Winter is leaving Steelhead now and Spring is not only in the air but underfoot. I took a screengrab of the citymap in its full snowy glory to remind me how pretty it was 
Clicky for bigger!
Monthly Archives: January 2010
Snowy Steelhead
Look what a leaky tap can do!
I was on my house calls and cycling through Port Harbour when I was horrified to find that Miss Eugenia Burton’s houseboat had sunk!
I hear on the grapevine later that the flooding was due to a bit of DIY on a leay tap, but I can’t help wondering if her endless pursuit of the handsome Herr Baron had anything to do with it…
Pop over to Steelhead Port Harbour & take a look for youself. You’ll be in good company.
Far From Home: Amarantis Belfire’s Blog
Although the telling of my “Far From Home” tale has now ended, you can still read Amarantis Belfire’s wonderfully written posts connected to it (and my previous tale, “Lost & Found“) on her blog, YAFJ. I’d like to say a HUGE thank you to Ama’s typist for helping me with these tales and allowing me to drag her into my RP
Here is Ama’s latest post in which she tackles Dr Roundtree about Nurse Rain and is cleared of any involvement in Sister Grace’s death by a mysterious man with a strange, bookish lapel pin…
SL ID + RL ID = FY!
So, good old Wally Linden wants to yak about linking our SL & RL IDs. True enough he says he wouldn’t want it to be compulsory, but rather he wants people to think about it.
I’ve thought about. My answer is very simple.
Get to fuck.
If this *was* forced on us then I’d leave. I don’t give a shit if it’s voluntary – I just wouldn’t do it. But if LL tries to make us do it, that’s me gone.
Christ! With the sheer number of grade-A, pure-filtered window-licking loons, nut-jobs and through-&-through bastards in SL (and on line generally) there is no fucking way I want them pissing over my RL. The same way you don’t walk into a nightclub and hand out your photo with your address & phone number, you don’t give them to every stalker, griefer and twat online either.
Wally, start talking about things worth talking about and earn that pay packet. Here’s one for you – Web on a prim: Why do you want it and when? Get on with that one and stop with the dumbs.
Steelhead Stories: Something Creaky This Way Comes…
A gloom has fallen across Steelhead! A foul creature by the name of Creaky Gloom (a supposedly indestructable spirit called a Slaugh*) has followed the Scamps into the city and is preying on our children. It would seem that he – it! – has already stolen away little Li Fe from the slums and if the tales of this swine are true then the poor boy may well have been eaten!
No one is entirely sure what this Creaky Gloom wants, but there are reports from New Babbage (where the monster was first seen) that he is on the hunt for a scamp named Quill, but for what nefarious reason no one knows.
I’ve had some posters printed and hopefully we can get enough of them around town to warn the children. Get a copy here and spread the word!
The sheriff has asked for people to remain calm and not take the law into their own hands, but I seriously doubt he can stop parents desperate to protect their off-spring from taking drastic steps. I have a horrible feeling that things are going to get much worse…
* He’s unlike any Slaugh I’ve encountered before – back in Manchester, the Slaughs came across the water from Ireland at Feg’s call as massed clouds of screaming, hungry ravens that stripped people of their flesh (and more) leaving terror in their wake.
Far From Home: Chapter 10 – Coming Home
The water here is cold. Memories of a childhood I knew could not be mine flowered in my mind; giggles and splashes with fingers trailing in a steam and cold water flicked at friends. If I tried that now I wouldn’t even know if the few fingers I had left froze solid and snapped off. Now only the custom-made fleece-lined leather gloves kept what was left of my hands safe from injury and the elements. The childhood squeals of joy faded until only the quiet lapping of my oar in the river and the occasional bird cry from the bank remained. I liked it that way. Memories were useless out here, they would only slow me, make me careless, drag me down with them. What was gone was just that, gone.
I looked ahead, my landing point approached, a stream flowing into the river where the forest at the base of the mountain dipped to meet the lake. The trees in the forest were snow-draped as if a funeral shroud had been cast over them, white and smothering…
“You’ll have to wear this under your clothes,” the doctor from the slums stood in my room and held up long white underwear. He’d been coming every day since my return. The hospital in Caledon offered me accommodation in the local sanatorium, promised me a job, promised me rooms, promised me a prison with lunatics for cellmates. I declined. I had a home. I had a jungle. I left and I went home only to find it had gone, burnt to the ground, not a trace left. I sat on the sand and didn’t move for three days.
I saw things. They spoke to me. They pointed and they laughed and they danced.
On the fourth day the rain came. I sat on the sand and made believe the rain streaming down my face were the tears I could no longer weep. It rained for a day and a night.
On the fifth day I left the island. I didn’t know where else to go so I travelled back to where it all began. Back to the epicentre. Back to Steelhead.
People stared. They whispered and pitied and taunted and joked. In Steelhead my misery was compounded by the unruly children that inhabit an underworld no adult can hope to enter without their permission. Oh yes, the Steelhead Scamps thought me great sport.
I wasn’t sure where to go, so I went to the slums to find the doctor. He stared. They all stare. Still, he helped. I don’t know what he said and to whom but by nightfall I was in a comfortable room in a nearby hotel. From my window I could see Spirit Lake flowing out into the river as it passed through the wilderness of St Helens.
“You’ll have to wear this under your clothes,” I turned from the window (how many days had I stood there staring out into the isolation beyond?), “and these gloves I’ve had made for you. Likewise your boots and socks. You are going to have to protect yourself if you are insistent about going through with this.”
I stared at the while underwear in his hands and the other garments on my bed. “Thank you. Is everything else ready?”
He sighed, “Yes. There’s a canoe and supplies ready and Lunar has stamped your purchase order. You’re the proud owner of very remote, very isolated forest by the mountain. I’m guessing that will make you happy, eh?”
I looked at the man with concern etched across his brow and said nothing. He shook his head and placed the long thermals on the bed, “Well at least promise me you’ll make our agreed meetings. Every two weeks. If you miss one, I’ll only come looking for you and neither of us wants that; I hate the great outdoors with a passion, you know.” I tried a smile but my skin wouldn’t move like that any more so I just nodded and told him he had my word.
The next morning I set a hat on my head, wrapped a scarf around my face and walked away from the hotel, away from the city, away from the scamps and everyone and everything. I checked the canoe and set off rowing, I let the river take me for a while but I liked to row, the exertion warming me in the frigid morning air. Since the fire, since Shade, The Erase, the would-be killer, since my recovery, winter had come to these parts and it held the land fast in its white silence. There was no one around, not a living soul for miles, and it was perfect. I looked down at the river, clear and blue beneath me.
The water here is cold, I thought to myself…
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The End.
All the “Far From Home” posts can be read here.
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The Broken Arch of Nova Albion
A few months ago I heard disturbing rumours that the iconic archway of Nova Albion in Grignano, shown in its full glory in the picture above, had collapsed. I made a trip over and was saddned to find that the beautiful span created and gifted to the city by Lordfly Didgeridoo in 2005 in pieces strewn across the bay beneath them…
How had this happened? And how can we fix it? I’ll ask around and let you know what I find out…
A Trip Over Cowell…
I popped into Cowell a few days ago – I wanted to pay Sal my rent and check my wee villa is all ok as I’ve negelected it terribly of late. It looked fine and dandy (although I really need to buy a picture from Young and Osprey to decorate the place) but I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I was nearly sucked into the engines of a jumbo jet taking off from Abbotts!
The slip stream sent me tumbling over the hill into Kahruvel and I jetted through the trees trying my best to avoid a serious head injury! When I managed to regain control I saw I was over the water to the wast of the great forest. Hovering nearby I saw a familiar sight, an alien craft I regognised immediately! I flew over and checked and I was right! It was my old mate Neal Lyle’s ship gently bobbing in the breeze above his camp site.
Of the old gentleman there was nary a trace so I took a picture and flew back over the forest to turn my lights out in Cowell and head back to St Helens.
Murray Rebooted?
I may have mentioned my old home of Murray once or twice but as I stopped going there some time ago I’ve not heard anything about the small spit of land that was once so important to me. Until a few nights ago that is when I received an IM from my old mate Douglas Quinn…
“Have you seen Murray?” he asked.
“Err, not recently,” said I somewhat confused.
“The Moles are doing it up! It’s all gone Tiki!”
Tiki, thunk I? Tiki? Tiki as in Lovely Azure South Seas Washing That Man Right Out Of My Hair Everything Bamboo Grass Skirts And The Like Tiki? Bloody hell… this I had to see.
Now let me make a couple of things clear, I’m happy the Moles are tarting up Murray and I have nothing against Tiki. But do I think Murray should be a Tiki info hub? Not really. But then am I mad that it certainly looks like it will be? Nah it’s all good. Let’s face it, since the Lab closed the Murray infohub and removed all the seats and signs in late ‘06/early ’07 Murray has been nothing but grass, dirt, a few mangy trees and a shit load of griefing. Hell, even when we (finally) got the Lindens to come over and shut down the build & script perms on the land Murray so the weapons-headz couldn’t cage and warp us all to buggery and back, the place was still only as pretty as a pig, and a pretty plain pig at that.
But having said all that, I can’t help thinking that the old girl deserves better than to be dolled up like some kind of set for “America’s Next Love Island!” so I hope the Moles treat her gently. Still, at least she’ll be home to a whole new cohort of people who will love her for what she is, not what she was. And being slap bang in the middle of some of the oldest builds in SL, I hope they explore and discover more about their new world like I did. Like I say, it’s all good
Farewell Murray, you served us well. In your place let Murray 3.0 rise from the sands and may everyone who finds it anew be served with a drink in a coconut husk to celebrate its new life! 
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Links to other blogs and stories:
1) For all my other Murray related posts, click here.
My sad farewell to the old Murray…
