seo? Marty are you real? Hoaxed again I think.

This morning I found 347 visitors to this particular blog after the last particular post. I thought for a moment that it was something that I wrote. But after I looked over the stats I realized that the interest came from 3 sources, two of which seem to be the same guy. I am hoping that Marty is legit in his interest. But after trotting over to a search and running what I know... I think not.

One of the searches came through 777seo and when you go there all you get is a blank page. I found Marty at a site for him at googlecorrections which seems to be a legit site. And it turns out that all that is a blog for ads. So then there was the Just for laughs people. I do not know what that is about because it was a lot of tail chasing. So I ran all of this through Google and here is what I found.

seo is an acronymn for Search Engine Optimizer or Optimization. And there is a forum that warns you about an seo getting a hold of your blog and running unauthorized searches from your IP address. Some how these guys direct searches using your computer and as anyone goes digging through the ways and means of a visit the searches get back to you. But the real problem is that they hi-jack your computer and it runs slow. Not only does it run slow, like any other virus it can cause damage and that means a trip to the doctor for your PC.

Now I hope this is not going to happen. But I fear that it already has because I was so excited to see what generated the interest. Even when my friends come here to see new artwork I never see more than 40 hits. Today at 347 I was so many kinds of geeked. But who cares about me and my little blog? Who cares that I barely make enough money to pay my rent let a lone fix a PC that is the life center of my social experience?  All that these people seem to care about is hitting hundreds of computers for that almighty click through dollar. Virtual thugs. Why do so many people have to take a good thing and ruin it for others?

I know that I will never guilt anyone into ceasing this behavior. I know that I am just another IP number and that IP number is touted as a means to some glorious end. But I am a person behind the number. And I resent the use of my PC to perpetrate these kinds of hoaxes on other unsuspecting bloggers. I resent being used to dash someone else's hope of reaching fame or at the very least some small recognition for the hours of blogging that they have been doing wondering if anyone is paying attention. It's rude. It is mean. And the karma that you accrue by doing this is going to bite you in so many ways I can only hope to hear about it in the after life.

If you are legit, Marty. I have to tell you that it doesn't seem that way. And you may want to do something to make things seem less selfserving. It would have been nice to know that someone of those 347 visits was real. But I suspect now that none of them were. Why Marty? So you really make that much money making people sad?

Necessity

It would seem that there is no way to continue to do the things that I love to do without getting more involved in the world that we live in. I will have to have some version of photoshop. For one, I now know that I can make some of my own props for the game that I play and create some very stunning realities in this special universe. Um... I should probably show you a picture.

It is very "boyish" in its sterility.  Utilitarian.   And to me not the slightest bit comfortable. But with the application of in game tools you can create just about any reality that you can imagine. And you can pay someone who has more time and skill than you might have to bring your vision to life. I suspect that some HTML coding knowledge would make me so much happier in this reality. As I am sure that it will make me happier in the real world. It makes more money than I could ever make in the laundry room. And building tools for people in a game is a lot less drama than all the crap that I have to deal with in the laundry room. But I digress. After you get done playing with the tools to add color and images you get something truly amazing... if you do it right.

And you can build just about anything. Of course it isn't like a 3D Google like replica of anything. It is a little closer to an 8 bit reality because of the cartoon quality. But I do not need super realism (says the girl getting frustrated because the Christmas Wreaths aren't quite real enough. Pardon me while I choke on my hypocrisy) but it is good enough to convey the thought and the feeling of a place. And really that is what using your imagination is all about. The imagination fills in the gaps and lets you make the place real to you. As you can see in this next shot.

These two pictures are so very different. This is all light and expansive. And there I am in the middle in a designer gown I could neither afford nor would be caught dead in were this the real world. And the dress was free. This was designed with two thoughts in mind: one it is very different from where I live in the real world. And with the right music plugged into this room it will help the seasonal effective disorder tremedously.

My other thought was that since the game world is a place for people to explore their own nature and test limits that the homes I have here need to be somewhere safe for me to feel comfortable being something other than a tomboy. It isn't that I have a philosophical objection to fancy gowns and a nice hair style. It is that a fancy gown doesn't get much accomplished in the real world... other than as a decoy in a Bond game of Spy v. Spy. The gown in no more utilitarian than the whole of the Roccoco period. I happen to like a lot of fluffy decorations on my cakes and old buildings but not anywhere that I am responsible for cleaning. There is beauty and grandeur in the places that serve as models for this stained glass manse. And there is very little grandeur in me.

This is a place where I get to be the princess that I want to be (Danielle in Ever After). Maybe later I will explore the Anna in Van Helsing part of me since everyone here seems to want to live a vampiric life. But for now I am just playing Barbies with the complete freedom to play how I see fit and build my own game without being told I was using my imagination wrong.

But I still see that for this and other art projects that I want to do, Photoshop is going to be as essential to my artistic growth as a trip to Germany.