You know that ‘morning after’ feeling, when the world is suddenly full of unexpected pitfalls that weren’t there when you started drinking?

The first time I had it in any major way was during my first year at university, and unfairly, I hadn’t even been out that night. On waking up to find the material contents of my room increased exponentially, I felt I’d been dealt a poor hand. Now, the humble traffic cone has, in the latter half of the previous century, gone from being wacky souvenir of a night out to a somewhat humiliating cliché, but this one quite literally broke the mould by being gargantuan, to the tune of not only being big enough to fit a small child within, but act as the kid’s semi-permanent residence for a time (and believe me, we tried just that). And in addition to that there was a broken chair, a sandbag and an unbroken chair, all to act as healthy conversational starters. My roommate had had a busy night.

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Originally published at http://www.bigkid.com.au on 16th August 2002

The problem with being high level and uber, as my Bard undoubtably now is, is that it’s difficult to relate what is happening in a pithy manner. There is a lot happening of course, but it is varied and slower than at lower levels. Battles that would have been worthy of an effusive Chronicle 20 levels ago are now a common occurance, and merely small stepping stones to much larger goals. His ultimate quest, however, has reached the point of it’s conclusion after a full year of toil.

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I lived, but only just. My crippled, flaming interceptor hobbled into the station and into the repairshop. These ships were not going to be easy to fly. The line between invulnerability and death was going to be a fine one, with many factors able to push me to the wrong side. Should be exciting, but I was going to need to be careful. And I was going to need more skills. I realised I had completely neglected all training related to the capacitor in my pursuit of shiny ships. On further searching, there was a large collection of modules I could buy and skills I could train, in order to improve my abilities as the pilot of a ‘ceptor. I had work to do.

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The dark end of the street, all around footfall and catcall and gin-reek. The card cheat and I our backs on the brownstone wall. Pasted around us like masterpieces tattered are papers with faces upon them unsmiling and begging to never be found. Papers shouting of baptisms and of services and each paper torn a little from the wind. Cigarette smoke around. Streetcars rattle. The call of a long black train pulling down to the sidings. Smoke pluming dragonlike to the overhead night. Somewhere underneath all sounds the roll of the river now and then can be heard. Floodplains on the far bank empty save the tracks of steel and sleepers and above only cold blue stars and in the field unseen beyond the barrooms and bedrooms revival tents shake like condemned men in electric chairs. Preachers sleep uneasy in the wind. Guideropes flail whiplike, loosened from their moorings, and the cottonfields too sway as though given life.

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It was around this point that I decided that it was high time I had a bit of Fun. While I was of course having a good time meandering through the decadent spires of the New Continent I feel I wasn’t having the right sort of Fun, the Fun that everyone else was getting up to. Oh, I could be high-and-mighty, abstaining from such base pursuits in favour of stuffy intellectualism all I liked, but if I was to get the most out of this trip, I was going to have to slum it as well as taking the high road.

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When I was very young I used to love to draw things from my imagination. My mom decided to give me a sketch book so I could keep all the work I did in it. I never thought of myself as someone who was going to be a great artist one day, so I just drew to draw, not to get better. One day I met this person named Mario. He drew better than anyone I knew, he drew so well I got jealous and that just motivated me to try harder and get better.

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Originally published at http://www.bigkid.com.au/ on 16th July 2002

The Bard is back. I said that was it when I left EQ, and it was. Really. It’s just that DAoC was too unformed and in flux for me - and, well, I got bored quickly. Then I started reading my guild’s message board. All the things we had worked *hard* for were just about to happen. They were preparing to take on the Vindicator in Kael (a big bad mob that is recognised as a bit of a watershed for guilds), and then HoT (Halls of Testing) in the dragon arena at the Temple of Veeshan, or ToV. These are big names in Norrath, and inspire awe in those who have heard them but never seen them. Dragons. That’s what I’m talking about. I just couldn’t miss it.

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After all the hard work the _blacklibrary opens to the public. Thanks to everyone who put the time and effort into making the place one of the most interesting places to visit in Second Life.

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The first thing to do, is to go by http://secondlife.com/join and download a copy of the Second Life client. At the time of writing, Second Life works on a two-tier membership system. The basic tier is free for a permanent membership. This allows you to do pretty much anything in the game except own your own land and is more than adequate for just visiting the _blacklibrary. For information, the Premium tier that affords land ownership is $10 per month at the minimum level.