Virtually Happy

Viewer Mania

2012-02-06T13:46:00.000-08:00

Lludmila visits Kenjin.

Lludmila and I have been around the virtual world and "entertained"* many a viewer . Among the third party viewers, I have used Emerald, Phoenix, Firestorm, Cool VLViewer, and the non-graphic interface Metabolt**. I enjoyed all of them. The killer was mesh. I'm sure mesh is a lovely idea and all (I don't build, I don't understand the mechanics behind building or scripting, I just use stuff), but one day my two favorite viewers (I was actually getting used to V3 and relying on it as an alternative to Firestorm) stopped working. And I blame mesh, although it used to work on both before the final update they made. I log on to the V3 or Firestorm and crash. I can't last more than a couple of seconds. I have expunged them from my harddrive and done clean downloads and it doesn't change. I was crestfallen until I found the Cool VL Viewer (thanks to the Virtual Vagabond blog).

Something is always happening that makes me think I will be stuck in RL(tm) forever, but somehow there's always a work-around, and Cool VL Viewer was it. It has mesh and it doesn't turn me into Crashie Crashwell McCrashypants. It's like Snowglobe (or "Showglove" as I seem to be trying to type instead), so I'm familiar with the format. It's been wonderfully stable.

Ducky is rather small and can be set to wander.

But yesterday I put on my frowny face because I was trying to find a hunt item at Artizan (yeah, so I don't understand scripts - but I can find people who do!). I was there to buy a script to help me find objects. This is because, as referenced in a different blog, I had lost my rubber ducky. For some reason, I was not tasked in group membership with locating objects from the land menu (and even if I were, I couldn't remember the name of ducky to search for it). Cool VL Viewer doesn't have the cool Phoenix/Firestorm area search. I had exhausted myself with wireframe, first trying to find my ducky and then at Artizan trying to find the hunt gift. I eventually found ducky when I saw something moving on the minimap. What the heck could that be? I wondered. Five more minutes of camera zooming and then wireframe and I found ducky wandering under the prim beneath my house and down in the water. But by then I'd just had it.

The red postbox.

I was at Artizan because I knew they sold an object search script - I'd seen it there when I was buying other things. [I love my red postbox!] But I wasn't going to buy it until after I found the hunt objects (I mean, it was unlikely, but what if that were the hunt gift?! Wouldn't I feel the silly-billy!). I was in a quandary. I went to my back-up files (on one of those back-up towers my husband bought me before the Great Harddrive Wipe) to see if there was some long, lost viewer I could use - but I had been too thorough. I tried Firestorm three more times and then deleted it and its little dog Toto again. I went to the website to try one last time to download it and I saw you could still download Phoenix.

I did. It worked. It has mesh. I went back to Artizan, picked up the hunt items and I'm a happy camper again. Now, if ducky gets lost again (first of all, I made sure he was labeled "ducky"), I can find him with area search. Or, I can do what I had intended in the beginning, which was to find it in my inventory, get the commands from the notecard, and use those.

* This is a paraphrase of a friend from grad school who had "been around the world and [ahem] effed him a lot of women" - which he used as credentials to opine on something that had to do with neither. I thought it was hilarious at the time.

** Metabolt is great if you want to run your alt at the same time and don't want to fry a fourth graphics driver.

Happy Halloween!

2012-02-06T12:46:00.000-08:00

Kathy Shares ...

Zombie sandals courtesy of SSUS.

Whoops! Forgot to post this one!

Nearsighted Zombie Spends 20 Minutes Trying to Seduce the Phlogistigen Pump

2011-12-16T17:13:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of the free AX-001 Basically Girl AO from Grimalkin's Workshop.

Pickled Spooky

2011-10-19T07:36:00.000-07:00

Ghost Bridemila visits Pickled Spooky.

Lludmila's friend Mossflower has done another haunted house at Pickled Spooky. This is a non-linear haunting where you explore the rooms and are greeted by sounds and spooks. The apparitions are almost all new to Lludmila, to her delight. Give things time to load ... the house is full of surprises.

Whatever you do, don't eat the green ones!

From One Extreme ...

2011-10-04T13:13:00.000-07:00

Freddie, Jason, Michael - the gang's all here!

Lludmila took the Scared to Death ride just to calm down. It's all the familiar stuff: Elm Street, Carrie, Camp Crystal Lake, fire, torture, clowns, and graveyards - all with creepy sound effects. Up to five people can ride in the pumpkin and giggle. This was quite restful after the location below.

Village of Nyght - not sure if they're up and running yet (they have Great Plans), but they're all decorated, the zombies are wandering, you can pick up weapons and a HUD and have yourself a zombie-blasting good time, I suppose. I mean, if you're into that sort of thing. Which I'm not. Jason, this is probably right up your alley.

Nice details! Opium upstairs!

Lludmila made it to the haunted mansion and only saw one zombie, but she noticed them gathering around the house while she investigated the parlor. Being a zombie herself, Lludmila gets a little squeamish about the idea of just blowing away her own kind. But, if you're into role play, maybe this is for you. Just knowing those zombies were out there was stressful.

Don't use fire, eh? Handy to know!

Grimm Experiences

2011-10-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

Bats and shooting stars!

Grimm Shores seems to know what they're doing. Yes, there's the obligatory insane asylum and all the pose balls seem the same, but you can hunt for five gifts in the skulls hidden around the sim. There are secluded areas for romance, places to dance, to break down (again and again), and diiiiiie. All under a star-filled blood-red sky!

And don't miss the portrait of Marie Antoinette!

Shot through the heart (gift from Grimm Shores)

Moving on to Seventh Circle of Hell ... it was a bit laggy, but there was a reason for that. There's a lot going on. This is a place for big parties of friends to run screaming through the haunted house, be pushed around by ghost pirates, and share a huge dance floor. The build is highly interactive and moderately imaginative (only one clown and no madhouse).

And don't miss the American Gothic over the fireplace!

Pay this clown 5L and enter if you dare!

Psycho Haunted House is at a "fun fair" - so you'll have to walk a bit (no flying!) to get to it. Enter the fun house and become totally disoriented to some driving organ music! We crashed once and the passages are narrow and intentionally confusing. If you hated "fun houses" in RL, you might get annoyed by this, but more likely you'll have actual fun negotiating the labyrinth and ignoring the blood and tortured newbies.

This way to the Egress!

Accept no zubstitutes! This zombie knows her haunted houses!

Haunted Houses Part the Second

2011-10-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

This looks like it has potential ...

Lludmila tried two more haunted spaces. It's going to be hard to beat Wunderbar, though. She's starting to wonder about the clown business. Man, no wonder people are scared of clowns! Everywhere you go there's some figure or face with clown make-up and blood splashed all over. Let's see what else we can turn into something sinister ... Ladies in tutus? FedEx deliverypersons with bent envelopes? Angry David statues? We beg you, find something newwww!

This haunted house at Island of Fear was okay. There was room to move around (important feature if you go with a group) and a few novel items to click on and have a good laugh.

Don't miss the circus!

Spookyville is a whole Halloween town art-directed to death, filled to the brim with skeletons, ambiance, the mental institution (We're tired of that, too - if you or your family has ever spent time in one, it's not funny and it's just not new. What about a terrifying office building? Secretaries gone homicidal? Disgruntled children's librarians taking it out on laissez-faire parents? Zombie occupation of Wall Street?), the cemetery, picnic grounds ... wait, picnic grounds? Anyway, it's beautiful, but there isn't much interaction ... unless you visit the circus. Oh, and do visit the circus!

It's That Time Again!

2011-09-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

Halloween is barely 31 days away, but here in the virtual world, ev'ry day is Halloween! However, during the fall, a plethora of spooky locations pop up and Lludmila considers it her duty to visit as many of them as possible and review them. We're not going to actually rate them, just give our impressions based on originality, spookitude, and artiness. You can tell right away that it will be really scientific, eh?

The first venue visited is Wunderbar Haunted Mansion. There is a HUD you must wear (but if you don't get it at the landing point, it will keep nagging you about it and offering) for the full effect. The HUD is just a small label in the corner that keeps track of the "exhibits" for you in seconds and you can use it to opt out.

Effective spooky ambiance

The house interacts with you, giving instructions and hints. The experience seems to be non-linear, or maybe we were doing it wrong. Anyway, you have to find your way out of some rooms and work your way through the house. Once you figure out some part, you might have to do a room over again to move ahead. Click on everything clickable - no, go ahead (hrr hrr hrrr!). Some areas have to be experienced by one avatar at a time, but for the most part you can run through it as a group.

Interesting and unusual effects

Kudos are given to the designers for originality. If we were rating it, points would be lost for the obtuseness, but as at least one of us has her brains scrambled by menopause, maybe that should not be considered the creator's fault. Heh! This haunted house is worth a visit even without the free gift. Highly recommended.

Virtual Release

2011-09-17T17:37:00.001-07:00

Links and Libations

Last night our good friends showed up to usher Bob's newest cd, "Metamorphoses," at Grizzy's Cafe. DJ Symmetry Munro (AKA ... well, it seems to be something new monthly) played the new cd in its entirety and then her favorites from his previous albums and his brother Bear's album, "Untroubled."

Very nice turnout

Although I bet Bob didn't think you could dance to his music, many folks did (amazingly - or not - Miss Kero's ballet chim seems to go with anything). They also claimed they were going to buy music, but if they downloaded it from iTunes, we won't know for sure for months. We did get an order at his website, which is for people who want physical cds or, or, the magical Harmonic Capo!

Our Trend-setting DJ and Mr. Trend-setting DJ

Thanks again to all our friends for coming by, listening, and liking what they heard! And now that we've dipped his toes, maybe Bob will join us in the virtual world again.

Metamorphoses CD Release Party!

2011-09-17T17:37:00.000-07:00

Cal with a freebie guitar - heh!

Cal has come out of the closet - he is not just an avatar, but a fabulous guitarist who has a new cd out called Metamorphoses. One of our favorite DJs is having a coming out par- umm, a CD release party Saturday, September 10 at 6 pm PDT at Grizzy's Cafe. You can stop by and get a t-shirt with the cover of his most recent CD on it (thanks, Waldronnn!) - oh, and a link to iTunes. The album is available on just about any other music download site.
Or you can just visit his website.
Also available is a cd, "Untroubled" by Bob's brother, Bear, who plays keyboards on all the albums. Bear also has a tee, and an iTunes link.

Lucky Letter Listener and Boof Goodness

2011-09-05T16:57:00.000-07:00

Boof has the most funnest things:

Suicide Piñata - you give it love taps, no really!

If it's not in the hunts, the freebie boxes, or in the lucky chair, there's always the Midnight Mania boards at Boof.

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy player - Can the Log Song be far behind?

Or, forheavenssake, just buy something. There's something silly for every taste and pocket.

Magic 8 Ball typer.

So, thanks to the Virtual Vagabond, I went looking for the Lucky Letter Listener - which I had to wait to appear on the lucky board (the picture on her blog had a tantalizing "L" on it - making me think the prize was just waiting for Lludmila to show up). I had to wait quite a while. But there is a lot of fun stuff in the area and I won a panda bear toy from the nearby Lucky Jumpseat as soon as I got there. Later I won some kittens. Then there were some amusing free or dollarbie AFKs that I just had to have, not to mention a demo Harpy costume that will come in handy for the upcoming Odyssey discussion.

So I get the Lucky Letter Listener and I put the instructions through the Google translator. I think I understand it, but the next time I'm out I plan to implement it. Well, there's so much fun stuff at Boof that I drop by the mainstore to pick up whatever hunt prizes I haven't already gotten. I don't know why I bother to get stuff there for free when none of the stuff costs hardly anything to begin with. So, I finally rez and I remember, "Hey, there's a lucky chair here, I can try out the Lucky Letter Listener!" but my brain really only gets as far as "Hey, there's a lu-" before "L" comes up. I think I won the Suicide Piñata. See above.

If your translation didn't seem to make sense, let me try to clear it up.

You know how Lucky Boards/Chairs announce the next letter up? The wording might vary from one place to another, so I recommend you wait out a cycle and then copy the announcement from chat.

"Wear" the device provided. It is a blue pawprint and says "wait" on it and appears in the middle of the screen. Enter the copied chat into the channel /88 but change the letter to the one you are waiting for. The pawprint will go off, beeping and flashing red, to let you know it's cocked and ready, so just click on it and it will go back to blue.

Basically, this device is set to listen for that announcement in chat. You'll have to stay in the area, but you can be in a different window or sexting someone in IM and not have to keep looking ... unless you also want to keep an eye out for the wildcard round. I don't think you can run more than one of these, so you can't wait for your letter/number and the "?".

Awen Waxes Wroth!

2011-08-25T19:26:00.000-07:00

The Achilles Bra - Heroic, no?

The Iliad discussion at the Pub in Awen has exceeded my expectations. Yes, that's right - Rhiannon has begged for another evening discussion.
Actually, people are showing up for this. They are commenting. You'd think more people would be able to relate to cozy mysteries (I know I love 'em!), and saying you're going to discuss the Iliad is just a teeny, weeny, wee bit pretentious, but I'm counting this as an unqualified success.
I'd like to thank the folks who've shown up so far, whether they've read the Iliad or not (most people know something about the characters in it), for their comments. They've given me more to think about and I just love that!

Summer Festival Fun

2011-08-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

Yes, Lludmila and Kathy frittered a whole afternoon, evening, and morning away trying to win prizes out of the wading pool with the goldfish in it at the SM29izm Summer Festival. Lludmila desperately wanted the swingset and promised the gods of the Summer Festival that if she won it, she would buy the scooter (that was calling her name although she's absolute rubbish when she tries to ride/drive things in-world). It took a long, long time, but along with about a gazillion "box heads" the following items were acquired:

Cat head, that changes when you click on it.

Individual fish heads

Folding table that produces chairs if you click on it.

Up to five chairs appear.

Wooden bench.

Kathy won the bath bag (towel and slippers acquired ages ago).

Lludmila's goal was to win the swings.
You have to click on them to make the swing part appear.

At long last, in the wee hours of the morning, Lludmila's patience ("patience" - HA!) paid off and she had a set of the yellow swings appear in her inventory. Once she determined that they actually did work (just the framework rezzes), she went back and ...

Lludmila actually paid for the scooter. She couldn't resist.

... bought the scooter! And, as always happens, she ended up in the ocean and couldn't get out. But it was fun getting there!

For the clothing won in the wading pool, look here at the Other Other Blog.

Sing, O Goddess!

2011-08-04T20:03:00.000-07:00

... of the anger of that Achilleus dude. Lludmila will be hosting a month-long discussion of The Iliad at The Pub, Awen beginning - oh, look at the poster, forheavenssake. By popular demand (that is, Rhiannon whined at me), an evening discussion on Tuesday, August 9 at 6 pm PDT has been added.

This is by no means a staid and scholarly discussion. There is so much to love and hate in this story, so much to laugh at and so much to mourn.

If you stop by Lludmila's vardo on Awen, you can pick up a notecard and a free Bear t-shirt! See the Unslutty and Undead posting!

Tons of Fun

2011-07-23T09:24:00.000-07:00

Where's my pink tutu and alligators?

This came free from Seawolf Monsters - in a glass paperweight. Beware the fires when you go there! Here there be dragons. This avatar is completely brilliant. Its mouth moves when you type, and when it walks, there's a bounce to it that looks like real heft. It's not perfect as a dancer because the body within stretches the prims out too far, but I couldn't resist the ballet moves from Kero's chim. There's a HUD, and the framework body is printed with a funny message. And, yes, you can color the toenails if that's what you want to do. I colored the pinky on the left front paw bright red and tried to change it back. If you look, you can see it's just a hair lighter than the others. As usual, I was just too lazy to write down the numbers ... because, like, they're numbers - and I don't do numbers.

Good Clean Fun

2011-07-23T09:09:00.000-07:00

"Whatsamattayou? You never see someone take a bath before?"

We love great AFKs. Wear this bathtub, and remain idle for 5 minutes and it kicks in. Of course, it will also kick in if you ever type "afk" or "brb" so be prepared! This is a 60L Weekend item at DramaZone, where there are many fine and quirky items for purchase.

Such as ...

Bubble costume and tub from DramaZone.

The bubble costume comes with a bar of soap, a couples pose (men's costume sold separately), and a bathtub with multiple cute animations. It's also 60L.

"I said, Whattareyoulookin' at?"

Just Like Magic!

2011-07-23T07:38:00.000-07:00

Skipping rope with animation and it can be adjusted - I just didn't have time.
Note that I didn't get my regular eyes back in either.

More than one skip! Here's the one foot.

Then the criss-cross.

There is nothing like a hunt! Not only the the shark (cleverly hidden) at Magic Nook provide this terrific skipping rope, but there are a couple of free poses available! The animation comes with a menu, so you can switch it off and the rope disappears until you turn it back on again.

I love discovering new shops. This is why I don't do full hunts anymore - I see something on the blogs that I want, go to the shop, and then spend ages looking at everything. Occasionally I even buy something.

World's Largest Mustache.

Le Stuffe Boof-ant!

2011-07-19T18:47:00.000-07:00

BCF - hmmmm, who could it be?

I was chatting with my BCF (Best Canadian Friend) recently, talking about how tired I was with fashion and he was sharing landmarks to really really cute stuff, when he mentioned doing a blog about cute and fun stuff. Well, there had been one of those. I remember subbing to it ages ago when I still had a Bloglines account. I recalled that Bloglines had not died the death that was threatened and went back to my old account, migrated it to whatever the new thing is, but still couldn't find that blog. I guess it isn't being written anymore.
The least I can do is share what I think is fun. It won't all be free stuff, but it will be relatively cheap and cute and fun. And the latest fun place I found through, of course, the hunts, was Boof!
Here there be fun accessories: theme belts and things that hang out of your mouth, attachments with cute animations running around 30L and often less
.

PBRs & Seein' Stars

There's the ever popular drunk animation that comes with a knockin' it back, a sippin', and a six-pack o' Pabst. Well, goddam! When was the last time I had a PBR? Prolly at some cheap-ass picnic. [ I consumed a refined and solemn Fat Weasel Ale tonight at dinner.]
Also pictured is the Seeing Stars attachment, that comes with a Seeing Stars HUD, so you can fall down without the PBR, for those of you who are really sensitive about references to over-consumption of alcohol.

Oy! Who turned out the lights? Nevermind.

Haven't you always wanted to be Uncle Fester? I have. You too can be, for only one Llinden.

Boof Freebie

And there are freebies. This one was particularly hilarious. Can't wait for the next costume affaire chez Grizzy.

"Stop trying to bury us!"

Boof: for all your silly zombie accessories, such as signage that is nailed on. There are also protest signs and, my favorite, the sandwich board that reads "Zombies ~~are~~ were people too!"

Ceci c'est en fait une pipe.

For some reason, the Tobacco Pipe Smokers Lounge Group on Flickr asked to have this added. On the one hand, they must be getting desperate for pix of pipes, but on the other hand - aw, come on - look at it! It's wonderful!

Okay, so where am I going with this? The whole point of a Virtual Life is to have fun, innit? Well, Boof! is another place to increase your chances of Virtual Fun. See you there.

Happy Hunting Day!

2011-07-12T18:59:00.000-07:00

New shop (new to me anyway)! If you love the Fabulous 50s (and not only do I [sort of] remember them, but I am in them), what a great place to find Fabulous Furniture, Fashion, and paraPHernalia! The shop is huge and just full of stuff. I almost forgot to look for the hunt prize!

Funky Furniture!

Ruh-roh! That tub is leaking!

Also worth visiting is THISnTHAT. There are a few hunt prizes there - one for a minimum cost of 45L, but you get a whole deck with 2 chairs, a table, lights, and a ring to float in. I think the ladder is a hilarious touch.

Lludmila relaxes in the evening at her new deck from THISnTHAT.

Shredders' Delight!

2011-07-12T18:38:00.000-07:00

You may or may not know that Cal is an avatar I created for my husband, who is a guitarist/inventor. So, I'm always on the look-out for guitars for him and, boy, did we hit paydirt today!

I think we spent all of 10L at Witch Babe and this is what we came away with:

Cal models the double-neck guitar from the lucky board.

Note, Cal is also wearing his new roller skates from justB.

Guitar #3.

Lludmila rocks out with her freebie.

10L Base guitar from the Outlet.

All the guitars came with HUDs and there is also a free HUD available.

Okay, we did have to join the two groups, but that was free as well. I suppose Cal will look in vain for a free Martin Dreadnought. I still haven't convinced him to play inworld. Oh well.

Guitars: Witch Babe

Men's clothes: Brain Circuit, Inc (A freebie and they look good on gal's too!)

Roller Skates: group gift in the notices at justB

Dress: A dollarbie from justB

Shoes: G. Field

Detachment

2011-06-17T19:08:00.000-07:00

The big, fancy machine arrives, April of 2008.

Not only have I had four good years in the virtual environment, but I've gone through four graphics cards. Each time it has been a minor pain to convince Dell that the card is the problem - until this last episode where they decided they wanted to see if the software was the problem. The software was not under warranty like the card. I'd toodle off to work while my husband wrangled with software assistance until after three days, $200, and absolutely wiping the hard drive, they gave up and said it's probably the card after all. Now we can't get hardware assistance to respond. At least my computer is up again, although anything more complicated than YouTube is probably out for now. No more 3-D immersion.
I am going to have to face the possibility that there will be no more Second Life for me.

This isn't such a horrible fate. I'd been getting bored with it for quite a while. The clothes weren't interesting me anymore. I looked at the freebie blogs and just went "Ho hum." This could have been because I'd been busily fashion blogging on my own. That was making it Work, right? And once it's Work, it isn't fun anymore? No, I just think I'm getting choosier about what made good virtual clothing.

Must. Have. All. Toys.

Next, I became more interested in furniture and houses and fun toys. I had to have that donkey with the twitching ears to carry around. In fact, I had to have absolutely everything off of that set of lucky boards. I was off the grid for two weeks while I was on vacation and dove right back into it when I got back.
But I'm tired of it now. Hardly anything piques my interest. What I believed I would miss the most, the people, I realize I have contact with other ways. I'm connected to them on Facebook or Plurk so I won't completely lose them as friends.

The same hostessing outfit for the past coupla weeks because I can't change.

Then there are the jobs I had: dance-hall hostess and book-talk facilitator. They weren't hugely successful, but they provided me with a place to stay, some extra Llinden dollars, and a purpose other than just wandering around collecting things just to "own" them. What about my jobs? I was raised to be Responsible and while a year in SL is more like 10 RL(tm) years, I would still feel like a flighty slut for ditching after so short a time.

Lludmila shows off her horse, Major, to ... hmm, might be Cal.

And what about my stuff? Some of it I actually purchased, like the horse. I remember losing my whole Toy folder, which included all my transportation, weaponry, etc. and how devastating it was. I was slowly replacing it with more toys, more vehicles (although I couldn't bring myself to buy another penny-farthing bicycle), more silly things that made me smile because the creators can be just so, so creative! Am I able to give up my stuff? What would I do instead?

Necklace using pendant from Kay Pere.

Well, what did I do before? I made things. Made jewelry. Performed (I have an extensive acting résumé). Wrote. Good merciful heavens, I even cooked!
Lately, I've been rediscovering the Fun of Ironing. No, not Irony, Ironing. Unable to get on SL Sunday afternoons, I've been starching and ironing clothes while listening to audiobooks. I'm actually enjoying this. But I realize Homemaking will get old after a while (and if I start cooking, I'll be getting in my husband's way).

We have yet to settle the graphics card problem and the situation might change ... but I'm starting to slowly detach myself and find something else to do with my time. But then what sort of news do I see? Articles about how much better adjusted people with online friends are and how effective the virtual world is at helping you lose weight. Dang! Just my luck!

Never Satisfied

2011-05-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

Lludmila saw the cutest little house: two floors (well, one and a half), kitchen and living room downstairs, bedroom upstairs. This place makes cute furniture too. It's not horribly expensive - has a working door that opens slowly and naturally. The upstairs balcony has a curtain that closes it off from view that also moves gently. Lludmila's glad she went to the Demo to check out the scale though ...

Exceptionally Cute House

What's wrong with this picture?

I know she's only 4'8" - but when her head doesn't even reach the doorknob, there's a scale problem. This door would be too tall even for the giants and giantesses that roam You Know Where.

Lludmila's First House

The first home I purchased for Lludmila was, I thought, just a teeny bit large for her size, but I was so in love with it, I bought it anyway. Note that she probably reaches 2/3 of the way up the door which, at her height, is probably normal. I know we need a lot of room to maneuver in, to skip around the ottomans of life like Dick van Dyke, to hang enormous paintings, etc. - but please please please keep things to scale!

O. M. G. Outta My Way!

2011-05-08T09:20:00.000-07:00

Lludmila's Hot Rod

Lludmila's making up for the loss of her Toy Folder like nobody's bidness. This hot rod is available on the group lucky board at KAMIKAZE SPEED HOTROD&HOTROD RIDE Cafe. The lucky boards are around on the side of the building. Other items are available and rotate on the boards. There is also a board for non-members, if you've maxed out even the new limit.

As is typical for vehicles, Lludmila ran it right into the water. You'll need space for this vehicle. It has lots of fun features. The "fly" feature will get you out of the water, but this thing really travels.

Remembering ...

2011-05-03T16:46:00.000-07:00

Alamo Chapel

While waiting with Cal for the mini-piano to show her letter on the Lucky Board, Kathy got a message to attend the opening of the UT Arlington reproduction of the present day Alamo. Kathy loves history. This virtual museum is made from beautiful textures and is packed with information about the Alamo's last stand. Kathy highly recommends a visit. Coonskin cap available for sale in the gift shop!

Best viewed in Midnight

Cool Stuff

2011-05-03T16:37:00.000-07:00

Cool free bicycle

Perhaps I haven't complained enough about my entire "toy" file (containing all my vehicles) disappearing from my inventory. In that file was a beautiful pennyfarthing bicycle I had wanted for a long time. I paid actual lindens for it. It was gorgeous. Although I know where I can buy it again, the idea of paying for it again and having it vanish one day keeps me from buying one a second time. So, I was very happy to see on the Virtual Vagabond blog that this cute bicycle was available for free. Hurrah!

Japanese drum with great sound and sync'd animation

The Virtual Vagabond also mentioned a free tiny piano keyboard on a lucky board at RMI, Real Musical Instruments, which I decided I had to have. It's a real piano with keys that play. While waiting, I found a couple of marvelous things. One is this huge drum with an animation that is actually sync'd to the sound. There is also a beautiful piano (costing in the thousands of lindens) with many features. So many features, in fact, that I was unable to absorb them all.

It's definitely worth stopping by to try out the drum and the piano ... and there are 4 lucky boards running, three inside and one at the front. Cal and Kathy have already won everything but the mini-keyboard they went there for. Lucky boards are soooo exciting!

Stepping into Literature

2011-04-16T19:07:00.000-07:00

Kathy was just minding her own bidness, squeezing all the fun freebies out of Fire Good, when she spotted a small sign at the entrance mentioning The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Looking quickly about her to see if she were "one of three," she clicked on it and was sent to a visual representation of that poem. Well, golleeee! Who'd have expected that?

The teleport to land sent her here:

Teleport Point

There Kathy discovered more delightful literary sites to visit.

Kathy at the Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Les Miserables (Who is Les and why is he so miserable?)

Kathy at The Raven and Poe's grave

Swinging Good Time at The Bluebell

It's fun to dress up and visit these places. Don't forget to take pictures.
More pictures related to literature in the virtual world in this set on my Flickr account.

More Toys!

2011-03-05T16:22:00.000-08:00

Lludmila in her steampunk 'copter.

Okay, everyone - forget the Red Baron - we all need one of these now. It's the Steampunk Hunt gift from Twisted Metal Steamworks. Everyone get over there and get one. Note how well Lludmila fits in the cockpit without any adjustments! Wow.

Optional delete-by-explosion when you're done flying.

Cute outfit from BlakOpal - but I don't remember which gift it was and, besides, that's for the other blog.

Making a Splash

2011-02-28T12:28:00.000-08:00

Lludmila ... hovers off in her prize!

What fun! If you think the problem with inworld hunts is that you end up with an inventory like mine (can't seem to keep it below 37,000 - even after my enormous toy folder disappeared), then this is a hunt for you. You have to find 10 pieces of treasure to win just the one colorable hover craft that goes like beezus!

I know, I know, there are some of you (who shall remain nameless, Hollyjean) who aren't that keen on the hunting part and just want the booty - well, this hunt isn't for you because the folks at Splash Aquatics are absolute fiends, evil and despicable secreters of - of thingies!

If hunts drive you crazy, you better go with some friends. Or, if you need a hint, you might plow through my Flickr account looking for one of the ... fiendliest locations. [Funny. The spellcheck doesn't seem to recognize "fiendliest" - oh well.]

Carboniferous Limestone?

2011-02-27T11:03:00.000-08:00

Lludmila and Major admire the prefabs.

The sim where Lludmila lives (or changes her clothes, anyway) is a lovely island with lots going for it. First of all, you have a built-in zombie for a neighbor. Please don't believe all you see in movies (or read in that stupid ZombieLit) - we don't eat brains. Mostly we just hang around, doing a little light housekeeping and hosting book discussions.

A gathering in The Pub.

Awen is a place for ready-writey types. There are cute little houses (if you don't have an inventory chock full of them), a pub, a quay, regular activities (such as book discussions or dances), occasional art exhibits ... blah blah. And it's pretty.

Room to park your sailboat ...

Lludmila gets in her sailboat and tours around (getting notices of group invitation requests as she rounds the "horn") nearly every day, admiring the carboniferous limestone-y thing they've got going poking out of the green (my trip to GB in the 1970s informs my lasting impression of stone poking through emerald velvet ... oh, and sheep everywhere).

Season's Greetings from Lludmila and Snowthulhu!

It's the same here in Awen, except in winter (and Awen's sheep must be being sheared at the moment), when we've got a brief period of snow and a skating area. The folks are friendly - and don't try to eat you. Often. Well, we don't bite. Hard. Come and visit ... then come to stay!

Weekend Specials

2011-02-12T13:04:00.000-08:00

Hexagonal Gazebo with a pool.

Lludmila loves the 60L Weekends. They come with a notecard that lists not only the landmarks, but also a picture of what they're offering for this minimal amount. It's like catalog shopping. You don't even have to leave your sim or curtail your activities. You can click and set aside the pictures of things you consider testing out later and then just zip in, and zip out again. Lludmila always ends up wandering around looking at other things in hopes they will be only 60L next week. We're not as interested in clothing as we were - so now Lludmila concentrates on furnishings, buildings, and props. She couldn't believe that this Hexagonal Gazebo (weighing in at 50 prims as seen in this photo, but comes with a couple of accessories) at Meta-Meca Dimensions Shop was only 60L! It comes with stairs, the deck with the umbrella, and a small pool. There are 12 sits on a menu. It's a good deal.

Grandma's Old Potting Shed.

Zombies who live in glass houses - only pay 60L for them. This one is at Sher's Cottage Gardens. It was much bigger than I expected. Now all we need to do is fill it with flowers and a trowel and some garden furniture. Oh, wait a minute - it takes up 37 prims. [Checks and finds she's already 9 prims over her limit.]

Climb My Truck tree deck with many sits and anims.

Our new favorite place is Michigans Shack - where the small sailboat came from. There are usually three items out at the 60L Weekend price and this week we went for the Climb My Trunk tree deck (25 prims) with some menu-driven sits and their broad assortment of naughty anims for any and all tastes (but you don't have to use them, you know). And while you're checking out the tree deck, look around for the black rose:

When the Roses Turn Black hunt gift - End of Winter tree.

Kathy was all drow'd up for last night's fairy and elf fantasy, so this dark and brooding End of Winter tree was right up her alley. Ooo, nice photo in the background there! It's only 15 prims (not to mention my favorite color: free!) and fits nicely in Lludmila's skybox ... for when she feels dark and broody. It comes with the bare tree, the log, the dormant grass, and a variety of poses.

Starting Over

2011-01-29T14:18:00.000-08:00

Lludmila looks over the rest of the skybox.

Some new items freshen up an old space.

Oh, sure there are plenty of skyboxes out there (and even a bunch in my inventory), but I always return to this old hunt freebie from Curious. It is the perfect skybox. It has a porch with a sliding door. It has multi-levels. I like the textures. The space is nicely divided up for whatever purpose I choose. The main area is great for slipping in my photobox to take fashion photos for my Unslutty and Undead blog. Or, at one time it was a bedroom. It could be a kitchen area. This is just the best skybox ever for my purposes.

The 60L Weekend people thoughtfully provide notecards with photos and landmarks so that you can view the merchandise ahead and nip directly there for purchasing. I only bought two things this weekend (although I had "marked" six for viewing). The small sailboat in the previous blogpost was the other. I had been looking at some landscaping (I need more clothes or hair like I need a blue screen of death) but didn't get any not because I didn't like them, but I'm sort of annoyed with my landlords right now and don't see why I should beautify my tiny slice of land when I can't be sure they're done dicking with it.

Anyway, there are some old pieces (the rustic bed, the print, the red oriental carpet with the sit animation that makes it easy to enter the skybox when I've had to move it and there's no current landmark for it) and some new: the two-prim room divider (screen) which replaces the other one I had that was about 12 prims, the matching print, the chest, the lamp - all of which came from S&S, and the framed photo that I made from one of my "skies and clouds" photos. The new furniture was a deal for 60L. OMGosh! That's even me, pennypincher extraordinaire, saying that! And I didn't even put out the other lamp (not yet anyway - the smaller one is on the step) and I won't be putting out the water-thing decoration-thing because ... well, I'm keeping the prim count low. I'm told I can use more than are allocated for the plot, but I don't know how many more and I don't want to push it.

I really have no idea what other people are thinking. Do they want me to go away? Was the exhibit The Last Straw in a long line of minor nuisances on my part? Am I being sent to Conventry where, with a tiny prim limit, I am less likely to Get Up to Anything? The bottom line is that I'm still sad, still afraid to do anything. Now that I've put out a few pieces, I fear I'll be moved again. sigh.

Cuttlefish Extra

2011-01-29T09:54:00.000-08:00

Cal and Lludmila chillin' on her new sailboat.

Available for just 60L this weekend is this sweet little sailboat at this location. There are a bunch of colors to choose from but Lludmila went for boring, old white - so it won't clash with her skin. You can take a friend for a gentle float and there's also a cuddle raft option (cuttlefish sold separately). There are more, ahem, options available - but you don't have to use everything you get, do you?

Hair with the wooly cap is a hunt gift from Clawtooth. Rental land available on Lludmila's home sim of Awen. She might even take you for a sail, but not for a ride.

Virtually Depressed

2011-01-23T10:04:00.000-08:00

My old land ...

View looking toward new location ...

Cal helping me take down the exhibit ... the last bit.

New locations offered

This has been one of those "perfect storm" weekends that send me into a one-woman (and a pride of avatars) pity-party. There's a family emergency in RL(tm) so I am home alone without the usual support system (although I'm sure my husband has enough on his plate and doesn't need to hear me whinge over what is really just dollies in pixels) and then I learn that my landlords are moving me again ... after some of my things were partially landformed over.

I had that exhibit thing going and considered adding office hours where people could come and discuss things (and had already posted one) to my book discussions ... which were turning into office hours anyway, it seems, where we just sat around and discussed books in general, the platform we were on, and a lot of personal stuff.

This happened before, and it upset me, but today the reality of everything pressing on me hit when I logged back on and looked at my new plot. It takes a bit of time to develop an idea for what I want to do with my plot or you with your sim, so one would expect that you would know ahead of time that you had a long term plan of some sort. Considering myself an employee, I would have thought I'd be notified of upcoming changes or included in ... and then I remember what RL(tm) jobs are like annnnnd ... I take it all back. Nevermind.

I'm sad. It may take me a while to get back to my plot, as it did last time, and I'll probably find happy, shiny things to do. After all, it's more fun setting things up than just living. In the meantime, I had a fit of pique and removed everything for some astringent effect on the spirit. It stings like hell, but it should do me some good in the long run.

I'd like to thank my friends who rallied and offered me spaces in their areas (I have one of those pointless Linden Homes, so it's not like I'll be homeless again), but when I'm sad it all looks like dust.

More Ossumness!

2011-01-22T08:03:00.000-08:00

Lludmila won't be doing laundry today!

Yet another goodie for the 60L Weekend Sale at Altya's Dream Creation and Toys. It's the Hospital Bed! Just like I'd hoped for in a blogpost on my Unslutty and Undead blog! Now, it's not like I'm above being greedy ... but when I walked around the shop after my sale purchase to see what I'd like to hint for next week, I noticed my eye dragged toward the more "expensive" items (400L was the highest I saw - prices are really quite reasonable). This makes me feel a teeny bit guilty. So, instead of lobbying for a particular item, I'm just going to show off some of the stuff that captivated my imagination. These and more photos are Available for Viewing on Presentation of Visiting Card on my Flickr page.

Nice book-sit here, but ... choose the wrong pillow and:

Kathy being swallowed up by the quicksand.

The book/pillow sit (sold separately) is really nice. Unlike the usual, the book appears when you sit and you don't have to dig it out of wherever it was sent in your inventory. Elegant touch. I really liked the genteel struggling in the quicksand, too.

Who doesn't love a really good AFK?

I have a nice collection of AFK attachments (one of them, not so very nice - ahem), so I recognize good ones when I see 'em! A friend already has the RIP one, but my lethargic nature leans me, ever so sleepily, toward the bed one. Ohhh, that looks so inviting! That and an anti-idler, and I'll be happy to camp on your land for hours! (Send me a notecard inworld if you're interested; terms negotiable - heh!)

Kathy tries out the Wormhole - and gets the feeling she's being watched.

The POS* poster urged me to try it if I dared, and I sent Kathy through. I suppose I could use this to replace the tp pad to my exhibit. Just "touch" and "sit"! Can't be any more complicated for newbs than the usual pad, but for the post-menopausal like me, it took a couple of tries.

Ooo, a palanquin! That's the way to go in style!

I think I have some freebie Egyptian outfit somewhere. Must get this inventory under control! Or at least back under 38,000.

Kathy thinks: Lludmila could use this for her next photo exhibit (see post below) to save on prims.

Altya's keeps me coming back for more. There was even some little cow lying on the ground claiming it was free. I picked it up and hugged it. Not quite the stuffed giraffe that I lost in the Great Toy Folder Disappearance, but still udderly comforting.

As a suggestion, to go along with the bag lady and legless man avs, we were talking about an apple-selling tray you wear around your neck that solicits Lindens** (in only 1L increments) and gives an apple. You can buy one for your alt and send it out to earn its own damn LLs while your primary av goes dancing or canoodling, or whatever it is you get up to in the virtual-world-that-shall-go-unnamed.

And ... the Mousetrap's not too pricey. Maybe that can be next week-end's bargain!

* This always makes me giggle when people use it for Point of Sale.

**Or, as I like to call them, Lludmila Dollars.

Lludmila Makes an Exhibition of Herself

2011-01-11T08:18:00.000-08:00

Exhibition Poster based on old crash photo

Apparently, posting thousands of screenshots on Flickr are not enough, but I had to create a small exhibit of some of my favorite pix of the past, ohhh, two to three years in SL. The idea originated when I was using an older pc with an inadequate graphics driver that crashed continually. I thought the resulting images were interesting and friends suggested putting together an exhibit. I tinkered with the idea for quite a while, but in the end decided that the crash pix weren't that interesting even to me (except for the one above that was Photoshopped to make it more interesting) and not worth the 10L each it would cost (that at the time I didn't have, being a poor and homeless waif in the virtual world) to upload them.

The idea was always in the back of my mind and I talked about it with friends recently and, looking at my stash of Linden cash (now that I am both employed and have a space of my own), decided I could fritter it on uploading about 25 pictures (there goes my weekly salary and then some) that I really liked and putting them in one of the many freebie skyboxes I had acquired. This meant rezzing the skyboxes, of course, to see if they were suitable. They were not so suitable as skyboxes for Lludmila to live in, or change in, or whatever she planned to do in them, but I was reluctant to delete them (which explains the struggle I'm in to keep my inventory below 38,000 items). I chose the large and airy skybox pictured below and began to upload photos.

Photos were not exactly chosen for their artiness, but for my own personal reasons - such as: I thought they were funny, they said something about virtual life, or they were just ... colorful. They show how much personality you can read in some pixels as well as the beauty produced by some of the content creators.

Exhibit Opening Gala

It didn't seem like enough just to put something up, so I figured I'd attempt to have a party. This would require a dance ball and dances. I'd acquired those for my ill-starred rez-day party and reassembled something that worked. That still wasn't enough. I thought it would be fun to have places for people to pose and take pictures of themselves, so I set about poseball tinkering and set them out. The poses are the best I could do from the freebies I had in order to make the Birth of Venus, Zeus, and a cheeky Psyche at Nature's Mirror. I had some other freebies where you can pose in a frame. I topped it all off with a Very Valuable Egyptian Vase from Carla's Workshop. All I had to do after that was turn something prettier than a headstone into a tip jar (because tip jars are all about extorting Lindens from your friends), set out some champagne, and put up some signage and a teleport.

It sounds easy, but it was pretty fiddly. I wrestled with Photoshop for a couple of days, swore at the poseballs that weren't working, and left pieces of skybox all over the Awen airspace as I tried to adjust, readjust, and tuck things back in the inventory for the night.

The Book of the Exhibit with photo of the First Visitor

All I ask is that people come by and have a little fun. Take some photos of your own av and either post them online where I can see them (which requires telling me where they are) or drop them on me in-world, if you can afford the upload charges. If you do, I'll visit them in the former case and put them in The Book of the Exhibit in the latter.

Yes, a couple of the photos are for sale. I figured folks weren't that interested in photos of Lludmila and her other inpixelations, but they might like a landscape. If you're in a photo, you get it free, of course - just let me know.

I forgot to add a slurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Aw
en/102/85/23&#56256;http://slurl.com/secondlife/Awen/102/85/23

Shameless Self-Promo

2010-11-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

Lludmila rearranges her posters on Awen.

We're trying to keep two months ahead in the Cozy Mysteries. We meet on either the last Monday at 11 am or last Tuesday at 6 pm of each month at the Pub in Awen, whichever you find more convenient. November's book is Ghosts by Paul Auster and December's is Zombies of the Gene Pool by Sharyn McCrumb (the latter chosen because - well, you can just guess). Both books are easy to get hold of inexpensively. The former is quite colorful and mysterious - and the latter just good, silly fun.

Hope to see you there! Oh, and stop by my plot of land (it's right across the water from the Pub) and pick up a notecard about that and, of course, Bob and Bear's music.

Tip If You Got 'Em!

2010-09-29T15:33:00.000-07:00

After years of hanging out at Grizzy's, Lludmila is embarking on a hostess position. No longer will she have to suffer an hour on tenterhooks at a trivia quiz to see if she can earn enough to keep her in ... Lindens that she usually ends up tipping at Grizzy's Café (and some other venues). Tonight she starts her hostess job and reminds any attendants that she has no control over the music so the only reason to tip her is out of pity. Pity tips accepted. Oh, yes!

Lludmila would like me to add that, after years of being homeless in the virtual world and never having more than 30L to her name, she solicits tips only from the well-heeled. Everyone is welcome to come and dance and have a good time.

Find The Happy Place!

2010-09-13T21:13:00.000-07:00

I went to a mahvelous party
With NouNou and Nada and Nell
It was in the fresh air
And we went as we were
And we stayed as we were
Which
was
hell ...

Actually, it was a lovely party with lovely people and I couldn't have liked it more.
Especially because I heard someone mention carousels and we know how much I lovvvve carousels. So I asked for a landmark. I pried myself away from Cal at the first opportunity, and this is what I found:

Omg! A watermelon carousel that goes up and down as well as around,

emits note particles, and plays music. Oh, and look! It has kitty ears!

Meow meow meow meow ... Lludmila rides the kibbles ...

... and the french fry on the cheeseburger carousel.

But wait, there's more!

The cutest poses on luscious edibles!

Did someone say "jellyroll"? Lludmila covers her ears.

There are so many delights here at Four Kittens of the Apocalypse (including the name). I could have spent hours, but I had another party to attend.

All of the poses worked so well even for Lludmila, who is but 4'8" - everything carefully made and scripted. I couldn't have liked it more. Hurrah! I'll be back soon because they're participating in a hunt and I think it will be over soon.

More photos at my Flickr page (see feed at right).

(Lludmila considers wrangling a zombie-themed carousel from these delightful designers.)

Cross Posting

2010-09-08T18:42:00.000-07:00

Grizzy has issued a statement on how she plans to commemorate 9/11 this year in SL, and I thought I would go along with it - I have put this picture and the following statement on my profile:

"To show solidarity with my Islamic brothers and sisters who have had their faith vilified as a result of the actions of extremists, I will be dressing my avatar in the traditional Islamic hijab for Tues - Sat this week."

You Say Vaaaayse, I Say Vahhhhze ...

2010-06-19T18:08:00.000-07:00

Let's call the whole thing ... ooo, pretty! These three vases are the prize at Wine and Roses for the Starry Nights hunt. The hunt lasts from June 17-July 17th. I had to do an inset of one of the vases because things weren't rezzing earlier on my land - but things were rezzing better in my skybox. Gah, LAAAAG! Anyway, now that I look at the pix as they loaded here, you can hardly tell. Grr.

I had to lie and say I was a blogger (okay, maybe it was stretching the truth more than an outright lie - but it's not like anyone reads this) to get the vases without searching all over for the little blue star. I was there, like, 200 minutes (perhaps 2) and didn't find it. However, I did get lucky with the lucky chair and won the backyard window, which came up again as a wildcard round so I started IM'ing friends to find someone who wanted a freebie. Then Leeorie and I oo'd and ahh'd over the pretty stuff.

I love blue - but then there was this terrific fall leaf photo in oranges and yellows ... sigh. Well, that's why I keep changing my houses, you can have your cake and eat it too in SL!

New Idea for a Not-So-Bland Date

2010-03-26T10:59:00.001-07:00

OMG! Peter May's av looks just like himself!

I missed the Peter May interview on Off the Shelf at my home sim, Awen, so I was thrilled that Metaverse Books was interviewing him at an obscure time that I was actually available. I could barely contain my excitement because he is the author of Virtually Dead, a thriller that takes place partly in Second Life. My husband was at a computer behind me, laughing at my girlish enthusiasm over a real author in a pretend body who wrote a pretend story about an even more pretend place. Some people just don't understand, do they?

May was kind enough to work up a notecard of virtual locations he used for the story and then share it with us. I had received 5 copies of it so far from various sources. I could hardly wait to go on The Tour.

My first mistake was not bringing Cal along. You remember Cal. Very presentable, up for almost anything, even dancing in frockcoat. First of all, he'd have enjoyed the guns and airplanes thing, but secondly he would have danced with me and made much better pictures. You'll have to live with what you got. I sent Kathy because she was dressed and ready to go.

I did go to Body Doubles, but it's not that interesting, unless you, too, want to look like Brad Pitt or some of the other celebrities whose names I did not recognize. I prefer to create my own body shapes, but I guess some people cannot be trusted with the sliders. May created another av with the name of the character in the book to remind himself what it was like to be a newb. Wow, Chas!

My next stop was Midsomer Isle where I thought, Gee, this looks familiar. There are several locations here that were used. Below is the dining area. It is gorgeous, but it took forever to rez. Have patience, though, because when it all does finally rez, there is a lovely dinner to pretend to eat. It's just a shame I had to eat it alone (and that I got the T-bone piano there on the right).

Kathy hopes she doesn't have to pay for this dinner - that wine looks terribly expensive.

There are other locations in Midsomer: where Chas and Doobie danced and where they played chess. While Kathy was there someone suddenly appeared and Kathy worried that they wanted to ... play chess! Good thing she went there before Crack Town!

Next stop was the Crack Town in Carnal City. This has moved, since May did his research, to the Adult area where Cal can't go. (I do love younger men!) The picture that goes with the landmark is enough to give you the general idea of what to expect, but I happened to visit at a slow time of day. Kathy wondered what the poseballs did, but didn't try any. Who knows where they've been.

Only one naked woman wandering around ... this must be an off-time for Crack Town. Kathy thinks the poseballs look "nasty!"

By the time Kathy got to the Inspire Space Park, she knew she had been to these places before. They were old, old SL locations and she was surprised that they were still there. Inspire was one of the first locations Lludmila went to, back in 2007.

If Cal had come, he and Kathy could have been doing Tai Chi among the stars ...

There was a chase scene through the Abbotts Aerodrome. Oh yes, now I remember. What a great place for skydiving! Lludmila was very good at falling - just not landing on a target.Aw, go take a flying leap!

The last place on the tour is Gunslinger Armaments. Not only is there an actual av named Gunslinger who appears in the book, but that person is still in business! Take that, you whiners! Gunslinger wasn't in, but Kathy cammed into the office and now has a good, basic knowledge of the workings of an automatic pistol. I think my next av will be called "Cammie."

This is the life! Relaxing on the comfy sofa while one's beloved blasts the livin' bejaysus out of a target.

Wouldn't this be just the best date ever? You read the same book and then take a tour of the locations? It has everything: dining, dancing, games, falling from great heights, fire arms ... the typical SL experience!

Note: Link to more photos from the Tour on my Flickr page as well as other Literature-related areas and events in SL.

Magical Wall Decals

2010-03-21T19:57:00.001-07:00

Do you have one of those d#%n Linden houses like I do and not sure what the heck to do with it? I tried putting artwork up, but I'd chosen one of the Japanese houses and ... well, it just wasn't working. So I changed the interiors (with the magic wallplate) - and half of the prims on my furniture disappeared. It all came back the next time I visited, but it made me say several naughty words.
Anyway, I think I've found the solution to the naked walls: Floral Wall Decals from the Wine and Roses Mainstore. You buy one decal and slap it on your wall (taking care to make sure you have it decal side towards you because it's invisible on the other side ... man, I've searched for lots of things like that ... and said naughty words. It would have been nice to know ahead the object would do that. Maybe I should read the notecards more often) and, Presto! you have a wall decoration you can copy over and over on all your walls, the floor, wherever. And, and, there are five patterns in the decal you can click on to change. Four are pictured in the photo above.
Neato!

Getting Some Tail

2010-02-18T18:25:00.000-08:00

Kathy: This is your roving reporter, Kathy, deep in the lair of the General of the newly formed Bunny Army, General Cynthia Wonder -

General Cynthia Wonder: That’s “Army of Bunnies.”

Kathy: As you will. General, what is this thing about all these Bunny Girls running about Second Life?

General Cynthia Wonder: Our mission to increase the visual appeal of Second Life. Male avatars particularly seem to enjoy viewing long stocking-clad legs, cleavage, fluffy bunny tails, and cute bunny ears. Our very presence helps to beautify SL.

Recent Bunny Girl inundations of Grizzy's Cafe have led to a weekly Bunny Night (Thursdays) and the enlistment of Grizzy's shapely owner (far right).

Kathy: It seems to me that there are plenty of examples of long legs and cleavage running rampant in SL as it is. Are you asking your group members to wear these bunny costumes all the time?

General Cynthia Wonder: Hours spent in the official uniform of the Bunny Army show commitment to the cause. Many will be tempted or even feel that it is necessary to wear other things such as ballgowns or more comfortable attire such as T-shirt and jeans. This is certainly permissible. However the more time one spends in uniform, the faster and more likely one is to advance in rank.

Kathy: I notice that you are wearing the uniform –

General Cynthia Wonder: I spend my entire time in SL in uniform. I realize that few will be that committed and dedicated to the cause.

Kathy: That’s quite true. I’ve known you for ages and you’ve always worn the bunny outfit. I thought perhaps you have some interesting personal history that informed that decision.

The General while visiting haunted houses in October. At the time I thought it was just a Hallowe'en costume.

General Cynthia Wonder: Not really.

Kathy: Does everyone have to wear the same kind of bunny outfit? They certainly are common in SL, but yours looks particularly well-made.

General Cynthia Wonder: While *a* Playboy bunny type costume is acceptable, promotions are not even considered unless one wears the OFFICIAL uniform of the bunny army, which is the Deluxe Bunnygirl Outfit from Curio Obscura.

Kathy: Oh, they have great stuff. I love that place. They have that steampunk brain thingie. General, what do you say to people who think that this is a shallow reason for a group and that it debases women?

General Cynthia Wonder: Relay for Life is coming up in SL. I am a member of the team Spinners for Life and would like to use the bunny army to raise money for Relay for Life, which goes to Cancer Research. In fact this is the only part of our mission which is serious.

Kathy: A worthy cause.

General Cynthia Wonder: Another part of our mission is to increase self confidence and self esteem. Being a bunny makes one the center of attention at any party or gathering.

Kathy: Unless there are a dozen other bunny girls … Do you have some sort of men’s auxiliary?

General Cynthia Wonder: If a male avatar wants to become a bunny and doesn't have a very masculine name, he may join us as long as he agrees to wear a female shape and hairstyle while in uniform. If his name is too masculine, I will have to ask him to create a female alt. Thankfully gender reassignment in SL is quick, easy, painless, and reversible.

No. Just Plain ... No.

Kathy: I suppose that puts pay to the idea that this debases women if men can do it as well. And it increases the ranks, doesn’t it?

General Cynthia Wonder: My great hope is that there will be a day when any location in SL populated by avatars will have at least one or two of us in uniform. SL will be a better place.

Kathy: Well, I think we’re all for making SL a better place. Thank you, General, for being so frank about your cause.

General Cynthia Wonder: Thank you – and congratulations on being made Corporal, Corporal.

Kathy: DOH! Ohwhattagiveaway!

Virtually Consumed

2009-12-11T13:37:00.000-08:00

It has only recently come clear to me (because, undoubtedly, I have had my head where the sun don’t shine) that there is just too much information out there for me to handle. I am loath, however, to cut back on anything. How many atheist blogs does a person need to read in a given day? Perhaps I should cut them back to once a week – Sundays, for example. Then there are all the library-related blogs. Even with scrolling past the posts that aren’t aimed at people in children’s services, there’s still so much to absorb.

Social networks are starting to annoy me. Don’t get me wrong; I still crave the contact, but it seems to be oppressive now. Twitter bores me, although that might be my frustration with the Tweetdeck, which is still, for me, the only way to view Twitter. Brizzly just didn’t do it for me at all. What I want is something that looks like the Tweetdeck, but is online. Plurk seems to have lost its luster after I achieved Plurk-Nirvana, but I still look at it obsessively.

So, what I see from reading this back to myself is: whine whine misery BUT.

Currently I am reading Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy And Who We Are by Rob Walker. This, of course, is mixing in with SuperSense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable by Bruce Hood and making me reevaluate my thoughts about consumerism.

When I first entered Second Life, I was looking for serious dialogue – so, basically, what I’m saying is I had no idea what SL was. I quickly grew frustrated with it until I met some like-minded people who subtracted the mono- and inserted the dia- and made SL more what I wanted. I was dazzled by the builds and loved visiting them, but had no interest in buying anything. What would I buy? What were other people buying? Clothes? So what? Prim hair? I loved my system hair. It did exactly what my RL™ hair did not: looked poofy and stayed smooth with every “hair” in place. Why buy something that looked like fat ropes of cake icing? I was disgusted by the consumerism, the ubiquitous malls with their endless merchandise. Really what I was disgusted with was the lack of quality. All the clothing seemed to look alike: plunging necklines, butt cleavage, prim skirts that looked more like tutus.

All I did was hang out at the library (causing mayhem and the creation of regulations about where people could hang out) and other reading-related locations. After all, communication in SL is all about reading. It’s all typed chat despite the voice chat that was added later. It never works for me when I need it.

I became the Freebie Queen, having subscribed to a couple of the freebie blogs, and hunted down the freebies and collected them indiscriminately. In vain I swore to keep my inventory levels below 10,000; then 12,000; 15,000; 20,000 items. As soon as I think I can get them below 35,000 and that I can avoid the Hunts, then the Advent Season starts. I now have a notecard with Advent Gift landmarks on them. [/me hangs her head in shame.]

What was it that drove me to collect these things? Well, according to Buying In, it’s the craving for novelty. That really resonated with me. Now that I’m trying to empty my parents’ home of the accumulation of 65+ years of collecting, I think buying virtual goods to assuage that craving instead will be just the ticket. SuperSense is helping me let go of the crap in my life, or at least pare it down to something manageable. Buying In informs me that my need to see something new is human. I unpacked twelve boxes of newness just this morning and have yet to try everything on. Oh, look! What a cute pair of reindeer slippers for my avatar (who is already wearing her Christmas pajamas)! Does it clutter up my RL™ house? Nope. ‘Think I’ll keep them until someone makes even cuter ones (which might be hard – these have antlers with little ornaments hanging off of them so they might hang around until next year).

Now I shop in RL™ only when I absolutely need to get something. It’s a pain to actually get in a car, go somewhere, and stare at lousy merchandise when I can shop from the comfort of my own desk with a nice kitty in my lap. The fact that I can own many houses and they’ll all fit in a virtual file folder makes it even better! [That reminds me, do I really need that freebie vampire crypt with sex bed? Think I’ll delete that stuff next time I’m in world. I only kept it because it struck me as absurd.]

Romance On Ice

2009-12-03T13:58:00.000-08:00

Lludmila and Cal on a sleighride.

Holiday Picture Frame HUD courtesy of Prim & Pixel Paradise.

In the interest of providing you with the best in Romantic Winter Sites in SL, I dusted off my skates and lured Cal out of his den to visit a few places. I only made it to three this year and I think I can stop looking. The first place was adequate and the second just beat anything I've seen this year or last. The third had its own points - that gratified Cal, anyway. You know how men like to steer.

Snowthulu, Lludmila, and Cal at Winterfest.

The place to go is Island of Inspiration North. They have two sims and lots of space. Besides, they have Snowthulu. There is plenty of skating, some freebies, and a (start singing, y'all) one horse open sleigh ride that takes you through both sims pausing only for things like sim and moose crossings. I loved it. It's a tour, but you can ignore the green chat and concentrate on romantic conversation with the avatar of your choosing.

Drive-It-Yourself sleigh (just remember to take off your scripted skates).

The Winter Wonderland at Equus was fine, too. What Cal liked was that he got to drive the sleigh. This means you have to stop everything to chat or take a picture. There is also a nice-sized skating pond with flashing disco lighting and a brisk snowfall:

Cal and Lludmila in skate autopilot.

Winterfest:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Insula%20Inspiri%20Serenity/155/193/21

Winter Wonderland:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Equus/35/216/22

The Haunted Library

2009-10-19T16:32:00.000-07:00

Aw, shucks, I knew it! This was just a trick to get me to read a book!

At the far edge of Rachelville, in a secluded corner in the dark, lies the Haunted House of the Librarians. It isn't a scary ride, it's just a spook house with some deadly poses - with at least one I hadn't seen before. More than that, it's a resource for some scary stories. Dagnabbit! It's always books with those ding-dong liberryians!
Get a thrill reading them aloud to each other over voice chat.
Lludmila tries on her new pumpkinmask.

The real reason to go is that upstairs there is a selection of free pumpkinhead masks for free! Dang, these are cool! And free! Did I mention they were free? Yeah, so ignore the pesky reading stuff - just hop on a pitchfork and get some free pumpkinheads! For free!

Great Expectations

2009-10-05T16:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, if you label yourself the Greatest Halloween Ride in the World Ever, you had better live up to it.

Kathy visited a couple of Haunted Houses later on her own and curled her lip at "the scariest haunted house in Second Life" when the front porch just had a big "Boo!" on it. So, she was ready to grade hard when she arrived here.

But you know what, they might be right. This ride had the usual stuff (Camp Crystal Lake - I mean, really!), but then suddenly it went underwater!

Traveling through the whale's ribcage toward The Flying Dutchman.

The stage dressings here were also beautiful and nicely laid out. Kathy unfortunately crashed part-way through, but we saw enough. Enough to say this is a "must see." I don't want to give away too much. Go, just go!

Carnival Pleasures

2009-10-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

Carnivale Amusements is not really a haunted house locale (although there is a haunted house for visiting, renting, or sale), but has some good rides.

Cynthia wasn't as impressed with Carnival Amusements as a Halloween venue (despite the fall leaf ground cover and some decorations), but the rides are enjoyable.

The Alice in Wonderland ride is particularly good.

We had a great time on the rollercoaster, too. Kathy sucks at the shooting gallery. Sometimes it's pathetic to be out with her. Doesn't watch horror films, doesn't play video games ... not sure what she's good for, maybe just laughing at jokes.

It's Called Acting!

2009-10-05T16:24:00.000-07:00

Ruh-roh, a black cat crosses Kathy's path!

Cynthia and Kathy continue their Tour of Haunted Houses.

This was good luck, we found a walk-in haunted house with a difference. Maze-like houses seem popular this year, but we ran across one with avs acting out parts. It was delightful! The poor things were trapped in position, sucking blood, impaled here and there, laughing maniacally ... you know, just what you'd want them to be doing. But they can also give you some lip. Heh! Cynthia and Kathy found this quite fresh!

Also popular seems to be directing you originally to one location and making you tp to the actual haunted house. This might only be fiddly if you were with a large group. It is slightly annoying.

Don't get fresh with the organist! She is apparently free to improvise.

It's That Time Again

2009-10-05T15:53:00.000-07:00

Kathy and Cynthia meet for some Haunted House Touring.

My SL pictures from last year (labeled "Butter Haunted Houses" in homage to a misspelling on a sign) have been very popular for the past two months, perhaps frequented by people planning their own creations. My new friend, Cynthia, IM'd me and asked if I'd like to look at this year's crop. An "ossum" idea! So much fun to go with someone and crack jokes (or, in Kathy's case, laugh at jokes)!

We started at the Willow Grove ride. Riding in a pumpkin is not so novel, but the stage dressing was colorful, disgusting (yay!), and some of it beautiful!

A colorful example

Of course, the ride moves slowly and somewhat jerkily, but it lasts a good, long time and there was a lot of evident care and planning put into this. We were both impressed. In fact, it was so good, we went through it a second time.

A lovely graveyard area

Give these people a nice tip. Visit often. Bring your friends.

Guess

2009-10-05T15:41:00.000-07:00

Just guess.

Yes.

New boots. New Freebie Boots. All the period outfits in the world (especially freebie ones that you click on and never arrive in your inventory) are nothing compared to a nice looking pair of boots and some attitood.

Something wondrous has happened in SL - textures that are this nice, sculpting this sharp, boots this - this boot-y ... They are miniature works of art.

So Much for Happy

2009-09-28T17:05:00.001-07:00

Lludmila camps out where her lovely home used to be.

Why did I, knowing what would happen, do it anyway? I invited tons of avs to my third rezday party just to get them to visit my house, which they resolutely refused to visit unless I threw a party, and none of them showed up. Well, not "none," of course, I had six people show up. How Second Life can so accurately mimic my first life should make a dissertation. I had given up on birthdays because parties were always ruined. Either no one showed up or it was hijacked by someone else.
So, after the party, I deleted my house and all its contents. What was the point? I now hated it. It would be a constant reminder of how little I or my feelings meant to other people (despite the probability that they are busy in their first lives and/or just spaced, which I do all the time). So for a couple of days I replaced it with this pathetic tent (and some lovely trees). I used the fetal position option inside.
To be absolutely accurate and fair, I had accidentally dragged a HUD out of my inventory, so even if the party had been such an overwhelming success that we crashed the sim (ha ha ha), I would have taken the house and most of the contents down to look for the errant object that was running my prim count over the limit. Deleting the house, though, seemed like the perfect gesture. I deleted it seconds after the last guest left, punching the keys so hard that the keyboard rattled and jumped on the desk. It spooked the cats.
I threw almost a week-long Pity Party in a new skybox far above the painful memories and then Carla's Workshop sent me a notice that a free horse barn was available for pick up. Ooooo! Well, I thought I'd look at it. It came with a spider and spider web and optional Pferdapfeln (with buzzing flies!) and straw bales. I loved it. Especially the mojones. The only problem was, I needed a horse to put in it. Tempting as turning it into a pennyfarthing garage was, I was dead set on getting a horse even if it beggared me (read: I had to buy more Lindens). Imagine my surprise when I won an extra flipping-great-wodge of Lindens at the next Book Trivia Quiz!
I went right out and test-rode some horsies and made an actual decision and actually purchased one with actual Linden dollars [starts hyperventilating].
Why I bothered to get the one that could ride two avs at one time is the subject for another dissertation. I hate other avs. I hate Real Life (tm) people, too. I wouldn't give one of them a ride on my nice horsie if they begged me now. Ha! At least I could if I wanted. Double-ha! Neener-neener!
Well, we can see I never grew up.

You're never alone with a quadruped.

Almost Actually Happy!

2009-08-14T12:04:00.001-07:00

Lovely heeled clogs - only 20L!

You probably haven't noticed my obsession with shoes (okay, maybe some of you have). You'd never know it looking at my feet in Real Life (tm). I suffered through over a year of plantar's fasciitis and threw everything away that survived the "I Can't Wear Heels Anymore After My Smashed Kneecap" purge. Shoes must now give me support and comfort. They must aid and abet, dammit! But my avatars don't weigh anything in SL, so they can wear anything I actually like. And shoes have gotten so good that I now will only put on shoes that I actually really honestly and truly love.

So anyway, after swearing off hunts, I fell back in by accident when I saw the Skipping Stones posters at an awesome shop. Oo-er! I looked at the prizes from the first shop, a freebie connector direct to Twitter from the same place where I got my button eyes (oh, they're so CUTE!) and I was off. This is the best organized hunt I've ever seen. Each file I collected arranged itself in perfect order in my inventory because the file names were standardized! OMG! OMG! I did have a teensy bit of trouble understanding that right click wasn't working on these, and I'm so used to right clicking that it never occurred to me to left click anything until hours later and all the rebooting and cache-clearing in the world. After that it was smooth sailing ... and then I hit Duh.

Duh is the same of the store (or, I suppose it's "Duh, it's the name of my store" is the name of the store ... name of the store, the store). While waiting for things to rez, I had a look 'round, which is what these hunts are for. Sometimes I will also have a look 'round after I've found the prize. I saw the cute clog above. Then, 20L! TWENTY LINDENNNNS?! I cammed all over looking at prices. This person obviously does not know how to price their wares (bless their hearts!).

Cute flats, a whole sack o' colors for 50L!!!

I was running all over this place. I have shoes I ain't tried on yet.

OMG! Look at these boots! 20L!!!!!

Now, if only they made some nice men's shoes (they have sneakers) ... classic euro-fag loafers or riding boots, I'd be back slavering and buying so my guy avs didn't look like dorks whose sugarmomma was a tightwad.

This is my advice, get your sorry asses to this shop and buy some effin' shoes. I mean it. Right now! Before this shop finds out they left zeros off their prices!

http://slurl.com/secondlife/KatachiEast/194/169/23

I sure have come a long way for someone horrifed by the ubiquity of commercialism in SL, ain't I?

Making It My Own

2009-06-04T13:21:00.000-07:00

FEMA trailer.

The temptation to put something really (wonderfully) awful within sight of my neighbor/s sufficiently squelched, I set about making my little area something I would find interesting. I may have to change the area around every month or so just to keep from getting bored with it.

New free furniture for the downstairs. Previous furniture "damaged" in catastrophic terra-forming accident.

Photos of the landlord have now been removed from the living room (due to too many dart holes) and replaced with a nice antique-y wedding portrait of my grandparents (did I mention that I'm really, really old?). A shop kindly offered this lovely set of grotty furniture which coincidentally went well with that grotty carpet. Ooo, I love the serendipity of it all! Free bookcases take up the rest of the wallspace, making it look that much more like my RL house.
As for the yard, for that we have to thank an exhibit of photos I saw years ago in an outdoor venue. They had been hung by fishing line from the trees along the bank of a river during the spider lily blooming season. The photos as a group turning slowly in the breeze in the shade but glinting shards of sunlight made a more profound effect on me than the artistry of the individual photos themselves. It was almost magical.

Lludmila's backyard and exhibit of old family photos.
I don't have the trees to pull off the exact thing, but it was a happy challenge to my limited skills to have some of my favorite old family portraits to twirl slowly on skinny sticks. I'll leave them up for the month of June, in memory of my dad's birthday. He would have been 102.
Exhibit in Awen.

Erste Wolken am Himmel des jungen Glücks

2009-05-28T13:38:00.000-07:00

Ruh-roh! Looks like Giacomo needs to call FEMA.

A virtual life is by nature one in which change is not only imminent but also instantaneous. So, let's say you could have a quick conversation with your landlord about a terra-forming project he's planning to implement and you be all down wid dat, you see what I'm sayin'? And then you go out dancing and when you get back, your living room is full of sand. The little bits and bobs you had out in your yard are now inside the ground (which is, thankfully, hollow so you can cam around and find them).

At this time you get the inkling that you're going to have to move. So you ask and you're assured that you won't be moving. But then you notice that the name of your land has changed and the name has now been assigned to an area on the other side of the island [island in this case being used in the common sense of the word as opposed to another word for a sim]. Hmmm, you think. Then you get the news that you are, in fact, moving.

How hard can it be to move your house in a virtual environment where everything you've got can fit into an invisible file folder? Well, there seems to be more to it than you'd think. For example, a house comes in pieces. If there are moving parts, they are separate to the house. The doors are an example of this. If I want to adjust the house after rezzing it, I have to have all the bits selected by clicking on one piece to edit and then joining the rest of the pieces by shift+click. Then everything will move as a unit until you click away. You can also take it into your inventory this way, and then re-deploy it when ready at a new spot with all the pieces intact and where they were. It is recommended you re-deploy while Edit is active, so that it will all stay together.

Despite knowing all this coming into the moving process, I was still able to mess it up. I thought I had clicked on everything when I took my house and furnishings into my inventory, but I had apparently missed some things.

In the interval, I put up a freebie tree house that I was sure the landlord's terra-forming could not possibly cover without revealing not-so-latent hostility. Ha! Take that!

Once the re-forming of the geography was complete and the go-ahead to move was received, I re-deployed my house and its furnishings ... and didn't like the way it fit. Then I tried moving it, but I hadn't deployed in Edit mode and had to re-shift+click in a hurry, which caused me to forget some bits. Finally, I "took" all the bits back into my inventory and resolved to redecorate after I'd decided where the house looked best.

A new waterfall (almost as important to me as carousels, I guess) was created for my new area. Trees were put in, and plants, and I was told I could return anything I didn't want. I'm unable to move them. That makes me a teeny bit cross. But I jiggled and I tinkered and ... it just isn't the same. It will take some getting used to, I guess. I had walked the old land like a Cherokee woman walks a deerskin before making it into anything. I walked it day after day. I looked all around. I tried to see a new and different house on the site. In the end, in a flash of inspiration, I bought my heart's desire and placed it where I wanted it. True, I was getting complacent and putting a new house together is more fun than actually just living in it day to day ... but it just wasn't right. I can't put my finger on it. It just isn't right. It might be later. For now it's not. It may look fine to others, nicer even, but I feel the house isn't sitting right on the land. I started putting things back in, but gave up. Because it isn't the same.

Then and now ...

The title of this post is from "Die Dreigroschenoper."

Gee, Sounds Like Me!

2009-05-12T14:59:00.000-07:00

Giacomo, looking relaxed.

I found a link to this blogpost on Twitter and, because I'm always interested in these things, gave it a read. It reminded me of an experience I had recently with my male avatar. Now, I don't have any alts, that is to say, an avatar with a different account and name. If I change shape, which I do all the time, the name remains the same. Transparency is an issue with me. Oh, I give them little nicknames to keep them separate in the inventory (they all have their little outfits that look best on them), but they are all called Lludmila according to SL. It might be obvious to me that "Lludmila" is a woman's name, but not everyone seems to think so.

Anyway, I created a new (I've had several, all based on the same freebie shape and some freebie skins) male av just in case I needed to go places where a female av might cause comment, say, a mosque. Rather than dress wrong for that, I just slip into the old male av and take off my shoes and all is well! Like the author of the linked post, have made a male av that appeals to me. The burly, pin-headed types I see in SL revolt me ... almost as much as they do in Real Life (tm). Giacomo (above) might look a bit girlie, but, you know what? That seems to be what we prefer. Eight out of ten women prefer something other than a Mr. Universe wannabe. (I just made that up, but I betcha there's some truth to it. SL men, wise up!)

Lately, I've been slogging through the 570 location SL Discovery Hunt. For these (think: scavenger) hunts I try to stay low prim, dressing casual, but it's whatever av I have on. I had been trying on some guy stuff a while back and, after checking my Avatar Rendering Cost, went off to cull more treasures in the hunt. [If you don't know what I'm talking about, hunts generally involve going from one location to another (commercial locations, such as shops and malls) and searching for a three-dimensional symbol that you click on and "buy" for nothing or a low figure. You receive a package containing some small prize and a slurl, an address, for the next location. Some shop owners are quite fiendish in their secreting of these objects and the hunters wrack their pointy little RL (tm) heads over it. This generally leads to unofficial teamwork. First, you start watching where other avs click (and this clicking involves a particle beam from the av's fingertips to the object). After a while, you put some "hangtime" into your click to indicate to another frustrated hunter where you've found the object or you go so far as to IM them and say, "Hey! I finally found the d@mn thing!"] Looking for the hunt objects requires that my camera, my eyes, drift quite a ways from my av. I will often forget what I look like. So, I might start out the hunt thinking I should be more reticent about speaking or IMing other avs because I'm wearing the male av, but then I'll forget and start being helpful.

Now, being helpful as another "female" av is one thing. Most avs are grateful as hell for help on some of the tougher locations where even the hints have not been at all useful (and, yes, I mean you, Shabby Chic!), but I don't know how well they would take it from a guy av. Would they find "him" pushy? Or would they take that as an opening gambit? Anyway, I try to be careful. Once you and someone else have found an object together, you go on to the next location and see each other again. Sometimes relationships develop, even for just 10 minutes or up to an hour (if you can standing hunting that long).

So Giacomo and I were being careful. I had slipped up and shared information with one av, but it wasn't turning into anything and I felt secure in continuing the partnership-lite. Then suddenly I was double-teamed. Another male av started chatting with me in a furniture store. He claimed we were twins, not unlikely if we're wearing pre-packaged shapes and skins. A female av came up shortly afterward. Now, this was annoying. They were keeping me from the hunt, but I feel like I should be polite. The two seemed to know each other. And they were still being friendly, but I started to get nervous. I've been solicited before, as a female av, but I could just say "No, thanks" and disappear. I didn't want to leave this store until I found the object and they were distracting me. Not being a real guy, or perhaps being similar to a real guy with a fishing pole, my inclination is to ask them to shut up and get out of my way. I could just feel the concept of a "three-way" marching its way towards our conversation. I felt I would be letting my adopted sex down if I had to say, "Ewwww, no way!" - but that doesn't mean I was going to say, "Sure - where?"
I was rescued by my hunt-buddy who told me where to look for the object. I cammed over and, after saying a swift farewell (virtually impossible in the virtual world), I moved on, sweating at my keyboard.

I blame the new haircut (see below). Someone who already knew me IM'd me for a dance later. Methinks Giacomo is going back into the inventory for a while ... to cool off.

Giacomo gets a haircut.

This is all very, ho-hum, interesting, I hear you mumble around a tongue firmly inserted in your cheek, but ...
Well, let me get to the telling part. Yesterday, I was out hunting as my little zombie self (the one I consider to be the real Lludmila) when a male av I'd been seeing around the hunt the past few locations IM'd me, calling me "little one." Okay, he has a point. Lludmila is only 4'8" tall (I shrank her years ago to fit her into a space capsule). I took issue, though, with the term "little." And within two sentences, Mr. Smooth had me in an embrace. Mind you, this is all in chat. Our avs are stock still in a huge store while I search in vain for the object. I counter with a knee to the 'nads. No, I delete that. I slip away from the embrace. Apparently, I am just playing hard to get, and he makes another play for me. I pointedly mention the hunt. He claims to be on it as well. I've checked his profile and while it doesn't look scummy, I still don't like being distracted from the Business At Hand, especially with unwanted sexual advances. This in no way stresses me out. It's a petty annoyance and I swat it away, find the object, resolutely not tell him where it is, and teleport on to the next location while he suggests "Perhaps another time." Like hell! (Note to self: Must put bigger hints on my profile.) I was just short of being rude to this guy, had no qualms about swatting away attentions if it came to that, and barely gave it another thought until I started writing this.

So, why does Giacomo's typist sweat the distant footsteps of a three-way and Lludmila's typist go "phbbbt!" and wave her hand airily and almost totally forget the actual chat-grope? Does the idea of a three-way so appall her? Or is it the unfamiliar social behavior of a male av?

Lludmila and the cuddly toy she got on the latest hunt - Dawwww! It's just So Cute!

Now the Tricky Part

2009-05-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

Lludmila contemplates home ownership tinged with melancholy (note memorial photo).

I had a lot of furniture. In two and a half years I've collected plenty and even made some (very primmy, not being sculpty), but not all goes with the new house. And I'd just bought that pot bellied stove in the corner and needed to be able to use that somewhere. That and the flamingo lights sealed the deal on the choice of the Homedecked house. They were the first things to go into the house. Next came the free carpet ... and the free stack o' books chair (so perfect for a librarian on a book-related sim!).

Lludmila relaxes on the best thing to come out of the Twisted Hunt.

Another freebie is this lovely cart full of sacks of something (Lludmila imagines sweet feed and drinks in the smell of oats and molasses.) There, now I don't have to worry about what goes under the deck. Most people would park their jalopy, or a mule if they had one. I have this cart that seats two. That was another thing that had to be in the yard, at least.

I have beds. Some I made and some came with 50 sex positions or something (who knows, who cares - although my husband did ask me if I was going to try them out), but they were too modern or too gothic. I went all over looking for something suitable to the house and a resident zombie and I think I found it.

Lludmila in her bed: a mattress on the floor. Also pictured: freebie mosquito light, freebie carpet, crate from a pack that was about 10L for the lot, and a seascape that is an actual painting that hangs over my bed in RL.

Other additions include: A rocking chair that only cost 1L with texture changing cushion (turns out it only rocks along one axis - but that's okay, I just make sure it's aiming the right way), another seascape from my RL house, freebie "Japanese" wooden deck chairs and small table (for the upstairs deck). I'm considering an art or photography exhibit ... outside on the beach. I'm supposed to have a party, so that people will come to my house. Apparently, just accepting an invitation to visit isn't good enough. Parties entail dancing or something. Sigh, that would mean another weary round of shopping, and I've walked little Lludmila's legs off!

Lludmila collapses from exhaustion after her latest shopping expedition that involved freebie grabbing, lucky board/chair wrangling, and actually cash-linden purchasing.

Happy Homemaker

2009-05-01T12:13:00.001-07:00

Weeks and weeks later, I've finally decided on a house. I had a few ideas in mind: thatch, wattle and daub, Tudor, medieval ... something that would fit in with the community. I used all sorts of search terms: "rustic," "Tudor," "cottage" and ended up looking at castles and Tudor townhouses. Prices ranged from 150L to around 4,000L. Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be an architecture review committee, so when I chose the dilapidated hobo beach house, there was no picketing or mysterious returning to my inventory. Phew! Also, the pink flamingo lights can stay, which is a relief because I actually paid money (well, Linden dollars) for them.

My new house: Homedecked from Never You Mind.

I can see you looking at this in vain for any thatching, wattle, daub, or period touches earlier than the 1920s. Well, the best laid plans yadda-yaddah a-gley. I went to Never You Mind (people ask me, "Where did you get it?" and I, of course, say, "Never You Mind." So, there's even a nice joke built in by the creator!) and waited patiently on a rustic carousel for things to rez, not having high hopes for this place. I probably even made a pit stop in RL. When I got back and things had rezzed, I looked around in amazement. I wandered off and immediately found this totally cool two-story house with a waterwheel! It was even turning! Suddenly, I wanted the waterfall back. I'd find a place for it, or, by thunder, I'd stick that side into the ocean! Soon I was flying (literally, because I couldn't walk around fast enough to look at it all) all over looking at buildings. Then, near the watertower, I saw my One True Love: Homedecked. Sure, I went to look at other houses, but none of them spoke to me like this house. It had "A Zombie Lives Here" writ large all over it. The only thing it didn't have written ... on anything, were the dimensions. I popped a note into the proprietor's mailbox and hoped for a quick reply.

I was still dithering the next day and looking at the photos I've taken making notes on them when I realized that my heart was set on Homedecked. It had everything I wanted and I'd make it fit if I had to put some of it out over the water. Luckily, that wasn't necessary.

I recommend going to Never You Mind. It isn't laid out as a shop for buildings and rustic accessories. It's laid out like a community, a shabby community, granted, but a community. It's fun just to wander through.

Never You Mind
slurl.com/secondlife/Anders%20Port/134/230/23

Maybe I Shouldn't Be Allowed Back On

2009-04-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

Sure, I have a place to live in SL now, and I've been looking for the perfect house to put there (to replace the one there now). I dithered and dithered, looking and evaluating, and then when I finally almost decided on one, when I went back to the store, they were gone. I tried sending a notecard to someone in charge, but they were busy cybering, apparently, and my notecard got bounced back with an IM about how busy he was. Right. How, (ahem) Dare he!

Anyway, although I hadn't decided on a house to fit in with the general "Welsh Village" appearance of the island, I had lucked into a free (free!) Balinese long house that I use as a skybox. Part of it is pictured above, having sprung some leak from a free (free!) shower I had unpacked to look at. When I deleted the shower, the water running on its floor did not go with it and I didn't notice for a couple of days. Fortunately, Bali is a humid place and their houses are built to stand a bit of moisture.

The open Asian-style house in the sky contrasts nicely with what I plan on being a small, thatched cottage on the ground. I can be all cosy on island level and then, when I need some space and what barely constitutes privacy in SL, spread out in the skybox. It also gives me an opportunity to exercise my delight in all things Asian that I inherited from my mother. I've got some Asian frills that go nicely with modern furniture: the paper lamp, the Tibetan prayer flags, the stone lanterns. I have more, but there's conflict with the alpha layers making the kimono stand pointless.

On island level I had been torn between a small, dark cottage and a mill. My land had a waterfall on it and a stream to the water surrounding my tiny peninsula. I worried that it would encroach too much on the neighboring land and had gone out to look at the property lines one more time ... when I noticed that the waterfall was gone. I also noted that I had an actual neighbor in an actual thatched cottage. I looked at where the waterfall was. I looked at my neighbor's build. There is a small waterfall there. I looked at where "my" waterfall used to be.

Having come back one day to find my house gone is all that keeps me from weeping. Perhaps this is just some temporary thing. Perhaps the waterfall is in the process of being moved, moved to accommodate this new home that is nowhere near where the waterfall was.

Regular readers (ha!) of this blog may know that I have a tendency to accidentally delete things.

Two years ago I deleted half of a sky-sandbox trying to put out a fire. Okay, I was trying to find the particle emitter. It didn't occur to me that I had the power to delete someone else's build. This did teach me a lesson: even if you do finally find the tiny prim you were looking for, you can't control it when you are hundreds of meters below on the ground. So, if you finally are able to click on it and still can't delete it, it must mean your avatar isn't where you thought it was.

And this happened to me this weekend. I was unpacking some boxes from the Albero hunt and one turned out to be not a box at all, but the actually necklace. I clicked on it and tried to "take" it - but apparently, I did not take the necklace. There was all my furniture hanging in space, and the necklace now much easier to see, and I was nowhere to be found. If only I had still been sitting in my chair!

I had to try twice to put up my Balinese skybox. It was a regular comedy of errors. I suspect that there is another one up there somewhere that I don't know about. I can't see it, but I'm thinking it's there, perhaps at 5,000 meters or something.

If that were the only dumb thing I'd done this past weekend, I wouldn't take it so hard. But I ran my motorcycle into the stream and had to delete it. Could I have deleted the waterfall at that time? Would I have even noticed? Deleting a nearby waterfall isn't as noticeable as deleting a platform in the sky you were nominally standing on (and chances are if you were looking intently at something else, it would be a while before you noticed that).

I'm still working up the nerve to mention this to the landlord.

Goddess of the Hunt for Lunch

2009-04-19T12:01:00.001-07:00

Walking around the Albero Mall, I saw this great satellite shop for LOLO - and the fab hungry crocodile. OSSUM! I almost bought it, but then when I went to the main store I saw the ... Great White Shark! Can't decide now!

Of course, Kathy had to try it out. Here she is being eaten while she's trying to claw away from the croc. Ohhhhh, I had her eaten several times. Husbob says the skirt needed to go (you can still see it after Kathy's been swallowed), but it looks so cool coming out of its mouth.

Goddess of the Hunt

2009-04-19T11:00:00.001-07:00

All hail the Albero Mall Hunt! I saw a photo of a cute blouse on one of the freebie blogs and thought I'd go looking. (Note: still haven't found the clue box for that blouse - rats!) I'd never been to the Albero Mall, but it's an attractive space with many nice shops and very little empty space.

Even though the hunt has numbers, the prizes are not necessarily sequential, so if you can't find one, you aren't totally lost until you can wheedle a clue that makes sense from the hunt group IM. That's a plus! Also, the merchandise at this mall seems to be really great stuff! Avs who know me will go into shock when I say that I actually bought some items ... with real Lindens. But the hunt itself is a bit fiddly.

You walk around the mall (which is huge) and find the grey boxes with numbers on them which are supposed to be in front of stores, but some may have strayed. They may also be slightly embedded. These numbered boxes have a word floating over them. So, what I did is, I wrote down the number and the word next to it and created a big list. I didn't find all the boxes (prob-bo-lem number 1, but since it's not sequential, who cares?), but at least I had a list to go on.

Next, you find the grey landmark givers in front of particular stores. The landmark is to the main store of the satellite shop the LM giver sits in front of. Yeah, try saying that five times fast. You click on it, and, theoretically, you will be sent to the main store where you will have to hunt (in vain in some cases for me, but it's not sequential, so who cares?) down the numbered box. When you find it, you just say "/(number) (code word that goes with number)" near it and it gives you your prize. It took me two days to get the hang of this!

Lest you think I'm somewhat of a "thickie" - I was hindered in my searching by frequently being sent to the wrong location:

The above picture is of the map with the landmark (above, circled) that was given to me by the hunt LM giver. Along with it, the shop itself gave me a different landmark (below, circled). Note the difference. Using the hunt landmark, I often wound up in strange locations, causing me to tp back to the mall, relocate the shop and the giver, and trying again. Usually, the second time took me to the correct location. Usually. As far as I can tell. (This is prob-bo-lem number 2.) A good clue that something was terribly wrong was that instead of rezzing on solid ground, I would rez in midair and fall a considerable distance.

Eventually, (note on learning curve graph "over two days" for this maze rat) I tried the shop's landmark that was given at the same time. That landmark was accurate. Look where the hunt would have landed me on this next example (see orange arrow):

Can yew say: "Refreshing landing for Lludmila"? In another example, I would have been sent to coordinates that were similar to the ones from the shop, but on a totally different sim. I might have found that a tad confusing! (See below)

Those two problems aside, it's still a fiddly hunt with much traveling back and forth even after you've found every single numbered box. And then there's more hunting at the main stores. If the quality of the shop merchandise hadn't been so good, I'd have given up long, long ago. Haven't had a chance to look at much of the hunt merchandise, but I have high hopes for it.

By the way, the mall map above, which is posted in several locations, is, as far as I can tell, utterly useless.

Grizzy's New Place

2009-02-06T07:10:00.000-08:00

Grizzy's Old and Grizzy's New Cafe

Grizzy Griswold recently renovated her cafe in Second Life. Things have certainly come a long way since I first started hanging out there 2 years ago! In the Early Days, it was just a dance floor where you could go and chat while your av gyrated (and crashed, which is what usually happened to me in those days). She moved to a different location and slowly added games and live musical artists. After her last move, she decided to renovate as well.
This innovative reincarnation of the new Grizzy's Cafe was realized by Skye Lewellyn and LaDonna Upshaw and it has really taken the former hang-out to a new level.

The new space has a large dance floor, a sitting area (for Grizzy's famous discussions) and gaming area upstairs. Grizzy has had to add some hosting help to keep the place busy all week long because her Real Life (tm) seems to interfere on occasion. [What's that all about?]

There's a host of games upstairs and a regular night for getting together and playing.
And, of course, the skating is now on the roof, to allow for a larger building:

The fishing and beach parties still go on outside! The snarky comments still fly inside! Caring friendships still abound. It isn't the shell that's so important - this place is held together on the strength of Grizzy's personality (something she seems to think she has more of in SL than in RL) but this particular shell is something special. Come visit.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/North%20Bound/134/165/23

Ish Scawwwy!

2008-10-27T08:02:00.000-07:00

Appwoaching the Picklefish Hawnted Housie

One of my dear friends, Mossflower, has added lots of Halloween fun to her slurl.com/secondlife/Picklefish%20Island/131/205/25">Picklefish Island location. I went to a party there Sunday and ran into Riffraff (AKA Simeon) and we danced until dawn. Mossie gave us a personal tour of the zombies (I'll never go zombie hunting with Simeon again, he's rubbish with that gun - of course, it's ten times bigger than he is, but he only managed to wing one of them so we were all bitten numerous times), the graveyard, and the house itself. Whatever you do, don't eat the candy apple! Don't listen to Mossie - she's cute, but there's the very devil inside her!
The haunted house has a few things I hadn't seen in Second Life haunted houses before, along with some old stand-bys (the crematorium, meathooks). Okay, they're only "old" because I've seen three of them this month without even trying. There's a cool funeral pyre (if that isn't oxymoronic) and ... and ... Oh, I don't want to spoil it.
The fun is spread out, so come prepared to wander around.

Lludmila warms up to the Halloween idea, thanks to some friends.

Journey to the Center of the Haunted Schoolhouse

2008-10-21T15:04:00.000-07:00

Kathy is Lost at Cutting Class: slurl.com/secondlife/Pulse/81/224/42

I really thought it was the end of my visits to haunted spaces in Second Life when Giacomo disappeared, but Shang was so effusive over Cutting Class that I thought I'd drag my reluctant posterior through One More. And then Kathy showed back up, a little worse for wear, but still breathing. I immediately sent her back out on this last mission.
I should have sent someone smarter. Kathy says "Clues are hard." Fortunately for her, some smarter avs showed up and all she had to do was hang around until someone unraveled the clues to open the security fence to the upstairs, etc. Otherwise, our Kathy would still be there, standing outside. She had only found one clue when she reached the door, while everyone else had all four. Poor idiot! I used to think it was all the hair, but I clipped that off of her for hunts and such to cut down on brain lag, so that's not it.
As I said, someone showed up who was smart enough to decipher clues and we traveled up the stairs. I bet Kathy even missed some of the little gifts that were scattered around. Once you find your way through the upstairs, you have to figure out how to get down. Poor Kathy! Unfortunately, there was someone able to work the elevator as well. Everyone wound up in the literal bowels of the building, in a challenging maze.

Thanks to outside help, Kathy is now stuck in the Maze of Blood.

Kathy wandered around and around, commenting that she had to get back to work in an hour, going from one nameless horror to another. After investigating every square centimeter of the maze, she found the way out and into a motherlode of goodies ... which she refuses to share with me, along with hints of how to get through the school and who dunnit and why. Grr!

Beneath the Son of the Valley of the Planet of the Haunted House

2008-10-14T16:48:00.000-07:00

I sent Giacomo out on one more haunted house investigation to the Toxic Tunnels. Being a city boy, I thought he could handle it. I mean, it's just a subway, right? He claims it's quite an original creation. He added, "Be sure to bring una torcia." I haven't heard from him since. Hmmmm.
slurl.com/secondlife/Hong%20Kong%20Island/144/83/27

Planet of the Haunted Houses

2008-10-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

I suppose one shouldn't send a reporter on a mission he doesn't understand. Giacomo tried to spend the night at a motel at the Halloween Horror Village, and did nothing but complain about how Housekeeping kept him up all night. He was also disturbed that the elderly maid appeared to be some transvestite.

He said someone there had invented a teleportation device (an unlikely story), but that the inventor needed that transvestite maid because there were flies everywhere. I dunno, Halloween Horror Village looked like great fun to me with a wide mixture of horror movie themes and free masks.
slurl.com/secondlife/Antiqua%20Paradise/42/150/551

What's So Haunted About ThisTrain Station?

2008-10-14T16:08:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid Giacomo is a bit of a cynic. I sent him to the Haunted Train Station and he was unimpressed. It was more of an auditory thing as far as he could tell and if you keep things set at midnight, you can't see buggerall and photography is pointless. However, while playing around with the view, he saw this ...

[Cue spooky organ chord!]
slurl.com/secondlife/Virtue/56/28/22

2008-10-14T15:33:00.000-07:00

Despite being ever so difficult to find (it must be, there are these huge signs on the ground pointing to it), the Sleepy Hollow Haunted Orphanage is at least original in its conception and execution. Did I say execution? Heh! Anyway, it's not the usual haunted house. If you've seen one in Second Life, you've seen most of them. This one, at least, is novel. Your walking tour gets progressively more insane. Did I say insane? Mwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaahem. It's worth a gander. slurl.com/secondlife/Sleepy%20Hollow/122/97/34

Lludmila says she didn't take any pictures of this ride at Love Buggs so as not to spoil any of the surprises. It's a long ride in a pumpkin cart that holds four, so be sure to bring a few of your friends. Whatever you do, don't go alooooone!
slurl.com/secondlife/Lovers%20Lagoon/113/129/23

Valley of the Haunted Houses

2008-10-14T15:06:00.001-07:00

As we all know, Kathy still hasn't returned from her visit to Halloweentown. I'm sure she'll be back soon. I hope. No real cause for worry, right? Therefore I have sent out my first-string reporter, Lludmila, to get the scoop on the fun that never ends. Here are some more haunted houses I've visited:

Maison du Mort looks harmless ... then you click on an innocent object and ...
slurl.com/secondlife/AV%20Puli%20Animations/69/206/25

If you think the flaming trees outside are terrifying, hold onto your nitroglycerin tablets for the Macarena on the Chair of Death at Age and Country Hotel. Hee!
slurl.com/secondlife/Minkartah/110/129/30

Hipville Halloween has it all: spooky house, cute rides, challenging corn maze (ha ha! Maize maze!) and amusing photo-posestands. Here Lludmila lives up to her corny reputation.
slurl.com/secondlife/Chima/39/60/82

Bride of Favorite Haunts

2008-10-13T08:39:00.001-07:00

Kathy is left off at the castle by the ghost carriage.

Halloweentown has a ghost carriage that takes you to the ghost castle where you can take the ghost "train" through their novel house of horrors. There are other rides and a dance floor where you can dance with the rats. They also have a spooky backstory that I'd tell you about, but ... my avatar never made it back from this sim.
slurl.com/secondlife/Celebration%20Isle/217/189/26

Son of Favorite Haunts

2008-10-13T08:21:00.000-07:00

Bentham has a large area of Halloweenabilia which you can traverse in the train. I was sort of disappointed in the haunted house itself, but totally captivated by the asylum! I tried out all the poseballs (I'm especially a sucker for anything that says "Do Not Press This Button" or anything else I'm instructed not to do) but my absoluteliest favoritest thing so far this year is the fire extinguisher at the asylum! I only wish I'd been there with someone - hoo-boy would that have been fun! As it was, I just went nuts in the waiting room all by myself. Say, that was appropriate! It is an asylum! (Giggles maniacally.)

slurl.com/secondlife/Sevenfold/201/137/170

Favorite Haunts - Old Favorites

2008-10-13T08:10:00.000-07:00

Of course, I have to return to DarkDharma, which I enjoyed so much last year. Hey, how'd they know it was me again? I never have the patience to sit through the seance and I always fall for the attack chicken. This year, however, I was not splinched by the sofa. Sort of a disappointment.
slurl.com/secondlife/Benten/88/222/28

Octoberville is chock full o' stuff and the haunted house has mostly new things in it. I like this Conveyor Belt of Death concept and only wish that it actually moved the avatar inexorably toward something that would torture my av. But that's just me, innit? Must have some ambivalent feelings about Kathy there.
slurl.com/secondlife/PixelTrix/138/86/23

Favorite Haunts - Killsville

2008-10-13T07:48:00.001-07:00

Again this year I'm taking my various avatars around to some of the spooky offerings Second Life has to offer. Going to anything similar in Real Life(tm) would stress me out, but, like falling, when it's in SL, it's funny.
Okay, it helps that someone can't spell "better." I'm laughing right away in Killsville. But the sign is right, your view is "butter" set to Midnight. There are certainly plenty of places to pose your av in this haunted house. I think my favorite is the buzz saw, but the cremation one is timely considering I recently lost my father. I feel so much closer to him now. There is also a tarot reading in the attic.

Oops! Forgot to add the slurl:
slurl.com/secondlife/NOOB%20ISLAND/47/120/23

How I Stay Humble

2008-09-06T12:09:00.000-07:00

Model of Elegance ... or Shaggy Yak?

There are so many avatars to choose from! I've got the stick insect ones, the plush one, the middle-aged short one, the cartoony crow. There are sliders to make my nose a teeny bit longer, more upturned and perkier, ginormous. Free hair and clothing abound. One can look glamorous, serious, or just plain silly. Every now and then, though, "glamorous" wins out. I can put on a fabulous outfit, outrageous hair, and shimmering skin and preen in front of my camera. I can teleport around the grid to visit my haunts and strut my stuff. But I don't get vain, oh no, not when I have friends.
It just takes one friend to tell me I look like "a shaggy yak in that hair" and my humility button gets a reset. I am so grateful to my friends ... eventually.
It does, however, encourage me to stick to my sandbox most of the time.

Goethe Institute

2008-09-06T11:43:00.000-07:00

I recently visited the Goethe Institute in Second Life. Thanks to a friend of mine from NYC and even earlier from South Carolina, I can't stop myself from saying "Go-thee" in my head instead of "Gerteh" - which means I need some German Immersion now! Unfortunately, they don't seem to be doing this at a time I can join them. Sigh. Of course, I could go to some of the German sims in SL and just blunder my way through.
The Goethe Institute in SL has German language instruction, a museum, and some fascinating very, very short films on language made by people in India. The Goethe Institute has centers around the world. There was one not far from where I lived in New York City called Goethe House. They are there to promote Germany, German as a second language, and cultural exchange in general. Wow, what a concept! I especially liked the film on German HipHop. All of the exhibits have the capability of translating German to English for the rest o' youse what don't shpreck the lingo.

March of the Plush Avatars

2008-07-24T08:39:00.000-07:00

Rivka, our suspiciously emaciated Mistress of Ceremonies; Jubilant; and a bit of ruthiness on the side that shows I'm still working with the old viewer.

I've been over this before about appearances in SL. Apparently, there's a research group dedicated to just this topic: the Avatar Identity Research Center. It's an interesting thought, "What does your avatar's appearance say about you?" So, I slapped on my fatvatar and tp'd over to have a listen. This was in the middle of the BlogHer Conference and I had to made a very hard decision! So much going on in SL (the same day) and so little time!
Rivka, in her introduction to Jubilant's presentation, said that SL is a sandbox for exploration of self and embodiment. I must have a multiple personality disorder then.

The Evil Speaker's Ball that no amount of Papyrus font can save from my waxing medievally wroth all over.

I had thought that the Speaker's Ball sounded like a good idea when we started. So much more polite than, "Please shut up until Jubilant has finished her presentation." There were problems with the ball when we started, which were probably due to lag (nice turn-out for the presentation coupled with a prim-fest of attachments) and some people elected to resort to just typing "click" to get in the comment cue. But when it came to the actual comment portion of the presentation, I don't think it worked at all. I was called on, but people kept talking over me. I finally gave up. Later I happened to look at my speaker's ball (that was floating over my head ... a place I was not looking because I was intent on looking at other people, the photos, reading chat ...) and saw that it was green and that I was next to speak. In space, no one can hear you scream; in SL, no one can see your brow furrow with annoyance. I was cross now, and I clicked on it to turn it off. Shortly afterwards, I was called on again and instead of saying, "Well, people talked over me when I was called on earlier and my mind has now moved on from the comment I had formulated with care to being pissed off at the speaker's ball and I don't feel like participating anymore!" I said something less fraught with the same gist of "nevermind." I wasn't sure that I hadn't turned my speaker's ball back on. It might not be showing the same for others as for me.
Conversation/chat in SL takes about four times as long as in RL (tm). The speaker's ball, when it's being used properly, doubles that again. I am used to chaotic chat (hell, I go to the Humanism meetings!) and will wade in with the best of them. I don't think the speaker's ball worked technically nor in concept.
But, on to the presentation!

Visual Aids provided by Jubilant in lieu of Death by PowerPoint.

Ya gotta love someone who thinks that women should be round and curvy, and that's Jubilant for you! She made herself her ideal in feminine beauty, the way she cannot be in RL (tm). But she found that SL did not take the larger (or, for that matter, shorter) sizes into account when the mesh and animations were originally designed. Textures stretch the designs beyond recognition; animations embed the arms into the chest and abdomen; and the larger the bits of you get, the pointier they become. The resident designers continued in that vein, making prim additions that just plain don't fit (See top right picture in above photo). Multi-prim objects can be resized, but the seller has to make them modifiable and copiable to do this, and that activity is not for the faint-hearted. I do it all the time with prim hair now.

More Visual Aids ... why do these figures look normal to me?

The stigma associated with fat seems to have carried over from RL into SL. Although not subject to outright harassment (such as being denied entrance to a club), Jubilant has been asked why she is the size she is and it has been suggested she diet (which in SL I would take as a joke - I occasionally tell overly-thin avs they "should eat cookies"). She has found herself attracted to other avs who look different than the ideal she created for herself. What's going on here? So why is she this voluptuous? What keeps her curvy despite the annoyances of comments, clothes that don't look right or just plain don't fit, and an apparent subconscious attraction to something outside her ideal?
Well, someone needs to look normal, don't they? You need some large people, short people, minority people, and bald people (although I think most men go bald because men's hair sucks in SL ... except a couple of heads of hair at this presentation - I almost clicked on my speaker's ball just to ask two of the guys where they got their hair!) walking around amongst the overly muscled chests or gravity-defying breasts that make up most of SL so that the real people behind them can feel their RL bodies validated. Someone's got to do it, and Jubilant has stepped up to the plate. My fatvatar smiles.
Would staying in my Kathy av, with her slender waist and big hair-that-everyone-is-mad-about, increase my self-loathing? Hard to see how I could loathe my RL body (tm) any more than I do now. At the BlogHer conference we met an avatar that was based on a body that the typist wanted, and seeing it regularly helped motivate her to lose, so far, over 100 pounds. How she manages to do that, while sitting in front of the time-sucker that SL is, escapes me. I mean, I haven't gotten any shorter walking around as Lludmila. But I find Kathy lovely - I fell in love with her. I did my best coming up with something that looked different from the SL norm with Lludmila, and I worked hard to make whatsername the cutest fat girl imaginable, but Kathy's is the face on my desktop. I think you look for someone different from you when you fall in love. And you can't get much more different than me than Kathy. You just can't help who you fall in love with.

My Three Avatars (dada dadaaaaa, dada dadaaaaaa ...) demonstrating scale: Kandice/Mandy/Tammy (the fatvatar), Kathy (the bombshell), and Lludmila (short, 4'8", and middle-aged).

BlogHer '08 - Virtually There!

2008-07-20T17:02:00.000-07:00

We experience some technical difficulties, including a little static in Queen's voice stream, so here are her fingers typing chat. Hee hee!

What did I learn? About blogging, there was noted a struggle to balance blogging and Real Life (tm), but there is also the balancing of Second Life, Real Life, family life, work life, Daughter Life, Married Life, cat life ... it goes on. You have to deal with it. How do you promote your own blog? Network: go into social situations and take an interest in other people's blogs, read them, comment, then shamelessly promote your own. Use lijit.com to track your traffic and pander to what interests them. Tweet your blogposts. When you post something new, tell your twit friends, your plurk buddies, your fellow powncers it's there and provide the url.

BlogHers, after a long day with our noses to the blogstone, hard at work networking to promote our own blogs.

Lludmila wearing her useless (only at the conference) button.

We were given buttons/badges we could rewrite the code for that a click on would take the clicker to the clickee's blog. Having experience with cut and paste in code, I had no trouble with this. Unfortunately, to protect the conference from possible griefers, scripting had been turned off and I had to go somewhere else to test it. It sort of defeated the purpose of the little badge (you can see the little white oval beneath Lludmila's chin in the photo above) to have it out of commission at the time when it was most likely to be used. I'll have to wear mine for a few weeks more. But, it's all worth it if it prevents some butthead from unleashing a particle bomb on us. Instead, we "speed dated" by introducing ourselves to people nearby and sharing our blog urls.

I learned that alts and auxiliary avs were handy things to have. An avatar is limited to 25 groups. If they want to add to their groups, they have to find some to drop. I must belong to three or four library-related groups (grr! taking up space!) plus the South Carolinians group (SL Library, SC State Library, Palmetto Librarians ...). But, if I add another avatar account, I have 25 more spaces! I could put all the shopping groups on that one! Also, if you've been banned from somewhere for being a butt, all you have to do is open a new account with a new name and you're off and griefing again! Very handy! I had been struggling with the ethics (not to mention the nuisance) of having more than one account for over a year. This might, might push me over the edge.

More, ummm, networking.

SL, the sessions pointed out, is social networking on steroids. You can have as much or as little transparency as you like. Some corporate avatars are required to be totally transparent so that customers can have confidence in dealing with a real person. Others would just as soon be completely anonymous, even without the penchant for cybering. Then there are all the gradations between.

SL and Security covered material for sim owners and just the average Joe or Jane Avie.
At least in SL, if someone is annoying you (you don't like their language, etc.), you can just mute them. I did that today with someone who spammed me. One spam is all it takes and that av is history. If they were naked and dancing in front of me, I could just teleport somewhere else and they would be unable to find me (of course, first I'd have a really good look at them). If they have inconvenienced me with scripting or objects, I can get their name off of them and report them to Linden Labs. I have an incredible amount of control in SL that I never have in RL. (But, then, this blog is not about SL, is it?). One panelist noted that the incidences of bad behavior have been overblown in the press and they don't happen with any more frequency in SL than they do in Real Life. Also, you take a certain amount of responsibility when you enter a virtual world. For instance, you can make the decision to not go into the sex club in SL the same way you'd make that decision in RL.

SL for Education and Training:
For those who are nervous about dipping their toe into the SL pool, it was suggested that they not go it alone, but go with a group or at least one other person. That way, if you accidentally end up without your pants on, it's a funny experience you share with another newbie. Also, two heads are better than one. I went alone my first time. SL has since changed the newbie experience, so I can't vouch for that, but I had seen Michael Steven's powerpoint photos on his entrance into SL and I thought I could handle it. I seem to have done okay, but it would have been more fun comparing experiences, step by step, with someone else.

A little "networking" between sessions. Anyone still feeling sorry for us that we weren't actually in San Francisco?

Using SL for Good, not Evil ... or at least not just for Fun.

Just a note in passing that the Relay for Life in SL brought in around US$200,000. It's a drop in the bucket compared to the over US$1million a day that changes hands (got that from a Reuters page), but it's nothing to sneeze at.
There is more going on in SL than just cybering and selling. Non-Profits are making in-roads into SL, the Non-Profit Commons having already two islands and about to open number three. Concern over SL friends created the Frozen Pea Fund for breast cancer research. Gimp Girls, women with disabilities who started out back-in-the-day chatting on listservs (remember listservs?), now have their own sim where they and their friends can meet. Many of the people who make it to SL are highly motivated and their energy can be channeled into many types of worthwhile endeavors. Then they can go cybering.

Closing Comments: 36 million women blog (or perhaps there are 36 million blogs by women, in which case only about 30 of us are actually blogging - I know I have at least 5 now), some of them post photos of their nieces and label them "little sh1ts" and then their brother gets annoyed but everyone else gets a good laugh. Blogging is preserving a slice of life for posterity ... except that it's ephemeral and won't hang around for millennia like papyrus. If the mainframe storage units go down, all that will disappear into the ether ... forever. I recommend that if you are intent on keeping things for posterity, you back it up on your own computer and print it out ... on acid-free paper. We're already slap-liable to lose a generation of photographs because pixels just don't last, people! I'm as guilty as anyone on this. I don't print things unless I absolutely have to. I can only hope that our printer inks have improved enough to stand the test o' time.
All in all, this conference made me proud to be a blogger, a blogger in SL, a blogger of SL, and a girlie one at that. I'm also glad I got my feet wet at a conference in the virtual format. Now I've got a humongous list of blogs I need to look at and comment on. My work is cut out for me.

What's in a Flag?

2008-07-04T12:47:00.000-07:00

Mandy/Tammy/Kandice/Whoever watches fireworks display at Fourth of July Party

You might not realize it out there, but the people behind these avatars take their second lives seriously. Seriously enough, it seems, to take offense. This includes me, as you would be able to tell from my previous post. I'm capable of being annoyed that one of my avs gets too much attention and another does not. I can't win. At least, though, I can step back and analyze it, which may be something harder to do than in My Real Life (trademark).

Towards the end of my stay at a July Fourth party in SL, an "incident" occurred and I've been struggling with my conscience over it ever since. It is part and parcel of a secular national holiday that is fraught with historical significance for the flag to take on a heightened symbolism. It is also natural for partygoers to get a little bit silly, even if they aren't all tanked up. And, I suppose it is natural for other partygoers to take offense ... and a powder.

The old banner of the former Soviet Union, both now defunct.

When I say I wrestled with my conscience over this, I am referring to the propriety of waving the old flag of the former USSR. (Because I was busy taking photos, uploading them to Flickr, and typing in notes, I missed the full transaction so I cannot say what the circumstances were: Was the avatar aware of the content of the flag? Some attendees had "Missing Image" instead.) Someone thought this was funny, and, to be frank, so did I and I have a tendency to think anyone who would take offense would be a silly-billy, a party-pooper, and a fussbudget, probably in that order.
But was it appropriate? And the analogy I came up with, which came to me because of geography and local politics, was the flying of the Confederate battleflag on the grounds of our state house. I proceeded to analyze this situation (with the help of my husband, because I had already caught myself in a knee-jerk response) by comparing the situations.
CSA: no longer a sovereign nation
USSR: no longer a sovereign nation
CSA: lost the Civil War
USSR: "lost" the ideological Cold War
CSA: a symbol of the oppression of a people over hundreds of years, the ramifications of which we are still living with
USSR: a symbol of the oppression of lots of different kinds of people (Jews, Christians, Minorities, Gays, Intellectuals, Anyone Who Thought Differently) over a much shorter period that just ended recently and the survivors might still be around.
CSA: a symbol to some other people of all that was good and honorable in the historic and "venerable" past.
USSR: a symbol to some other people of a failed but well-meaning experiment.

The nub of the gist, my husband points out, is the intention of the waving of the flag, but does the existence of the Confederate battleflag on our statehouse grounds as an historic artifact make it less painful to the people who remember hard-won civil rights? It may over time, but that time is not now. Still, the assholes in the state capital will fly the damn flag merely because they'll be damned before they lose points with a sullen white electorate. Is that tacky? Well, I think so, but no one is going to listen to me if they don't listen to the African-Americans who complain about it.

That, at least, is the political excuse for waving the flag of a defunct nation. What about the humorous use?

I tried to sort out in my mind who has every right to be offended by seeing the flag of the USSR being waved. Those who fought the USSR in the ... no, wait. We never declared war on them or fought them directly and they were our allies in that war fought by the Greatest Generation. People who risked their lives to escape persecution in the USSR? I can see that. Still, if you come to this country to embrace freedom, you also have to accept the freedom of others to be assholes (like the Nazis who wanted to parade through Skokie, the Jewish suburb of Chicago) and, if you're like my staunchly Republican parents, you will support the ACLU when they defend those rights as well as the rights of asshole liberals.

So, if there were some former refugees (or their children, but I'm drawing the line there) of the Soviet Union at the party who were offended and felt they had to leave, I apologise for calling them silly-billies, party-poopers, and perhaps even fuss-budgets. Anyone who has not had a personal experience of oppression by the former, defunct USSR can just suck it up.

Also, anyone who thought the Soviet flag being waved at a July Fourth party was an "hilarious" expression of "We Won! We Won!" hubris can go tell it to the Marines.

Why did I think it was funny? It's the same humor generated by hearing "steak tartare," "steak tartare," "steak tartare," and then: "corndog." It was surprise. If I hadn't been so busy, I might have thought of something similar, like the flag of the United Kingdom. I have that texture somewhere.

Now, here are some pretty pictures to celebrate our independence from a country that is now one of our best friends:

Fireworks at the Cafe.

Oooo, pretty!

I'm Easily Annoyed

2008-07-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

Kathy gothed

Mandy/Debbie/Tammy/Kandace/Whatever

I've made many avatars and tinkered with them in the almost two years I've been in Second Life. And I've picked up some freebie shapes. The problem with the shapes you get is that a) the breasts are too large and don't seem to be subject to Newtonian Law and b) the legs and arms are too skinny. You want to force-feed them cookies.
I set out to make an avatar that would look more normal, normal in the sense of not being from the cover of a sword and sorcery fantasy paperback, anyway. So I made Kathy. Not quite the Kathy you see at the top. She had more color in her and ... the hair from the avatar below her. Looking at her reminded me of a good friend from Lexington and, keeping with my obsession with the letter K, I named her Kathy. Kathy, the girl next door. Then I read about this freebie hair (along with a dozen or so other freebies) and slapped it on her. The tan didn't look so good anymore. I pulled out some goth skins I normally have no use for but hadn't deleted. A lip ring to top it all off ... and I fell in love. Something about the hair. More about lovin' the hair later.

I read about some people who fattened their avatars for a social experiment like the one we did with Grizzy. In fact, some normally fat avs went thin for the Grizzy experiment. Their biggest problem was just like in RL, trying to find clothes that fit. And clothes that had textures that didn't get all stretched out yucky. I decided that I needed a fatvatar and then promptly forgot about it.

Kathy was getting attention. She was getting attention that Lludmila never got. Kathy pulled. This was thrilling (who isn't happy to get attention?), annoying (why her, why not Keisha or Keiko or ... ?), and finally it was worrying (I'm married). I decided it was definitely time for the fatvatar. I cannot adequately express the ambivalent feelings I have about this. I envied Kathy and her "powers." And I was aggrieved on behalf of my other avs. I'd put time into them as well. I collected skins and evaluated them for which av looked best in which. I accumulated hair with a vengeance to find the best. There's lots of nice hair out there, even for free. I even kept demos of hair I thought worthy of purchase when enough Lindens were available with notes that read, "Buy when you have $179!" Slapping this freebie hair (From Bishwear, by the way - and they don't have anything else as good because I have looked and looked) on has made all the difference in the world. My husband tells me that men look at the hair first and then the eyes. "What about the boobs?" I asked. He looked thoughtful and then told me that they were probably about fourth on the list.

The fatvatar, like Kathy, was started from scratch. She had to be under six feet - I just don't understand the giant avs. Now that I have a 22" monitor, everyone's butt looks big, so she might be a bit narrower than necessary. But she does have a belly and arms and legs with meat on them. And then there is the round face with the extra flab under the chin. To make her cuter, I made her eyes larger. I tried all sorts of hair, but Kathy's old hair looks terrific. There was some very girly skin in my inventory, with huge pink lips and I decided that "pink" about said it all for this gal.

Next came the clothes, and the stuff I read was right. Prim clothing bits can be prettily easily resized and I was able to do that for her. Mesh clothing is something else. I thought the tunic and leggings look would be good on her, but too many of the patterns (texture on mesh) get stretched out of shape. I don't even want to get into what happened to her booty. It got shifted. That's all you need to know. Hearkening back to my youth, I guessed that the babydoll style would suit her and I was right. Black is a good one as well. If you're wearin' black, you've covered a multitude of sins. I might just have to use this info in RL! In the photo above, my fatvatar is wearing an outfit that is very similar to the one that got me sent to the office for indecent exposure in high school, another one of life's proudest moments.

I only had to post photos of her on Flickr before I got a positive response ... from someone else with a chubby av. But who gets the real attention? The pale one with the big, messy black wig. It is almost to larf. It is so predictable. You have the same person doing the talking, the walking, the dancing - but you slim her down and put poofy big hair on her and suddenly she's attractive.
There is a really nice bonus to this and it is that there is a real person who looks like Kathy gothed and she's just as nice as she is beautiful. It wasn't until much later that I realized Kathy gothed looked just like Christine. Christine, by the way, is available and lives in the northeast US. The eponymous Kathy, my dear friend from childhood, is also available and lives in the south. Anyone interested, please contact me.

Me, I am happily taken.

By the way, my fatvatar obviously needs a name. I am open to nice suggestions.

What Hath Lludmila Wrought?

2008-06-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

Kathy sits at the glass-top wrought-iron table from my childhood.

The Restoration Hardware catalog was inspirational, but I dug into my past for the next project, the glass-top wrought-iron table. I could have saved a ton of prims in the making of this, but I wanted something more like what I grew up with. This table is still in the family. It has been nothing but a pain to move it four times (the glass always breaks), but I love it. The original has an ivy pattern decoration, but there was no way ...

Kathy and the mahogany desk.

There had been a desk, chair, and lamp in my collection of freebies, but they all swamped my avatar. Most avs must start at six and a half feet tall. I shrank mine originally to fit in a space capsule, and left her there at 4' 8" - diminutive but sassy. Subsequent avatars might be taller, but I try to keep them at six feet or under. Note the embossed leather top to the desk. Nice touch!

Kathy experiences a script error on the fainting couch.

I'd always wanted a fainting couch in RL, but a) it doesn't seem likely I'd find one I wanted in my price range and b) I don't have anywhere to put it. The next best thing is to make a virtual one! I had trouble with it until I saw one for sale in-world. Aha! But what these pieces really need are pose balls to put avatars in the right positions. And I don't know the secrets of pose ball creation. They are balls ... with pose animations in them, but they need something else. So I dissected one to uncover its secrets. Once that was done, I could cut-and-paste from existing materials. Mwah-ha-haaa!
I needed to find a pose that would fit this piece of furniture and Ms. Qunhua was helping me when I tried a pose that just wasn't working because the script had self-destructed. It did, however, resemble an actual "faint." So I took a picture of it. This piece still needs a little work, but I was pleased with the overall result. Hmm, a better texture would be nice as well.
I have now mastered Stealing Ideas and Cobbling Things Together through a process called Trial and Error. I am so proud!

Building, Continued

2008-06-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

Lludmila builds, "Ker-CHOW!"

For my next project, I tried making something house-like. Avatars don't need much. And if we think there's any such thing as privacy in SL, we're seriously deluded. But I made a nice rectangular building with lots of windows for light. Originally it had "sliding doors" that were phantom and you could walk through them, but I wasn't able to maintain that after linking the parts. Now I just leave that bit open.
Kathy sits in a freebie deck chair in front of the little house.

A house in SL is just a place to keep furniture, so I pulled some furnishings out of my inventory and stuck them in. For the most part, they were just the wrong size. And, besides, I hadn't had the pleasure of making them. This is like my RL jewelry. Sure, I could buy that piece, but isn't it that much more satisfying to have made it myself, even if it does turn out a little wonky?
Lucky for me, the Restoration Hardware catalog I didn't ask for arrived in our mailbox. In it was the cedar chaise longue I almost bought 8 years ago but instead went for the wrought iron look for the patio at our new house. Also, there was a ton of simply designed furniture and my beady little eyes goggled.A chaise longue isn't enough for Lludmila, she has to make a couch and fire pit as well!

Okay, so I went a little crazy. I have some outdoor furniture now and I have to make the fire pit as well. Heh, heh. Funny story about the fire pit and why there is no fire in it (at least in this picture) ...
Once upon a time I built a fire pit and looked through my inventory to see if there was any fire I could just stick in it. I had several choices, but didn't know what they looked like. Fire is a particle emitter. It has a script embedded in an object and little, or not so little, objects (the particles) are emitted from that location. They can spread far or not so far. If you want to move the emitter, you have to find the object and click on it. If you want to delete it, ditto.
The first fire I rezzed to look at was an easy target with logs and everything. It was a bit too large for the fire pit. I deleted it. The second one was a bonfire. It was only made of particles and the emitter. And it was huge. I tried to find the main object with alt + left click and zooming in. I couldn't see it. I right clicked and deleted at random ... and suddenly, the ground disappeared. I clicked some more, thinking I'd finally seen my target, but nothing was happening. Why not?
Well, when the floor disappeared, so did I. My avatar plummeted to the ground and I was too far away to make any changes in anything. I tp'd back. The fire, the rocks, the benches, were all hanging in mid-air. I zoomed in on the bonfire again and deleted it. Embarrassed, I IM'd Milosun (the owner of the sandbox) to tell him I had burnt half of it down.
Lludmila surveys the carnage after the Great Conflagration That Burned Down the Eduisland Sandbox.

Adventures in Building

2008-06-09T15:58:00.002-07:00

Lludmila models the bun she made for the back of her head and the necklace (see photo above her head for the front).

I came to Second Life (tm) for the library and librarians and I stayed for the friends I made. But in the middle there, I tinkered with the idea of making things. I like to make things in real life (no tm): mostly using needles (beading, sewing, a knit here and there and perhaps a crochet) and sometimes just cardboard and a mat knife. I refinish furniture. If I need to know something, I just get a book on it and read up. So, I thought I'd be able to make things in SL (that Second Life tm thing*). It was harder than it looked. I got a great deal of pleasure out of taking clothing forms and applying new textures and combining them. I was able to create shapes and add textures to them easily enough, but it was time consuming. When I tried making small things, like a necklace, it became very frustrating. One day I was hanging around a virtual campfire and someone handed out marshmallows on sticks (in flames, too - most humorous) and someone said, "We need s'mores!" So the next time I was in a sandbox, I made a virtual s'more and called it a s'less.Lludmila creates a s'less (like a s'more, only not quite).

At some point I discovered the fun of stalking the wild freebie and that took up a lot of my unstructured time on SL. Then I became a child. I got so nervous about being out amongst strange adults (as nervous about my own behavior as their reactions), that I curtailed some of my Great White Hunter activities and stayed in the sandbox. I unpacked boxes of freebies and deleted some clothing that I had once appreciated and now wouldn't be caught virtually dead in. After a conversation with a friend who builds a lot of stuff, I decided there was a more profitable usage of my time. I would build something. And I wouldn't try small things again, because that was just crazy. I would build something large, using simple shapes. And immediately the idea of a round gazebo in marble struck me.

Karrot inspects her handiwork.

It got pretty fiddly because I couldn't just leave it as an open space. I had to put in curtains and show off my ability to make something flexi. Somehow, it turned out to be a phantom object (I could walk straight through the columns) and I had trouble with my alpha layers so the columns kept disappearing, making bits hard to work with. They were there, just invisible. There's not a whole lot you can do with some of that, just try to remember where the bits were supposed to be and click and hope. Fixing the phantom columns, though, meant taking the whole thing apart and relinking it. In the end, though, I was pleased with what I'd created, but felt I could do better.

Pink marble is all well and good, but I wanted to try another color, so I used the green to make a new gazebo, this time perhaps a little smarter. I was able to make sure I was starting with non-phantom materials. I wanted some contrast and so I made the plinths darker. I wanted an airy roof that would have vines around it (when I got some). I wanted nicer sheers as curtains. Doric style columns sufficed before and while wondering if Ionic was possible, I came across a texture that I thought could pass for a minimalist Corinthian style. I tinted it a greyish green and stuck it at the top. Then I patted myself upon the back for being so clever.
Making the second gazebo went a lot faster. I was gathering confidence. I now thought I could tackle a square.

*You know, this is just plain stupid. If I write about the Kleenex (and it actually is that brand) I have in my pocket I don't put a tm. If I whinge and bitch about Microsoft I don't put a tm. It's just a blog, fercryinoutloud.

Great Social Experiment, Part the Deux

2008-05-28T07:19:00.002-07:00

Karrot in her "military" look for the Humanism discussion. On my monitor at home, by the way, Karrot (and, in fact, everyone) is chunkier. She looks like she needs to eat some cookies in these photos.

Did I ever get over being an adult in a child's avatar? I guess so. I spent a lot of time in my sandbox (it's not really "my" sandbox, but other people hardly ever go there), but I also went to all the functions I normally go to: the Bookstacks Quiz, Bookmooch Social (did I mention I'm a librarian?), the Info International Reference Desk, InfoGroupies parties. I felt more comfortable around people I knew, even though they were not participating in the experiment (unlike Grizzy who felt like she was the only one dressed for Hallowe'en). I could be more myself and people would understand.Lonely little Karrot in her sandbox ... with debris other people have left behind.

I also went out and stalked the Wild Freebie, thanks to FabFree. [And now it all comes back to me how I probably wound up with those bondage pose balls.] I was a little more nervous about hanging out with adults, but nothing untoward happened. I had an nice chat with another Great White Hunter (or perhaps she was blue) about my avatar. I couldn't remember where exactly I'd gotten it, but it was a freebie. Most people are aware of the controversy about child avatars, but I never ran into any negativity about my wearing it (other than my one friend who was creeped out). No one accused me of being a pervert or asked me to leave, but how much abuse could I expect out of only one week? A number of people thought I was cute, some of them were surprising. I really didn't expect a comment from the head of our Humanism group. I had made a special effort to dress for the theme (Humanism and the Military), going so far as to make a little label with my avatar's nomme de guerre on it (see top photo).

Karrot at the BookMooch discussion, in her "I Want to Make Cookies" outfit. Sal, on the right, is going through her week as Intellectual Dude. Hee!

Karrot at a Librarian's Pool Party. I had to watch the dance for a while to make sure it was "child appropriate" - unlike the "caramel" dance I would have no compunctions about performing. I made the "fabulous" inner tube, by the way. I might have had modesty in mind. I didn't have a child's bathing suit and just removed the prim skirt from an outfit. I thought it needed something more to be more "beachy." Karrot loved the waterslide in the background ... but so would Lludmila.

Karrot at the Bookstacks Quiz, watching Chromatophore morph into a Steampunk Chimpanzee.

Karrot at the Science Friday broadcast. Karrot loves Ira Flatow.

Long about Saturday when I realized there would be four more days of the experiment, I nearly melted down. I felt so constricted by what I anticipated would be the scrutiny of others and I wanted to bust out ... um, on several levels. I really like the avatar's look. I think she's cute and sweet, but I think I'd rather be a dwarf. [I like dwarfs. Michael Dunn was a favorite of mine. I was crushed by his untimely death and remember exactly where I was when I heard about it.] I want to be an adult with the option of adult things to do. I enjoy being an adult who has the options to be childish. Where's that waterslide?

In memoriam: Michael Dunn

Three more days ... Two ... My book group met the night of the Last Day, so I missed almost everyone else's experiences. I'll have to read the transcript. What little I heard didn't surprise me. People felt awkward in their different avatars. I don't usually, but I think I went out of my way to choose something that would make me feel awkward, or, at least, that would be the greatest challenge. I can't imagine what avatar I could put on that would be more challenging ... unless perhaps it is the meat puppet. Yeah, definitely the meat puppet. I'd have to go for gross.

That Great Social Experiment

2008-05-22T21:07:00.000-07:00

Karrot

No, not Second Life, Grizzy's annual "Walk a Mile in Someone Else's Avatar's Shoes" fest. Okay, so she calls it the Race/Gender Experiment. It was so interesting last year, she decided to do it again.

I went through all sorts of contortions over what to do with my avatar this year. Tall, bald black dude? Used it last year. Black woman? Do that all the time. Man? Ditto. How about a tall white woman with huge breasts? I actually built one of those, but then decided I wasn't taking this seriously.

There was a discussion on Furries, Tinies, and Neko (anthro-kitties) I attended and considered experiencing the "fursecution" they talked about. Apparently, humanoid avatars think Furries and Neko are sex-crazed. Tinies, they just seem to think, get under foot and suck bandwidth with all their prims (not much more than the average hair-do, I should think). In the end, I couldn't find a furry avatar that was 1.) cheap enough or b.) aesthetically satisfying. Then I had what I thought was the brilliant idea of a child avatar.

Now, there's an oppressed minority! I read a lot about the brou-haha over sexual age play and the defenses that the child avis put up. I'm occasionally sexually harassed in SL, but that hardly bothers me. What can they do to me? If I don't want to read/hear it, I can mute them. If they bump into me, I can leave instantly and they are unable to follow. I can also report them. And it's more fun to dodge them and pretend I have no idea what they're talking about. If I am an adult inside a little cartoon child, it should be no big deal.

So I went kid avatar and clothing shopping. And wasn't that an eye-opener! If anyone else attempts this, I recommend sunglasses. The bright primary colors were about to kill me. What, no pastels? Anything you can imagine for your children or grandchildren in real life is available in pixelform. And they have playground equipment to keep your child avatar busy while you shop.

I also solicited some info from Marianne McCann who has a child avatar and I'd read some of her comments on Flickr and visited her exhibit, "Why a Kid?" in SL last year. I was trying to understand why someone would want to portray a child. Marianne is very articulate and positive. With regarding the joys of being a kid she says, "being able to experience a better childhood than you may have had IRL. Getting a chance to relive youth. Being able to have the things denied you as a RL child, whether it be a toy, a pony, or even simply a loving family. With those who go to inworld schools, it can not only be a place to explore their role, but also heal bad school time experiences."

This should sound like fun, but as someone who still buys toys for herself (real ones, plush ones, puppets, etc.) and plays with them (er, okay, some of it might possibly be for work), what was the difference between the adult Lludmila and the child Karrot on a carousel?

She was also pretty frank about the problems with the image child avatars have, that people assume they are into age sex play and either harass the child avatars verbally or "physically" by bumping into them, make advances toward them (ew! ew!), or sim and business owners will ban them from their property. Pretty harsh toward someone who may just want some happy childlike experiences.

I'm afraid the negative aspects of being a child avatar were foremost in my mind. Frankly, once in the avatar and out in "public" I felt creepy. I avoided adults. There were other children (not many) but I was too shy to talk to them. Good grief! This is my childhood all over again! Who wants that? I often think that when people wish they were younger. I worked hard to get to this point in adulthood and I'm not willing to give it up.

I tried an area I had inadvertantly visited as my adult avatar and found far too many adults there, several with sex-oriented labels. And more kept coming. They were also suspiciously quiet, which means they were operating in Instant Message, to keep their conversations private. Even creepier!

Then one of them asked me if I was a demanding eight year old. I responded that my mommy had told me not to talk to strangers. "Even if they can give you what you want?" Hmm, definitely not them. I left, feeling very very very icky. This was a feeling totally new to me. I don't ever recall having any kind of interaction in real life with an adult, or even an older child, that made me feel that way. Of course, my judgment is colored by the experience of adulthood, which is, almost by definition, sexual.

I wasn't the only one creeped out by the new me. A great SL friend took one look at me and said to put him in the "totally creeped out column." Another friend added, "You know the saying: The internet, where men are men, women are men, and children are FBI." Other avatars (mostly female) have just thought I was adorable. "I just wanna hug you," said one, "now go brush your teeth and get into bed." Now, there's a healthy reaction!

Thursday night Grizzy's group got together to venture out and visit some public venues to see how others reacted to their new avatars. Others had chosen a different sex (than their usual SL sex - and let's not get our panties in a bunch over the use of the word; "gender" is for language majors), different shape (fatter or thinner), burkhas, new skin color (black, white, blue), and even a wheelchair. We are spending the whole week like this. Our first stop was the Ahern Welcome Area, a PG oasis for newbies ... and griefers. I don't know when I've been so appalled. And I use the "f" word in real life. Okay, not in the Children's Room, but, you know, casually, around the house, when the spaghetti boils over or the cat tears a ruddy great hole in my ear. No, wait - that's the "s" word. Never mind.

Every conceivable use of graphic language was flying by, both in chat and voice. I found a quiet area behind some ferns and watched other people.

Keeping in mind that it would look bad for a child to walk up to an adult and start a conversation, I decided just to watch ... and turn off the sound. I kept up mostly with the group IM, which tuned out the obnoxious stuff. The people there didn't turn a hair at seeing us. Anything went, and if our titties weren't hanging out, we weren't even noticed.

I did see someone asking about where to get clothes. They were literally Born Yesterday. When no one else there responded, I clicked on them and sent an Instant Message with the info that I had. I recommended going to the Info International Reference Desk where someone could better direct them on how to earn money, etc. "She" apparently was hoping to earn some cash for sex. Good luck to her. Too much of it for free, I'm afraid. But I told her how to use the Search function to find places by subject. And she wanted better breasts. Come to think of it, I think she was in the right place to find this stuff out, not that the librarians would have a problem with answering her questions.

I was careful to stay out of sight during this, because of the avatar. It's fine to say you're supposed to act as you normally would, but I cannot, because of the nature of the avatar. I'm chafing at not being able to wade in with my usual sexual innuendo. And to discuss where you could get laid in SL with an adult avatar seems also beyond the pale. On the other hand, I didn't want to leave a newbie out an vulnerable like that: "Hello! Hello! I don't know what I'm doing! Someone please grief me!"

We opted to leave early because the place was so obnoxious. I must lead a sheltered existence in SL that I hadn't run into anything like this before. My own "home," the Isabel InfoHub, while annoying, is quieter and practically Disneyesque in its restraint. I hadn't felt that way about it before; I avoid the place like the plague usually. It seems a haven by comparison.

Our next stop was the Blarney Stone, an Irish pub. Little Karrot was so strung out by her experience that she needed a double Shirley Temple. She had to make do with a Kool-Aid, straight. [In my childhood I had gone to a restaurant with my parents and their friends and when the drink orders were taken I actually asked for a Shirley Temple, "and make it a double" just to amuse them. I'd much rather have had a coke. But that's me all over: go for the joke.] There was another child avatar there (aside from Rosmairta, who is in the group), but I had no idea what to say to her! I checked her profile and was reduced to asking her how old she was. I recall age and grade level were important to us when we were young. Although she sat down next to me, she said nothing. And that made me a little nervous, but again this is colored by my adult consciousness.

Our third stop was Yadni's, which was strangely empty of newbies and griefers. There was just one avatar in search of a toaster. He claimed it was an emergency. Sometimes you just have to love SL.

All in all, I think my child avatar has affected me more than people I've interacted with. I feel an obligation to not incite other avatars into making sexual advances (by trying to strike up a conversation). I don't want to get too involved with other child avatars because I'm not going to be in this body much longer. Besides, I loathe babytalk. Not that I don't use babytalk, mind you. Worse than that, I use it in real life with my cats both talking to them and then answering myself. When I talk to children in my work capacity, I speak to them as short adults. I soften my voice, but I don't talk down to them. Most of the ones that talk to me speak in what appear to be non-sequiturs, but not babytalk.

Okay, maybe they say, "Where's fwoggy?" I respond with, "Mr. Toad? He went home [aka: dropped dead]. We have tadpoles now. Did you see the tadpoles?" "I see one. I have a cat." "That's nice. I have two cats." "My uncle's in jail." Pause. "How interesting." You learn so much about kids' families, especially in the puppet theatre. Kids are like little tape recorders, witness this exclamation from a very small child: Very small annoyed child in puppet theatre: Gah-dam oo, immah haahse! [Goddam you, in my house!]. Well, if they aren't going to mince words, why should I?

I will be so glad to get out of this body, put on another inch and a half, some knockers, and go find someone to flirt with me (although they apparently have to tell me that's what they're doing, which explains a lot about my dating problems in my pre-married existence). Being a kid? It's not for everyone.

Poster at the entrance to Second Life Children where "kid" avatars can meet under safe conditions and give each other support.

It's About Time

2008-05-22T21:04:00.001-07:00

I've been annoying my co-workers with all this Second Life stuff and they're tired of it, I'm sure. I had meant to create a new blog for commentary on my adventures in Second Life, but only now am getting around to it.
I can hear the collective sigh of relief from my workplace. They won't have to wade through the SL stuff anymore. I tried, lord knows I tried, to interest people in this, but they didn't even fall for the Religion in Second Life slideshow I did.
Oh well.