raindance
T-Shirt: Wolf Moon T-Shirt by Tressy’s Creations
Hair: Deep by Shag Hair
Beard: Nick by Discord Design

Look # 3

Jacket: Fur Trim Hooded Jacket by +Grasp+
Belt: Leather Belt by Juice
Belt Buckle: Black Wolf Buckle by Lonewolf Rhode
Skin: Belleza, Jonas, Pale
Pants: Milano Jeans (without suspenders) by Adjunct
Hair: Franz by Pocket Mirrors
Sunglasses: P-Driver by FKNY
Beard: Robert by Discord Design

I want to welcome aboard Myvegancookbook Bolissima.  He has joined the ranks here at Phantom’s Republic as our new male fashion blogger.  Vegan is the owner of Adjunct and maintains his shop blog at http://www.adjunctsl.com/blog/ If you’ve not been to Adjunct….it’s a fun male fashion shop with a smattering of furniture thrown in.  It’s not for those of you looking to be Big Man on Campus but more for the nerds with bow ties and suspenders and the like.  But it’s all good fun.

In RL, Vegan works as a Graphics Designer, is a twin, is an actual vegan as his name suggests, and runs font/typeface foundry:  bvfonts.com

Vegan will now strut his stuff and show us his stylish side here on PR.  Thanks for joining, Vegan!

-Fi