Novelty and Quitting

I recently purchased a small piece of property on the Mainland, settling on a steep and I think rather attractive riverside plot after looking around various different sims. My criteria are strict but not, I believe, unreasonable; firstly, an absence of the Three C's (Casinos, Clubs and Camping) and also none of those abominable Sixteen Square Metre Plots packed with spinning things and set to ridiculous prices. Both of these are reasonably easy to locate from a quick look at one's Map in any case, being reflected by a localised outbreak of either green dots or tiny yellow squares, respectively. As well as that one obviously looks out for an absence of giant, obtrusive (or intrusive) advertisements, other residents with a poor sense of Particle Decorum, or stretches of abandoned half-textured plywood "houses", but really one cannot be too architecturally sniffy.

What on earth possesses a resident of Caledon to look elsewhere, one may well ask? I am not abandoning my plot - or now plots, as I also have a town house in Victoria City now - but for one thing it is useful to have a quiet place to test things on the Mainland, as performance of scripts in Caledon is not necessarily typical of that found in other parts of the Grid, and for another thing it is nice to simply have a quiet place.

On this latter score, my preconceptions of the mainland have proved entirely out of date. My experience of being at home on the mainland was, in the Theretra of six months ago, one of standing around for hours, scripting and building and barely seeing a soul, perhaps a word of greeting to a neighbour, with every now and then a random stranger flying past and once in a blue moon addressing me.

I foolishly expected something similar to be the case now. I was most definitely wrong. Every single time that I have been there, I have received at least one visitor of the young persuasion; mostly born either yesterday or today.

Yet despite all of the nonsense often repeated regarding New Residents, I have universally found that they have been at worst polite and respectful and not wishing to disturb or annoy me, and at best well-spoken, inquisitive and charming conversationalists. None have been Verified - why should one wish to join the ranks of the Verified when one does not have to, merely to explore the Grid and see if it is pleasing?

I hope that I have helped give a positive impression of the world to these folk; I have provided them with advice and suchlike, even when I was in the middle of doing something else, and if even one stays and becomes a contributor to our Society I would feel that I had achieved something.

As a quick summary of other events...

• Mr Moopf Murray has released a set of steam-powered Skates which are highly amusing, and also must be bought this week I believe - they have received other coverage, but I would advise those appreciating outré steam-powered gadgetry to seek them out;

• I have been investigating the format known as "BVH", used to store Animations and Poses, and found that actually it is not too hard to decipher, and thus I plan to offer various Aethernet-Based Tools to do such things as reverse the direction of an animation or change it from right- to left-handed. This may, unfortunately, take a little time, as I am absolutely snowed under with Other-Worldly Occurrences at the moment;

• I considered a humourous post involving a "mainland simulation script" which repeatedly Messaged the creator with the phrase "!quit", but in the end it was too dark a humour to contemplate. Please, please, do not use any so-called "copybot defeaters", as they are utterly useless and merely serve to annoy and confuse passers-by and customers. I have not yet come across a single instance of anyone having any items at all duplicated by this supposed scourge. The response to the potential threat has been far, far more irritating.