Sort it out.

So, did I tell you guys the one about the time I was offered multiple free regions in a new up-and-coming grid?

It started on the Tweety Tweets when I was asked what I’d do if I had my very own free Hypergrid-enabled region.

As I go on about this, let’s play a fun game together.  Any time this grid does something like LL has done in the past 4 or 5 years, take a drink.  Just a heads-up: little sips.

The Carrot.

Curious, I got to tweeting back and forth with him and as it turns out the guy runs a social website for things SL and OS related, and said if I were willing to blog for said website, I’d get my own free region (“or two or three or four”) in this new grid.

Well blogging is hardly what I’d call work.  If Dire Straits had written the song Money For Nothing twenty years later, and if by Dire Straits I mean me, then it would have been about blogging.  I write about anything and everything because I enjoy it, because it’s fun, and because I get to hear myself talk. So I figured, what the heck, let’s give it a try.  I’d keep the rule that the second he asked me for a dime, I pull up stakes and walk.

Sure enough, within a few days, I was shown my very own first region.  And the guy said to me, I can have as many as I’m willing to develop.  So the next day, plan firmly in mind, I asked for two or three more and described what I had planned.

The Stick.

That was when I was told, oh, well, turns out we don’t know how we’re going to make revenue on this yet(!) so you can still have the one region you were promised (just no more of the ones you were promised) for free. But if you want some more, they’ll be $12 a month.

We’re charging you now for what we told you would be free. Hello LL and educational/nonprofit groups. Drink.

Oh also? Because we want to protect your work, we’ve decided to disable the Hypergrid. General bait-and-switch, I say that counts as a drink.

I could have walked then.  Perhaps I should have walked then.  But I still had a free region to build on where uploads didn’t cost a thing, so I figured, what the hell.  And I was inspired, so I went right to town.

Ghost Town.

I posted regularly at the website about my progress, about ideas, about activities I had in the works. I was so enthusiastic, I talked myself out of noticing the fact that this guy and I were the only ones posting anything at all on this thing.

Pucker Up.

Of course every single thing I posted, any minutia at all, he’d “Like” the hell out of. But just to make sure I knew how appreciated my contributions were, he didn’t stop there. He’d mention me in “shout-outs” on the site’s main wall. He even referred to me as a “close friend” (!) on his Tumblr. He thinks the aggregate compilation “Grid-Wide Digest” on my Twitter is the most amazing thing since sliced bread; he’s a web developer and hasn’t figured out it’s an automated feed.

It’s a bit like being in a relationship with someone really clingy. It’s one thing to be appreciated; it’s another to get soooo much appreciation that you could literally piss on the flag while flipping off a wounded vet and this guy would still kiss your ass. Thing is, pedestals are narrow and lonely places to be.

Other Fish to Fry

Mind, my interests are many and varied, and those who work with me or have seen me work are (I’d think) pretty used to the fact that I tend to move in cycles. One week I’ll be on one project, next week I’ll turn all my attention to another. This cycle is no different. When announcements about SL9B started to make the Blogwaves, I was so excited at the chance to have a part in it that all my attention is now poured into it.

Meanwhile, changes are going on at New Grid Whatever’s Website. Announcements come in that they’re making “me.[website].com”, a new and dynamic social actuating blah blah blah the next Facebook again. Drink.

All the shit you’ve worked on for so long? We’re making you migrate. Drink.

But here’s something LL never did. Five days, five days after my not posting any new useless crap at New Grid Website Land, I get a message (via that website) from the guy: Haven’t heard from you in a while. Hope you’re all right.

Hope I’m all right? *looks around* Um, yeah. I’ve been just as active as ever at that medium WHERE YOU FIRST MET ME: Twitter. It’s still making nightly posts about the Grid-Wide Digest. Fucking hell, I’ve even been updating my blog here! I’m right here, I’ve not gone anywhere, I just haven’t posted at his baby. And why would I want to? Next week he’s just as likely to rearrange shit all over again.

Meanwhile, SL9B. That’s a certainty. And something I’ve been wanting to have a part in ever since SL8B.

In Closing, Your Honor.

I would love to take part in building and creating and helping grow a grid where I don’t have to invest a penny. But not when said grid has BOLD NEW INNOVATIVE WAYS of not knowing how they’re going to make ends meet (remember what I said about any place that’s ever said “We don’t charge rent!“?), or when I’m the only one inworld doing any of the building, or when I’m the only one active at the website, or when the website’s getting rearranged again.

I’ll be back when my interest cycles away from the project I’m on now, and, when New Grid Website Land gets its shit sorted out.