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31 March 2006

 
I keep thinking I'll go to Movielink, then get the "you have to use IE" message and remember, "Oh, yeah - THAT'S why I never want to use Movielink."


 
I came THIS CLOSE -->ll to deleting the Second Life Art News blog as no one seemed to care about it, including me, however Enjah has taken it over now! She's doing a fab job adding notices and things - excellent!


 

An interesting development: someone taking the Ava idea and giving it a twist!


 


 
This morning I had this:

"Hi Vivian,

I appreciate your distress, that about sums mine up as well. Your account is in good standing, we are having difficulties with the server and are working to fix the problem.
Thanks for your understanding!"

And now it's up! w00t!



30 March 2006

 
My host had some kind of weird problem with its billing system, resulting in my websites being unjustly flagged and suspended. I talked to Marty who said there's some problem across the board - it's really an unhappy thing. I'm conscious that last night I uploaded zip files for Forcy, which she can't get, I can't post to my blog, and the Combat Cards site is hors de combat. Other sites unavailable include: Elizabeth, Pete, vivian-oblivion, the memorial sites for my father and mother, and some other miscellaneous things. I deleted a lot yesterday as I wanted the room.

I sent this:

"Actually, I shouldn't sound so relaxed as it is rather important: WTH!!!111 MI SITE IZ DOWN DOOD PLZ FIX IT WUT IZ GOING ON???/ OOO NOOOOOES!!!!!!!11!1
There - I think that adequately expresses my distress :-D"



29 March 2006

 

The Ava-Tab event in ElvenMoor - was hilarious fun. We wound up setting our boxes physical so they all fell over - as someone said, "Clean-up on aisle 5!"

I'm downloading more .rar files right now. I made a hud and an anvil today for Combat Cards - hope they are useful.


 
Due to not having Photoshop at the moment for some reason, Doc is sending me 15 enormous Photoshop files broken up into rar files. I'd never had any experience with those before - but I am in the middle of hours of it, right now, so it's becoming ho-hum. I download, join up the files to make the PS document (the largest so far had 7 pieces), open it and change the numbers according to a .cvs file. Don't ask me - I just do it. After sending me the 9th card Doc has stopped for the moment - a good thing otherwise I'd keep on doing it as long as they came in, no matter how tired.

I went in SL while I was doing this, and someone asked me, while I was building an anvil in ElvenGlen, if I'd do a custom clothing job. Yes, multi-tasking R us.



27 March 2006

 
I've been working on getting shorter gradually. I am short by SL standards, being just 5'8" or something - every few days lately I tweak my size downward a number or two, or shorten my froggy legs. Enjah is well over 6' tall - maybe 6'10" or something, I misremember. However, she's almost 6' in rl and I am merely 5'6" at the most.

I posted a box to her today containing 2 shirts: one of my heart print and the other of (long gone student) Sam's wolf. Both are lovely color silkscreens. The shirt from my print is long-sleeved which wouldn't be the thing for me - I think I'd wind up trapped in it. My original relief print "The Divided Heart," is black and white and was on the cover of the Kenyon Review for a Looper poetry extravaganza. I don't have it, though. I did - but somehow it never made the move with me from J.O.'s house and although I asked him to give it to me he never did. Enjah has been sending me fab things like Black Orpheus, Eraserhead, and boxes of Harry and David edibles.


 
Car made of Legos



26 March 2006

 
Email About the Exhibits

As you all know, this is a big chunk of my body of work, here, and I need to know where things are and what's happening with them. I am very pleased and grateful that you are all working in my behalf - that doesn't mean I can't say what I need. Here's what I am needing today:

1. I need for each venue to make a list of what they are going to show. That list should be prepared BEFORE things are released. If a painting is on the list but isn't at the gallery it should be noted where the piece is. One person per venue should check it all and sign the list - basically take responsibility. This is BASIC and there should be no problem.

2. The painting that someone has dibs on should be marked differently on the list from pieces that were sold: i.e.:"Dad" was sold to Kath, but "Tree Shrine" is just earmarked for John. Do not let things float around. Don't think things are sold when I haven't yet finished the price list.

3. Paintings in the those categories should be exhibited, since, for me the exhibition portion is as important as anything else.

4. I need you all to work as one and keep me informed by email.

Although I'd really like to not have to spend my energy on this right now (I'm trying to finish out my last year at school and it's my busy time), I find that the amount of energy I spend might actually be less if I am not sent hither and yon by snippets of good and bad information.

You guys all rock, now get to work. Don't make me have to come in there and knock heads.

I'm sure this will all pay* off, speaking karmically.

*check's in the cosmic mail



25 March 2006

 
I requested an estimate for the photography, which meant asking someone who then asked someone else who then asked the photographers. The estimate is somewhat lacking in information - I can't even understand it, and the math doesn't come out right. My immediate feeling is that, while I may spend a thousand dollars to document the paintings, I would need to see examples beforehand and also have some kind of guarantee of satisfaction. Paintings are easy to photograph badly. They are not hard to photograph well - the difference is more in the knowledge, ability, standards, and experience of the photographer than in anything else. If I see a photo and say, "OMGWTF suxxors!!!11" I don't want to be stuck paying for something that's useless. Anyway...

I realised not too long ago that that when I get really tired I can't stop and I can't go to bed, either. As an example, after my day at school I am so tired I have to force myself to go to bed, and if I don't do that I can quite easily stay up until 4am. 'Going to bed' seems to be a change of state, and changing from one state to another requires a lump of energy. Therefore it's easier to whitter away in exhaustion. Anyway, it didn't do me much good at all to work 8 hours cataloging and the rest of the day cleaning, going to bed finally at 2am to spend a sleepless night.


 
I just washed my kitchen floor - I thought I was bad doing it at midnight but I see i'm rather closer to 1 a.m.



24 March 2006

 
Tricky terceS egasseM for ijnA

Sorry, everyone else - I deliberately hid this secret message so no one else would notice. Don't you wish you could figure it out!


 
I've been doing two main things today: spending hours and hours slogging through the catalog of my work fixing names/dates/prices, and cleaning the house as I was told someone's coming tomorrow. I made a multi-pose poseball to attach to the Ava box, and took a brief break to explore Atlantis, Shivar, and the other picks in YadNi's profile. He directed me to his picks when I asked him what he'd been up to. A lot of building - many sims. I especially liked the City of Tomorrow, but you can't beat Shivar, which is a replica of Mont St Michel.

I need to get back to my database very soon - however, maybe I'll take a minute to make Fidget purr and a Tab poseball. Nothing like an onerous task to get me working hard on another task.



23 March 2006

 

Nova Albion Second Anniversary
Showing part of the crowd before we took a short tour of the infohub. There were Lindens galore from Magellan to Philip, including Bub, who misbehaved with his partner Pony (see above photo), eliciting the comment, "deviants," from Magellan. Magellan is the explorer who discovered Nova Albion; he's in the picture above, wearing his explorer duds. It was nice to see YadNi there - I hadn't talked to him for ages.

After that I had an event with Enjah at the photo studio, then I had to re-hang the exhibit as I got 17 entries late. Finally I got finished after hours - gee, that was a long day.



22 March 2006

 

Tab (as portrayed by Anchor)


 
I have been cranky all week. My crankiness has reached fever pitch. I can't stand it myself, so I know everyone else must be annoyed. At school I kept saying to my kids, "Gee, I CAN'T BELIEVE how obnoxious I am behaving!"

I went in the 2 Wa He Lut worlds and cleaned up. There are duplicate questions in WHL2 - too, too bad the kids didn't use that energy to put new questions in there. The presentations at the Green Conference are tomorrow. Scott= new world; Cheyenne= old world. AThe presentation time (for everyone) starts at 10:20, with no assigned times - but I have a Frank appointment so I will miss it. I said I'd rush home just in case I can catch them, but I'm sorry as I really need to go groceratisificationing. However, Enjah sent me Harry&David foodstuffs, yesterday - which is awesome! I broke my crankiness for 2 minutes while I thanked her, then went back to being a creep.

My event was accidentally posted (by me) at midnight instead of noon, so I had to redo it at 1pm. It's a pet peeve of mine that people refer to 12 am and pm when there is no such thing: noon is neither ante nor post, but is meridian. It was my fault for listing it wrongly as I know how the events listings are, but it suits my crankiness better to rail.

I made a Tab box last night, and built his metal detector today. I listed the event tomorrow in conjunction with the opening of the Nova Albion photo show.

I have two vendors in Bodega, left over from 2004 and my first tattoos and clothes. I've always sold the tattoos for 10L (10L=nothing, more or less), and have some early nice clothes. The tattoo vendor flipped out today so I reset it - I've had it happen before but not often for vendors that've been in use all that time.



21 March 2006

 
All of a sudden a great wind has come up.


 
Causing Trouble, as usual


I made a doll box last night and today I got Enjah and Forcythia to join me in being Avas. Forcythia proclaimed it a MOVEMENT, and we decided to get as many people together as we can for a huge Ava-ing.

Here we are on the apron outside Mysterio Gallery, which Enjah just moved from Uzume (so-sue-me) to Palomarian. Palomarian is MUCH nicer: not laggy, picturesque, and close to me. I just fly down the road and there she is.

Today at work: Donna was here and did most of the 7th grade page. Sabra and Cheyenne worked hard - Sabra on the grade 4 activities page, and Cheyenne on the virtual world project presentation she's delivering at the Green Conference on Thursday at TESC. Then I went to Montrose's classroom and we did some more work on the questions/answers/teleports. After that I finally got the pow wow page and class pages up for the website. Then I went home. It was speedy and fun. I saw Dave, who is a very nice man, and Alex, who was perturbed as the school hired a techie person thereby cutting out the person who had been volunteering his time to get things going. I asked for contact info for Phil, the ex-volunteer tech dude, as I would hire him to do a few things for me. I met him a week or two go - seems nice enough.



20 March 2006

 


Ambat Infohub... proving once and for all that tents are teh roxxors.


 
More Logging

When I drove home from Frank's I took the back way. I hadn't driven it for quite a long time. It's changed. It isn't stumps all the way, but it's stumps about 40% of the way. When I got to my drive there was a logging truck blocking my way. I waited and a logger with a running chainsaw came over and said they'd be moving in a few minutes. I waited until they pulled out of the driveway then I was able to get to my house. What they were logging was the property next to the noisy man who is next to me. It's like this:
---------------------------------------------------------lakeshore
[Me] [Noisy] [logged-off land][some other houses]
[_____[______[__________[__[____[_____
Then the driveway angles into road

The logger backed his car out after a little while. Then the older man who was the truck operator/driver came over to ask me if I needed to get down the driveway. Um. YES. I was nice and polite to both men as it isn't due to them that this entire area is being destroyed.

While I was waiting I found a book Tiff had given me that had been buried under a lot of work papers, and started reading The Underdogs (Los de Abajo), about the Mexican Revolution.





19 March 2006

 
A mixed-up week, it seems. Frank has had me taking a liquid that he said at first would make me feel rotten, then would make me feel good. I have the rotten part down pat - I hope the good part happens soon. My impression of this week is that a load of weird jangly emotions from the past have been dive-bombing me. I fear I have been a bit crabby.

Just got my laundry from the dryer and put it all away. Outside the day is sunny and breezy. A herd of grey and white clouds that remind me of squid are either motionless or inching their way across my field of vision.



18 March 2006

 
Ph33r My B3ta Mug

Psi popped into Second Life while I was building, and asked me to go over to There to see his house. I did, and we wound up driving around all over Kansas. Psi has quite the buggy skills now - buggies twist around and flip easily and he had us flying through the air whilst spinning around - only to land right-side up and keep going. We were looking for a particular area with a sunset sky. I asked if anything is different and he said yes, although it looked the same to me. I didn't exactly investigate, however. My "buddies" kept popping online, so I saw the notifications every minute or so. I told Psi I had no clue who most of my buddies are. He told me he deleted about 150 buddies. Ha! I said, "Dead buddies!" He also said there are a lot of new people from Eastern Europe, that There is selling $10 lifetime accounts, and that (this made me laugh) the rent on the houses in Tyr has been reduced. He has a $10-a-month house in... I think it's on the beach in Motu. There is fine if you are only interested in socialising. It's pretty boring, however, if you like creating things.



17 March 2006

 
Yes, this is all true.


 

A SLurl for this contest



16 March 2006

 
I went to see Frank, went grocerizationing, came home, put the groceries away, logged in to SL to get to the Town Hall Meeting early and sit. Some protesters demanding umlauts had crashed the sim a few times, it was said. A Linden told them their request was noted and they needed to stop waving signs as now they were just griefing. Then I went into the Wa He Lut virtual world for that class, hoping to be able to pop back in to the meeting (which would be diligently recording itself into my chat history). I thought I'd only miss the beginning - then I'd be back in after my class. Unfortunately it didn't quite work out that way. I was disconnected, so I relogged after the class. I sat down, trying not to be disruptive. Philip talked for a minute, then typed for a long time and I realised it was a disconnect again - sim crash. I relogged to home, and Enjah offered me a teleport to Salazar's lookout, where he had a repeater set up.

Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself
I think that it was a high priority for me to be there as I had a very slight subconscious ripple of There's black day in 2004 - unjustified and baseless to be sure. It started with forum rumors. The forum is a great place to get information about things, but unfortunately there is a percentage of garbage that can insinuate itself into cracks in one's psyche. Anyway, I should've known to just read a transcript as being there, or listening at a repeater, is not productive. However I did get set straight on Mono, which I am interested in purely for Combat Cards reasons. I thought it was a new language but it's a script core thingummybob - not that I know anything at all, but if it affects Combat Cards it affects me.

I always think of myself as rising higher and higher above the fear I was raised in. It was interesting that without acknowledging it to myself I grew a little fear and responded to it.


 
Response to Sarah:
For years I did tons lots of video in rl, including teaching children to make animation both in my art classes at Wa He Lut and in summer movie camps I ran with a friend. When I got in SL I started making video snippets, but because of the m.s. things are harder for me now, as in moving the cam for smooth shots, especially. I was excited about 1.9 because we now have scriptable cams - and it won't take long before someone is selling scripted objects that will make things more possible for me. I have the movies in a box in my head, ready for the liberation of June when I will be able to make them.


 
Sarah told me she'd tried to leave a comment but Blogger ate it. I didn't ask her what the comment was. NOW I AM BEING DRIVEN INSANE... well not really, but I'm wondering what it was...



15 March 2006

 
1.9

1.9 really rocks. One new thing is planar texture mapping. That is so wonderful I am about to faint. I didn't get to build much in the preview grid as it was not a happy experience for me (which I decided had to do with the firewall even though the firewall said it wasn't). When 1.9 hit the main grid I went home to retexture the upper pyramid of my pavilion. I was so relieved - even though no one but me could tell it was different. Planar texture lies on the object without being distorted by the object shape. In the past triangular prims textured in a weird and distorted fashion.

I saw Doc today. He managed to get 26 cards loaded in the server - fantastic. I need to design the HUD as soon as I can.

I went to Ambat Infohub to check out textures - oh yes, textures are loading very quickly in 1.9, too - I got hit about 25 times by someone's security device, which wanted to teleport me home [not only is Ambat Infohub protected ground, but being teleported home is (as I understand it) against the TOS].

I was at the Bedazzle Studios sim with Enjah looking at the Bells and Spurs set when I noticed the wagon tracks in the dirt. I looked again and saw that the wagon tracks are objects on the ground. Good grief. Anyway, the moving-mouth thing in B&S was a technique I last saw in the Sixties on cheesy Japanese cartoons. Wild to see it resuscitated here.

Another thing in 1.9 is scriptable camera behavior. That rocks.




 

The second anniversary of Nova Albion is on the 23rd. Nova Albion is the city comprised of Grignano, Barcola, Miramare, and Sistiana (and Luna if you want it in there). I looked back in my archives to see if I had any screenshots from N.A. in 2004. I found a few, including the one this* is cut from. I went back in my blog archives to July 2004 when I began, and saw that it proves that I talk about the same things over and over since I was telling the same things to Enjah the other day.

*the blog entry explains why I have swords coming out of my bottom


 
I think Vlad's video Skaterpede is brilliant. Vlad has a gallery and also has begun entering contests at the Photography Studio. A very nice aspect of having the photo contests is that I've met a lot of wonderful, creative people.


 
I spent ages last night and today archiving things to DVD. Everyone hates doing it - I'm no exception. It's really an awful thing, however, to be required to start from scratch on something (pow wow or school things; Combat Card, clothing, tent, book or other Second Life files; website files for various people; anything else). I feel like I want to renew Windows but it seems I can't.

Second Life has a point release today: moving up to 1.9. The reopening has been delayed until 3pm. Scripted cameras are an option in 1.9, which interests me a great deal. When school is out I plan to resume the movie project I had to put aside in the autumn.



14 March 2006

 
Skoo-well

I bombed off to school all happy and cheerful - feeling quite well thanks to Frank. Donna was absent - sheesh - but I spent a bit of time talking to Alex about our students and the (was supposed to've been last week but now is delayed) fine-tooth-combing of our files by the B.I.A. The B.I.A. is having troubles as is every other government entity in the United States. They were here but their time ran out before they got to the art files, so Alex said they had stated they'd look at them in May or June. Uh... ummm... OK. I cannot express how bizarre the entire thing is now.

There was a noise and I said, "Who's that?" Skunk said, "It's your favorite customer!" I laughed, "You ARE my favorite customer." I had made a new pow wow poster last week that had space for information he was to've emailed me. He didn't, so it came down to driving it to school on a CD Thursday, or finishing it then and getting Alex to burn it onto a disc Wednesday. My computer has mysteriously lost all ability to burn disks due to someone mucking about in it - which is why I really hate having anyone else use it. Oh, well. Last year I told Rosanne I wanted that one lousy bit of space to myself, but this year, although I SAID that (in plain speech), it hasn't happened. I can't very well expect it to if I need Alex to do half the yearbook, so I haven't said anything.

Skunk gave me another big graphics job (job as in work, not as in pay). I always do the pow wow program, but this year he wants it to be more elaborate. I outlined my needs: "I can only do this if you write everything and all I have to do is cut and paste. The schedule will be black-and-white, with a page or two in color for head staff pictures and information." We shall see. I like doing things like that, actually.

My two little girls are working on yearbook pages. In fifth grade I taught (some of) them to save images to a rotten old floppy disk. The Green Conference is next Thursday and they are giving a presentation.

I left about a minute before a huge rainstorm, so that was good. On the whole it was a fun day.



12 March 2006

 
Of course, I'm Vivian Oblivion by choice, so I wasn't aware there was a big work party today for a bazillion friends organising artwork for my show. Looper went down there because she was excited to have the opportunity to see so many paintings I'd kept hidden in stacks for years. She said she had a bit of a flipped-out feeling: "What are they doing with all of Vivian's paintings?" I twigged what was going on: "It's like an estate sale. Well that's cool. I've gone on to another dimension." We talked - she said I shouldn't slip away, I said I had to go where I was having fun. I am not able to be in the world as I once was, and I can't interact very well with objects, so I think it's good that my paintings have the chance to go out and find homes. I won't be around forever (unless the world ends really soon, which is a possibility).

I think the idea of a kind of estate sale is very interesting. It's a bit unfortunate that Ebenezer Scrooge springs to mind. I can't think of anyone else who was present for the dispersal of his or her worldly goods.


 
45°F
Scattered Clouds
Wind: N at 0 mph
Humidity: 61%

Current weather. But... if there's no wind how can it come from the North?


 
Sometimes... or almost all the time... I am writing something in Second Life, and because I type slowly and there may be several people typing quickly, the thing I want to say changes while I am writing it. Others may bring up new information, answer or ask questions, or make remarks. Sometimes it goes like this:
A: Hi! How are you?
Me: Hi! I'm fine - how are you?
[Me: (typing but I don't enter because it's too late) What are you up to today?]
A: I'm building a new house - do you have any window textures? No wait, I don't need window textures I meant railing textures.
Me: I have a few. What kind are you looking for? (meaning windows)
A: Anything is good. Let me see them.
Me: I don't have any.
A: ??? I thought you said you did?

OR sometimes it's like this:

A: Where's a good place to get samovars in SL?
[me: starts typing - Does it need to be scripted?]
B: you mean objects or textures?
A: Oh, I guess I want an object.
C: What kind of scripting?
[me: starts to edit since the question was asked - Does it need to give tea to others...]
C: like serve at a click type thing, you know
me: (edits but gets sentences mixed) - Does you want to keep around a certain price?
A: Osprey, you should use the word "do" in that sentence.
me (small internal mushroom cloud) thinks "I hate you, A."

I made that particular scenario up, but unfortunately it happens all the time. I quite see why people hide up in the sky.


 
Adventures in Banality
Yesterday I was building something and my fingers slipped and I accidentally deleted my new pavilion. No problem - but while I was looking for it in my inventory a new resident, dressed in a tuxedo and with the title "Gorean Warrior" floating over his head, came meandering through the trees. He offered me friendship, which I refused, then I dropped the pavilion on him (I warned him first. After that he removed all his clothing, and I told him no nudity was allowed in Bodega, which is a pg sim (for lack of an easier way to label sims LL calls them "Mature" and "PG.") He apologised, dressed, and asked me to accept his friendship so he could show me his castle. I didn't. He went AFK and I waited a minute* for him to come back, then said, "Got to go - bye," and logged off so I could eat lunch.

*I just didn't want to be mean.


 


This next picture is easily misinterpreted: it shows the warrior Nodrog engaged in a battle with the forces of an evil robot empire, and not a man ironing his head. I find that photos from the distant future are frequently hard to grasp. We associate certain forms with objects of our culture, and those same forms have a completely different meaning if you simply go forward one or two millenia and change dimensions. Whooda thunk it?




11 March 2006

 
The picture below is what was outside the window this morning. I was struck just now by how lovely it is - living here feeds my soul. I keep one eye shut, though, to avoid seeing the logging.


 

A pretty, snow-dusted day.

I accidentally stayed up until 4am. I watched part of Black Orpheus early in the evening - spent most of the rest fiddling around editing sounds in a video editing program and uploading them. I am a little tired - not too much, though. When I got up my nuker said 1-something, which COULD'VE been the time and not just an uncleared minute left over from popcorn.

Enjah sent me Black Orpheus the other day, after telling me it is her favorite film. Of course I'd heard about it all my life but had never seen it, for some reason. I had a picture in my head of what it was like, which was wroing on all counts. What an amazing film - almost 50 years old and yet it could've been made yesterday.



Zombies

When the phasing out of the Developer Incentive was announced I hoped that all the AFK avatars massed in clubs that paid by the minute to up their Dwell, would get a life. I don't know if that happened with the customers in some places, but other businesses are still paying people to spend huge amounts of time stuck in one spot. Apparently casino-owners are quite happy to pay tiny amounts because they then have a number of people stuck in the casino - and some of the time those people will be bored and looking for any amusement no matter how cheesy (i.e. gambling). This is a curious thing to me: all the wonderful things to see and do in Second Life, people from around the globe, the ability to build almost anything, the literally endless exploration that could occupy anyone - and these people chose to stop in one spot, lured by the promise of a penny an hour (or whatever they might gain), expending electricity, server resources, and their computer's life. I couldn't get into Ambat yesterday as the server was full - full of zombies. That dude with the big hat had been there for two days. All I can say is - they must live at home and not have jobs.



10 March 2006

 

Tiffany with her new grandson, Ryan

Tiff flew up from Arizona to be here for the birth - but Ryan was late and Tiff had to change her ticket or leave before he was born. She changed her ticket. Ryan was born! Tiff got to see him, then developed a cold and so was unwilling to expose mother and child to the germs. Now she's leaving... but she'll be back by the 3rd.


 
Snippy

What does this mean:
"System had no defects that I have yet to find.'

Language is a way to communicate clearly, but more and more it seems people can't communicate at all. One is better off cutting the sentence into pieces and comparing the phrases to those that might be on a conventional-speak matrix than attempting to make sense of it whole. Or perhaps, as I hope is true, time travel has been invented and the reviewer came back from the future to relate his experience.

Things that happened when I was a child remain stuck forever in that level of understanding no matter how much I learn later. The whole Christine Keeler thing was SO shocking that grown-ups whispered about it but didn't explain. I note the death of John Profumo, who was teh OMGWTF1!!111 shocker of all time, since for me, the entire affair was wrapped in mystery. Mystery: it adds a great deal, and can, in fact, be the only interesting aspect of something. Mystery is under-used today, I think.



09 March 2006

 

I got a little wild and deleted Art's house. I put up the tent pavilion I made today - every time I take a picture it's outdated 5 minutes later as I keep changing/adding things. I added the two round side bits, and the third base piece in the middle, changed the base texture, changed the wood texture to one I made. I'm not a huge fan of pink but it just turned out that way. I added those round bits as I was playing around with it on Vesuvius group land on the slope of Mount G'al - and thought it would be nice not to fall. It is only an option as the texture is pierced - well maybe that's not true - maybe I should see what a solid texture (like at Ambat) would look like. I like to be able to see, though, and I like the airiness of this.


 
ElleCoyote
Enjah has started a blog, so now I can spy on her! Yay! Currently she is pleased to discover (through the magic of granddaughter mathematics) that on her next birthday she is a mere stripling of 50 and not a grizzled elder! She and G are going to France for her birthday. I think birthdays have must themes like anniversaries: 25th wedding anniversary is silver, 6oth birthday is plane tickets.


 

After stopping in the middle of the day the snow started up again not long ago, and is coming down in a rather determined fashion.

After speaking with my computer people I decided the business must've been sold. There were just no good vibes. When Connie was here I asked her, as her son Sam worked there for a little while.
Me: Was TOGI sold?
Con: Yes. Sam used to work there!
Me: (spluttering) I KNOW -- that's why I asked you.

NOW WHAT? Trustworthy and interesting computer businesses don't grow on trees. They built all the computers I ever owned. I think brand name computers are crap. I liked them, too, because it was a woman-owned business. I'd wander in every few years and explain what I was going to use the computer for (last two were for video editing, this one is for Second Life), and they would put together a system. I'd wrangle over a few oddments (how much MORE would it be if I got...), they'd build it. I never quibbled over anything, and they were wonderful to me.


 

I made this pavilion today. It has a 256x256 texture with alpha, a 256x512 texture with no alpha, a 64x64 texture, and a wood texture that I should check on as it might be someone else's but I have plenty of my own that are small. I will probably make new tiles. I'm not sure... I may change the base... or I may not...


 

Snowy today. It looks more white and snowy in real life than in this picture (from the webcam). Up until a few minutes ago there was a white-out with the falling snow. I decided I should stay home as it's a bit silly to risk my feeble life and limb for no compelling reason. I'm scoffing at myself right now - it really rather ridiculous but doesn't change the fact: I should stay put.



08 March 2006

 
I got an email from someone wanting to buy tents in SL, last night. It was about 12:30am and I logged in and started out showing a few where I was (in Ambat), but it was too cramped. I went to their sim and pulled out a lot - they want to use tents in a marketplace. I asked them how many, and they thought 16-20 - so I said I'd sell them copiable tents as is would be a shame to have to buy so many. Ordinarily a copiable item would sell for much more than a non-copy item, but I told them I'd sell the copiable tents for the same price as non-c if they gave me a spot in their market. I rezzed the tents, changed the permissions, and set them for sale. They wound up buying five tents and I gave them another. The point of this is not to relate how nice-and-or-stupid I am (take your pick) but this:
First thing this morning I received an anxious email from the buyer saying the tents were no-mod/no-copy/no-transfer. NOT how I had set the perms. I went there and we did various things like rezzing, changing, trying to duplicate, checking, etc. What was happening was that on the ground the tent looked good - I took it and looked at perms in inventory: no/no/no. The were no/no/no for her. I didn't solve the problem but just gave her boxed tents which held their permissions. I have no clue what it was - after I went home I rezzed the tent and changed the perms, which stayed correct in my inventory. I filed a bug report for what it's worth.

I spent some time today sorting in my inventory. My inventory is nine miles long. I didn't look at the search total (too scary) but it was well over 12k. I threw out a lot and got it down to 11k. I decided to divide and conquer, so I made two folders:
Made by Me
Made by Others
Into mine I put 8 bazillion objects and textures, whole finished projects, and anything else I have made.
Into the other I put most of what was left.
There are also folders for notecards, landmarks, and things like that.

I think I can organise the Others folder as it's fairly static.
Then I can start trying to organise my textures by dividing them into artwork, clothing, etc.
I can get a texture organiser like Clio says I should get, and start plunking things in it.

This is where those who use illegal uppers have a distinct advantage, as they'd be enthralled by this task and work for a week before collapsing.

I was waiting for multiple-selection in inventory before I did this... and we've had that for a while now. I have NO EXCUSE.



07 March 2006

 

Reading at Ambat

Coneheads at Miramare


 
There was an accident on the I-5/101 interchange, so I got home from work a bit late. I actually got off the I-5 at Pacific - drove through Olympia and out past Mud Bay (where I saw a nice eagle fishing this morning when I was driving in). Donna was absent - oh well. I staggered off to the server room as Alex had a misconception about the internet files - and we wound up making it so I can access the pertinent folder from my room - w00t! That's a step in the right direction. Mondragon gave me yearbook material for his class activities page, Sabra and Cheyenne both worked hard making yearbook pages and got done or close to done, and the virtual world went fabulously with the two teams secretly formulating questions appropriate to their topics. I realised that there may be a way to bend them easily away from the despised (by me) hotlinking they've been taught. In the name of SECRECY we need to download the pictures, rename them, and host them ourselves (easy now I have access once more to the folder). On the 23rd the students will give a short talk about this project (with computer projection) at the Project Green conference. We hope to have the old world used, too, so I need to go and clean it up. Hammer came in and talked to me for a while, and Skunkie came in twice to hang out and give me info for YET ANOTHER poster for the pow wow. The first time he asked me about a slick program from a big pow wow - I said it was beyond our ability to produce something like that, and that the purpose of the program was as revenue-generating advertising space. The program was sold for $5, and I said no one would pay $5 for any program of ours (we are small). Skunkie is at the national level (Black Lodge Singers) and we are just a little school pow wow (or should be). All these expensive trappings hang very heavily on our thin framework, and are, I believe, entirely inappropriate.



06 March 2006

 

While flying around in the middle of the night with Salazar in a very whacky flying machine, I spotted some osprey circling a house. I tracked down a place to buy them today and fixed it so that i could hav just one (not 3 or 4) circling high over Art's house. It flaps its wings, glides, and generally looks pretty damn good especially when I am looking from over at my house. A pleasing purchase. I must have 20 flying birds, plus luna moths and lightning bugs.


 
The Photography Studio in Grignano (a SLurl)



05 March 2006

 
That's the Spirit

From Anj:
"Busy day. We picked up Caitlin’s school books. She’s now in grade 3 up here. She should only be grade 2 but she’s skipped ½ a year. We met Lucy and Mum -Sharon - at the roller skating rink at 10 o’clock. The girls were having their first go on skates at a rink. Caitlin’s fairly good on her blades on the pavement, but the slippery rink took her unawares. She got the hang of it quickly and was able to do a whole lap without grappling at the wall before too long. The outing ended in a sour note when Caitlin and Lucy had one of their usual disagreements and wouldn’t talk to each other. Oh well, it will be them that miss out because Sharon and I get along famously. Steve came back from Sydney and I had a trip to the shops. There is only late night shopping on a Thursday here. It’s very backward up here with lots of things. I picked up my engagement ring that I had re-sized. It had been too big for 7 years and I finally got around to getting it made smaller. Now I can’t get it off. Is that a worry or what? Ha Ha. If you are wondering - No, there isn’t a wedding band to match - probably never will be. We like things just the way they are. Then it was my turn for a hairy beary hair cut. I didn’t walk out with what I asked for. "



04 March 2006

 
Today was rather BUSY. Yesterday and this morning I cleaned the house furiously, then at around 1:30 or 2 SJ, Michael, and Con came over to get paintings for the show of my work that about a dozen people have been working on for months. It's a very nice thing. SJ is the registrar for the Henry, and she and Michael met whilst employed at Artech, so this is her area of expertise: packing, moving, documenting, etc. I was forced to stop painting years ago - well, about 6 or 7 years ago, and I burned things I didn't like as my standards are very high, and I've also sold as many as I own now - but in any event they took 82 paintings. There are another 15 or so between the Loopers, the Monsters, and the Flemings. There are drawings, prints, and miscellaneous things that will get added later. From here the paintings went to a gallery storeroom. The paintings needing reframing will get new strip framing done by Chjis W, and they will all be photographed by someone who's a professional photographer. The shows are in various galleries at the same time in June - as I understand it. I am not going, but I think it would be cool to have a computer set up in the gallery for the opening, and have a gallery opening in SL at the same time. Then I could talk to the rl patrons if they wanted to sit down and type to me.
It was great to see the people AND see my paintings - I feel quite blessed even though I was cranky all day (I was cranky because I found out by accident on Thursday that they were coming today - I interpreted that as being treated like a non-person - not being asked... well, or told).
Anyway, my walls are bare now. That's awfully hard for me to take. I have one painting left - it was damaged. Come to think of it, I should get out the graphics I printed out to put as a grid of papers on the wall (but never put up). It's a variety of my graphics that I thought would look nice slapped into one piece.

Also, today I received Black Orpheus in the mail, from Enjah, and Tiff sent a photo of her new grandson, who was born 2-28-06 weighing 10 lbs and sporting a head of hair.

I was exhausted after they left at 6pm, but decided I needed to go to Magik's ball no matter how crap I felt. Enj popped in, then later I was watching fireworks over the castle when the sim crashed.

I'm running a charity photo contest this weekend to benefit a little boy with an inoperable brain tumor. It's just part of the charity event, I hasten to add.

Hmmm... also Salazar decided we needed to bring the Grignano Broadcasting Corporation (whichwas something I invented for a photograh) to life, so now we have a group, a building, and a sculptured logo. Salazar has been freaking people out and messing with their heads by making everything (including himself) in grey loading texture. Ha!



ahkenatan G's avatar - at the charity photo contest. He and I posed for a photograph - I was holding out an apple to him.



02 March 2006

 
Ambat
Not very good pictures - I may replace them in the future.




 
Pontificating Upon Things About Which I Know Little or Nothing
Yesterday there was a morning SL update with a preview grid pile-on during the main grid downtime. After the main grid reopened people talked about experiencing great lag, although I didn't see any. Enjah was having laggy problems when she visited me at Ambat, and she said textures were extremely slow to load. Not only that, but when she took snapshots the nametags and HUDs were visible. I didn't even have THAT problem - I snapped a few just to see. I asked her at that time if the "show UI" box was checked, but then realised that the bulk of the UI was not shown. Later LL did a quick update that solved the problems for people, including fixing their snapshot capabilities. These things are so complex - it just seems terribly difficult* to solve problems that affect some, but not all, the users. The size, age, brand, configuration, etc. of the computers we are using varies to an almost infinite degree, as do the types, distance, traffic, etc. of our internet connection. That's a mind-boggling number of variables. Of course, LL doesn't need to fix problems that aren't generated by SL itself (there are plenty of those), however, we end-users can't tell what's a genuine SL problem and what is caused by something else, perhaps brought out because of the stress SL puts on every link in the chain from S.F. to us. With the streaming/dynamic factor I don't see how it can be much different. A lot of these problems will get resolved with the technological advances in transfering data, I bet. Once our pipes are capable of moving Mass Quantities** we may just things a bit easier.

*duh I ab gladd I done haff to werk on dose tings.
** See - everything goes back to the Coneheads.

Trizzities Update: No problems so far and the wind has decreased.


 
It's VERY WINDY today, so I hope my trizzities stay on. The dazzling sunlight (reflected in the lake, and in front of me) has gone behind a mass of fast-moving grey clouds. Oh - it popped out again! It won't be out for long, though.

I logged in to SL for a moment for some reason (I'm just about to leave to see Frank, so was only in a moment), and spoke with Selador. He's always fun to talk to.



01 March 2006

 
Ambat, My Ambat

I chose Ambat over all the Infohub sites that were available because Ambat (for some unknown reason) is magical to me. I remember Ambat Telehub from my first Second Life days, which seem a long, long time ago (time in SL is more like Dog Years - it doesn't conform to the outside world time). So Ambat - perched on the end of a spine of rock and wrapped on three sides by roads - leapt out at me and demanded attention when I made my journey of Infohub sites a week or so ago. Because of the nature of the surrounding businesses - laggy avatar traps designed to catch people forced to fly through the old telehubs - it is quite unpreposessing. In MY world, however, because the telehubs are gone and the avatar-trap efficacy therefore eliminated, I think there will be a new dawn. Ambat will rise again, in beauty and grandeur.

 

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