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30 September 2005

 
Last night I ran into Sel and he asked me if I'd had news of Enjah - I said, "Not since Saturday," and we both made sad faces:( Then Enjah sent me an email - she was driving back to Houston from Dallas today and would see me some time. I IMed Sel in case he hadn't heard. This morning there was an IM from him thanking me as he's going away for a couple of days and it was nice to not need to worry. Then I was in Grignano and Enjah turned up! Yay! We went over to the new art museum Lordfly built across the street, then Alex called me and we were having a long, involved, crucial conversation when there was a fire drill. Bad timing. I waited a long time then called - spoke to Tiff and Alex. Hung up, then Alex rang me again as he didn't see a document I'd recommended he use. I emailed it to him. I reiterated that I absolutely have to have Tater every Tuesday from 1:45 to 2:45 and would he please get that schedule to the teacher. Tater is the student leader for the virtual world science program this year, so his class has to be coordinated with Cornell University and the 5th grade class. No leeway. On Thursdays I'll be meeting 5th grade from my house, and Tater may or may not be able to be there. Tiff has her motorcycle road test tomorrow and she may buy one of her own (this all relates to Brad and his Harley). Tiff has been seeking medical relief from a back/hip pain caused by lack of space for nerves within the bone (I believe she said), but hasn't had any results. Meanwhile Looper is battling extreme pain from the m.s. that has her wearied and disheartened and unable to find relief. I've got a lot from the m.s. and the hepC, but I think Looper has much more. I dug up a thing that says "Don't take ibuprofen!!!" if one has hepC as it results in 10X the viral load. But the good news was that they claimed it was all right to take tylenol. At least tylenol takes a bit of the edge off the pain - that is totally groovy when I have to go staggering around making a living even though I should not be required to.



29 September 2005

 
Pea Patch Island
I was nearly right:

"The War of 1812, which included the burning of Washington DC and bombardment of Baltimore, propelled America into a frenzy of coastal defense, and the first fortification of Pea Patch Island took place in 1813. A plan was adopted by Congress in 1816 to build 200 coastal forts, and about forty of them were actually completed by the time of the Civil War. In essence, these forts were huge walls of bricks with a concrete outer shell, holding a couple dozen very large cannons and a parade ground.

The river defenses of Philadelphia were provided by three forts, Fort DuPont at the mouth of the old Delaware-Chesapeake canal, Fort Delaware on the island, and Fort Mott on the New Jersey side. You can now take a ferry between all three, between April and September; it’s a pleasant afternoon excursion. Not so many years ago, you had to go into an ominous little taproom in Delaware City and ask in a loud voice if someone wanted to take you to Pea Patch in a fishing boat. The scene was reminiscent of old movies about derelicts hanging out in Key West, complete with George Raft and Earnest Hemingway, but now the National Park Service has given it the characteristic NPS sprucing up, with pamphlets and rest rooms.

The place never had any serious military activity except when it was used to house Confederate prisoners after the Battle of Gettysburg. Over 12,000 prisoners were brought there, and there were about 3,000 deaths among them. Historians have compared the treatment of Confederate prisoners with the treatment of Union prisoners at Andersonville, Georgia, but it’s hard to say which place was worse. There are certain diseases of poor sanitation, like typhoid, cholera, amoebic and bacillary dysentery, and hepatitis, which decimate all concentration camps at all times. And adding to them the mosquito-borne diseases of both Delaware and Georgia at the time, you don’t really need to assert that there was a lot of prisoner mistreatment to account for the morbidity and mortality. Undoubtedly there was some of that."



 
Today I went to jin shin, came home for half an hour, then went off to my dentist's place for a checkup. She wasn't there - I told them to tell it was ok ONCE in... well 15 years or more, but not to do it again. She went fly-fishing, they said. I had my nice usual fang scraper, and things were good although I admitted I've been lax for about the past two years. "I'm only human!" They accepted that, especially since things were fine anyway. The OTHER dentist came in and told me things looked good (I had her fooled) but told me I have to go and get a place in my cheek I bit one day checked out. Rats! More work! She thought it would be best (since work just changed their insurance) to use it as a way to check out the new plan, rather than have her send me to an oral surgeon as she said, "Usually medical is better than dental insurance and this is not a tooth." She was insistant as it's her gig - she sees things like lumps mutate into not nice things all the time. I said OK and if it didn't work out I'd ask for a referral at my next dental checkup.

Then I did 4-bags-full of grocery shopperama-ing, drove home and threw it all in the fridge (or wherever it belonged). It's raining - was raining heavily last night, too. Of course, every year when it rains after a dry period there are a bazillion car crashes. I know not why that happens in this area, but it does, every year.

I've been playing phone tag with the school photographer but finally got him. I'd had the message to call him on Tuesday. Every year we get a CD all the school photos on them. Last year we got a CD with about 25% of the photos - so I had poor Rosanne take pictures of everyone in the school. Well, you can't have 10 kids in September shots and 10 kids in March shots - they look totally different. Last year, I should add, the photographer's studio changed hands. Anyway, he thought at first I needed or wanted something different or special - I had to say, "No - I just need exactly what you sent me only with all the photos on it, not just a few." Meh. He asked me what company we use for our yearbook. I said we do it ourselves - apparently most schools go the crap route of canned yearbooks. Meh. I don't understand having low standards - why bother?

I talked to Tiff yesterday. The beloved dog of bf Brad from Arizona (who is living with her while he builds a house - it's too complicated to explain at this point but as Tiff says, "It was my idea.") has become so elderly it has no poo control. As someone from the country I have difficulty understanding why people keep animals going past the time at which they would naturally have kicked the bucket. It could be part of the extreme fear thing I see all round me - people clinging to their animals as though they are stuffed toys. I'm not meaning Brad and his dog, actually - since I've never met Brad's dog. I have known some extreme examples, though, and it just brought them to mind. I knew a woman who kept her old point-to-point horse alive with liver injections and the like because she just could not let go. Alive - well, barely - and an ancient, infirm horse is a very sad thing to see.

I wrote this then it disappeared. I hit "recover post" and half of it came back - the first time ever that anything good came from that button! w00t!


 
Preview 1.7
My island in the "P." I'm the yellow dot - shows direction of my gaze.
New-fangled map
Testing area - each box contains a test that requires one or more testers. I did one, but it took me forever as I had to re-install the program every time I (when told to by the test) logged out. I had to re-install because the updater thought it had to run but was stymied - most likely fixed by now. Not a big deal.
Cubey's shop was gone from the main grid but is preserved in amber on the preview grid (for the moment).

LL updated the preview so I downloaded the installer and went in to see what was what. Of course, everything built in the last preview grid was deleted (well, they did a sim state save for one sim so you could stow your gear there if it was necessary - my stuff was all just junk) so I went looking for land to buy. I wanted an island, so first I headed to the middle of the "R" but it was occupado, so I bought the middle of the "P" instead, and named it Peapatch Island after that island in the Delaware that (reportedly) had started when a barge of peas ran aground. I liked Peapatch Island a lot - it wound up fairly big and in the American Civil War had a Confederate fort on it last lasted about 5 minutes before being turned into a prison camp for Confederate soldiers. I remember goats, too. One had to go there by boat - well it was early in its tourist life when I used to go there a million years ago. The boat went from... hmmm... Delaware City maybe?



28 September 2005

 
A lot of things going on in SL - the only one I care about is that Cubey is retiring. I wish him well. Cubey started way back in the long ago days and wound up setting the standard for aircraft and submarines. He has a wonderful sense of style, and has added to SL in many ways that don't all add up to content creation by any means. He's had an aura of disheartenment floating around his forum posts for a while. I hope he just gets a secret alt and does things purely for fun, out of the spotlight. My hat's off to you, Cubey!

My Cubey Ornithopter


Also - originally the Linden was just play money for inworld use. The Linden Lab asked two players to make an exchange outside of SL so the L could be traded for USD. They did, the GOM, and it worked well, but many, many players didn't realise there was a way to buy L if they wished to buy something. Many players won't go outside to buy currency even if they know they can. Linden Lab announced they would begin to offer within the interface a way for residents to sell or buy from each other - something that seems like it will be a good thing, but which was regarded as LL stabbing players in the back and recreating their project. The original exchange - and those men have been really good, honest, trustworthy businessmen - decided to close their business and told everyone so, adding that they'd allow time for everyone to get their L out even if they stopped trading. It's hard to argue with the disheartened founders, but many see the closing as unnecessary as they believe many people would have, by choice, continued using the service. Economics is horrible. In this case it might be to the L benefit to be traded less than openly.

Meanwhile the L has taken a nosedive, freefalling in the panic space between the announcement and the opening of the SL UI exchange. The drop began a little while ago, and it seemed that the GOM redesign that queued buying actually helped it drop. Originally one would post the amount of L for sale at, say, 4.00/1000L. There was a long list of sell orders. A buyer could buy any of those sell lots, but couldn't buy just part of one. This encouraged things like volume discount. If one wanted 1000L one might pay a high price, but if one needed 100,000L the price was lower. GOM changed to a way they felt was more convenient for sellers/buyers: post your sell order and it goes in with all other L of that price. The sellers in first sold first, the later ones sold in order. Buyers chose, not a lot size, but a price. That's my understanding, anyway - if I'm wrong (wouldn't be the first time) someone set me straight.

I think that the L will straighten out at some point and that people should not get their knickers in a twist over this. I do have to wonder if rival currency exchangers dumped a lot of L on GOM to purposefully destroy the business. I guess if they did it worked.

Meanwhile Enjah has disappeared and I'm a bit worried...



27 September 2005

 

Heh.



26 September 2005

 
Pretending to be a teen...
OMG! LOL!

I went in the backdoor to the *new* Stagecoach Island - the Wells Fargo project that uses the Second Life platform and a custom build by Bedazzled as a way to teach money skills to teens. so - no, I'm not a teen, and we all know how I feel about Wells Fargo, but anyway, I went. I became Osprey Kipling and wandered for 35 seconds before I ran into a whole pack of main gridders. First I ran into Schwanson - "Are we all ringers?" "I don't know what you're talking about lol" Then I ran into Salazar, Ardith, RR, and a few real teens and an overworked Fargo employee trying to keep the peace. We shot ourselves across the sim countless times with the catapult, and roller skated around. Not all of us were well behaved (heh). I enjoyed the build - I think I'm slow on the uptake as I hadn't realised before that the main grid WA must've been built by Jimmy T - the cafe in this build looks just like it.



23 September 2005

 
Enjah emailed:
We are finally in Nacogdoches, about 75 or 80 miles from home. We left home at 8PM last night and got in about 3PM this afternoon. A lot of the time we were going 0-1 mph!

There are literally millions of ppl still trying to get out. Poor things!



22 September 2005

 
Second Life

I was IMing the people who said they want to participate in the photographers' expo I'm having - reminding those who hadn't yet sent me their things that I needed it. I talked to one woman who said she was in Houston getting ready for the hurricane. Things are rough. The disruption to the weather is going to cause, so they say, not an increase in the number of hurricanes but an increase in the hurricanes' power.

I have been giddy on the SL forum lately, for some reason. I made this and posted it:

It's a paper model of a plywood cube prim - a basic shape that is one of many we use to build everything in Second Life. The primitives are the cylinder, sphere, torus, etc., and with the building tools we shape and texture them into... hair, houses, spaceships, robots, shoes, animals, planets, trees, guns, ships, furniture, motorcycles, belly-button rings, steampunk accessories, Darth Vader-esque masks, flowers, bicycles, bondage devices, mailboxes, parachutes, Eiffel Tower, necklaces, submarines, skyboxes, etc. Amazing! Also fun. This sounds like a commercial -- so if you want to try Second Life - and it's free now, to join, go to Second Life
and tell them Osprey Therian referred you.



21 September 2005

 
Second Life

Enjah said:

We are eating dinner here, then driving north to a friend's house, so I will not be online until after HURRICANE RITA passes, and even then things are iffy at best.
Our house is VERY likely going to be flooded.

I have had two hotel reservations evaporate
just hoping that the newest one will last till we get there

have you SEEEEENNNNNN this THANG? it practically fills the entire gulf of mexico!
it is incredibly large and has a VERY tight well-organized eye
it went from Category 2 last night to Cat 5 this afternoon
well they are expecting hurricane force winds in 50 miles from the shore
the freeway is a parking lot



20 September 2005

 
First Life

Last night, for some unkown reason, the people below me were extremely noisy until about 2am or so - I woke up feeling horrid after a night of thrashing. Anyway, went off to work, and after I'd been there a few minutes (working on files blechh) Elizabeth M came in to see me. [She's the friend who was a nun when she started to work here, and invited me to dine at the priory. I said I'd like to, but added, "I'm not very religious," to which she replied, "It's ok - neither am I." Hah!] I asked if Mr. Yazzie is nice, and she said very nice indeed. I wonder how he came to be so far from home - I should ask if he's been here for a while.
Alex came in and saw me, "One of my favorite people!" Elizabeth said I was one of her favorites, too. Alex: "I was going to bring you a bouquet of roses..." Me: "But you didn't pass any cemetaries on the way to work." We had a good laugh. I guess I should've seen it coming - Alex has been made the teacher of 7th grade for half the day. Thanh is the other teacher.

It's a beautiful day - perfect weather. The lake is blue-green and choppy. It has always been a lovely drive out to my house - the towering trees refreshed the soul. I was shocked to see that there has been a huge amount of clearcutting that has - all of a sudden - destroyed trees, beauty, and the balm for the soul. Damn them all to Hell - those who hold the earth in such contempt.



18 September 2005

 
Second Life

The roundtable with Andrew Linden was today, at the time for the Logathon 4500 - 3 pm.


I felt like I know enough to make sense of what it said, but not nearly enough to actually formulate a useful question, so I mainly kept quiet. The talk was well worth it, even if there isn't much to be said, in some ways, about the future. Iron P put a transcript here.

Andrew is making Havok2 happen - which will be a fine thing, indeed. It was said it would be in 1.7 but wasn't ready - and such a complex thing would be hard to plug into a schedule exactly, I'm sure. It's interesting to see how SL changes and grows over time. One thing about SL, or anything, is that what it IS influences what it WILL BE in more ways than just the ability to change indicates. A change that's possible wouldn't be practical if it breaks, say, all the scripts, or makes it so all the clothing instantly doesn't fit the avatars. Some of that is inevitable - how else can change happen? It seems as though the stronger the hold of capitalism, the less people want to change. Understandably so -- but we need to make incremental changes, at least, or risk being rendered obsolete by a new world that is starting based on current technology and capacities, with lessons learned from every prior virtual world costing them nothing. I am looking forward eagerly to Havok2, but I admit to feeling trepidation about the new renderer. From what I've seen (long ago there were screenshots) we will have some major adjustments as the visual capacity will be much greater. For instance, now one isn't able to see the vast quantities of skyboxes - but they are clear with the new renderer. My trepidation is - I fully admit - completely without value. Human, but valueless - as we need to change and grow.

I went to Burning Life as it closes tomorrow, and took a few screenshots. I met up with Forcy and Way at the house, too, which was nice. Then I went to Keith E's collaborative "Pirate Cave" build and danced a while on the pirate ship that floats in the sky.






First Life

SWMNBMIMB came over yesterday and we did various things - looked at the children's drawings, talked about... They Who Must Not Be Mentioned In My Blog... wait... does that count as a mention?

I figured something out, perhaps... if I take ibuprofen the night before I go to school I actually sleep, and my arm doesn't go numb - then if I take it again before I go to school I have a reasonable day. I can't actually do that, or at least not very often, so I looked around to see if there are any herbalicious antinflammatory possibilities. I discovered with a bit of experimenting that something I'm supposed to be taking anyway (except I'm not very good taking things and will forget for... oh, 4 months or so at a time) works in a similar way. So that's good. Everything is interesting - fortunately.



16 September 2005

 
First Life

NO email from Alex telling me he had the drawings and I could drive in to get them. That is... hmmm... well, not helpful. I was waiting for the rest of the drawings before I asked an outside artist, but I wound up going ahead and asking SWMNBMIMB to come tomorrow. We had planned to meet anyway, and she has a lot of tech information to find out about a presentation she's giving, some of which I can help with. She promises me photos from my ex-student's wedding (her son), which is good.

Red ring around the moon. It's fabulously beautiful outside - the moon reflected in the lake.

Second Life

Enjah's in Idaho, so things are not quite as much fun as usual. Her son had open heart surgery on Tuesday - valve replacement - due to an infection. He came through all right, thank heavens.
Let's see... I keep going to SuperNova to vote on the resident-made SL trailers - which I've watched and were good. I didn't want to vote surrounded by the filmmakers (two times), then the voting machine was clogged (now mended), and now I should go and do it. I started making films when I first got here - partly reflex as I had done a ton of video for years, until I got too feeble, etc. I used to teach the children to make animation movies and we had a blast. They'd edit them, adding sound, special effects, titles, etc., on the computer. After we lost our little movie studio room (where we could leave things out) things got really tough. We had to share the room with Skunky, and that meant everything was touched and moved and broken and taken. Then we stopped making movies entirely. I've been thinking about reviving the practice. Might.

Mr. Monster emailed me that we are back in the Cornell virtual worlds program. I keep twisting my brain trying to figure out how this is happening - Mr. Monster doesn't teach 7th, now - he has 5th. The program is really for high school children, I had thought. We had a tough time with 7th-8th graders. Are we now going to have 5th graders? Dunno, dunno.
Oops - that was the other life.

I meant to say I have thought about the movie-making aspect of Second Life and unless I get a great idea that won't let me rest, I am happy not doing video anymore. It was fine, it was good. Still images, though - I'm obsessed by those. I get interested periodically in animated texture, too (like the static-y TVs in Burning Life).

Angel S had a look in the cave, which was nice. She said, "The trunk's empty!" I accidentally ran into a stranger in there, too - someone who'd just bought some things from me at another store. She must've read my profile.

I made a letter to Osprey and put it in the trunk. An old envelope, that it. I have a vague idea of doing something... a coupon?... as a little hidden thing people can find... not sure how to do it, though. I could just make a free outfit... well, I will have to think.

Odil L startled me by jokingly telling me I'm so talented that if I weren't so nice she'd hate me. Am I nice? I try to be reasonable. I have learnt by experience that a moment's hot temper will be regretted for ages. That must be the wisdom that comes from being a bazillion years old.



15 September 2005

 
First Life

This morning I had jin shin - Frank's been away for a (to me) long time, so I was happy to finally see him. "I've got bad news," he said. "I'm going to be in a class all next week, and Berdie will be in the class, too." Oh, no problem - I've been managing to straggle along.

Then I went home, did who-knows-what, and then drove to my beloved hair-cutter-dudes for a haircut. Their parrot is developing its neckring. Um... after that I FINALLY went food shopperating. Finally - although I think it's rather interesting to have, say, rice and jam or some weird combo for dinner as that's all that's in the house. Not fun beyond a few days, however. We are all spoiled, anyway.

Second Life

Gak - I got everything returned from two markets in the past couple of days - sent back to clear the markets to be rebuilt. That's a pain - putting things in place takes forever - at least an hour. I spent more time adding things to the new shop. So far no one has been in it - hah. I made the old trunk that featured in Chest of Deceotion open. I added it to the cave, but I had to put it in the part that's mine, as Art has disallowed scripting. Some things work when you rez them from inventory - others don't. Not sure why. Spent some time figuring out a few very basic particle rules, and made a dripping-from-the-ceiling particle effect for the cave.



14 September 2005

 
Fecund Life... err... maybe I need more coffee...



13 September 2005

 
First Life

Went to work hoping Alex would have some drawings for me. Walked in and saw a packet of eighth grade drawings - really terrible ones. Saw Alex and he said he had seventh grade but that was all. I asked him to round up some classes so I could have a drawing session for the still life art test. I got fourth and fifth, and they were fun. I gave them a big long spiel about drawing and textures and using their pencils and tightrope walking and entering the zone where one concentrates and how a drawing should be interesting to look at, foremost.. They were groovy and did some nice drawings. There are a couple of quite possible arty types. Alex, spurred on by my example, thinks he can do the remaining classes by the end of the week, at which point I'll execute a drive-by and pick them up. This is phase 1 - to see if some potential students pop up. One girl who is rather good is a new student - so this drawing exercise is useful as we found her. I told Alex he would be, in effect, looking for those artistic students all year as he will be teaching art classes to all. Sad diminishment in student art skills - they had been really excellent when I was teachinng them all. Ah, well.

We have a principal! It's Mr. Yazzie! I've never met him, but he arrived this year to teach grade seven. So - gained a principal looking for a teacher.

After thinking that because school has my fingerprints I didn't need to be fingerprinted again - but according to the receptionist (who is new although not to me as she worked at school years ago) I am to go and do it again. This time it's FEDERAL fingerprints she said - so I must look out my federal fingers.

Stopped on the way home and got an Asian salad at J-in-the-boite as I hadn't had any food in the house.

Second Life

Logged in to am IM from someone wanting a custom design on an outfit. Did that in between trying to TP to a Katrina fundraiser. Finally got there but was too crowded, so I didn't try to get back in after crashing.



12 September 2005

 
First Life

My birthday - eh. Connie came over and we laughed a lot. She changed my lightbulbs. I hadn't seen her for ages.

Another Giant House Spider - this time a leggy one standing pensively in the kitchen sink. I removed the strainer and washed him down - his little legs clung to the metal for almost a minute. Poor thing. I am not sure what else to do.

Second Life

Continued filling up the shop I build yesterday at Bodega. I was told by Angel S that shopping in SL is a social experience, and shopping from a website is a lonely task. Well, I never know - I like to be alone and anyway I never go shopping. I can probably itemise the things I've bought (not counting 1L items) in the 14 or 15 months I've been here:
FairChang Futura (car)
Terra Ornithopter
Moopf's Roller Skates
Moopf's Meditation Flower
Owenimations salsa and some other dance animations I can't remember
A chair from Barnes's shop (for Grignano Books)
um... well, probably some other things. I just can't remember them... I'm sure.

I made a shrine to Andrew Linden in the cave, while I was waiting for Connie. Andrew is selflessly slaving away for the good of all Second Life. A little worshipping would be good for him, I'm sure.


I went to the opening of the museum at ElvenGlen. Wayfinder ran a slide show of the history of Elf Clan in Second Life.



11 September 2005

 
First Life

Giant House Spider update: A huge one - on the kitchen ceiling! I felt compelled to remove the nozzle of the vacuum hose as I wasn't sure it would slip through! Probably unnecessary... but who wants an angry Giant House Spider running down a hose towards them?

I certainly don't take their lives without thinking about it - I would like not to have to. I am reminded of Laurel, who was an avid gardner. Slugs in Washington State are enormous - HUGE. If she found one she'd pick it up and say, "Go to the king of your kingdom or the queen of your queendom and say that if your kind come here again I will send them back to the light plane." In my recollection she then lobbed the slug out of her garden, but I might be mixing her habits up with someone else's. Holly throws slugs, and wrote a song, I think, about flying slugs... unless I'm making that up.



10 September 2005

 
Second Life

I saw on the forum that my neighbor, Art, had his property up for rent, but I didn't think a lot about it. Then He came over and told me that if he didn't get a renter he'd let me use the property for free. I didn't think that was fair so I said I'd decided to rent it for what he was asking on the forum. He said, "That's too much - I'd never charge you that much." I dropped my offer by a certain amount and we made a deal. Heh - funny. He is a nice man. I said I wouldn't touch his build, that he should leave the shark and the birds, and that when he comes in to visit it's his place. I started out thinking I'd build a shop, then started doing something I did August last year - I made a cave. I've wanted to make a cave full of cave paintings for ages, so now I can. This helps me a great deal since I have the security-script ban-lines property at the end of my deck, so I get thrown into the next sim if I go 2 feet in the wrong direction.


 
First Life

Becky, the erstwhile Sp.Ed. teacher at the Lut, called me this morning. At one point I was gabbing on about something and we were disconnected. Maybe she hung up on me! Heh. Then we had a thunderstorm...

This isn't a thundery area - we hardly ever have thunderstorms - but we had one during the past hour that seemed to cross overtop of where I'm sitting, causing me to - It can't be! - log out of Second Life and go into the kitchen to make coffee.

My electricity keeps going off, which is annoying as I have to reset clocks.

Second Life
When one logs into SL for the first time of the day theres usually a faceful of IMs of various sorts. Today someone I like IMed me about finding warrior women duds, and I went into the vast uncharted regions of my inventory to see what, exactly, I have made. I have things I can't remember. I found an outfit I don't have for sale ANYWHERE. I don't make many women's clothes ( the men's clothing looks great on women, though), but I found I have 12 warrior outfits for women. I have various (too many as I can't keep track anymore) little places I sell things, but I really want to wean people away from the inworld shops to a website for SL shopping - www.slboutique.com There are several, but that's the only one I use. It would probably be good to be listed elsewhere, too, but unlike people who are business-minded I don't have a shop name, a logo, or anything, and nor do I want them. I just make the best clothing of this particular type, so if someone wants them they can find them. I am just not a business person. It seems more fun and interesting not to try to scoop up everyone. It's like a tiny hole in the wall shop with a discreet sign that turns out to have the best X, but you have to find it, and know what you are looking at. I just raised my prices a bit - someone last week ordered me to. Mine have been the same from the beginning. She showed me her new things, and I noted that they were about 4X the price, so I followed orders and raised mine. Now hers are only 2X - hah.



09 September 2005

 
First Life

I thought the electricity going out was a thing of the past, but last night a bit after midnight the power went out, stuttered on for a split second, then went out for an unknown length of time. Unknown because I went to bed. It might've been the wind... or a car... don't know. Just now, however, the power went out again, but came on after a minute. There was a low rumble of either thunder or someone moving a heavy table across an uncarpeted floor.

Second Life

Went online, had a stranger IM with a request for a wizard outfit in a changed color, which I did. It took me longer to find the file than it did to change it, actually. I had to redraw the hood, but that was no big deal. Then I started to set up the Light Seed exhibit - which is small. I didn't beat on everyone 24 hours a day, so the response was not great. ....ooh... I hear the table being moved again.... Yesterday I made a new outfit - I think of it as a hunter's clothes. I like the clothing of the 17th and 18th centuries, and it's a kind of bastardised version of something from within that time period, out of my imagination. Talking to Jade about a one-handed keyboard, she said something about the spacebar, which immediately set me off in another direction entirely. "Space Bar" sounds SO COOL - I have to make The Space Bar. well, or at least a contest or book.

Yesterday I was somewhere in SL and I saw a man in a cloak - took a look... realised it was my cloak - the prim part - but not my texture - very funny. I suppose that's flattering.



08 September 2005

 
Second Life

I like wandering around Burning Life, which is supposed to be displays of various kinds that are not commercial at all - no ads, no things for sale. I have run into too many things for sale, however - from poseballs to sandcastles to dumpsters, and more. I think some of them could be mistakes, but whatever the reason, I don't want to see things being flogged at Burning Life.

A new development due to some empty plots (one lottery winner was unable to claim a plot, others were just never worked on) that were not reset for new builders is guerilla builds. Seeing an empty plot, a stealthy builder rushes in and builds something - bravo!


 
Second LifeMy tiny castle from the 1.7 preview grid.
The entrance to Dream House - image taken from one I sent to Snapzilla - that's why it's so horrible. Yes, Tor, you are right. The compression bites.
The mother bronto in the preview grid - not eating me, she's a vegetarian. No, she is carrying me gently in her mouth. I was amused to see Armath left some over-sized things to keep mine company, but they were made by other people. Get to work, young un!



07 September 2005

 
First Life

Hot weather is difficult if one has a neurological ailment. I have m.s. and even a small rise in temperature can make me limp and weak. The summer before last I suffered a great deal - it was awful. That was the year both my parents died, so the year was just terrible in every way. Last summer was really not bad. I didn't suffer much at all. On Sunday the weather flipped over to autumn, and now that summer's over I can truthfully say I didn't suffer at all. Part of my not-suffering was due to not going anywhere or doing anything - so my victory is not quite as wonderful as it seems -- however, it's pretty darned good.

Yesterday was work - actually it was good. I even staggered down to beat on the server for a while. Alex hasn't done any testing exercises yet - we need to get going with it fast. I saw Tiff, and that was nice. After about 5 years of working perfectly my color laser printer needs a bit of work, which I requested last week. I was told, "Maybe it just needs cleaning," and I said, "Is cleaning not included in "maintenance?" Then pages were printed off the web about cleaning it, and they tried to give them to me, which made me laugh in their faces. I mean, it needs a little maintenance - it costs thousands and works fabulously - maybe it needs 200 bucks worth of servicing. It needs some professional attention. What is WRONG WITH THEM?

Then I came home and spent hours cleaning, which amounts to very little in clean square inches, but is the best I can do. Today I am cleaning, doing a bit of laundry, I had an event in Second Life, I tried out a rather stupid vw that is 2d. Ate a salad... um... what else... er...



05 September 2005

 
Second Life

I spent hours on the outside of Dream House working to distract me from my grief. It'd turned out that Robin P couldn't do the outside bit as he had no time, so Rhiannon duplicated his topiary room design and I took them apart and remade them into the garden - minimally made over, I should say, as the design was so beautiful it really deserved to be repeated. I took the walls (hollow prim) and remade those into straight hedge bits, and did various things until 1-something, when Armath came by. Burning Life opens today and I just wanted the house to seem finished.

Found this today whilst seeking something else entirely: no wonder I changed from the "ho, ho, ho" anim to this one on my first day. It seems to be natural to me (that's me 1000 years ago).In the old photo Deborah is on the right and the anklebiters are Elizabeth and next door's Michelle Q. My dog Rosetta is on the lefthand side.



04 September 2005

 
First Life

My cousin Christine called me today to tell me my Auntie Betty died on Friday. She'd had an aortic aneurysm on Thursday while she and Uncle Tony were on a bus. She was taken by ambulance to a hospital, and they asked Uncle Tony if they should attempt to save her life. He was shocked and said yes. She survived the oporation and on Friday Uncle Tony, Christopher (their son), Christine (their niece), and Devinda (Christine's husband) were with her. Christine told her who was there and asked her to blink if she understood. Auntie Betty blinked. Then, soon after, she died. Auntie Betty was 87 and in the early stages of Alzheimer's - she was my father's older sister, and he died of Alzheimer's. Apparently their mother died of an aortic aneurysm - something I never knew. In this case it probably spared her the degradation of Alzheimer's disease. She will be cremated and her ashes taken back to England to be put next to the grave of Jeremy, their eldest son, who died when he was just 5 or 6, of a combination of... whooping cough and something else. Measles, perhaps. Well, I'm not sure. It was in the early Fifties.Auntie Betty was, as a young woman, into modern dance. Later, she seemed to survive on cigarettes and novels. I was very close to the family when I was a child - they were our most nearby relatives (at one point even in the same country) and Christopher is only about a year older than I. We were obsessed with science as children and we visited once a year or so - once I remember my father taking us to a scientific supply place to buy test tubes and slides and bunsen burners. The little glass slide covers came in a tiny brown box about an inch in each direction, surprisingly heavy, and full of a stack of thin glass squares.

It was a bad thing when my family blew up, years ago.

Where's my handkerchief...


 
First Life

The Adventures of Green Card Renewal
OK, so i've been rejected once as I fell for the old "fee stated in form is incorrect" trick. The website set me straight by proclaiming:

"Please be aware that while the fees for certain forms have changed, the forms themselves may still show the old fee."


 
Second Life

Post 1100 it says - I certainly know how to babble.

I woke up, etc., and while the coffee was squeezing itself out of the espresso-maker I logged into the preview grid for a moment. I got an IM from Racer, who asked me how I liked it, and I said there were lots of interesting things like MOVING ATTACHMENTS but that I didn't like the new shiny (well, no one does - it would be good as an addition to, but not instead of, the current shiny). I only read about moving attachments yesterday on the forum - if I would learn more about scripting than just playing around with existing scripts I'd be able to do something cool I'm sure. He hadn't heard before, but immediately, I'm sure, had a million ideas -- and he has the knowledge to implement them.
Once I was at a snail race listening to Racer calmly and humbly help someone, and repeating the same things over and over, and sorting out people who had complaints ("I would've won but the check point said I missed it!"). I thought, "He has got to be the nicest person in the universe." Then I thought that Second Life has many really patient, helpful, humble people. It does! ---CRAP WARNING!!--- The virtual world distills the essence* of a human exchange down to the minimum -- as it it expressed in our tap-tap-tap on the keyboards across the world. Still, SOMETHING comes through - something humans are sensitive enough to pick up on. The choice of words... everything in an exchange - give a clear picture of - not the outside of a person but the inside, non-physical essence at that moment. ---CRAP WARNING!!---

Well, and Racer is the nicest person in the universe, too.

*I am inventing absolute crap here



02 September 2005

 

Project Entropia

I just popped in to see what they'd changed. A huge update, then I was able to change my avatar as a one-time thing - I was being recreated from my DNA after being killed something something (I wasn't paying attention). I made the tall, skiky green hair that had interfered with my aim go away, and I got PeeWee Herman hair and new face skin. And the new look - holy moley everything moves in the wind - all the plants - it's very beautiful. On the down side I was in there less than 5 minutes and a fellow killed me with a machine gun. I revived and as I was standing at the revival thingy someone came up and killed me with a sword then leapt in the air in demonic glee as my lifeless avatar crumpled to the ground. Nice. I always have the same trouble in PE, which is that the UI is counter-intuitive for me, and it's hard to figure it out before getting the axe.*

*Also - those people didn't show up on the map as dots - so I didn't know they were there.


 
Second LifeHung out in the 1.7 preview grid feeling funky. Put all my roadside attractons and things out, and noted how the New Shiny affects them: colors look chalky except for very light tints. First time I've ever seen them all out. Some fellow came by and said, "You make weird things." "Thank you."
Found some land and bought it (the money and the land ownership are for testing purposes only). As I was buying a whole lot of 16m2 plots I crashed. Found my way back and bought the rest. Started buiding a cave. Shaun Linden came by and told me to file a bug report. Filed a bug report. Kept getting "sim going down you are being logged out" notices. Finally narrowed the behaviour that seemed to cause this to drag-shift duplication. Filed bug reports. In Newcomb (should call it Duke Newcomb, perhaps) I added the rotate script to the weathervane and every time it turned the linked prims black. I think it's not updating fast enough. Filed a bug report, etc. I'm a lousy person for the preview testing, so I'm sure I did nothing productive, but it was interesting. I will be hanging out there. Right now it's um... maybe I killed it...


 
Second Life
Dream House - getting very interesting inside - and Amu told me that Robin P is going to do the garden, which is what I'd hoped for! Yay! For some reason LL doubled the prims - I wonder if that means some plot winners didn't turn up or didn't use as many as expected. I made a weathervane yesterday. It rotates but not in any meaningful way. It needs to show the wind direction for real.
A nice Burning Life build by Seifert S.




 

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