Swindled....twice....Hostel delayed a week

This is my annoucement posted on WSE for LLRS. I will blog more about this later....I have work to do....

Hostel Official Date Pushed Back

We were putting final touches on Hostel to find that a prefab building we purchased from Poppet McGimsie of Wunderbar had huge issues. She agreed to make repairs to the building and still left very major flaws in the building rendering it useless. Upon asking for our L$1250 back, she refused, told that was the breaks of SL, and muted me.

I also purchased a building from RJ Kikuchiyo on SL Exchange to find that the building was grossly misrepresented in the picture and paid L$5000 for 1/3rd of what was in the picture. He would not own up to the misrepresentation but refunded me half the money back.
This loss of funds is minute but we lost over 20 buildings in the city area putting us back at the drawing board of finding other prefabs or doing the building ourselves. I have filed AR and reports with SLBB though from personal experience, neither will do much.

Something has to be done in SL to stop the swindling.......

Nevertheless, we are pushing the OFFICIAL date back to next Saturday. The sim is still open for viewing and is searchable though. Thanks again for your support.

Interesting things happening at SL CapEx

So, I woke up this morning 3 hours early with a headache comparable to a hangover despite the fact that I don't drink and decided to poke around the CapEx forums. Since coming off my "mute" status over there and actually being allowed to post again, I don't troll there much anymore since my posts would probably get deleted eventually any way....but anywho....

I came across the most interesting thread I have seen on the forums in a long time. The thread is titled "IPO Funds. Where do they go." Arnaud Villota's argument was that IPO funds were not escrowed and wondered why because Ima Janitor of MECH had been told he would not get his IPO funds up front at completion. Arbitrage Wise's response was basically, the funds are used in the bank to make money since interest was being paid on those funds and that he would rethink paying interest at all on those funds.

A few things are interesting about this if you apply simple logic to this situation. Arnaud has a valid argument. Escrowing IPO funds in the future to prohibit JTF's operations from impeding on investor funds makes perfect sense. Arbitrage rethinking paying interest on IPO funds is also very valid especially if he decides to use an escrow service. So here we have two very valid points from both sides of the house but I have a few questions. And here come my bulleted points that I so love to use in my blogs.

1. SL CapEx charges a fee for the IPO. Shouldn't most of the fee offset at least some of the interest? In this realm it is like the CEO of the IPOing company giving an incentive for purchasing that is offset by the fee paid to JTF. Possibly to keep the interest going and still make their money, JTF might consider a higher fee for IPOs or give the CEO the option to pay interest during the IPO or not.

2. SL CapEx and JTF are supposed to be two separate entities operating on the same platform. Why would JTF be using IPO funds from SL CapEx in JTF operations outside of the exchange? Maybe I missed something on this one but I would think that CapEx funds would be used for CapEx operations. This one I am cloudy on since I am lacking some key elements. Possibly this was done since interest payments come from JTF......

3. The current amount in the MECH IPO is roughly $2.5 million. With JTF having $80 million plus on the books in deposits, is there a liquidity issue somewhere that would stifle JTF to pay out $2.5 million at once? A familiar smell passed my nose when I pondered this one at 6am and it smelled of Ginko but the smell was quite faint so it could have just been the euphoria of sleep deprivation and migraines.

4. The JTIC IPO closes quickly....nice....giving JTF another $2 million in funds and 28 million "shares" to sell back to the public at convenience. Isn't this what we saw from BNT? The personal piggy bank? And what are these funds being invested in? The prospectus is about as vague as an androgynous man...woman...yeah...you know what I mean.

Here's an interesting quote: "We will raise funds through the issuance of Investment Certificates, and move those funds to our trading accounts. Once the certificates mature, we will convert the USD back to L$ to buy back the shares at face value."

That statement alone leaves to many questions to be asked. Trading accounts? Convert to USD? Face value? What I gather from this is that these "certificates" will be converted to USD to be traded in an account outside of SL and then brought back at maturity for their value at that time. WOW! What an awesome product this is, but nothing in the prospectus states invested in what and with whom.....

Very interesting stuff indeed....*grabs a bucket of popcorn and settles in*

L&L Credit Reporting Agency and SL Capital Exchange

I have decided not to pursue this IPO any further on SL CapEx for several reasons that I will explain here. Note, that I have been thinking about these items for a while which is why I positioned the IPO process with both exchanges. Every platform does not fit every business model so I kept my options open with that in mind.

1. Investor Base
Of course with WSE being the first major stock exchange, not the first but the first major, the investor base is larger and with the inception of Ginko customers, it is more likely that more investors have the ability to invest through WSE than SL CapEx. SL CapEx is a little stifled over the Investor Allen issue and is not as viable as it can be if this was not a factor. While this is a fine setting for an established company, an IPO may not be as successful. I want the product to reach the maximum amount of people at once to make the database more fluid as early on as possible.

2. Equal Opportunity
My prospectus has been in the system for a few weeks now and waiting for deployment. I was told that there were other IPOs ahead of mine that were ready to launch before mine, when I knew that they weren't due to other issues. The most recent IPO was not in the system at all before mine was and was placed before mine because it is a JTF product. I have noticed that the only IPOs that get pushed are the ones with direct gain for Arbitrage Wise. We have seen this in the past failed IPOs and other failed attempts such as the Fantasy Football leagues and such. I do know that the purchase of AVIX was to find investors for JTF businesses and those that Arbitrage have stake in so everyone else pretty much is not the priority. This is his exchange and he has every right to do as he pleases, but I would rather have the LLCA IPO be in an unbiased realm.

3. Usability
WSE has deployed some awesome features that will make running LLCA close to easy. Starting from the beginning with these features will set the standard and not make me have to come back and play clean up later. Investor voting deployed from the portal allows the CEO to get the opinion of all its investors without having to hold meetings in everyone's times zones and worry about missing someone. Integrated financial analysis and financial reporting forms takes me about 15 minutes to gather those numbers rather than 1-2 days to fill out the GAPP compliant form so my paperwork time is cut dramatically allowing the focus to be on the product itself.

These factors have been on my list of considerations from day one of trying to deploy the product separate of LLBT. I have come to a conclusion about the share breakdown with regard to LLBT investors incompassing the changes made to the prospectus for the WSE model. The prospectus is the same minus a change in the share breakdown.

Total Shares = 5,000,000 Shares to IPO = 1,000,000 at $1.00/share

25% to IPO
25% to LNLBT Miles (representing LLBT shareholders and this alt will hold a spot on the board of directors acting as the voting proxy for LLBT shareholders in LLCA)
15% to Chairman of the Board (Lindsay Druart)
10% to CEO (Lindsay Druart acting CEO then to Mateo Infinity)
5% to CCO (Luke Birdbrain)
5% to CTO (Unoti Quonset)
5% to CFO (Undetermined)
5% to COO (Undetermined)
5% to LLCA Alt (Undetermined, that can be used to sell back to the public should the need arise)

Pay to C-level executive above and beyond special projects (i.e. system build by the CTO) will be made via dividends that will be paid monthly at 25% of that month's profit as long as it is above the $.01/share threshold. Dividends paid to LNLBT Miles will be distributed as a special recurring dividend to LLBT shareholders that is not subject to the LLBT dividend policy with regard to the current buyback. Undetermined positions granted shares will be held by the Chairman until those positions have been filled. Mateo Infinity will assume the CEO position at completion of IPO and system deployment and the President position will be retired.

This is what I have come up with so far. Please let me know what you think and I will make tweaks as needed. Thank you for all of your continued support in the L&L Brand.

SL and the IRS

I am sitting here at my RL job on my scheduled goof off time and I got to thinking about a few things. A few US dwellers in SL boast about making SL their full-time jobs and I wondered how do they report this RL.

By law, any income above $7,000 per year (I think) has to be reported to the IRS and taxes paid on it. Considering I always itemize my taxes and ALWAYS get a refund for my deductions, I can't say that I have studied this part of the spectrum. How does the SL income play into RL income if the linden is not an official currency?

Ok, granted you convert to USD but is that still considered income? It could probably be considered as a gift, which should be reported as income just like eBay but I don't think there has been any solidified information from the IRS relating to metaverses as of yet.

This was just a thought that I figured I would put on pixels but I will update this as I study the tax code a little more relating to non-taxed income and 1099 statuses...

When the game becomes real...

This has been a long standing debate about the purpose of Second Life. I was told some TV show last night did a spoof on metaverses resulting in a kidnapping which was far fetched and few from my knowledge but, hey, I could be wrong. This is personal experience here and even opinion so walk with me for a moment.

So....when does this platform become real...the minute you log on. This is a mere platform of operation. NOT a game. A game is where you play a character and try to get to some common goal. Even through we do not have our real names in Second Life, our second lives are what we make of them and in MOST cases are a reflection of who we are.

For instance, I am Goth/Punk/Demon in SL. I could NEVER pull that off RL. I am always in two piece suits and pumps in RL while I may be in a mini skirt and hooker pumps in SL. It's my release I guess. Who I am in SL is pretty close to me in RL personality wise but I think I am much nicer in SL. And I will be the first to admit that if I get upset in SL, I am cussing and fussing RL or something worse depending on what it is. I have thrown a few items before. So...let's look at that.....games do spark emotion....but at that point, is it still a game?

Keep walking and let me know if I need to slow down. Money - I spent my rent money in SL to start L&L Rentals and Sales and with personal investments, I made that back and have a residual of a little more than $500 USD a month above and beyond business assets. That is pennies compared to the time I spend in SL on business. I would say I spend 70 hours a week either in world or doing SL related business so that means I make a wopping $1.78/hour. WOOT!! Retirement here I come. However, this extra income pays bills....is this still a game?

You're dragging behind me a little...grab my hand to keep up. Friendship - I was sick last week and the IMs and emails I got checking up on me were enormous and heartfelt. I swear I never knew that many people actually gave a hoot. I cried on a shoulder or two. I whined and sighed on voice. I have even taken a few of my SL friends into my RL via telephone, yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, or AOL. Just to name a few of my list that I may talk to more in RL than SL (not necessarily about RL):

Luke Birdbrain **
Severus Seversky **
Pieter Seelowe *
Janvier Redgrave *
Orillion Writer*
SelesteMxx Maxsted
Winter Mendes
Skitzo Rolls
LukeConnell Vandeverre
Bogart Beck
Rob Anatine

Two stars means I care about them tons, one star is really good friends, and no stars are aquaintances or business. I can honestly say that I would not still be in SL if it had not been for the other L in L&L, Luke Birdbrain. So we ended the marriage....I got a great friend and business partner out of the deal and I am sure he feels the same way. There are a few people in SL that have make me giddy and there are a few that have made me hurt and cry......is this still a game?

Last stop, I promise. I know your feet are tired. Education - I came into SL knowing a good bit about business and personal stocks but oh my what I have learned about running a public company. I am not quite the idiot but if you had asked me what GAAP compliant meant a few months ago, I would have just said "what?" over and over until you stopped asking me (and I still might do that now). I had to Google NAV and still have problems calculating it from time to time. I ask a ton of questions and listen to a lot of people talk to learn things. I have probably learned more mySQL from having to crash course to run the bank than I would in class......really, is this still a game?

There is a thin line between fantasy and reality and SL crosses it, spanks it, and buries it under ground. How you cross that line is your business but realize that this is NOT a game, not matter how you "play" it.