Roy's avatar -- Wild Latte -- sitting in Illusions in Second Life -- wide shot

Roy's avatar -- Wild Latte -- sitting in Illusions in Second Life -- wide shot, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Thanks very much to Tynan Clary (Tynan Clary: tumbling through Second Life) who's actually Susan Reynolds (Case-Notes from the Artsy Asylum).

She's been helping me get myself alive and well in Second Life. Thanks to her advice and help and reading list, I was able to escape from the hell of perpetual nudity and helplessness, and sculpt myself a clothed avatar that looks something like me.

Wild Latte is my name.

In this pic, I'm sitting in the peaceful garden on the same property as an amazing Second Life shop that Tynan Clary directed me to. It's called 'Illusions'. This link teleports you to the store, so if you don't have Second Life, you'll need it in order to see the place: Illusions.

Apart from the fact that the place is an artistic wonderland, there are also freebies for people there. When I arrived on the island, I met a delightful shop assistant who handed me a free package of goodies. We chatted about things like protocol, politeness, being open to new knowledge. That sort of thing.

I haven't played with the new goodies yet. But I will.

Is it ever justifiable to kick a cat against a wall?

In a comment, Aiden asks if it's ever excusable for someone to kick a cat against the wall. He paints a picture of a cat really revving someone up and driving him over the edge.

Here's my response.

Isolated incidents are one thing, when it comes to redemption. And tempers may be lost. And individual circumstances need to be evaluated.

I believe that people mostly do the best they can with the tools available to them at the time.

What would alarm me is if this one-off incident turned into several more incidents.

Consider my 'hood...

There are six units here. In the heart of Linden's suburban bliss. Four cats. None of them aggressive or horrid or peeing anywhere they shouldn't.

One of them, Moyo, has in the space of nine months become 'accident prone' since his owners moved into the complex. The most serious of his 'accidents' was a femur, broken in two places. It's the strongest bone in a cat's body. It takes effort to break it.

Of the other three, one is limping badly, possibly cos it has a broken femur, or other breaks. We don't know, cos she's terrified of humans. Particularly humans with bass and tenor voices. In other words, men.

Another is skeletal, possibly from starvation. Which is consistent with our observation of his eating habits. He's fine around me while I speak to him in a falsetto voice. When I go to my natural speaking voice, he bolts.

And the last one has a free-floating broken rib. And eats just as voraciously as the starving one. She's tiny. The size of a kitten. But she's an adult. Runt of the litter? Maybe. Undernourished while growing up? Probably. A healed free-floating broken rib may mean that she was not taken to the vet. For the injury. She doesn't feel it now.

So I look at this and think, 'One cat in four displaying signs of injury... Let's look to the cat for the cause. Four out of four cats showing signs? Lets look at the people around this place.

Unit 1: a man and a woman. Own three cats. Share an old Corsa between them. Never seen the man. The woman tells us that 'Skippy has always been this thin.' Refuses to tell us her name when we politely introduce ourselves as her neighbour.

Unit 2: A woman dying, with nursing care 24/7. Never been seen. But is wheelchair bound.

Unit 3: An aggressive, obnoxious couple who have screaming matches, during which household items get smashed. Who get aggressive when their neighbour (Roy) comes round to ask if all is well. They tell him, 'Keep your nose out of other people's business. Go away.' And, 'You're creepy, man.'

Unit 4: Jennifer and me. Cat-lovers. I'm a bit of a cat whisperer. When I meow, they respond. And they come to me when they won't come near other people.

Unit 5: Bart and Anna, two youngsters with a cat, Moyo. They're cat lovers too. He does yoga. They're decent kids. Spent three grand to sort Moyo's leg out. Money they don't have.

Unit 6: The owners of this complex. They use their unit as a stopover place when they drive from their home in Cape Town to Botswana. They've been here a total of seven nights over the past three months.

My money's on the invisible husband of the woman in Unit 1. My guess is that he's a wife-beater. And that part of his honed technique is to abuse his wife's cats and blame her for his actions. 'You made me do this. Everything that happens in this house is your fault.' I'm willing to bet also that he strictly rations her spending money. And that she's not allowed to buy enough cat food.

I'm also willing to bet that the only way this cat abuse can end is to remove the cats from that home.

My dad was a wife-beater. And my mom was an abusive alcoholic. And I know the patterns well. And I can spot bullshit at a million paces. I know what it means when someone doesn't say her name to strangers.

Doesn't mean I'm right about this particular situation. But it does mean I'm willing to put money on my reading of it.

Now here's the rub... If I can get away from a background of abuse, and not repeat the cycle, then that means others can too. There really is no reason for anyone to BE an abuser.

Losing one's temper isn't the same as abuse. Losing one's temper regularly, and with intent, and unpredictably, and with precision might possibly be abusive.

Someone in this complex is abusive. The behaviour of these cats is a reflection of this. I'm willing to bet that the dudes in units 1 and 3 are physical abusers. And that the cats are victim to the dude in unit 1.

I don't know what the answer is to the person who kicks a cat once. I do know that in the case of someone who kicks and hurts cats more than once, I'm not standing by and letting it continue. Cos that would make me an abuser too. And I'm not one.

Is it ever justifiable to kick a cat against a wall?

In a comment, Aiden asks if it's ever excusable for someone to kick a cat against the wall. He paints a picture of a cat really revving someone up and driving him over the edge.

Here's my response.

Isolated incidents are one thing, when it comes to redemption. And tempers may be lost. And individual circumstances need to be evaluated.

I believe that people mostly do the best they can with the tools available to them at the time.

What would alarm me is if this one-off incident turned into several more incidents.

Consider my 'hood...

There are six units here. In the heart of Linden's suburban bliss. Four cats. None of them aggressive or horrid or peeing anywhere they shouldn't.

One of them, Moyo, has in the space of nine months become 'accident prone' since his owners moved into the complex. The most serious of his 'accidents' was a femur, broken in two places. It's the strongest bone in a cat's body. It takes effort to break it.

Of the other three, one is limping badly, possibly cos it has a broken femur, or other breaks. We don't know, cos she's terrified of humans. Particularly humans with bass and tenor voices. In other words, men.

Another is skeletal, possibly from starvation. Which is consistent with our observation of his eating habits. He's fine around me while I speak to him in a falsetto voice. When I go to my natural speaking voice, he bolts.

And the last one has a free-floating broken rib. And eats just as voraciously as the starving one. She's tiny. The size of a kitten. But she's an adult. Runt of the litter? Maybe. Undernourished while growing up? Probably. A healed free-floating broken rib may mean that she was not taken to the vet. For the injury. She doesn't feel it now.

So I look at this and think, 'One cat in four displaying signs of injury... Let's look to the cat for the cause. Four out of four cats showing signs? Lets look at the people around this place.

Unit 1: a man and a woman. Own three cats. Share an old Corsa between them. Never seen the man. The woman tells us that 'Skippy has always been this thin.' Refuses to tell us her name when we politely introduce ourselves as her neighbour.

Unit 2: A woman dying, with nursing care 24/7. Never been seen. But is wheelchair bound.

Unit 3: An aggressive, obnoxious couple who have screaming matches, during which household items get smashed. Who get aggressive when their neighbour (Roy) comes round to ask if all is well. They tell him, 'Keep your nose out of other people's business. Go away.' And, 'You're creepy, man.'

Unit 4: Jennifer and me. Cat-lovers. I'm a bit of a cat whisperer. When I meow, they respond. And they come to me when they won't come near other people.

Unit 5: Bart and Anna, two youngsters with a cat, Moyo. They're cat lovers too. He does yoga. They're decent kids. Spent three grand to sort Moyo's leg out. Money they don't have.

Unit 6: The owners of this complex. They use their unit as a stopover place when they drive from their home in Cape Town to Botswana. They've been here a total of seven nights over the past three months.

My money's on the invisible husband of the woman in Unit 1. My guess is that he's a wife-beater. And that part of his honed technique is to abuse his wife's cats and blame her for his actions. 'You made me do this. Everything that happens in this house is your fault.' I'm willing to bet also that he strictly rations her spending money. And that she's not allowed to buy enough cat food.

I'm also willing to bet that the only way this cat abuse can end is to remove the cats from that home.

My dad was a wife-beater. And my mom was an abusive alcoholic. And I know the patterns well. And I can spot bullshit at a million paces. I know what it means when someone doesn't say her name to strangers.

Doesn't mean I'm right about this particular situation. But it does mean I'm willing to put money on my reading of it.

Now here's the rub... If I can get away from a background of abuse, and not repeat the cycle, then that means others can too. There really is no reason for anyone to BE an abuser.

Losing one's temper isn't the same as abuse. Losing one's temper regularly, and with intent, and unpredictably, and with precision might possibly be abusive.

Someone in this complex is abusive. The behaviour of these cats is a reflection of this. I'm willing to bet that the dudes in units 1 and 3 are physical abusers. And that the cats are victim to the dude in unit 1.

I don't know what the answer is to the person who kicks a cat once. I do know that in the case of someone who kicks and hurts cats more than once, I'm not standing by and letting it continue. Cos that would make me an abuser too. And I'm not one.

Dealing with cat abuse in the complex where I live

I may be jumping to a whole bunch of assumptions in this narrative. But hey. It'll conclude at some point.

Unit 1 in this complex of 6 units has 3 cats.

Cat one plucks up the courage to visit us. At this point, we think he belongs to Unit 2, inhabited by a dying old woman and her 24/7 nursing service.

He's very skittish, and bolts at the drop of a piece of paper. Seriously.

We have a 'don't feed the neighbours' pets' policy. If they visit, it's cos they like us, not cos we're bribing them with food.

But we started noticing that Skippy (or Skanky as he'll be known when we catnap him when Jen and I move in together) was VERY thin. Kinda feline AIDS thin. Or starving to death thin. And we noticed that he was drinking LOTS of water when he visited.

We know his name cos he has a collar with a bell and a name tag. At least one of his 'owners' loves him.

So Jen and I discussed it, and decided that we would offer him food, and see what happened.

What happened is that he wolfed down the food. The same way a starving dog wolfs down food. And then he drank half a bowl of water. Gulping it down.

We fed him outside the gate of Unit 2. But the lady of Unit 1 came out and asked us what we were doing. I gave her my theory that the dying lady might not be feeding him, and that he was so thin.

And she said, 'Actually, he's my cat, and he's always been this thin. Since the day we got him.' And she scooped him up, and took him inside.

He visited us again. And ate and drank just as much.

Then last night when we got home, Skippy ran up to greet us. Followed by a little cute cat. Followed by a badly limping gray cat. All with bells.

Followed by the woman. Without bells.

A bit of neighbourly pleasantry, and then we all went about our evening business.

But Jennifer and I were both wondering why that third cat was limping. Because there's a fourth cat in the complex. Bart and Anna's little sweet thang... Moyo.

He's part of the puzzle in a horrible way. When Bart moved into the complex about a year ago, Moyo came with. And within a few weeks was at the vet. With a gash up his stomach. The vet thought it was probably a rabbit kick from another cat. Fair enough.

But then... One evening Bart and Anna got home and found Moyo on the sofa. Whining. Hissing. Took him to the vet. Spent R3000 on an operation to fix the broken femur. A break that the vet said could only have been caused by two things. A car hitting the cat. Or someone kicking the cat very hard. Against a wall.

Which brings us back to last night. And the limping grey cat. Why was she limping?

We don't have an answer to that question. Instead, we have a more intense, more disturbing question.

The little cat... Whose name we found on her collar... KC. She came to eat when we called Skippy for his meal supplement. And she came up to us for the first time.

We were sitting outside, out on the driveway. Jennifer was petting her. And suddenly Jennifer jumped a metre, and let out a small scream. She said, 'Roy, feel this cat's tummy.'

I felt the cat's tummy. And I couldn't feel anything. I was about to ask Jennifer what I was feeling for. When I felt it.

A very sharp, long, bony thing. Floating around under the ribcage. A broken rib. No. Not quite correct. A rib that had been broken off. And has since healed. And is floating around inside this cat's body.

So Jennifer and I went back inside. And I spent an hour or two pacing around, making sure that I was absolutely not allowing myself to go outside. Rip the motherfucker's gate off its hinges. Bash my way through the door. And kick that woman's husband's ass straight into hell.

Cos it's definitely him. If those cats were hurt in that house, he's the dude who did it. And probably as a way of abusing his wife.

So the upshot of this is that Bart called the Animal Anti Cruelty League. And I called Friends of the Cat, and the SPCA.

Anti Cruelty popped round this morning. Left a note on their gate warning them to contact them within twenty-four hours.

Tomorrow the SPCA comes. They'll be examining the little cat for its broken rib. That's where things stand.

My Nokia N91 running Opera 4: Is this a good solution for go.blogger.com?

Busy trying to set up mobile access to my blog from my phone.

I'm using a Nokia N91, which runs Symbian as its operating system.

I've got the latest Opera Mini on the phone -- version 4, which
recently came out of beta. Unfortunately, it came out as a full
release with a major glitch... It refuses to allow ANY attachments to
be added.

Which means that I can make text-only posts to Coffee-Shop Schmuck.
Which is pretty useless. But hey.

Setting up go.blogger.com on my Nokia N91

Busy trying to set up mobile access to my blog from my phone.

I'm using a Nokia N91, which runs Symbian as its operating system.

I've got the latest Opera Mini on the phone -- version 4, which
recently came out of beta. Unfortunately, it came out as a full
release with a major glitch... It refuses to allow ANY attachments to
be added.

Which means that I can make text-only posts to Coffee-Shop Schmuck.
Which is pretty useless. But hey.

The Mirthquake

The Mirthquake, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

I visited Jennifer at her school today, to help her fix her video machine.

So when the bell rang, I asked Jennifer if we could do The Mirthquake with the kids.

It's a beaut group exercise that I got from a book called THE LAUGHING CLASSROOM.

People pair up, and make eye contact. For the first twenty seconds, they just silently smile.

The next twenty seconds. They silently mime laughter.

The last twenty seconds they let out all of the pent up laughing sounds.

This drawing was done on Jen's whiteboard, and then finessed afterwards so the kids can have it as a reference for tomorrow.

- Camera phone upload powered by ShoZu

2007-11-12 PowaPhone

2007-11-12 PowaPhone, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Please vote for this on Crunchgear! I need about 70 votes to stand a chance!!!

This is an entry on the CrunchGear 'Best Friends Forever' site. They've called for people to supply their very best open source ideas for what would be awesome on a cellphone.

I THINK they're fishing for things to add to phones once the Google 'OpenSocial' platform comes into being.

My idea is pretty simple. You've heard of the SETI project, right? The 'Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence'. Computer users can sign up to make their computers available to the SETI project to assist in the massive number crunching involved in sifting through the radio static picked up from outer space. They're looking for something that resembles a pattern, something that can't possibly originate from a randon source.

The way they do this is they create a powerful supercomputer by using bits and pieces of everyone's computer in the project.

Now. Let's get back to cellphones.

They're puny, right? The processors are TINY. And they can barely send MMS without a burden, yeah? But now what if phones were all linked up to a friendly, open-source, distributed computing platform?

Say I'm not using my phone right now. Neither are twenty or thirty other people in the vicinity. But you've just shot a little video, and you want to edit it quickly before zapping it onto YouTube.

Currently, you can't edit video on a cellphone. There just isn't enough processing power. But what if YOUR phone could 'borrow' processing power from all of the inactive phones in the area? Not only the phones, but ANY computer on the network?

You'd be able to edit, create 3D animations, run massive spreadsheets. Whatever.

And when your phone is inactive, you'll return the favour to others in need.

All at zero cost. Because you don't use your phone connection to do it. You use Wifi and Bluetooth.

I'm calling it PowaPhone, just for the hell of it. Sounds kinda muscly.

If you like this idea, please go to the CrunchGear site and vote for my entry! I realllllly wanna win the free Nokia N95 they're giving away. [http://www.crunchgear.com/bff/?p=177#more-177]

Oh... and if you're an open sourcer, and like this idea, please feel free to implement it!

This pic originated as two separate sketches in my Moleskine. I scanned them in, comped them together in Photoshop, and then did all the colour work there too. All on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc.

2007-10-30 Kyle Lindsay Monster Guitar Birthday Special Colour

2007-10-30 Kyle Lindsay Monster Guitar Birthday Special Colour, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Jennifer's sister, Bev, is dating a rock musician. He fronts a band called Elusion.

A few days ago I got a call from his dad. 'It's Kyle's 21st birthday party soon,' he said, 'and I saw a piece of your art on Bev's fridge. Can I commission you to do a caricature of Kyle?'

Did I say 'yes'? Does the Pope ogle nuns? Do old dogs fart? Am I glad to have been contacted two days ago after 13 years of silence by an ex-mercenary blast-from-the-past buddy of mine who got silver in the Comrades Marathon ten times in a row running BAREFOOOOOOOT? Does he prefer it if I don't mention his name on any public forum cos of some of the shit he's been involved in?

Of course I said yes.

'It's gotta be him and his guitar, in that "rock god" pose of his.'

So he sent me photos. And Bev sent me some too.

Unfortunately, the pics of him in his rock god pose were kinda impossible to use as reference. So I trawled the web, using 'rock god' and 'guitar hero' and 'cock rock' as my search terms. And found nothing.

Then I lucked on mentioning the challenge to Jennifer. And she said, 'Duh-uh! Search for Deep Purple and Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath and The Rolling Stones, and...'

And the legs you see here belong to Keith Richards. The guitar is Kyle's. The black mascara under the eyes is Kyles. The ultra gelled hairstyle is Kyle's.

I painted this pic in ArtRage 2.5, and did all of the texture overlay stuff in PhotoShop CS2. On my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc. All the while not listening to (Va)Celine Dion for inspiration.

2007-11-05 Babybabybaby

2007-11-05 Babybabybaby, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Sitting in Doppio Zero. And the latest update to ArtRage 2.5 popped onto my system. So I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Just messing around, and decided to paint a reallllly miserable baby. I reckon it's cos I've been thinking quite a lot about abuse.

My neighbours three nights ago were screaming and shouting at each other. And then there was an almighty bang, followed by what sounded like flesh striking flesh.

And I decided to go and deal with the situation. Got dressed quickly. Shoes on. Went next door.

Two drunk youngsters. Him standing in the middle of the lounge. Her lying on the floor, half draped over a chair.

It looked bad.

I said, 'Hey guys, I heard some shouting and some loud bangs. So I just wanted to come over to see if all was okay.'

Kept my voice very calm, very reasonable. But I was in full combat mode. Proper stance. Ready to strike at any moment. The whole lot.

He said, 'Hey, thanks, it's fine. We're shouting at each other. I'm sorry. Didn't mean to wake you. She's pissed. Pissed! I fucking hate it when she's like this.'

And she looked up from the floor. No sign of any violence to her. And she slurred, 'Huh? Uh? Huhhhhh. Soooorrrry.'

And she kinda got to her feet almost, then toppled into the wall, and slid along it into the hallway, where she passed out.

'Hey dude,' I said, 'I'm just checking if there's any violence going down. And it would be better if you're feeling violent to just come round to my place, chill out, talk it down a bit. Is there anything hectic going down?'

'Hey, broe,' he said, 'nah. Nothing like that.'

It looked authentic. So I went back to my place. Jennifer was there. And we were both shaking. She came out of an incredibly abusive marriage. Her hubby was a complete prick. Still is, actually. And crap like this reminds her of the worst.

A little later, the dude knocked on my door. 'Hey,' he said, 'I'm sorry about that. I just wanted to come and say thank you for coming round. That's a really cool neighbour to do that. Thanks man. And I just want you to know that the two of us are never violent. And if you ever hear anything like this again, please feel free to pop round.'

And then we talked a bit of shit. Jennifer made tea. And then he went home.

And all through this, I'm just thinking, 'Ugh. Abuse. Not necessary.'

This painting was made on my Toshiba Tecra M4 using ArtRage 2.5 with cheesy continental music piped out of a speaker above my head at Doppio Zero in Greenside.