New life

No. of new kitten boxes: 1 (exciting!)
Finally succumbed to temptation to let my kittycats create beautiful kitten boxes together. Set Snowfall and Tassie to "breed on" a few weeks ago, which meant that at once was having to shell out more Linden for kittycat food as breedable cats eat twice as much. Then after about 10 days set Tassie to partner Snowfall. Tassie made some coy remark about only having just met (as if! she was there when he emerged from the kitten box, there is photographic prooof) which evidently comes from the kittycat random-twee-remark generator.

Have not been in SL much for the last week, and therefore was surprised and delighted to get an IM announcing the happy event (i.e. Tassie giving birth to a kitten box). When went inworld at first was unable to locate a) kitten box b) Tassie or c) Snowfall. After some camming around discovered a) (Kittenbox) abandoned outside the house (see first pic) b) (Tassie: fond mother) chasing butterflies round the opposite side of the house and c) (Snowfall: proud father) hiding under the floorboards. Seems like the new kitten box is doomed to be the victim of a dysfunctional family right from the start.

The new update allows you to click on the kitten box and see a 2D portait of the yet-unborn kitten, so you can decide whether to birth it or not. Obviously once it has looked at you with its v. cute whiskers and pretty ears it is more difficult to resist. Look! He has his mother's eyes, they are so adorable! (etc. etc.) And he would make a charming mate for Ninetails, in only a few weeks they could be making kitten boxes of their own. It is a primrose path to pouring linden into the kittycats coffers (i.e. for more and more food).

Should note that this breeding thing is a frightfully chaste process, as apart from eating more kittycat kibble there is no noticeable change in kitty behaviour and certainly no Lewd Acts. Once had retrieved Snowfall from under the floor and Tassie from her walk outside the house, let them wander round until they fortuitously both ended up trapped by a japanese screen, and I took a picture (3rd pic, Tassie is on the right)

They may be saying "let our kittenbox live". Or they may be thinking "when is our next kittycat kibble meal". Or as they are in fact pixel cats, it is also possible that they are not thinking anything at all.

BTW if you have any views one way or the other, feel free to comment on whether Son of Tassie should be released from his box to eat up my Linden.

Lost and found

No items in inventory: 58,000 (good); No. of items in inventory when logged in last night: 19,600 (v. bad)
Was procrastinating on Infolit iSchool last night, changing some furniture in the Wilf Saunders library, when thought would try rezzing some possible replacement builds. Need to consult Maggie first, but as demolishing common room to put up a conference centre, am considering making library into library/social venue. Am sure David Cameron would approve, as he and his chums always seem to be encouraging librarians to do things librarians have been doing for years e.g. lending CDs and selling coffee.
Anyway, was only when kept getting no hits in inventory search that finally realised that was not because too many items are in wrong folder. Was, rather, because NONE OF THE FOLDERS HAD ANYTHING IN THEM.

Icey finger of fear clutched at heart, but did some quick googling, and soon came across  lots of Don't Panic messages which indicated that was most likely that inventory wasn't loading. Followed some instructions from Rolig Loon (who must spend all her lifelife doing helpful posts) and within reasonable time inventory was cascading back into inventory folder.* Phew!

As a reaction to this decided to create new pixel life, so rezzed a kitten box I had purchased foolishly a couple of months ago and lo! there is a new kittycat for me to cuddle. It is a Bengal cat, with Odessey eyes i.e. they are different colours. Cute or what. Have called him Snowfall. This makes 6 cats altogether which is seriously approaching crazy cat lady territory, particularly when you look at the price of KittyCats food. First pic shows us all waiting for the kitten box to hatch, and 2nd pic shows Snowfall though at that point he was still just called Kitten.

Stone looked distinctly unenthused at the idea of a new male cat on his territory, and has taken to hiding under the floor even more often (see 3rd pic). Meanwhile, Ninetails is now full sized, but Snowfall is still at that age where he could get lost underneath a cushion, let alone underneath the house.

Whilst in Kitteycats main store noticed there was a HUD that enabled you to get your kitties to return to you even when you don't know where they are.
Hmmmmm. On one hand may regret not buying it if really do lose cat completely one day. On other hand, have been Hunting the Lost Virtual Cat for 5 years now, ever since Mitsy started throwing herself into sea on Eduserv island. It's a sort of ritual.  And at least kittycats don't disintegrate into disembodied paws and heads like Mitsy did.

BTW am also labouring at a serious post on "Twitter vs. SL" reflecting on experience of Twitter-only discussion about info literacy. Will of course be last word on the matter of Twitter vs SL and do not offer any prizes for guessing which one is winner in my book. Do they have kittycats on Twitter, who whimsically hide themselves under the floor and behind the furniture?** I rest my case.

*Practical info. To get inventory back, cleared cache (in Preferences, think it was Advanced tab), logged off, logged back in somewhere else and typed an "a" into the search box of inventory, then waited impatiently as the inventory count went up and up.
** the answer is "no".