Time for a Change

Spring comes to Awen.

Lludmila spends so much of her time in the skybox and tp'ing to the Pub for her discussions, that she was unaware that spring had come to Awen and new neighbors.  She looked at her little red vardo, which was just a launching pied-á-terre for the skybox, and the redness of it seemed to clash with her neighbor's house and all the greenery springing up.  We scoured her inventory for something small and suitable.

Cute little one-room cottage. Be sure to ring the bell!

 This little house seemed perfect.  We had trouble deciding on orientation.  Lludmila likes a view of the ocean, but a cottage of this size does not have a lot of room for windows.  We wrestled with it, but in the end decided to put the more interesting side towards the public area.

View of cottage from south and then north. See the problem?

 I would not live in a house like the above in RL(tm).  Air and light are critical to my well-being.  Then I remembered the portable window that was getting dusty in the inventory.  I pulled it out and deployed it.  It was a forest scene with a window frame overlay.  I ran through some photos I'd uploaded and while the view of the Great Wall of China sim made for an interesting view, it wasn't satisfactory.  So, I sent Lludmila outside, pulled out the sailboat and Lludmila pushed it into position.  I took a series of photos of different "times of day" and uploaded them.  Now Lludmila has a legitimate view of her ocean and the little house is not so claustrophobic.

The solution!

Viewer Mania

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.

*** 4Kittens of the Apocalypse has a prim retriever HUD that has my name written all over it.

Happy Halloween!

Kathy Shares ...

Zombie sandals courtesy of SSUS.

Whoops! Forgot to post this one!

Nearsighted Zombie Spends 20 Minutes Trying to Seduce the Phlogistigen Pump

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

Pickled Spooky

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 ...

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

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!