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30 December 2004

 
SimCast


The evil eye tracks you with its red beam.

The teleport site is the blue area, which has a sword in a stone.


There's been a lot of trouble in Sector E, but I don't feel like writing about it. Have a nice day.



29 December 2004

 
Slaving away for SimCast. Yadni IMed me to inquire about things and I asked him if they were going to bug me -- told him not to as I'd bite. We had agreed I'd have 3men/3women outfits in a week -- however it hasn't been near a week and they are pressing. They want to know what my concept is, so I suppose it may be all right THIS ONCE. I don't like being bugged about things when I'm trying to work. Made some nice things, though -- I am expanding into the fantasy more, plus SimCast has all types of people. I made a blacksmith, a Celtic woman, a Viking woman (pleated dress with blue apron), a Viking dude, a very fancy and ridiculously hard to make Lady. I am going to make an evil warrior tomorrow. My spidey sense tells me to exaggerate a little, and I'm researching clothing, which I've always enjoyed doing.

Beneath the spreading chestnut tree the village smithy stands...

Looks better on a man.

I was hiding out trying to work but I just wind up getting pulled into helping noobs. Uh... I also won 2 giant snail races and got a super snail carriage from RacerX, hung paintings in Shan's gallery, where Sprite tracked me down. We went off to Chase's Manhattan, but it was not her cup of tea.



27 December 2004

 
Met the man behind SimCast yesterday and spent some time wandering around the three sims. I was presented with a chance to be on the design team, which would suit me.



26 December 2004

 
Marilee is coming over at one -- that's good as I've been missing her. I'm reeling from the strain of having visitors Thursday-Friday-Saturday and now today! All I do is nothing, really, but it still tires me out. I suppose it was running about cleaning and doing laundry in my pathetic way that makes me tired before people arrive, then I'm such an introvert that being with anyone is exhausting. Of course, no one who knows me would believe that -- in fact I remember saying to a friend when we were 12 years old, "I'm shy," which caused her to burst out laughing. Be that as it may, I'm not a person who recharges energy in a crowd; I require gobs of alone-ness to be happy. I love to see friends, then I have to crawl into my hole again. Hard - considering that until I was about 36 I had more energy than the next 5 people put together, and took it for granted.



25 December 2004

 
This morning I awoke to Looper on the answering machine singing Feliz Navidad. I rang her back and said it was too early in the day for her to be so drunk. Then I watched part of The Hard Nut loaned to me by SWMNBMIMB. I made another wizard robe for Darklife, and then Con, Dave, Amanda, Sam, and E came over and everyone was very nice and gave me things like presents and food. And they'd stopped at the Loopers, who'd sent along a present and a lot of food, too. People are nice to me -- it's amazing. Sam had gone in Second Life at his house and tried to find me. I showed him around a little bit (he's very new to the game). I had a lovely time, then they left and I went in Second Life to set up the outfit in my store and whatnot. After a time I went out and ate some groovy, groovy food from thoughtful friends. At some point I went back in Second Life and was at Gravity goofing around when a lot of payments came in from someone buying my clothes. It was a very high-profile, longtime player, a Frenchman, who bought every outfit. Shortly after that I was busy smiting monsters with my double-bladed axe when he IMed me and asked if I had any other clothes in Second Life. I told him I had a few things at my gallery. He told me he loved my stuff and wanted me to be part of Simcast. He's building the "evil side" he said. He came out to the swamp and talked to me for a bit, then rushed off and bought a toreador's suit of lights and a piece of my artwork at my gallery. I was rather amazed to have impressed someone who is as inventive and experienced as he is. How cool! Simcast is another larger and more elaborate role-playing game that covers 3 sims and has a craft system. I snuck in there a few days ago - I was thundering around the area around the telehub, figuring out how to get into the closed area (which I did), when a stranger gave me a positive rating (I presumed it was because I hit the ground running and figured out where the hidden stairs were). Upon looking at his profile I saw it was the man behind Simcast. That's who Yadni wants me to meet.



24 December 2004

 
Michael took this screenshot today when I was showing SJ and him around Second Life.


 

Os surveying the swamp in Darklife. The code-containing rucksack is the key to the game. The green things are potions and the blue is mana. Os is in the middle of level 10, and is killing pesky mantises. I had a rough time when my coded things didn't load yesterday, and I was killed several times and lost about 700 points, but I figured out what was wrong after a while. Once I was killed by backing into a rather agressive plant.

Can't wear the specs and my cat ears unless I change the attachment point, which I don't have much inclination to do.

Taylor's alt IMed me to ask if I'd texture a gun he'd made. I did, usung textures I had - not being inclined to go custom. Too much to do.

SWMNBMIMB came over with HDWAMNBMIMB (her daughter who also must not be mentoned in my blog). Brought me stew in a crock pot as a present. Yum.



22 December 2004

 

A nice Xmas message:


Dear Vivian,

Accept our congratulations with coming Holidays!

We wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New year!

Let new 2005 year will bring good changes, luckiness and a lot of love in your life. We Sincerely wish you strong health, optimism, success in all projects, realization of your hopes and desires.

-Hearty yours, Lugansk Art Gallery

Better than I could do in their language.




21 December 2004

 

Big snowball fight today between the Lindens and us. At one point a window popped up as I was fighting that said Philip Linden* had hit me with a scripted object and asked if I wanted to file an abuse report. It was fun. I creamed Andrew Linden, and I could hear Bub but couldn't see him. Bub was fighting with YELLOW snowballs. Enj was so amazed that I'd never been to a wedding - well, I have been invited to my first wedding but I think she and I move in different circles as the "wedding thingy" (groom's words) is between Mr. Torture and Vampira,, his beloved. I was in Navora doing my low-level rat-slasher gig when I got a call from Torture asking if I'd come to his spike event. I just went to be supportive, but it was interesting, somewhat. I hadn't spoken with Mr. T for a while - we're just mild acquaintances from the Fantasy Castle, but I always liked him as he laughed at my comments. In second Life people play around in all kinds of things that are rather creepy, like master-slave things and dungeons, etc. Someone who was master-someone arrived (I'd seen him in Navora) in an ultra-shiny suit of armour. I couldn't help but think ill of him as he obviously thought he was wonderful. I told him to watch out in case someone wanted to drain spaghetti (he looked like a collander to me) but unfortunately he popped out at that second, and popped right back in - missing my quip. I wonder what the draw is for the "slave?" Being a "Master" provides strokes for the obnoxious - I see that. I saw a fellow debasing himself at Gravity the other night - unpleasant to be around.

*our fearless leader

Oh I forgot to say that one of the Winter Festival thingies (meant in a non-matrimonial way) is a booth selling "lemon" snowcones, and there were more than a few yellow snowballs being chucked about today.


 
Another warrior suit.


I used the skirt layer for belts and things.

It's kind of weird - Star trek -y. It can be modified in many ways - sleeve length, flares, trouser length, etc.



20 December 2004

 
I just saw the news that Renata Tebaldi died yesterday. Farewell, o diva.



19 December 2004

 
I made a few new things including:

and
Making things match up across the body-piece lines is hard enough, but there's also the distortion from movement and the contures of the body. And there's the distortion that happens when the sleeves have a pattern -- of course, they are the arm-sized sleeves in the preview. I'm also working on the custom avatar which is incredibly hard. He's wearing a little capelet that took me hours to get right -- and that's just one small part.

Anj emailed me and said my brother is able to email again (he went through a five minute phase about 5 years ago -- I think I only got one but then I was there part of the time). I emailed him immediately, so I might hear back soon!



18 December 2004

 
A nice Hamlet Linden piece about the shared avatar Wilde Cunningham. Wilde is 9 disabled adults in a care center. The impetus behind the inworld experiment was provided by my new neighbor* lilone Sandgrain.

*lilone bought the property that had been used by the massively ugly Fantasy Castle. Just to tell how one can adapt to things, I'd been sad that F. Castle moved in as it was so big and crude, but I decided to go hang out there and dance since it was next door. I got to know some of the people just a bit. Then it was not making a go of it and was untenanted most of the time. One day it was for sale, then it sold and the ugly build disappeared. After I spent 5 seconds being sad and adjusting to the restoration of the skyline, I IMed lilone and welcomed her to the neighborhood. I still haven't met her, but since I have heard about Wilde I look forward to doing so even more than I had originally.



17 December 2004

 
Anji and her family visited Melbourne from Brisbane, where they'd moved 5 months ago. This is my brother and my great niece AKA Steven and Caitlin. Makes me cry.

So I immediately put it in Second Life.

This morning:



16 December 2004

 
I made the plug smoke a little for effect. I was in a sandbox working on my cat and a boy asked, "Excuse me, can I test my gun on you?" I said, "No." Then he didn't shoot me anyway, which I appreciated. I've been shot a few times while I was busy working. Went to Navora and was working putting clothes in boxes, when someone started talking to me. It wound up being a long meandering conversation with four people, then when we were back down to two again I was told that I knew her from another world -- "I'll give you a clue." From the visual clue I instantly knew my friend Soc! W00t!! She's building the new packpack for Darklife. I'm very happy to see her!

I sold an outfit to someone who wants a minor alteration, and Tay IMed me and asked me to do another avatar. He said, "from now on im only making avatars with you other people just cut the textures out of the pics i give them and the clothes come out like crap but you make yours custom and with awesome detail."
Osprey Therian: just your luck I'm a perfectionist

I got a letter-card-photo from Anj yesterday, so I put the photo in a silver frame and put in on the table in my display.

Talked to Mr Monster as the kids weren't going inworld for sure. I hung out in there but no one showed.




 

Look here to learn about the history of Watch Night.


 
Riding a snowflake -- Tiger Crossing's fab winter fest snow sculpture. I was jumping the gun as it doesn't actually start until Saturday.

I'm working on my scene, and I'm almost finished. It has a falling-over tree, wrecked wrapping, spilled milk, ornaments all over -- and a cat sleeping peacefully with a halo over its head.
I put in a couple of my cards from the Monsters.



Looking down: I need to make more presents, and I'd like to spend a bit of time making my cat more sophisticated. It has a nice gestural quality but is crudely built. I'd never made an animal before and it's not bad even if I don't do anything to it. I also have a bit of script-stuff to add - particles for the crashed xmas lights shorting out, and if I have time I originally wanted the cat's tail to move up and down at the tip.


 
Just came home from jin shin. The world outside the windows is white, like I'm floating inside a cloud. I love that.

I always thought it was cool that I'm an artist instead of, say, a ballerina or any other discipline with a curtailed career-span. I wondered how a person could bear not being able to do whatever s/he'd trained for.
Since then I've had to deal with not being able to use my right hand. I've always tended towards ambidexterity without actually being ambidextrous (I know lots of people who don't really use their off hand for anything much) -- perhaps because riding requires using entire body. I am glad I can use the computer to make my artwork now, and everything I make, I make with my left hand. I also keyboard with my left hand, which is much slower than a proper two-handed method. It means I don't function very well in places where lots of people are kb-ing ideas rapidly, and responding to the ideas of others as soon as they read them, like the Thinkers group in Second Life. Thinkers ponder many interesting ideas, but the time I went my words (should've been a Listener not a Thinker) came out far after the words that had prompted me to respond, so it looked like I was saying something (and I was vastly simplifying anyway in the interest of speed) about the words just above my words.
DIGRESSION: What movie was that (The Boy With the Green Hair?) in which someone answered questions before they were asked, or something -- out of sync, anyway.
There's a small group of artists who have had to deal with the unexpected loss of the particular ability they need to do their chosen artform, requiring them to change and adapt and keep on making art. I seem to belong to that group.

All this is leading up to one thing: It's Beethoven's birthday.



15 December 2004

 

After work I went into Second Life to work on my holiday tradition scene. I got the land assignment yesterday -- 256 sq. metres in Moritz with around 1600 prims (w00t!). I was doing what to me is the slog-fest of tree-decorating. As I was making ornaments Enjah IMed and asked me to TP her sdo I could see her new dress. She'd been at a wedding. I said I'd never been to a virtual wedding, which made her exclaim, "You're kidding!" I'm really not very social. I like going to places to take classes or work, but that's about it.
Enjah built an extremely groovy cat-smashed gift for me -- very nice. And an ornament.
I put the xmas scene out even though it's not finished. I was getting tired of dragging it in and out of my inventory.
Second Life did an update that has some cosmetic changes, and other things -- I'm not sure what, now, as I read the list yesterday when I had a huge headache, and I think I rolled some things into this update that were actually 8in the last one.
The evil Medicaid people are having their revenge on me by taking this room away -- now I have to to the clay room, which is bad in that it's a long trek and not near a bathroom, but good in not being hot. This room has f*cked up my health even more than it would've become effed up by itself, since extremely hot temperatures and neurological ailments don't mix well. When I was first in the room a teacher (I was working with her class) told me, "I'm sorry I disappeared -- it was so hot I thought I was going to faint." Oh, well. Too late now.



13 December 2004

 
I just got home -- as I was driving in I saw a grouse on the right side of the driveway. I've never seen a grouse here before. It was amazing to spot it at all since they are quite camoflaged. Last week I saw a beaver dead in the road. Also a first, but not a happy one.



12 December 2004

 
Got up at 10am which is too early since I went to be at 4. At about 3:30 I was in Navora and ran into Stephen, who was the fellow I TPed to the genprim demonstration last week. I had mentioned him to Pirate, and now he's making weapons and building monsters with Mark. He showed me the monster they're working on, and asked me if I could understand something Mark had said to him about the eyebrows. However, it made no more sense to me than to Stephen. I tried to sit on the monster but couldn't. He's having trouble catching Pirate online as they are at opposite ends of the clock.
Tidied up a wee bit as my bottom-of-the-house neighbor was supposed to be bringing 2 artists over at 2, but they never came (which was ok except I like to know ahead of time one way or the other). I worked on the evil science project form for Cornell. I'd email Mr. Monster the other day with my idea for how it could be done. I rang him today and we discussed it a bit. I can't produce content (I'm not there to get people to write reports or make graphs even supposing I had a clue about it anyway) but I am the queen of form. I can see it in my head (I can always see anything I'm doing like this), and my big main thing that I will have to struggle to attain is that the freaking thing NOT BE BORING. I see that the most used solutions to problems are the easiest and most boring. Like: we have to present information so let's make a long straight line of boring SIGNS. I did the form and sent it to MrM, and he will change whatever he wants changed and send it to The Mentors. We had to sign up for a community event thing.

Did some other things... went to the Olde London sim as it's coming down this week.

I fogot to say -- I signed up for the winter exhibition thing that the Lindens are putting on at the ski lodge. I spent some hours working on my scene even though I don't know how much space or how many prims we can use (but it's all building experience even if I have to start over). My scene is (in holiday traditions category) a decorated xmas tree askew in its stand. The carpet around it is strewn with broken ornaments and shredded wrapping paper, and a cat lies there sleeping peacefully.

This was a holiday tradition when I was growing up, anyway. Every morning the tree would have to be shoved back up. We always hung the fragile ornaments on the upper tree, and the unbreakable things on the lower tree, as they wound up being cat toys. Sometimes the cats managed to bring the tree down. Well, maybe once.
I spent hours in sandboxes, and it was amazing that people kept talking to me when I wasn't really there. I met a noob boy and sent him to Backstage, which he came back from to report on its awesomeness. Actually I met several noob boys who were looking for people to do things with. I was busy, but I gave one boy (who had three guns on) a whole folder of weapons (which I gave to him 3 times - he couldn't find it - but he will eventually). I tried to send him to Jessie (war sim). It's hard work trying to get rid of people.
I found this game in Island Sandbox just now:

I met Bub Linden the other day and he gave me some shirts. This is Osprey wearing a shirt from Bub, having altered her look to be in keeping stylistically.

I told Enj the other day to make a sepia-toned photo of Enjah's ancestors to hang over the mantel in her new house, and she might do it. I thought it would be a good idea for a photo-studio business.



11 December 2004

 
SWMNBMIMB came over today -- woohoo! We had a roflingly good time, and, as is usual for my visitors she brought food with her. We laughed... we cried... I mean we both cry and laugh at the drop of a hat so that's what we do every time we are together. She and Mr. SWMNBMIMB had been to the exoneration of Chief Leschi the day before, and she said the lawyer who gave the closing argument was eloquent. Then we worked on her website things for a while and I forced her to have a blog (I didn't FORCE her force her, I just argued eloquently). I got ridiculously exhausted, then she gathered all my recycling up and left. I'd said I had too much for her to take at once, but she thought it wasn't much at all. Yay!
Update: Then I took a nap for several hours, woke up at 10 pm, and stayed up fiddling with her website and playing in SL until 4 am.



09 December 2004

 
Today I went into Wa He Lut world to meet the children. Leslie was there, too. It was pretty hard, as usual -- although tater tot got cracking and added on to his house (filling it inexplicably with stairs placed to look like bleachers). Jos made his basement even finer. timothylove75 didn't do much, but she did duplicate some walls. Inuyasha seemed to be absorbing the energy in the computer lab. She deleted everything she'd made last time, and then her computer froze up. rockinlobster was a pill. Oh well. They function very well when I'm there with them. I'll just have to keep slogging away at it and try to get them independent one-by-one.



08 December 2004

 
Went to work.. um... I had Josiah and Vincent and was getting them up to speed in Wa He Lut world. First time I'd met Josiah, who is awesomely cool and quick to pick up things. Vincent was supreme, and totally GOT what I was explaining. I told him about selecting more than 1 thing, and he selected half his roof, duplicated it, swiveled it onto the opposite wall... very good. Josiah is building a basement. He roamed the worlds until he found a suitable wall, then used it. Erika has got the idea, and has seen some mega-houses that she wants to emulate. Halisa is not as engaged as I'd hoped... but is working. Tomorrow will, I hope, be all right.
Came home. Bad traffic. Got in SL and was TPed to Enj's new apartment (she'd just built it in her gallery). I got into a verrry long IM with a fellow who bought 2 warrior outfits and wants to buy more for his girlfriend. Or whatever. Went to Backstage (the gigantic things) to see the inside of the couch (snow scene) and the bottom desk drawer (sculpture). Signed up on forum for the winter fair -- so I'll be building something with a winter/traditional holiday theme. The other choice was ice sculpture, but I decided the former held more scope.
Shavela is starting here:

Erika has assembled some things she likes.

Vincent is on his way.

Halisa always comes up with something cool.

Josiah's basement:



06 December 2004

 
The tallest building in Second Life, Megatower 1, was demolished today. It was sad, as it's been around for a while. I went to watch the demolition. Because this is Second Life Hank blew the building to bits then had it rebuild itself so it could be blown apart 4 or 5 more times.







05 December 2004

 
Went to Voss to try out the dogsled that was a Christmas present to SLers from Garth and Pituca. Rode around a bit, then donned the giant snail avatar and went thundering about at a fast pace. At one point I gallumphed past two men, and got a positive rating because, as they wrote, "That's so kewl!"

Here I am on top of a house. The eyes, on the top of those stalks, have long lashes and blink.


 
>>>>>> Interesting blog <<<<<<


THESE are cool.


 
Dave and Rach's new lake view

Taken a while ago -- the water level is higher right now.


 
Hmmm... yesterday I was in a giant snail race around Chase's Manhatten. I came in third. The giant snail avatars are made by RacerX. Went to another genprim thing, and sat on wild genprims. Got flattened by one. Had TPed a fellow I'd just met, and then ran into him again later at the Escher Pavilion... Opening of Darklife ... Pirate asked me to give away some outfits, which made me go into a berserk and manic permissions-changing rush because everything was set to copy and each outfit has about 10 parts. I JUST got the perms changed then gave them away in a lame-@ss fashion since no prep time to think of anything. Pirate asked me if I do events, which elicited a "Who? Me?" from me as I'm about as antisocial as I can possibly be while still taking part in things. Mark had made a special flesh-toned, triple-eyed, potato-like monster that attacked the town. I was changing perms so missed it, mostly. It was 4 in the morning, I think someone said, for Mark.

Smashed by a genprim!*
*Genprims are the scripted prims that are artificially alive in a rudimentary way. They can move, procreate, reflect physical properties. Rhu is working all the time to increase their range of abilities.



03 December 2004

 
Friday... let's see... went to the opening of Red River with Shan and Enj. It's wild west-themed ... uh... place. We started dancing to no music, then they put on some (seemed to me) bad music, so I asked them to put on Club Topsy Radio, which they did. Then about 20 more people turned up and we danced and talked with great hilarity. Brace was there as a (male) gunslinger, Enj undressed to her lingerie as a bordello-bad-girl... the lag was horrible, and I kept trying to remove my hat -- Enjah then told me I was NOT WEARING a hat but was smoking 2 cigarettes in holders (and sent me a screenshot to prove it). I gave a few cigarette holders away, which cracked me up -- Shan and I have been ruminating about starting a 1920s-30s -40s glamour movement as an offbeat counter to the SL norm (goths, furries, cyberpunks, vampires) so maybe that's the start of it.

< << Evidence from Enj


 
Now WHERE WAS I before the server went down...



02 December 2004

 
Caitlin's Class (in Bris.)


 
Got IMed by a stranger who turned out to be the fellow I made the special outfit for. He'd got banned for three days for running around naked -- well, if you run around nude in a PG sim it shows a distinct lack of maturity so it was deserved, I reckon. He was a 'stranger' as he'd made an alt to get around the ban. I went to ss my table in Navora, then made a sliced apple and a mousehole...

That's my one-prim table...

 

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I want to ask for thoughts about improving the world -- what do people need? How can things be organised?