Sir Yes Sir!

"Today, you people are no longer maggots."

- Gunnery Sergeant Hartman

Phillip Sidek & I have at least two things in common...1) we both moreorless "live" in IM while logged into SL and 2) whenever we manage to escape the IM hellhole, we are almost always actively involved in some creative act or other.

Phillip of course is a prolific and popular glamour photographer who has carved out for himself a personal and instantly recognisable style.

Phillip & I have been talking about doing something together for some while now - and in fact have done a few things - just not any that we'd planned!

On Saturday we met up, chatted and decided to do something quick, spontaneous and fun...

...this was the result "Phillip Sidek - Sir Yes Sir!"

2 Years In Second Life

Today is my 2^nd Rez Day in Second Life.

To celebrate I brought myself a *KaS* Corset System Dress, a pair of *KaS* Ballet Boots and a *Beautiful Sin* Titanium Leashed Collar set.

The corset dress I first saw on this picture on Phillip Sidek’s flickr; the leash I saw on a really sexy girl at a club. I should add that I wear the unscripted version of the leash, it is simply a cool-looking item of jewellery to me and has no other connotation. The boots I saw when I went to buy the corset dress.

I set off to take some pictures on an Italian village themed region called Sol Aria.  It was very pretty but sadly crashed after only two photographs. I waited a while for it to return but it didn’t seem to.

In these two years there have been things that I am proud of film-wise – ‘Rapture’, ‘Showdown’ and ‘Sex With Strangers’ particularly.

I am also very proud of this blog; this is my first attempt at doing anything of this sort. Although the readership is quite low, it is a quality readership and I receive very supportive and complimentary messages about it. Thank you so much for reading and being here.

There are changes coming soon too with this blog, I think. I plan to migrate from Blogger to my own domain name on Word Press to avoid Google’s increasingly invasive dips into our privacy.

There is also one thing that is constantly troubling me in Second Life at the moment which I’ll expand on in the coming weeks if I can find the right way to say it. It is one of those “nice problem to have” type of dilemmas, rather than one that is very important in the grand scheme of things. But it is nevertheless distressing me on an almost daily basis.

Nothing I have done in Second Life in the last two years am I ashamed of.

It’s been good.

Thanks.

Pixie xx.

THE SEXIEST® - The Judges Unveiled!

I have great pleasure in introducing you to the fourteen individuals that comprise the judging panel for this year’s THE SEXIEST^® adult machinima contest.

Each of the judges are authorities in their own field and have selflessly donated their time, experience and knowledge into making this contest both fair and fun.

I would like to sincerely thank them for their contributions. I am proud and honoured to be on their Friends List.

Pixie Rain xx

Aspen Huntress (b. 22^nd Feb 2010) is a Second Life photographer whose work is widely admired and respected.

Her talent and aesthetic sensibilities shine through in every picture she publishes.

Aspen is passionate and creative – and sometimes stubborn and obstinate – but always in her work we see a soul seeking expression through her chosen medium.

Aspen is pleased to report that she is feeling much better, and is optimistic for a full recovery, since the permanent restraining order was placed on Spunky Puddlegum.

Barry Lubezki (b. 3^rd Jan 2007) is the creator and owner of the ever-popular ‘The Keyhole Club’.

Barry noticed how people in Second Life loved to watch others having sex and so at first created a live sex theatre.

In September 2008 he came up with the idea of a club designed and built especially for voyeurs and exhibitionists – the aptly named ‘The Keyhole Club’.

It was at the Keyhole that Barry opened Second Life’s first cinema dedicated to machinima pornography – ‘The Keyhole Cinema’ - in 2009.

Today, ‘The Keyhole Club’ attracts many thousands of people, all wanting to watch others or be watched.

And they all still visit the venue’s cinema because, as Bobo Puddlegum is fond of saying, “nobody can resist a good, hot movie!”

Bazz Soulstar (b. 4^th Nov 2009) leads a double-life as a respected pillar of society and an absolute sexual pervert, in approximately equal measure.

Although Bazz has often been called a chameleon, he would rather be thought of as a kaleidoscope.

After a mind-expanding experience involving a nylon sock, a pair of maracas, a tuning fork and a small satsuma, Bazz is much more relaxed about life.

He has always been open and liberally minded and does not care much for censorship, other than that needed to protect children.

Bazz enjoys watching and reading pornography.

He considers 'The Grande Bouffe' and 'Fritz the Cat', two films he watched as a young man, as being instrumental in his development of enjoying erotic and unusual pornography.

Bazz Soulstar was so impressed with Bobo Puddlegum’s Remmington Fleshlight, he brought the company.

Trained by his cousins Solok and Nasty to be a performer at the Albanian State Circus, Bobo Puddlegum (b. 6^th May 2010) has variously been employed as an acrobat, human cannon ball, clown, elephant tamer and pickpocket.

Bobo, always the womaniser, was honoured to be presented with the coveted “Playmate Midget of the Month” award.

Bobo lists his hobbies and interests as dancing, baking, knitting, embroidery, sailing, spanking and anal fingering.

He’ll often he found touring adult venues in Second Life while chewing on a pair of stolen knickers.

Debbie Trilling (b. 16^th Oct 2006) is a Creative Director involved in some of the biggest shows to have been staged in Second Life, including ‘The Wall’ and ‘Metropolis’.

For the last three years, she has led the team responsible for the climax of Second Life’s annual ‘Burning Life’ festival, the actual burning of ‘The Man’ itself.

Debbie has produced 80+ videos documenting her own and other 3D artists’ work in Second Life and other virtual worlds.

Her IM’s never get capped.

Debbie has asked that we do not reveal that she has a number of the Puddlegum family on her Friends List. We feel honour-bound to respect that request.

Ever enthusiastic about the creative possibilities inherent within Second Life, Ferdy (b. 9^th Mar 2007) is owner of ‘The Village Café’ - a folk and world music venue that is especially welcoming to the transgender community.

The Village Café is inspired by early 1960s Greenwich Village, NYC.

Ferdy is Nasty Puddlegum’s favourite lover. Bobo fancies her too. And Solok. Even Spunky, for that matter.

Iono Allen (b. 24^th June 2007) is a machinima film maker working from Paris, France.

Respected in the SL art community for his enthusiasm but balanced, honest encouragement, Iono has filmed numerous other artists’ work to great effect, as well as create his own movie stories.

Iono was winner of the 2010 Hosoi Ichiba Machinima Award and recently was awarded joint-fourth place in the prestigious MachinimUWA IV awards.

Iono has confirmed that he is now willing to collaborate on a future film project with Nasty Puddlegum after Nasty offered him a horse’s head that was impossible to refuse.

Lar Jun (b. 26^th Jun 2007) is owner of the immensely popular ‘Old Lar’s House’, one of the few adult venues to be listed in Linden Lab’s ‘Destinations’.

Lar is most often described as a kindly, humorous, benevolent senior citizen and, in fact, is seen by many as being the perfick roll model.

He also has an enviable and deserved reputation as a babe magnet.

Lar is partnered to Marcy Palmer – rumoured to be able to tie knots in spaghetti with her tongue. Even in his senior years, Lar continues to enjoy excellent hand-to-knee co-ordination.

His hobbies include upskirt photography, drooling and drinking copious amounts of Budweiser. He is a regular contributor to ‘Face Sitting Weekly’.

Court records prove that he has had close business ties with the notorious Puddlegum Family as far back as 1964.

Although ‘WarmAnimations Lisa’ was born on 6^th February 2010, her player’s experience as a virtual world entrepreneur actually began three years previously with the creation of two major projects for RL companies with a presence in SL.

After these projects were successfully concluded, and sensing an increasing demand for high quality clothes, she started to provide clothing templates to high-end branded virtual stores.

In 2009 she developed her virtual skills even further by creating animations - leading to the well-known and respected brand ‘Warm Animations’.

Lisa is still as eager as ever to improve and supply the best and most unique animations on the market and fully dedicates herself to developing and improving of the products.

Bobo Puddlegum has found 101 uses for Lisa’s best-selling ‘Dirty Sex Rug’; 102 if you also include using it for dirty sex.

Octavian Venera  (b. 2^nd Nov 2006) has been an SL photographer for over five years.

He specialises in portraiture and erotica. His work is defined by its studious attention to detail and a clean, unfiltered composition.

His work is on display at the ‘SiLK Gallery’, open to the public.

Octavian considers each completed photograph as a small victory in creating beauty. He is fascinated by the process of meeting models that have managed to create their own individual look, and then capturing their unique beauty in a photograph.

Octavian rejected Spunky Puddlegum’s job application to be employed as a camera tripod. He did, however, once employ Bobo as a stand-in fluffer and underwear scrubber.

Paddledog v3.0 (b. 26^th July 2007) is the latest release from Puddlegum Innovations.

Paddledog v3.0 represents a quantum improvement in usability and interactivity over all previous Paddledogs.

Key to this improvement is the patented integration of Random Chaotic Strange Attractor (RCSA) subroutines.

‘Lazy Buddhism’, ‘Exuberant Taoism’, ‘Soft Nietzschean’ and the ever-popular ‘Sacred Secularist’ modules are installed as standard.

To fully enjoy Paddledog v3.0 to her fullest, you will need the following minimum system requirements:

·        CPU Clock Speed: 120 IQ or above

·        Irony, Wit and Humour indexes in the 90^th Percentile

A demonstration video of a fully functioning Paddledog v3.0 can be seen here.

Phillip Sidek (b. 6^th Dec 2006) was born to parents Adam and Eva on a cold, rainy and moonless November night sometime in the early 1940s, as the family fled from Nazi persecution.

Exact details of Phillip’s birth place and date, and all attendant public records, have long been lost but the family solicitor has refused to deny rumours about a certain lowly cattle shed in Palestine.

His mother Eva was a beautiful, highly educated woman with an independent income as a respected piano teacher. Village gossip concerning an alleged long-term love affair with Solok Puddlegum in 1940/41 is almost certainly untrue. However, Eva has never satisfactorily explained how traces of Solok’s contaminated semen were found on her favourite blue dress or in her hair.

Phillip’s father, Adam Sidek III, was a dark, sinister and shadowy character. It is a documented fact that Adam had numerous affairs with the both the house maids and Phillip’s nannies.  An uncorked bottle of ‘Mother’s Ruin’ was always left on a shelf in the kitchen pantry for the female staff to gulp as necessary.

Phillip was Adam and Eva’s only child together. He was principally raised by several caring but very strict nannies. None of them ever spared the rod, nor spoilt the child.

Phillip did, however, have the benefit of private home tuition and the privilege of a University education. He majored in both economics and cosmetic plastic surgery at Prague University in 1964.

Phillip discovered his love for photography during a guided tour of Prague mortuary in 1965. It was here that he met his future wife, Pearl Kira-Sidek, as she ably assisted the coroner in an autopsy on a murder investigation.

Pearl and Phillip married quickly with Phillip photographing every sweet moment of their blossoming love. Pearl, however, found she could not accept Phillip’s extreme sexual appetite or his increasingly intense interest in fetish photography.

Divorce soon followed but not before Phillip had transformed Pearl from a humble mortuary technician to a top-class photographic model, and part-time escort.

Phillip has never had any children of his own, mainly due to his penchant for anal penetration.

Pixie Rain (b. 13^th Feb 2010) - who by some freaky genetic accident is in fact the daughter of Solok *and* Nasty *and* Spunky *and* Bobo Puddlegum - is a digital artist who only gained a University place by sleeping with her college lecturer.

Pixie uses Second Life to practice film making techniques and experiment with artistic concepts that cannot easily be translated into RL films.

Straddling the dual worlds of SL art and SL pornography, Pixie’s combination of sexuality, visual aesthetics and quirky humour result in her unique and distinctive variety of adult-erotic machinima which, much to her surprise and delight, many people seem to enjoy.

Four of her films were nominated in different categories at last year’s THE SEXIEST^® adult machinima contest, with one win. This year, however, Pixie was asked to be head of the jury panel and therefore, naturally, none of her films have been entered.

Pixie Rain has a complex personality – she has an oral fixation but cannot resist crunching down on hard-boiled sweets; a protestant work ethic but detests anal sex; takes pleasure in having penis envy but cannot stand dicks.

She has never had a latency period.

Tutsy Navarathna (b. 21^st May 2008) is one of the foremost filmmakers working in Second Life today.

A French artist currently residing in Southern India, Tutsy was one of the original pioneers of experimental and avant-garde video in the 1980s and ‘90s.

His work has always explored that nebulous boundary line between the imagination and reality. His SL machinima continues to investigate this realm by seamlessly merging RL and SL footage.

Joint-winner of the prestigious MachinimUWA III award, outright winner of MachinimUWA IV and 1^st runner-up of the influential international Machinima Expo 2011 awards, Tutsy’s films are a master-class in technique, composition, imagination, story-telling and simple artistic talent.

Although Tutsy confesses to having met Bobo and Nasty Puddlegum in the gentlemen’s lavatories at Gare de Lyon train station, he swears he didn’t inhale.

Synchronicity, Serendipity & Coincidence in Virtual Worlds

In the Name of Annah,

the Allmaziful, the Everliving, the Bringer of Plurabilities!

Haloed Be Her Eve!

Her Singtime Sung!

Her Rill be Run!

Unhemmed as it is Uneven!

from ‘Finnegan’s Wake’

James Joyce

(orig. pub. 1939)

This blog-post discusses the intuition that instances of synchronicity, serendipity and coincidence occur more frequently in Virtual Worlds than in the Atomic physical world.

I was intending to use as examples recent occurrences I have had in Second Life with Squonk Levenque and Phillip Sidek, and our respective connections to Treptower Park - both in RL and, photographed on this blog, the SL version.

However, all too rapidly the events became too intense, too entangled and too personal to try and unravel and make sense of on a public blog.

(Click images to enlarge)

In at least one respect, coincidences are very much like dreams – to the person experiencing them they can be interesting, absorbing and intensely meaningful - but, the sad fact is, that it is often awful to have to sit and listen to others’ tell of their dreams and coincidences!
And I wouldn't want to inflict that upon you, dear reader.

So with this in mind I decided to make this blog-post somewhat more general and impersonal - discussing how events in time in Virtual Worlds often seem to “flow” at an accelerated rate in comparison with their atomic equivalent.

I am not thinking here of the rather commonplace “time flies when you are enjoying yourself” experience but rather a sense that ones personal learning curve, ones personal “life experience quotient” if you will, is somehow accelerated by having a virtual presence.

It seems sometimes as if virtual living allows us to pack more life-experiences into a given unit of time than would be possible in the atomic world. I think it is therefore possible to conjecture that virtual worlds could – by design or otherwise – facilitate a kind of “emotional incubator”.

Just as we already use computerised simulators to learn skills like flying an aircraft, surgery and other mechanical procedures, it might be possible to develop virtuality to help individuals emotionally and psychologically mature at an enhanced rate.

In fact, even with the shortest time immersed in some of the many various sub-cultures in Second Life you’ll hear people say how their affinity for different types of music has expanded; tell how their understanding of, for example, the GLBT community has been improved; describe a new-found ability to communicate and empathise with people quite unlike themselves – an ability which they never previously even suspected they had.

There are many more examples beside, but the point I am trying to stress is that without any co-ordinated effort or central planning, many people are already experiencing in Virtual Worlds a rudimentary form of the “emotional incubator” I am trying to describe.

In my mind’s eye I am visualising Virtual Worlds being employed in a manner analogous to, say, the so-called “astral journeys” used to experience the Sephiroth of the Qabalistic Tree of Life or maybe some of the techniques employed in Jung’s analytical psychology - perhaps even to Timothy Leary’s and others’ claims for the therapeutic uses of psychoactive drugs like LSD.

Understand that I am not stating that “virtual worlds are like astral journeys”. Nor am I advocating the use of psychoactive drugs or expressing a preference for the psychological philosophy of Carl Jung.

Not at all. What I am attempting to do is make a comparison between their *claims* (whether real or imagined) for the “accelerated evolution of human consciousness” with what I am envisaging could be a possible similar use for Virtual Worlds.

And I do feel that there are valid grounds to compare the internal image-making consciousness-exploring techniques of the Qabalah, Jung’s psychology and psychoactive drugs with an immersive presence in Virtual Worlds.

In my First Life I have noticed that instances of synchronicity, serendipity and coincidence seem to occur more frequently when I am “in the zone”, or “riding the wave”, “on the crest of a wave”, “on a high” etc.

Things just seem to fall into place at such times – the right people call; someone passes me just the right link; the right DVD is returned to the library the day I go looking for it; I get introduced to a friend of a friend who happens to have an expertise I need. I am sure you have similar experiences.

I believe I have noticed a direct correlation between the frequency of these things and my own internal sense of well-being.

That is, the better I feel about myself the more frequent are the occurrences of synchronicities, serendipities and coincidences.

In and of themselves, it is not the synchronicities, serendipities and coincidences which are making me feel good about myself – they appear to be a side effect of some sort.

No, I think that other things are contributing to me feeling good about myself and the synchronicities, serendipities and coincidences follow on from that.

Sure, there is likely a feedback loop from there – the synchronicities, serendipities and coincidences sometimes result in changes in conditions or circumstances which then reinforce the feeling of good about myself which then in turn results in further synchronicities, serendipities and coincidences… and so on.

But there is a more fundamental cause in this chain of events, I believe.

Something, or more likely some things (plural), is/are occurring to make me feel good about myself in the first place – and this initiates the chain which we have just described.

My sense of well-being seems to be directly proportional to my sense that I am “being me”. That is, that I am behaving in a manner that is natural for me – as an individual human being – to behave; that I am creating in a way that is natural for me – again, as an individual – to create; that I am dressing, working, playing and resting as naturally befits who I am as a unique individual.

When these elements of my life are smoothly functioning like a well engineered machine, my sense of well-being sky rockets and, seemingly magically, synchronicities, serendipities and coincidences follow in abundance.

In Virtual Worlds, we find that many conditions are easier to control and influence than their Atomic World equivalents.

Objects can be moved and positioned with pin point accuracy without many of the frustrations experienced with physical objects. The avatar body can be adjusted in so many ways that it is possible to have the perfect body – no matter how one might define that. One can dress in any way or have tattoos or piercings, hairstyles, jewellery and all the rest which just may not be possible in Atomic Life, for whatever reasons. One can conduct oneself in practically any way, if on the right region or parcel, without being questioned or harshly judged.

In short, for those motivated enough, it is possible to build a simulation of the environment and personal conditions that that particular individual needs to express themselves in a more natural way than their atomic life might permit.

This, I believe, leads to an increase in ones sense of well being and, as such, has genuine therapeutic possibilities.

In this blog-post, I’m suggesting that the ability in Virtual Worlds to effortlessly manipulate objects, easily change looks and the ability to reside in a community of likeminded individuals who will allow you to behave in most any manner you wish without repercussions, sets up the exact same set of conditions which simulate the “being me” that leads to an increase in well-being.

And that, I submit, is why instances of synchronicity, serendipity and coincidence apparently occur more frequently in Virtual Worlds than in the Atomic physical world – because we are more easily able to create environments that are natural to who we are as unique human beings.

Pixie xx

Credits:

All pictures taken on 'Treptower Park' region owned by Squonk Levenque and Miuccia Klaar (co-owners of Kamikaze fashions).

Special thanks to Phillip Sidek for providing the inspiration for these thoughts and ideas.

Ruminating on the PixelX Polls

ru·mi·nate/ˈro͞oməˌnāt/

to ruminate:
1. to chew the cud like a ruminant (example: sheep and goats)


to chew the cud:
1. to chat in an aimless way. Cud is the part-digested food that ruminant animals bring back into their mouths from their stomach to chew at leisure. The image is a slow and meaningless mastication.

Pixie Panda

On her notorious, controversial, sometimes cruel and frequently funny blog, Rayven Baily made some interesting remarks about a much publicised Second Life (SL) porn-industry poll.

Tulsi Clown

The poll in question is hosted at the PixelX magazine blog and is run, at least in part it seems, by the infamous Jumpman Lane.


The winners of each of the categories get awarded real life dollar prizes (rather than Linden Space Bux).


From a drop down list, you can select who you feel should win in a particular category and your vote is counted.


So far, so good.


Except that anyone can cast multiple votes in any category, separated by a 24hour interval. Moreover, voting is open for another six weeks!


A recipe for....well, not "disaster" exactly but certainly "inferior quality".


I remember reading a notecard about this competition and, on seeing how the winners would be judged, deciding to keep at arms length from it. In fairness, however, I am not one for entering contests and I wouldn't have given the matter very much thought before concluding "not for me, thank you".

Rayven goes on to describe some rather strange voting patterns which on the face of it sound absurd.


Now, before we go on, it should be said that Rayven has an agenda of her own here which will be readily obvious to her regular readers - and which Rayven herself makes no attempt to disguise or hide, bless her cotton socks!


I am not particularly interested in Rayven's not-so-hidden agenda to be honest, except perhaps in the morbid sense of rubbernecking a train wreck.

But I *am* interested in the how the chosen election process for this contest has the potential to lead to seemingly weird and outlandish results.


And the way Rayven described it, the results were so bizarre, so ridiculous, so....so unbelievable that Rayven just *had* to be exaggerating. Right?


Right?


I had go to look for myself.

This type of voting mechanism has prior form and is widely employed in such TV programmes as X Factor, Big Brother and many many others.


By allowing multiple voting, someone can feel they are really getting behind and supporting the performer they want to win. The production company get a small income from every vote. Its all good. Its all fun.


In these types of TV programmes, each broadcast episode could expect to generate tens or hundreds of thousands of votes. Some can generate millions.


The number of individual votes and voters involved is so vast that it would be near impossible to viably influence the result using various social networking or crowd sourcing techniques or indeed other forms of voting irregularities. It has been attempted, of course.


However, when such a voting regime is employed in that considerably smaller pool of resources that is Second Life, it becomes entirely possibly to influence the final result, given enough motivation.

When you look at the interim results that this contest has spewed out thus far, it is hard to escape the conclusion that some form of manipulation is occurring of the nature that Rayven describes. In fact, Rayven's reporting on the voting patterns appears to be disturbingly accurate.


This contest certainly has lost all credibility, imo, and I am glad I decided not to enter. It isn't something I think I would really want on my curriculum vitae!


Now, the fact is, this contest - or any other for that matter - has no obligation to be credible! It just isn't a requirement of competitions!


And if winning a contest that has no benefits in terms of personal credibility, respect or self-dignity is meaningful to you - then go for it, I say! Spam all your friends, drag out your alts and get the buggers to vote for you every 24 hours!


And if it isn't the "personal credibility, respect or self-dignity" that is motivating you but instead you are seeing dollar signs in front of your eyes - then, again, go for it! Spam and alt-vote to your heart's content!

While there I voted in each of the categories. I voted as I felt was right and true for me.


In some cases, that meant I didn't vote for someone on my friend's list. Sorry. But there is a simple matter of personal integrity at stake here.


I will not be returning to cast any further votes; I am done there. Nor will I be keeping abreast of developments


For anyone interested, here is who I voted for, and the reasons why.


Pornographer of the Year: Of the sixteen possible candidates, only two could I personally realistically consider -  Emanuelle Jameson or Serenity Juneberry.


Emanuelle's generous and enthusiastic coverage of other people's work on her extremely popular blog allows us to see work which would unlikely ever otherwise come our way. She doesn't have to do this but she does, in a most unselfish and encouraging way. Emanuelle is a great community leader.


Serenity has not only built up an enviable body of high quality work, she is also generous and unselfish as a person. As well as working on her own blogs (count 'um!) she is a regular contributor on Emanuelle's. You see her commenting on many films; she is widely liked and her opinions are highly respected.


It was a hard decision but, finally, I plumbed for Serenity because she has been the more active of the two in outputting new creations in the last year.

Porn Newcomer of the Year: I found this quite a lot easier than some of the other categories. I voted for Collen Criss


I am really enjoying the photography on Collen and Toran's blog. I like their style and the care they evidently put into their work.


Really good stuff.


Female Model of the Year: A tough category, especially as SL now provides so many attractive looking "off-the-shelf" and "generic" avatars.


What I personally find attractive and what I look for in the actors I cast in my films, is an individual "created" look. If I sense a "generic" or "off-the-shelf" look - even if it is attractive or beautiful as many of the "CherryGirl" and "Dr Life" avatars clearly are - I am less likely to be enthusiastic in offering a part.


Sexy and beautiful are "must haves" obviously, that's a given. But the avatar must also be capable of retaining that sexiness and beauty under different Windlight settings, different outfits and different hair etc. I am particularly interested in eyes, lips and facial shape.  I especially check that there is no shadowing around the nose and cheeks.


From a starting field of seventeen, under the above criteria, the numbers quickly get shaved to a more manageable amount.


I finally voted for Arwen Juneberry.

Male Model of the Year: Many of you know I hang out at Old Lars House. The thing is, you see, in my personal life I have a penchant for polite, mature gentleman.


The young stereotypical SL "male hunk" just don't do it for me. 


So, there was really only one choice....Philip Sidek. 


Photographer of the Year: The single hardest category imo. So many good photographers are in amongst the twenty-three candidates.


I eventually ruled it down to Jeanne Sahara, Jinx Jiersen, Philip Sidek and my eventual choice....Debra Stine.


Female Machinima Performer of the Year: I could happily cast my vote to Quinn Ying, Serenity, Arwen but after a lot of deliberation finally decided on Aurora Bentham.


The reason is because Aurora created the one adult machinima that I have watched over and over again this year - Disturbia. I loved that film but unfortunately it isn't on NaughtyMachima any more.

Male Machinima Performer of the Year: I haven't voted yet. I am waiting for Philip Sidek to be added to the list for this momentous performance.


Machinima Director of the Year: I voted for Vanhelsing Svoboda because,  with the possible exception of Quinn's, I like his films more than the others listed,  .


However, after some reflection I wish I had not cast a vote at all.


The list does not include Serenity Juneberry (or Rysan Fall for that matter) and is therefore inherently flawed and incomplete.

Pixie
xx


IMPORTANT EDIT:


Since publishing the above there have been two major developments significant enough to justify an edit:


1) The polls have been changed to only permit one vote per IP address. This is much more sensible under the circumstances but likely too late to repair the damage already inflicted on the contest's reputation.


2) Arwen and Serenity have withdrawn from the competition entirely. See their formal announcement here. At the moment of their announcement, Serenity was leading in two categories ('Female Model of the Year' and 'Female Machinima Performer of the Year'). My feeling is that if the organisers had not removed her name from the 'Machinima Director of the Year' category (whether deliberately or accidently is far from clear) then she would be heading that category too.


Arwen and Serenity really are a class act, both on and off the stage.


Their withdrawal from the contest effectively renders any result from this contest worthless.
   
Now I really want to leave this whole sordid matter behind and recommend we all do something more pleasant and light hearted - like dressing up in tiny avatars and re-enacting the electro-convulsive therapy scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest!


Bagsy I be Jack Nicholson! Serenity and Arwen can fight over who will be Nurse Ratched!


The pictures used on this blog-post were taken by Tutsy and I in our tiny avatars at Madcow Cosmos and Lorin Tone's fun and funny 'Through the Lens of Dreams' region.