I have never mentioned this in a blog post, but most friends in Second Life already know that between the hours of 6pmslt and 8pmslt I am usually unreachable, as it is my Sacred Video Time shared with my buddy Menubar Memorial. Unbelievably, and I am rolling my own eyes here, we have been doing this for more than 15 months, and rare are the nights, maybe counted on one hand, that we have missed our Video Hour. The irony is, I only watch television, and TV series in Second Life (addicted much?) but it is because TV is not interactive enough for me. There is so much more fun to be had, sitting with someone thousands of miles away, kibitzing and commenting in local chat on what we are seeing at the exact same time on his giant screen, perched up high in very tall chairs, nibbling on super-sized donuts, “The Cabin” as we call it, was Menubar’s first decorating choice because we were starting Twin Peaks way back when, and he wanted to put us in the black-cuppa joe-donut-mood, that Twin Peaks was so famous for.
Complete with Log Lady's Log and the Owl
We have seen such an incredible number and eclectic variety of movies, and entire season’s of TV shows, that my small mind probably can’t remember them all here, but they go from everything David Lynch made(or dreamed of making) Huff, The Sopranos, Roger Water’s The Wall, Lexx, Trailer Park Boys, My Name Is Earl, Stingray Sam, Star Trek ( Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation) The Wire, lots of quirky weird movies Menubar finds from all over the world, like Big Man Japan(we invited Crap Mariner to share that one with us ) to now finally what we are totally engrossed in, thanks to my SL sister Maria Vought, owner of a really popular and fabulous Sim called “Natural Wilderness”, who suggested it. Dr Who is a series that has lasted 49 years, but we are beginning it from 2005 to present time. I found a few random moments of Cabin Video life I will share with you below.
It all started with Twin Peaks..warming up with an Intermission video
The Cabin was designed to get into the mood for Twin Peaks. Every time we saw that robin come on the screen, and heard the music, we felt like we were coming home to heaven.
Menubar even added the Log Lady’s log, the Owl and the fish to the coffee pot for you Twin Peakers out there, who remember all those little surreal David Lynch details.
Watching a Seba Sideways-Tukso Okey video by Menubar
A favorite to warm up with, was a great music video Menubar did for Seba Sideways and Tukso Okey dual streaming, called “Sold My Soul To The Devil” I have it on a post I did about Tukso and you can see it there embedded at the end, above a poem I wrote for him.
Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds
A few times we did move out of our habitual north woods habitat, and go down to enjoy a concert or a special surround video in the Dome, events like Roger Water’s The Wall Live in Berlin, because a show like that is too hard to just sit in a high chair and not get up and dance all around to it
A new video set by Menubar to honor the movie Dune
For David Lynch’s Dune, Menubar put us out on the sands in such a way, we felt like we were really there with both of us nervously looking around for those tell tale signs of bulging underground Sandworm movement in our direction. Awesome! Can a living room at home ever compare to this?
Uniformed and ready to witness the end of Star Trek Deep Space Nine
For the last episode of Star Trek, which took us months and months to get through, even watching 3 at a clip, we got all dressed up in role and proudly put the final seal on the fact that we were now officially Second Life Trekkers!
Happiness Merryman joined us for a Dr.Who
Happiness Merryman of 2nd Life Stories joined us one night for Dr. Who and took this great shot for her blog Now Menubar has added almost all the cast of the major series we have seen together (plus all the posters he has done for my poetry readings.) Our Cabin is filling up with 15 months of nostalgia and history, and we are getting more visitors too. Gracie Kendal (of the 1000 avatars project) has become a regular in the last week. This brings me to my theory, which I will try to prove in only a few short sentences and two photos submitted as evidence to support it.,
We are what we watch..and we are watching a lot of Dr.Who.
If we are what we watch, and we are watching a lot of Dr. Who, there is a real possibility we might pull in the good Doctor, or at least some of his fellow travelers at any minute. So when a week ago, I received an IM from someone who had just been to a poetry reading I did, and I saw on his profile that he was a “Renegade Time Traveler” ( Dr. Who being the last of the Time Travelers) I did not hesitate to ask for a ride on his TARDIS. ( Time and relative dimension in space) the best space ship (disguised as a Police Box) in the whole universe. Last night I actually took that ride…
What a thrill to hear and see the TARDIS appear on my Sim
I did the quickest change into Rose (Dr. Who’s cherished traveling companion) I could pull off, before the TARDIS landed, or should I say appeared, on my island. I was digging way down deep to find my blonde wig, knowing my rather long nose was unlike her turned up one, but trying to get the feel of someone familiar, that the TARDIS and its pilot, might easily and comfortably welcome. The Renegade Time Traveler, also known in Second Life as Emperor Nobilis, was an amazing host and took me to see many lands, and many undreamed wonders of the Metaverse. It was like being in a second level virtual voyage, a virtual dream within a virtual dream. Is watching a flat screen TV on a Friday night with your cat ever this much fun?
Then today my theory was again proven when I was invited to the first Combat Card Tournament on Splintered Rock. I, who have been gorging on sci-fi characters through my eye-balls recently, now have a Combat Card, designed as my own character, one I played quite a while back, but ironically it all came home today. See Post: “Was It The Spice?” To view the entire Splintered Rock Deck of Combat Cards click the link. Combat Cards are copyrighted by Doc Boffin and Osprey Therian.
I will close with this thought I was pondering tonight. Luckily Watermoon Breeze Menubar’s fabulous Sim which has his goodies for sale, and his video dome, is PG. I thought, good thing too, because the way I am pulling into my “real virtual life” what I am watching on the big screen, I think we are so much better off that it is not rated…umm Adult. I mean who knows what I could have become?….or Menubar??!!
The mind careens on the outer edges of a black hole thinking like this.
Combat Cards Splintered Rock Deck Entrancing Moves aka Karima Hoisan
They should have called me “Dangerous Entrancing Moves” as…Entrancing is my middle name..
The End
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Digital Rabbit Hole 
I had to laugh when I saw your most recent post. My wife and I were huge fans of Twin Peaks, Dr. Who, not so much the gay-parallel story plot Dune, and original Star Trek. The Roddenberry one.
Linda’s son kept losing our house key when he was going to college and after the 3rd key vanished….I attached a chain, with a 2 foot, 4” diameter log attached to it-even the log-lady would approve. He got the point, I think. I figured a 10 pound log would be harder to misplace. No owl, though. He had to provide his own. He actually managed to lose the log, too.
As for the joe and donuts…I am Mr. Donut…..but it was really about the cherry pie. As for the Tardis…..well…it looked like a phone booth. There-I’ve said it. Although it made a grand sound when travelling! And…Dr. Who was a bit…well, peculiar. But I loved his wool clothes that did look grand! Probably hot under all the studio lighting, though.
He always had the nicest smile! Not to mention cherub cheeks! And wee bit of ironic dialog. Hmmmmm…..a vague hint of double-entendres perhaps….. Star Trek, the original, was amazing! Gene had a vision no one could see at the time and original sank to terrible reviews. ??????!!!!!!!!!!! I knew it would become legendary. Mostly after Gene died.
I saw the world as the original saw it. Magical and dangerous. With opportunities and instant death for the unwary (or unstable). We used to have “Movie Night” for whatever friends would show up. Put on a video of “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes”….or other such first-run fare. Plan 9 from Outer Space was always a crowd pleaser. Not bad for a movie made with $2.88.
And…we had a “Cheap Wine Tasting Night” in Humboldt, Iowa (a distant farm village still living in the 13th century) where folks actually liked the cheapest, dreadfully-named wine (muscatel) the best. The choice of winos and Sterno-drinkers , everywhere.
So, to sum up…we were cool before even had a name. Saw “Rocky Horror Picture Show” during one of its first runs thru the midnight show circle. They were not yet throwing toilet paper…… I could only buy a Japanese-made Rocky Horror music album as no one in the US was making them yet. I loved the Kanji sub-titles!
The young’uns always think they discovered cool. Sigh. Maybe some future day, we can all get together in RL and have movie night together! I’ll do the popcorn or donuts or cherry pie or midgets walking backwards.
Your friend,
Tube
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Tube, thank you so much and I am laughing now because it was really all about the “cuppa joe and cherry pie” I have become a David Lynch freak, and really I think I have now seen everything he ever made, including Eraser Head. I lived many years without electricity so much of this for me is a catching up..as I never had a chance to see them when they first came out.Midgets walking backwards and Red Curtains,,so many lasting images from that series Twin Peaks..Thank you for sharing all your examples and memories with these iconic shows..that still last and last.
Fun then and still fun now:)
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Kari: I am so happy you have written about these magical evenings, even though I have only been able to join you and Menubar for a few of them. I find it quite extraordinary to be sitting in my Real World office, watching my Avatar Happiness, watching reruns on a virtual screen in a virtual room with the virtual avatars of two human beings who are also my friends beyond virtuality! What this makes me realize is that the new media world is multi-layered in time and space, and that even while we immerse in something as homespun as watching reruns of classic television shows, we have in fact become participants in another kind of theater, one which we are creating collaboratively together, where we can watch our virtual avatars watch media from the past, which oddly becomes the present because we have brought it back! The mind reels with the possibilities here. It is as though, through the complexities of blended and superimposed digital technologies, we are privileged to participate in a new kind of intimate, friendly, folksy, and familial space…one which is in its essence a rarity these days – just good friends sitting around watching great shows, except…..except… in a whole new kind of theatrical space within which we become not just observers, but the Directors of our own show within the show, which is the show our Real World selves “see” as our Avatars hang out in virtual space. Is this a new way of creating and participating in community? I like to think so. My visits to your evenings have been more fun than should be allowed, and I look forward to many returns to the reruns! Deep appreciations, Happiness
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Well we very much enjoyed having you Happiness and of course you are welcome back any time. Yes the new virtual community gatherings, like listening (and chatting over) Live Music events,or going to a Group Meeting,(I just went to one about the SL Railway which felt just like a very well attended community gathering),or watching a movie together with people dispersed all over the globe is nothing short of amazing. You are so right, it does have that folksy feel about it and now has very much become part of my real life too.If someone is visiting at that “sacred hour” well they pull up a chair along side me and watch with us too. Thanks so much once again for your very on the mark comment..I always enjoy how you see Second Life with your big long range and accurately sharp vision,
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Great fun Karima. So glad we can share these together.
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