Grease Coakes Turns Seven

By Grease Coakes

First off I want to thank my RL boss that I’ll name Mary to protect her real life identity. She was nice enough to let me work the day before and have today off. Also one of my co-workers I'll name Stan was singing me "happy birthday" yesterday.

 And I think I speak for anyone that birthdays are special whether it's your birthday in the real world or a virtual birthday. Your birthday is your special day no one can take that from you that one day out of 365 days that's yours. Most people celebrate the holidays in December whether it's Christmas or Hanukkah with family and friends. People who live a second life in the virtual universe get two birthdays per year. How can you beat that? In today's fast paced world of either life people should take their birthdays to take time to smell the roses and relax.

Another crazy fact it's my brother's real life birthday today. So my SL birthday and his real-life birthday are the same day.

So I started the day with no events so I figured there would be something going on at the furry club IYC which stands for International Yiff Center at IYC Addictions (153/115/2492) I was right as the furry DJOK Fretwerk AKA Jim Morris was djing. Not many people were active at 5:30am SLT, but it was ok I still handed out my freebie shirts and hung out.

For my fifth and sixth and SL birthdays for readers of the Newser who may not know, I handed out t-shirts that I made myself. I handed out these shirts for a limited time. In IYC I handed out the shirts to everyone in the club. A few furries IMed me in confusion. I explained these are my birthday shirts. I'll get birthday wishes and in fact Chedder Digipaw with account name CyberRatt resident gave me a whole clothes set named League of xtranary Furs. Shyraii Devinna asked for the asset UUID to make my Zapbird shirt better looking for women to show breasts. It's a rare case that I get a party pooper that declines my shirt. I shrug it off and move on.

I gave Shyraii a cookie and she responds by saying, "My fiance ate all my chocolate chip cookies (frown). He's a butthole (grin)." "Dude what's up with that?" I asked. 

So in IYC I hung out with Shy as we were wearing the same shirt dancing together to Loferz Resident AKA TeiTei who announces over voice anyone who says hi gets a cookie. So I say, "Hi Teitei do i get a cookie?  TeiTei went, "YUSH!" *stuffs one in your muzzle* ^_^

Who can say no to a cookie?

Earlier I IMed a human buddy of mine Lia Mistwalker, asking is there any events at SGB which is shorthand for Sounds Gravis Beach at Sounds Gravis Beach (134/21/32). Lia told me, "Sakura spins at 8am to 10am."

I told her, "I'm so there! it's my party and I’ll shake my tail if I want to I turn 7 today." "Happy rez day!" she says

When the party started I went over to SGB and SGB Melody the club owner said this, "And all the girls, please line up and kiss our Furry Grease... It's his rezzday today!"

SGB is always a great place to hang out at. Smooth music and minimal emotes. There's always a conversation going on plus the DJ mixing live. Raphad Noyes who may be related to StJohn Noyes one of my friends from Brahma Yoga class stopped in at SGB with his lady friend Mielerosa (honeyrose58 Resident. He's usually a werewolf but today he was a human. Raphad is a very polite and cultured werewolf/human as he always calls me sir. He mentioned in IM, "You look a bit different, Sir." "Yes indeed Sir Noyes," I answered, "I’m wearing the first avatar I bought in SL." "Interesting."

I IMed Aurora Avila informing her I can make her DJ set today as I usually work on Thursdays, the only day she DJs. She says awesome. We also chit chat about the game she told me about , Guild wars 2.

"I should try the species you showed me," I told her, "the goblin species they are hard to find in PVP (which stands for Player vs Player)." Aurora answered, "They tend to be pretty fugly." "Yeah they are! But all my characters can't be the Charr cats that would be boring."

Over time In real life I get hungry so I plan to leave SL for a bit for food. But before I leave, the girls at SGB plan to make Cesare Drucker the club manager cross dress. They type various things like

Jet Goode: "We can duct tape him to a pole."

Lia Mistwalker: "Mini dress, don’t forget to wax his legs."

Mariete (Mariete Babii): "Just don’t WAX Grease!!!You could kill him."

Luckily I leave before the ladies decide to play dress up with me

After I go out to get Chinese food and popcorn I come back into SL and bounce from SGB to the Ark at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Quarabia/141/123/500. I hang out for a bit then I go to Woods at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/WOODS/126/163/25 

Then Nydia Tungsten IMs me and says there's s video that I could take part in. She warps me to The Happy Vixen at Purrfection Estates (180/59/22). I warped over and a short while later she starts her chimera and begins recording. Nydia sorts out things as she has to relog and over time the video is complete. Her video is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfArSuKsqHM&feature=youtu.be.

When it's finished I made a SL card through email to my brother for his real life birthday today.

Afterwards I took another break from SL and logged back on and stop at a few other places but for my SL Birthday it doesn't seem right. I instead warped to my friend Amehana Ishtari and I jump in on a pony party.

I handed out my shirts and Amehana admits to being busy. However she does agree to an interview about her new book Selkie Skins Castle and Wells soon. Amehana has also written about a woman named Blowing Wind as she goes on a spiritual adventure with a dragon spirit named Ryu. I joked, "Amehana your pony looks pimped out." And she says this, "Ummm... Thank you? *raises her eyebrow, never thinking that word would ever be used for her*" I instead say that her pony is dressed like a diva and she says, "*watches you backpedal*"

I goofed off and relaxed before Aurora Avila starts to DJ at her new club club Midi Bikini Bay (85/196/1022) where she still plays her video game remixes and Japanese songs.

I went to Club Midi and I had a good time just like it was yesterday. Aurora played her mix of video game songs and everyone chit chated about video games or whatever. Aurora still has a nice surprise to anyone who tips her. I felt stress ebb away and relaxed as Aurora played her unique mix of songs.

I guess the point of this article is that in today's fast paced world of Second and First Life that once in a while take time for yourself. I remember talking to a customer at Royal farms in real life and he said don't sweat the small things and always have fun for yourself. Give yourself some me time.

Today I did take time for myself and had a great seventh birthday. It's a rough world out there but if you always have a smile on your face the world will seem a much brighter place. I guess that's the gist of this article is just have fun in life whether it's your real life birthday your second life birthday or your unbirthday.

Grease Coakes

A Day in Second Life

By Grease Coakes

One day Xavier Thiebaud, one of the owners of the A-List, asked me to write out what I did in Second Life as a blog. Writing a blog constantly would be taxing over time. Xavier had a point though that people may be interested in what goes on in a furry’s doings on Second Life, especially one who hops between human and furry hangouts and activities.

So I figured I’d write about a Saturday where I had a few things lined up. For starters on a Saturday morning is brahma yoga class at 4 AM SLT which is 7 AM my time east coast time. The morning class on Saturday is the bajons or spiritual dancing with some meditation. I woke up on time and was frustrated that my Guru Pramiil Magne wasn’t online. 

Not that I can blame him he’s been busy with his job in real life. Despite that my fellow classmates and I decided to meditate without him. Aldaida said she liked my shirt with a picture of Watabou from dragon warrior monsters 1. She called it an alien, but it’s really a tree spirit from the video game. I was in meditation for a short while and I snapped out of it refreshed. I stuck around though and I wanted to prepare a notecard for a tailsale later in the day for IYC. 

I explained about tail sales in an earlier article. I talked with my friends after they got out of meditation for a bit. Celtic wanted to talk about things in her real life so I stopped and listened. When she logged off I warped to AX for a fave event I like to attend. I warped there and left my avatar there as I went afk to grab some breakfast.

After grabbing a bowl of cereal and a soda, no one is at AX yet. Do I look at my notices and DJ Starfall is playing at IYC. I warp over and I hear some awesome trance. Even at 5:30AM SL time, the dance floor is filled with various avatars shaking their tails. Not a lot of them are talking though, so I IM the DJ Ohni Starfall and say a lot of them are afk or in IM/s. He agrees with me. I let his trance relax me as I do my dailies for neopets. When it’s close to 6AM SL time,  I warp back to AX and see Dj Aurora Avila dance with one of her friends Jamaris Pawpaw.

DJ Aurora, in my opinion, is the queen of video game music as she plays a wide variety of video game remixes along with Asian music. She was the first person I reported on for the SL Newser when Bixyl hired me back in January last year. When anyone tips Aurora you’ll get a surprise if you haven’t been to her DJ sets before. DJ Aurora starts her set and suddenly I get an IM.

Spencer Mactire asks “Wait, were you just holding fire?”

I say, “Yes that’s my chat AO. I have lots of them."

Spencer says “That’s cool…” He also says hi to the readers when I tell him his comment is going in my article. I bring up a comment about Iron Man versus Samus Aran (the woman bounty hunter you play as from Metroid) Aurora has this to say as she’s a big fan of the Metroid series. 

[06:09] Aurora Avila: But I know Samus, and Lord knows that if she fights Iron Man, she'll be walking out with about half his modifications customized into her suit, and with a shiny new Repulser Beam. 

I think Tony Stark will have a bad day if he fights the Metroid hunter.

Listening to Aurora’s video game tunes, I decide to play Hubrid’s Hero heist. The worst game you can play in neopets if you want to earn neopoints as quickly as possible as a full game takes a ½ hour or so. It is fun to play in my opinion though, and I have a gold champion trophy in that game sitting on my neopets user lookup as greasy711. Sadly I play a lousy game. But it’s not all bad as I still hold the top score in rink runner of 534.

With expert mouse clicking while listening to Aurora’s music I do much better at rink runner. I asked a lady in a wild crux avatar named Sonicblue Dudek to slow dance with me. She says sure.

Over time the club fills up with various furries as I multitask chatting with people in the club and playing various neopets games earning neopoints. Fun is had by all while everyone hangs out listening to Aurora’s music.

At the end of Aurora’s DJ set I start playing Extreme Herder off neopets, and wanting faster music I warp over to Dance Island. When I started my Grease Coakes account I used to go Tj Icey’s a lot for the club music. Today it’s now Dance Island which features a bunch of DJ/s playing various genres. Dance Island is known for a lot of gestures but it doesn’t bother me as I’m used to Dance Island being an emote fest along with the music.

I click a dance a ball as I say hi to Deirdre Masala who hangs out a lot there. I jam to the trance being played by Bel Air and I start playing more Extreme Herder. My highest score in extreme herder was 353 today which is a good score but not high enough to reach the top scores. I see a notice at Book Island the sim dedicated to books and promoting your own literary works. The event is Jackson Arthur hosting a book discussion at 10am SLT. I leave Dance Island and wander around Book Island instead.

Using my mini map I find a bunch of green dots and hear a man’s voice over voice chat. So I join in and see a group of people sitting around a round table. Looking at Arthur’s top hat makes me think of Simon Linden. He’s one of the Lindens I met in SL and I found his teddy bear. He also asked about moles in SL and Olivia Whitsend answered that moles are a group in SL headed by the Lindens as a public works group.

Brokali, a blue alien, mentioned he was organizing 75 stories about food. Over voice chat he was geeking out about vegetables. He said that the definition of geeking was to be focused on a hobby or interest as their thing. I said jokingly then I geek out about neopets. Olivia said her kids also play neopets so I said my grey neopet will destroy their pets! Arthur said that doesn’t sound good and I joked no it doesn’t ha-ha!

I discussed my children’s book with the group and how I had to rework my book on lulu a few times to get it right. Also how I found an artist to draw for the cover as Arthur was saying he didn’t want to work with covers. A lot of the book discussion covered writing and ways to get published.

When the event was over I was invited to another book Island event, but I declined saying I wanted to go IYC for their tail sale event at 12noon SLT. The sim had to restart but I warped back with ease. A while later IYC got their tail sale under way as I warped through a ball to a waiting area. I joined a separate group IYC tail 4 sale when I was accepted to be sold as a tail for IYC.  

At 12 noon SLT things were still being sorted out as everyone waited for the first tail to go up for sale. The tail sale got a late start as Havok Muircastle wanted to grab more buyers into the sim and kick off the afk avatars. At 12:30 SL time they finally got the tail sale started as Havok spoke out the rules over Voice chat. One thing about tail sales it take a long time as each tail being sold is stretched out being bid on going once, twice, and then a third time.

Many furries ahead of me went for various amounts of Linden of 3k or so. A majority of the sales were offering art work or adult services like the article I wrote earlier on the AX tail sale. Atheu Blindside ahead of me was offering scripting and building weapons was bought by TeiTei for 2,500. I went up next and I can’t move! The sim screwed with my avatar so I could not sit on the podium to be sold. However amazingly, I had high bids and I was finally sold for 5k to Dragonheart. I warped to a sim on my picks then back and I IMed Dragonheart about what she wanted and she was interested in my writing ability. Then DragonHeart kept going and bid on KJ, a girl furry for her artistic ability, for 32,000L!

Jenny of the Sunweavers asked for a DJ for Club Cutlass, so I volunteered. Rita needed my DJ stream so I sent her the DJ information I bought from shoutcast. Then I checked my friends list and my Guru Pramiil Magne was online! Cool. I was excited that he was able to come online for class as I enjoy meditation class with him. I had an intense meditation but I quickly left class to set up my DJ stream with Rita and Jenni of the Sunweavers.

I played a good balance of disco/70’s/60’s and what I usually play for the Sunweavers crowd. I made a fair amount of tips as I played songs like "Hotel California" by the Eagles and "American Pie" by Don McLean. I played a few video game remixes and some House, but I also remembered the audience I was playing for and played disco etc. But the last song I played was a video game remix based upon the first Mega Man.

All in all it was a busy day for me as Grease Coakes in Second Life.  There’s many things to do and experience here on the Grid. Don’t limit yourself to one club or one thing. I guess that’s the moral of this article, if there is one, is just enjoy life and do what you enjoy.

Grease Coakes