Happy birthday Bruv and J

Say kids, how y’all doing?

Heidi managed to sneak the previous post through whilst I was at work, on a Friday no less. But she is asleep now, so I have the opportunity to reply. Incidentally, if you are reading this because you have found me on facebook in the past week or so, welcome. This is a place of musing and disparate views. In general, if Heidi thinks one thing, I err toward its opposite. Another theme you will notice is sleep. We do it a lot in Bahrain, at all times of the day, but also at night, in quantities I could only dream of in the UK. Life is slower here and richer for it. Sleep is good. I like sleep.

So yes, facebook. To quote my brother, “I have succumbed and it has taken over my life.” Not really, but a bit. People I have lived with, people I have lost contact with and people, embarrassingly, that I have forgotten that I knew how to get hold of. Facebook has revealed them all to me and more importantly their email addresses. I am not really doing the whole facebook thing, whereby I am posting images and joining groups, frankly, I don’t have the time - too much sleeping and working going on for any of that, but making contact again is a good thing, I thing. To me facebook and this whole social networking phenomenon is about making the gentlest contact with people whom have touched your lives. They are at arms length though and the medium of being online enforces distance whilst simultaneously dissolving barriers of space and time. Just because I write on your wall does not mean that I want to enter into a conversation about anything other than that once we knew each other. Although it does not occlude that possibility altogether, it is about choice. I can choose to strike up a conversation with those I used to know, or choose not to. The thing that facebook allows is knowledge that, if it occurs to you that someone you used to know would have the solution, you have an easy way of enquiring their opinion.

Which brings me to second life. It is not evil, it is actually kinda cool. It is, I believe the nearest we, as a society, have come to a true and meaningful alternative culture. Hold up, let me finish, thinking thumb: Yes I do know that the corporations have got into SL, and that the same politio-ecconomic rules have been adopted there, but the difference is that these standards have been adopted despite, not because, of the society that people are trying to escape by entering SL. Your avatar can be anyone you like, a man can be a women online and vice versa, a businessman can explore his inner tree hugger and a tired lonely mother can present herself as the girl she feels she always used to be. The possibilities are endless and online there is no-one to question anything you say about yourself. You are solely defined by the effort you put in to maintaining your avatars persona. As such, if you really believe in the life you have created for yourself, then you become that person. It is the truth. How many of us can say that about our lives in the real world? Who isn’t judged, who isn’t constantly questioned about their motivations and intentions. The online world allows peoples true identities to flourish as long as they are inclined to keep putting in the work to maintain it.

For those of you who don’t have a clue what I am whitering on about, click through to these for more information. The Guardian article, is especially pertinent with regard to the future:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/insideit/story/0,,2080913,00.html

As such, second life is creating an alternate universe of people’s wildest dreams. And yes, for some their wildest dream is to make lots of money. And you can do that in SL. The first SL millionaire - and I am talking about real dollars not Linden dollars - came and went in 2005 or 6. People get rich by selling real estate and through the service industries. People make cool clothes for avatars to wear and sell them in virtual Camden’s. People buy land, develop it and sell it on at a profit. It makes sense, people spend time and resources making things and sell them - as in the real world- for money. On Friday, Lindex closed with the exchange rate at $1 - L$276.

I can see parallels with Bahrain and the GCC; it is about selling dreams. If someone wants to spend their lives making things, why should they not do it for money. And if people - be they in Bahrain or SL - don’t want, or don’t know how, to make and build things, why shouldn’t they pay for them.

Second Life is not evil, it is a not quite fully formed version of what will eventually be the norm: that is, a fully integrated, 3 dimensional internet in which we will all interact daily as we currently do in the text based version we know today. When the internet goes full immersion we won’t think twice about spending our time there. Surely it makes more sense to spend time in a fully immersed world than staring at the screen as we do now; the glass of our monitors, a physical boundary that stops us getting truly involved.

Anyway - Second life is not evil, but it can be used for evil. Just like real life then.

Back in the real world, I have some happy birthdays. Firstly, to my brother who is thirty tomorrow - Sunday - happy birthday bruv, take it easy. You exams will be over soon and it will be cool.

Next up is Heidi’s brother, Jamie, who will be 18 on Monday. Happy birthday J - keep on drumming!

Rather cheekily, in honour of these two auspicious occasions, last night, Friday, me and the ho went out for a rather swanky meal. We went to the Ritz-Carlton, to Primavera, their Italian place and ate the rather delicious food of some posh Italian chef they shipped over for their lifestyle festival. It was great, but we both have colds and didn’t really exploit the freebie for all it was worth. Ah yes, another perk of my job is free meals at posh restaurants.

One thing we did do though was enjoy some BD12 cocktails - about £17 in English.

So, happy birthday chaps.

We toasted you massive.

On Friday I interviewed Khalifa’s - ruling family - but I can’t be bothered to write any more.

Take it easy kids.

BIG love

XxxX