SL Newser's 4rth: A Few More Thoughts ...

As I sit here thinking about how much has happened in the past four years, there have been some questions people have asked me that come to mind.

"Don't you ever get tired of visiting places?" someone asked me. The answer is no. There's always something new to see, something no one came up before. And maybe it's my experience as a laborer in real life talking, but I recognize the hard work the more artistic and creative builders put in their places, and sometimes think about how much time went into a place.

"Do you spent so much time covering Second Life news that you lose track of what's going on in real life. You *do* know who's your Governor, your Senator, and your Congressman, don't you?" Yes I do. I still keep up with real life news as I consider it important to be informed about the world around me, even if it's depressing and *especially* if it's depressing so there's less of a chance of something coming up and biting me in the ... And yes, sometimes it takes me longer to remember name when the politician has a funny one, but I remember it eventually.

"Why are you still in that old avatar?" Well, I like it. Yes, I've gotten a collection of avatars over the years. The anthro skunk and vampire bat are favorites, the former being good for a chuckle and the latter for flying around and Halloweenish jokes, but I always go back to the first avatar I ever bought, the Luskwood red fox. It's appropriate for me as I'm an online journalist, "Fox News." Plus I was influenced by an online sci-fi graphic novel I was reading at the time I got it, and I found a few, haunting parallels between the foxfolk and how growing up in the pre-WW2 South affected some of my family's attitudes, they living under a caste system with the reds as being seen as simple manual laborers. So why not get a newer fox av? Well, I never felt the desire to update. Maybe because not many others aside those whom regularly hang out at the Big Tree in Lusk use it, which makes me more recognizable even without the nametag over my head.

Lusk has seriously talked about updating their fox avatars, as they updated their felines. Will I wear their updated ones? Probably. We'll see what happens.

"Hey man, why don't you give up Second Life and just go to the Mustang Ranch?" Okay, now we're getting personal, and that's my own business, ya perv!

Bixyl Shuftan