Second D

1:15am
B-Trip: Home

Grace before beauty. D before bed.

Reading about a divorced couple in Brooklyn. It's nasty between them. Way worse than this D.

Their separation is so spiteful that each refuses to move out of their three-story home. So what did the judge decide? Build a wall and divide the house in two.

Chana Taub, 57, got the garage, front door, spiral staircase, three bathrooms, second-floor kitchen, four bedrooms and a nursery on the third floor.

That left Simon Taub, 58, with a side entrance into the first-floor living room and bathroom, along with a second-floor dining room, which he could only access by walking up his neighbor's stairs outside, climbing over a railing on his balcony and entering through a window. To his wife's dismay, Simon paid construction workers to build a spiral staircase on his side, allowing him to get from his living room to his dining room.

Simon says he intends to stay until she moves out. "I want a peaceful life, and that's it," he said. "I don't want nothing to do with that woman."

I can read between those double negatives......he wants her back!

While it's tempting to side with Simon Taub since his wife's viewpoint dominates the article and she's clearly a moron, this little nugget, courtesy of the wife's sister, caught my eye:

"He never flushed the toilet," Newhouse said. "He made her clean up after him. She always had to flush the toilet, even when there was company there."

Now, I don't know the Taub's. It's possible that Simon can do with his poo what Edward Scissorhands can do to shrubbery. If so, then I understand his reluctance to flush. At least until his wife has had a chance to behold his artwork. That's a hallmark of a healthy marriage.

But the Taub's union sounds anything but healthy, which leads me to believe this dude is one gross bastard.

Long story short...Dudes, unless you've managed to either spell out your name or create a world class likeness of Solomon Wilcotts, flush it away.

Every time.


10:10am
B-Trip: Home

SPOILER ALERT: This anecdote ends with an anticlimactic dickover!

So I'm reading an article in The Week magazine about the popularity of virtual worlds. Sites like secondlife.com offer the social equivalent of communal warfare games like World of Warcraft.

Millions of people sign on to these simulated worlds because the real world either stinks, or is too real (Bro.....totally....), or fails to incorporate the term 'Linden' nearly enough.

Second Life seems to be the most popular. Feel like robbing a bank? Go for it. Looking for some sweet inter-avatar congress? (And, really, who isn't?) It's all good. Basically, if you enjoyed THE MATRIX but wished its graphics more closely resembled Dire Straits' 'Money For Nothing' video, then Second Life is for you. It even has its very own news service complete with an anchorman, a one 'Adam Reuters'.

Of course it sounds wonderful. My glaring concern is that I never have enough time for everything in my First Life! How am I possibly going to crack into #2? Unless it offers another 24 hours per day, it won't work for me.

But then a thought occurred to me: What would it be like to Take a Cyber D?

That I had to find out.

So I went to secondlife.com and signed up.

Signing up is easy. Masquerading under the unlikeliest of monikers, Darth Ebbage, I chose the 'city chic' avatar due to its uncanny resemblance to Savion Glover. If I could enter this brave new world tap-dancing like Mumble, I'd probably be knighted within the first five minutes. Or, at the very least, impress the denizens of Second Life while robbing their bank.

Everything seemed to be progressing just fine. After opening the program and logging in, the status bar danced along, slowly pulling the curtain back to reveal a new world of mystery and intrigue.

And then the program crashed.

Dicked.

I tried again. Nope. Another time. Nada. Sometimes I could even catch a glimpse of other users' avatars before the crash, but never for more than a second. Tenacity doesn't seem to get you as far in this virtual world as it can in real life (or RL, if you're a cool cyber guy like Darth Ebbage) because after fifteen different times logging in, I was unable to fully establish a connection.

I assume it's my wireless connection, but I'll be damned if I'm going to plug in for this. Computers serve me, not the other way around. I'll just as soon abandon Darth Ebbage mid-heist than have to run a cable across the room to my desk.

Also, the fact that my laptop is a Commodore 64 can't help matters.

Or maybe it's just karma. After all, Second Life is very popular. I've never been immediately accepted by the cool kids. I tend to be the guy outside the club hoping the bouncer will eventually let him in. And then when I finally do get it, not only does it hardly seem worth the wait, it's certainly nowhere you'd want to Take D.

So given that perspective, maybe I saved myself some time (except, of course, for the ninety minutes I spent trying to log in). Second Life will have to carry on without me.

That said, I'd love if someone could answer this burning question:

Were it not for his still birth, would Darth Ebbage have been able to Take D?


11:30pm
B-Trip: Home

Brought a Sudoku into the B-Trip with me.

But I got stuck.

So I just stared at a piece of newspaper for approximately seven minutes.