The season of goodwill

Advent gifts collected: 3 (good: well, 2 of them were good)

Advent in SL is a time of rushing round gathering baubles and clicking frantically on giant advent calendars and/or parcels. Could in fact spend whole day going round trying to collect advent freebies of varying quality (with pompoms, stars, candles, mugs of hot chocolate, silly hats and ill-fitting skater dresses featuring prominently). In rare burst of altruism am sharing 3 lists of advent gift events, namely

http://primdolls.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/2015-advent-season.html
http://devinvaughn.blogspot.com/2015/12/advent-mania-2015.html
http://chicatphilsplace.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/second-life-advent-calendar-list-2015.html

Am restricting self to usual favouries i.e. Sways and Kittycats as both have decent prizes. For Sways you have to wander round sim spotting baubles representing each day of advent and clicking them to add to a HUD. Then you go to the parcel pile in the middle of the shopping mall and click on the parcel corresponding to today's date. You don't get the gift unless you found the bauble with that date on it.

Swayland is a pretty sim, and happily spent, um, well suppose it was about an hour in the end, going round (see 1st pic) and eventually finding all but 4 of the baubles. Inevitably, one of the missing ones was 1st Dec so will have to buy that gift if I want it. With Sways you have to get the gift ON THE DAY or pay. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SwayLand/187/168/32

Kittycats' advent calendar (see 2nd pic) is more forgiving - you can turn up on any day and get any of the previous day's gifts. Also, all you have to do is TP in and click the date, so easy-peasy (though correspondingly, less fun). In past years some gifts were for you and some for your kittycat. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/KittyCatS/129/40/25

So far have got pair of candles (Sways) and sparkley nails (Kittycats: there was also hair+eyes, but the hair was the wrong colour i.e. not blue, so junked it)

Ah! This is what Christmas is all about: frantically collecting piles of gifts, and then throwing some of them away.

Not writing; Christmas; Transmediation

No. blog posts written in digital writing month: 1 (bad); No of stories written in digital writing month: 0.5 (could be worse); No. of items on shopping list: 35 approx. (bad)
Have failed singularly to increase amount of Yoshikawa blogging during digital writing month, as month has flashed past oozing with teaching, family emergencies, storms, meetings and cute SL items that SIMPLY HAVE TO BE BOUGHT.
In fact had decided that thing wanted to do more of was not digital writing but uninterrupted sustained writing (USW), as in getting into flow of writing for a couple of hours so imagination can take wing and so forth. In fact managed about 1.5 hours of USW on train between London and Sheffield, so partial achievement. Have also peered through window at digital writing activities, so to speak. Would have been fun to join in, but v. time consuming. One digital writing challenge was doing something transmedia, and was pondering extent to which SL is transmedian in itself. Could argue that is just one environment, on other hand have sound, pictures and movement and can zip about between different locations and import things in and out of SL. Is probably substance for whole, dull, peer reviewed article in debating this.

Anyway, did find time for some Christmas shopping as deluge of cute Xmas cheer kicked in as soon as the pumpkins and scary Halloween skeletons had been collected up into inventory. Thought that might be able to limit Xmas expenditure by going through all the events and making up a shopping list in advance, so am not tempted to buy anything extra. However not sure that this will work, e.g. for Lost and Found event my initial advance list ran

Lost and Found
Kalopsia - sewing table, crackers box or present pile 90 Linden each
 plaaka - kitchen cupboard? Linden 300

Kalopsia and plaaka are familiar puveyors of cute things, and although cabinet was on expensive side, all the items on cabinet shelves are v. cool e.g. artisan japanese ceramic bowls and tea whisk.
When tp-ed to Lost and Found was still impressed by cabinet. Decided that already had enough piles of presents, but the crackers were nice and the sewing table reminded me of the old treadle sewing machine that we had when was young (though it has to be said that nostalgia has already led me to buy 2 different SL reproductions of this treadle sewing machine, however don't have table without machine, so obvious gap in inventory).1st pic shows me stoutly resisting urge to also buy decorated Xmas chair, watering can with artful bauble tree in it etc.
However was drawn inexorably to the display of boots by Deadwool. They are v. realistic all wrinkled leather and laces. Suffice it to say that they cost 450 Linden and am now wearing them with my new Go! dress and Atomic woollen legwarmers. All very boho.

Eye was also caught by SariSari upcycled Christmas tree, a snip at 299 Linden. Well, in fact not PARTICULARLY a snip, but v. well made.Was more charming than in advert and could immediately see it being an amusing conversation piece in my new Fallingwater House art gallery. In fact had thought it came with a nubbly cotton rug (see 2nd pic) which proved not to be the case, but  am not too disappointed.

Can see from this account that future does not look promising for list approach, since started out intending to spend max of 480 Linden and spent nearly that on unplanned boots. Oh well.

3rd pic shows me with the acquired consumer items. Am wearing boots but also have displayed one on top of cabinet.

So, this is the kind of thing I was doing instead of digital writing.

I must say, it seems pretty transmedia to me.

Digital; graveyard; tagged

Digital writing done: 1 (digital and, like, writing); Urns clicked: approx 40 (good); Graveyards toured: 1 (atmospheric)

So, came across some publicity for Digital Writing month and thought that should contribute, as any excuse to do pics and write stuff is welcome. Am pondering in what way this will differ from all writing that normally do, which is mostly clickety-clack on some keyboard and screen as have almost forgotten how to use pen and form legible words. Would probably have found this out if had read blog about Digital Writing Month rather than just thinking, hey, cool idea and bookmarking it.

Through this blog, discovered pic that had been Thinglinked (or was it other way round, discovered DWM through Thinglinked pic? oh well) and so below is first ThingLink. Not sure whether this is any more digital than usual writing, but gave excuse to do more pics of kittycats which is always welcome.



Meanwhile have been doing halloweeny stuff as halloween in SL is THE time of year, since ghosts, suppurating wounds, zombies, graves that drag you in, carniverous trees, haunted mansions etc. etc. etc. are all SO easy to do. Had to abjure SL for some weeks as was a) swamped with work and b) away some of the time with no SL-enabled device, so have had a bit of an orgy of SL-ism the past few days.

Did the WHOLE of the tag! gacha tour, in which you click the tag gacha HUD and get whirled to the next destination. Each destination is of course a shop, what else, with a gacha but also an urn which you click to mark that you've been at the store, plus it gives you a freebie trick or treat. Since wanted to get round it haven't yet opened most of the trick/treats nor indeed most of the items snagged from the gachas. The starting and finishing points to the gacha hunt were v.v.cool including a mortuary and graveyard, so have shown a couple of pics.

First one shows the Bonus Room which was a mortuary (it was unlocked once you'd been round all the shops). You can play "spot the witch" (i.e. me, was pretending to be the forensic expert inspecting the corpse in NCIS or Body of Proof, though if their mortuaries were in this state think that environmental health would have been called in by now).

Second pic is arty photoshopped view of the Redemption Graveyard that you could go to at the end. Called Redemption because you redeemed any Mystery Bonus Tickets and also think there is pun there about being redeemed, but not sure that spending oodles of lindens on virtual halloween items is actually path to redemption. Was interesting to see little arrangements of pictures and flowers that each creator had put by their tombstone, sure there is ample fodder there for psychologists, should any such be SL gacha addicts. In the meantime, enjoyed wandering round graves feeling pleasantly melancholic.

(Is this enough digital writing for now? (Think it might be. (Ed.) Next episode: installing haunted piano in the twisted greenhouse: or by the time get round to doing the post may be: removing haunted piano and twisted greenhouse, together with zillions of candles, pumpkins, gravestones and ghosts)

Strawberry, distraction, reality

Strawberry catgirl beds bought: 1 (good); FB nonsenses: 1 (bad)
Have procrastinated into blog to note that have bought a strawberry cat-girl bed (includes cute poses for one or two people) on Fifty Linden Friday offer and installed it in the ancient Insect and Fruit Houses on Infolit iSchool. Can see specifically that have put it in strawberry house, and indeed remembering this house (which has hovered over Infolit for 8 years) was chief excuse for clicking "pay" on the cat-girl bed vendor. Bed is large enough for real sized avatars, not just cats. It is the thing with green ears inside the strawberry house (just to make things crystal clear, since you may not have seen a strawberry catgirl bed before now).

Was diverted when entered this blog, though, as follow Bryn Oh's blog and noticed this post: http://brynoh.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/the-facebook-death-of-bryn-oh-day-one.html For those of you who have lived their lives snuggled in their skybox watching virtual soaps and do not venture out, this is the internationally reknowned artist Bryn Oh, who does extraordinary magical art installations in SL and I imagine also magical etc. in the physical world (e.g. exhibition in Berlin at the moment) but haven't experienced those first hand.

Bryn Oh has been asked by Facebook to prove that this is her "real name" and since she can't produce the normal certification, her FB account is likely to get closed. As one commenter on her FB page says "Bryn Oh is more real than some actual real life people I know!" Bryn Oh has won awards! been given grants to create art in SL! has a reputation and connections and people who take selfies by her artworks and buy them to put in their homes! (and that includes me, I don't know Bryn Oh but have admired her work for years)

In what way is that not real? Seems bizarre but not unexpected that a company that makes its living through the virtual (ie FB) is out of tune with what it means to live a life across virtual and physical worlds.

Here is pic of Bryn Oh work that came across randomly on someone's land a couple of years ago. It cause me to pause and think about things and feel refreshed. Definitely real.

The perils of ducks

Ducks acquired: numerous (good); Crashes experienced: 8, or was it 10, no, think it was 11 (bad); Psychedelic glithes: 1 (v.v. bad)

Had formulated idea that since already have oodles of unrezzed stuff in inventory should not acquire more, but, heyho, saw an ad for this duck bobbing game at the Wayward event, and off I went. Proved to be not the most enjoyable experience since the venue was incredibly laggy, a combo of lots of people (it's featured on the SL login page) and all the fairground rides.
Additionally, flying had been disabled.  Simply fail to understand why someone who wants people to stay at their events disables flying. Means you spend more time camming round, or chair-hopping, or hopelessly double clicking your mouse to try and go above a crawl.

Anyway, despite this, persevered driven on by fantasy of bobbing for cute virtual ducks. Was not really intending to indulge in any other purchase but predictably ended up with
1 seat in form of old weathered ferris wheel carriage
1 air balloon
2 ducks which can sit on shoulder
1 elegant whicker lounge with gauzy canopy
1 pair free mesh eyes
Was there something else? Have vague feeling that may have thrown 50 Linden at some gacha or other. All these were encountered before coming across bobbing ducks. Painstakingly worked way round event, crashing every few booths. Think rot started when had crashed twice in Soy booth and in the end felt sort of emotional attachment to the Soy ferris wheel carriage that had been dithering over, and bought it. 2nd pic shows this in situ, has replaced equally cute truck/shower from MMG at end of garden. Hope you can see have tried to be a bit arty with this pic, with strategic seagulls and shadows enabled.

Crashing got worse and worse, until part of computer screen was obscured by sort of tangle of pastel coloured shapes, which think was own graphics card saying help help help. Therefore eventually rebooted and then wasn't quite so bad i.e. only crashed every 10 minutes rather than every 3. Was then able to appreciate that Wayward sim was actually v. nicely set out with all sorts of cute items to sit on/ride, including numerous carousels (teacups one, cat one, seahorse one etc. etc.) and other rides that zoom round and round or up and down. First one tried remained static, but enjoyed ride on The Vortex (see first pic taken as whizzing) although way pose worked meant that could only glimpse self squeezed between 2 seats, perhaps in fear.

After having to go round event twice, found ducks. Vendor had also created beanbag game (see 3rd pic). You click on the item, you attach beanbag, you click on bean toss board, you toss it, end of story. Somehow felt ought to get a bit more for 250 Linden. Tried duck bobbing, and found that curiously, when posed by bobbing bucket, did not lean over bobbing bucket but rather hunched up several feet to one side. This gave a moment's pause (is this bugged?) but desire for cute ducks overcame common sense.

As can see from 4th pic, unfortunately the bug continued when got booty home and unpacked it ie when SAT on bucket, immediately moved to right and hunched. Am too apathetic to contact creator to say "It's bugged" so am hoping someone else will do this and will have corrected copy dropped on me at some point. This does generally happen, only the other day got a less buggy version of some complete outdoor bathing set that had of course forgotten had ever bought.

Upside is that after have bobbed for a while, get given a duck which attaches to head.

Can forgive people a lot for random freebie head duck

Embodied souls: Life Lessons: Shopping

Days saved: 1 (good); communication malfunctions: 1 (bad)

As regular readers will know, am one of coorganisers on regular Thursday meeting of SL educators i.e. Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable. In VWER we
a) discuss hot topics of day or
b) listen to someone talking about hot topic of day or
c) reassure each other that is really cool to be a SL educator: latter achieved by talking about same old same old viz. why don’t people “get” SL, why doesn’t SL fix group chat, will SL disappear when SL 2.0 comes along, what are good examples of teaching./assessing/learning/research in/about SL or
d) tell each other what the weather’s like where we are.**

Most exciting VWER recently was 3 weeks ago when Kali and I had a 2-avatars-1-voice experience, that was nearly a 2-avatars-no-voice-at-all experience. Kali was due to interview 3 v.v. interesting people but sadly had SL voice problems, which is not total bar to interviewing but using text chat tends to make things slower. Also more difficult to manage voiced people if YOU are in chat, not that would want to imply that any speakers would be in need of managing, cough.

Anyway was emailed earlier in day by Kali saying her SL voice was kaput, and could she skype and speak via my avatar. I said no problem, obs. However was busy day and when had seen last student out of RL office felt was in need of some play and rest and so checked out whether kittycats needed feeding and then took opportunity to finally tp into The Arcade (see 1st pic) and scope up umpteen gatcha items that will doubtless sit unused in inventory for forseeable future (except for peacock shown in 2nd pic, cute or what).

As sidenote, am now on constant lookout for new items of food for SL cat cafes (see yummy 3rd pic), unfortunately whilst have increasing cornucopia of exquisitely fashioned cupcakes, steak dinners, pretzels, fruit plates etc. is also rise in % of SL food that simply sits there and looks ornamental, rather than giving portion of said food on click. Would not want clients of the Yoshikawa chain of cat cafes clicking madly on array of coffee and cakes in vain hope of obtaining something to drop into inventory and ADD (here’s me stuffing face with pixel muffin etc. etc.).

Think should be some kind of SL food standards authority decreeing that only allowed to call something “SL food” if can actually eat it. Perhaps non-edible SL food could be called food sculpture, equivalent of RL food being made of plaster or plastic.

To return to the VWER meeting. Whilst was technically free for hour and a bit before VWER meeting, was indulging in SL wandering around and random thoughts as above, so was less than half hour before VWER meeting before tp-ed into the VWER auditorium to say hi and work out the voice thing.

Now must confess that had engaged zero brain cells in thinking this through, but had vague consciousness there was something wrong with arrangements that had been made. When using SL listen via headphones and speak via USB mic. Kali was going to skype and then was expecting to speak via me. How was the sound to go from my ears into SL?
Think now that must have had unquestioning faith in Kali’s ability to manage magic mind transfer, though suppose if she could do that would not have had the voice problem in the first place. Magic mind transfer would solve SL’s frequent voice problems at a stroke though could also cause embarrasment when one forgot to turn off mind transfer and broadcast all sorts of unsuitable things to assembled avatars. Although forgetting to turn mic off can also be embarrassment as I and others have found out hard way, thus does experience teach us life lessons.

Well, to cut long tedious story short was some fruitless inteplay as start time of VWER session approached and indeed was upon us, before realised that headphones were the problem. Essential element for the thing to work was placing microphone next to speakers that had sound coming out of them. Once this was realised, twas but a moment’s work to turn on speakers and so forth and away we went with efficient and effective interviewing process.

Sat in audience being Kali’s dummy and reminding people periodically that was not her. If had put more effort into whole thing could in fact have put notice over head saying KALI IS SPEAKING THROUGH SHEILA but there you go, most people probably didn’t even notice.
So what life lessons come out of THIS experience?

1) Do not go shopping when should be preparing for serious professional event
2) Test things out more than 10 mins before intending to use them if do not want to appear idiot
3) Apply simple questions such as “Is this going to work”?

In fact can dispose of first 2 points, since if apply item 3) will swiftly emerge whether or not there’s time to go shopping or whether need to be
• squinting at incomprehensible Windows control panel
• pulling jack plugs in and out
• checking and unchecking boxes in SL preferences
• deciding which of the unlikely sounding audio device names listed on the pull down menu is the one that is the actual name of the audio device you have plugged in and therefore want to activate

Final life lesson is that if have ace people (i.e. me and Kali) trying to cobble together a solution then solution will be duly cobbled and no-one else will be aware was problem in first place.

Probably.

** NB VWER is one of fave things in SLife so all this tongue in cheek ahem ahem

Carriages at 9.30

Big fluffy ballgowns owned in SL: numerous (good); Pet peacocks owned in SL: 1 (v. pink); RL dress code conundrums: 1 (bad)

In RL have gained university award for TEACHING EXCELLENCE which is obviously v.v. good. Various benefits including RL dosh (no lindens, although perhaps could CONVERT some to lindens) to spend on teaching and learning, which apparently can include swanning off to conferences to work v.v. hard and not do any lazing around AT ALL, ahem. Additionally get given certificate and shake hand of v. important university person on graduation day, plus go to DINNER with other awardees and get to shake hand of v. important university person again.

As is way nowadays all this communicated via email, and in particular emailed invite for dinner has been perplexing somewhat in that there is severe lack of instructions about how to dress, but however fulsome timetable which finishes "Carriages at 9.30".

Now "Carriages at 9.30" conjures up images of laughing Edwardian aristos sweeping out of mansions and saying "Home, James", somewhat in manner of Downton Abbey, or alternatively dramatisations of the complete works of Trollope with flighty young debutantes flicking their fans at their caddish suitors. Does not conjure up visions of senior lecturers earnestly debating merits of constructivist vs. construuctionist pedagogy whilst trying to pick the edible bits out of a dinner supplied by WeAreUniversityCatering.

Is difficult to tell whether the use of "Carriages at 9.30" is: a) Cut and paste hangover from previous invitation to rather more upmarket do for potential donors to university funds; b) Post-modernist sardonic jeu d'esprit, indicating that of course one will be departing on foot or on eco-friendly bicycles; c) indication that one is expected to come in white tie and tails (men) or full blown ball gown inc. tiara (women).

At any rate, as usual, is lot simpler in SL. If one finds oneself inappropriately garbed in SL (e.g. dressed as an elm tree, and it turns out that "smart casual" was in order), then one click and a few blurred glimpses of half-rezzed mesh and there you are changed into what's needful. Also, you can bring a choice of carriages folded up in your inventory, and add ornamental pets for added pezaz.
Therefore decided to exorcise worries about correct RL dress tomorrow at physical world dinner (and, incidently, procrastinate over marking**), by rehearsing in SL.

Thus you see
(1) Arriving at steps of venue - as usual am a little behind everyone else - but being early is SO unfashionable
(2) Adjusting pet peacock before entering the stately pile
(3) A pause in the festivities as we are encouraged to pose on the battlements
(4) Wandering round after dinner; am glad have left own peacock indoors as this one seems a little agressive
(5) Carriages at 9.30: appear to have to drive own carriage, my dear, one simply can't get the staff nowadays.

** marking, or dressing up in a ballgown and driving round in a carriage, no contest really.

Fragmentation; Devastating critique

Disquisitions on scholarly publishing: 1 (dull); Pictures of kittycats: 2 (cute).

Think is time to inject some Seriousness into blog again, so today's meditation is on changes in scholarly publishing. However, scholarly publishing not v. visually appealing, so will also include some pics of kittycats being cute as only kittycats can be.
Am venturing further into readings on autoethnography, and a week or two ago refound useful article called Analytical Ethnography (in folder helpfully labelled "articles"). Having read it and found it good, used, um, scarcely any information literacy skills at all to search on "analytic autoethongraphy" on Google Scholar and discovered article by another pair of autoethnographers in same journal issue as first article. This 2nd article was esentially doing a hatchet job of 1st article, but written in semi fictionalised narrative form i.e. was writing devasting critique in form of autoethnography.
This would have been neat ruse, were it not that 2nd article was:
a) in humourless, stilted prose and
b) framed with some exploitative stuff about watching live footage from a natural disaster and saying how dreadful it made the authors feel.
As side note, have been having serious concerns about whether autoethnography only counts as autoethnography if badly written. Hope not as in that case would immediately be disqualified from doing autoethnography because of sparkling style, ahem.
Anyway, 2nd article caused emotional reaction, as imagine authors wanted, but possibly not the emotions they might have hope to evoke when they put finger to keyboard. In fact can never remember being so incensed by article, and notes in margins had some rude words and lots of exclamation marks.

At this point decided to see whether were any other autoethnographic articles in same issue of journal: and lo, not only were there more articles, but one of then was by author of article A, responding to Article B's response to Article A.
This was all v. jolly and gave reading matter for weeks to come, but was useful evidence of way in which carefully crafted assemblage of interlocking articles (as in fact articles X, Y and Z were also responding to article A) is reduced to whatever you chance to hit on when you google.

Now with many journal issues this is not real problem, as issue basically consists of whatever stuff happens to have turned up at roughly the same time. However, journals do have themed issues and books also have chapters, and in now increasing chance that you stumble across one disconnected part of whole, possibly never realising that there was a whole it was part of.
This is not exactly new observation, but this particular instance made me think how in particular it becomes more difficult to see the links and tensions between different ideas, from people in the same field, particularly if you can't find the connections through citation searching. Finding connections and contradictions for yourself is enjoyable. However, don't always have time to browse at will, and also is particularly difficult if trying to get to grip with a new field.

Response to this has been to buy an actual book on autoethnography, rather than looking at snippets of books on google books, not that the latter is something I would normally do, obviously, absolutely not.

Meanwhile, the kittycats sleep.

Gacha, gacha

Yardsales browsed: 3 (good); Gacha items bought: about 35 (bad)

Madness that is the quarterly Arcade gacha is upon us again. As reminder, gachas are money sinks: will contain supercute selection of items, you throw in your 50 Linden or whatever, and out comes the randomly selected item that you least wanted to own. Arcade is king of gacha events, with all top names in cute stuff designing items to extract lindens from purse.

Is pointless trying to get into Arcade itself in first week or so, so have been browsing yardsales. Yardsales are places where can offload gacha duplicates, or can at least hope that having 18 Apple Fall "side tables with plant" will sound v. appealing to some random shopaholic.
Thus zillions of Zaara's fishermans pants and Dustbunny's vintage towel rolls (the stall with the huge pile of boxes is Dustbunny one), and v. few rare Zaara chill tents or Dustbunny cute houses. Shown in pic is The Pea yardsale, which is at least organised i.e. the plots are in alphabetical order of designer. This is improvement on most of them, where principle is that people hire booths and shove in whatever they like, so e.g. if searching for the Truth hair in Colours, have to go round all the booths with fine tooth (or should that be truth) (well perhaps not) comb.

Most attractive yardsale is at la Venta (or is it Las Ventas? can't be bothered to check) where not only in alphabetical order but display vendor pic showing what all the items are. This is v. useful as since can be seen in 1st pic, above, box containing items generally gives no clue as to what is within.
Will not list all gacha items bought, as would be too embarrassing/tedious, but may be able to see one purchase in 1st pic, viz unicorn companion which is standing beside me.

Is definite vogue for attachable companions, already have wombat, pig, and various other creatures the species of which escapes me, but this is first unicorn. Has leopard patterned skin, which was not something that I though RL mythical unicorns normally had. Was only about 49 Lindens and is cute (it walks when I walk, it gallops when I run etc.)  although is no use when one sits down as simply then have unicorn body parts poking out of the cushions.
2nd pic shows another creature, namely a jackalope, which had completely foregotten about but found in SL pics folder when searched on word "gatcha". Think was meant to be cross between rabbit and red nosed reindeer. Pic was taken Christmas 2012, so likely this rare breed is extinct by now.
Have attracted COMMENTS for last post which is doubtless why have bothered to do another blog post so quickly.  Feel obliged therefore to put some utility into post, namely:
a) link to yardsale list on the Seraphim site: http://seraphimsl.com/2015/05/31/the-yardsale-list-jun-aug-2015/
b) SLURLS for the cat cafes:
- Juicy Cat Cafe (one kittycat):  (this is a rather minamalist cat cafe as only have 25 prims to play with, but have selection of coffees and cute cat themed sofa, as well as the kittycat) http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Juicy/73/174/25
- Eagle rise cat cafe: (one kittycat; she's on the main decking): http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Eagle%20Rise/151/4/21
- Shore Thing Cafe: (5 kittycats): http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/64/160/22
- Sakura Cat Cafe, Noyo: (lots of kittycats): http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Noyo/188/32/47
Kittycats spend good deal of time asleep: can try waking them up but do not always respond. If awake they will roll, and run around, chase butterflies etc. Is possible for anyone to pet them and they may possibly come up to you and make personal remarks which are meant to be be cute. All can say was, it wasn't me that programmed them.

Panic; Consumption; kittycats; the old round

No. of months since last blogged: 5 (bad); No. of cat cafes opened in intervening period: 3 (good); No. of lindens spent on flimflam: countless (v.bad)
Had sudden panic today when spotted that was 5 months since had last blogged. As noted previously, decided that this blog is for idle pleasure, so should not feel guilt when neglect it. However, am also aware that Great God Blogger deletes blogs if has been no activity for long time. Think long time is longer than 5 months, but would be v.v.v.v. bad if all of Yoshikawa's adventurous musings fell into the black hole of a blogger clean-up.
So what has happened in Yoshikawaland in past 5 months?
1) Goes without saying that have continued SL shopaholic madness e.g. today was FIFTY LINDEN FRIDAY so bought various treats each a 50 linden bargain, namely:
- texture change deckchairs
- a set comprising a small table, some pen and paper and an ornamented lampshade displaying views of Paris
- a swing for 4 people
- a cute summer dress from Pixicat
- a set of whitewashed wall panels
This is a picture of me on the swing. Only drawback is that poses only include v. gentle swaying, rather than proper swing. Probably as well given that 4 seats are rather close together, could otherwise end in AVATAR COLLISION

2) Have also opened cat cafes in Juicy, Noyo and a completely new place that Dimitrova is renting because it's a really cute location, and how could you not? Will do more pics, but this one will do for now.

3) Continue with journal club although ZOMG have not publicised the one for next week, so perhaps enthusiasm waning a bit.

4) Also still on VWER team and facilitated last night, was a lively discussion as they say.

5) When have time wander round SL going oh ah this is so pretty and doing artistic selfies posing on waterlilies/ rustic benches/ dystopian industrial wastelands/ rococco daybeds (as appropriate) then posting pics on flickr to modest acclaim.

So, same old, same old.