I vlog therefore I am

Vlogs created: 3 (good, in parts)
Have discovered am natural vlogger, at least that is my view and as few other people are likely to even come across the vlogs am unlikely to be contradicted. First vlog came about as think had been using Camtasia to record lecture thingy and so it happened to be open when the first ever Deco(c)rate arrived with lots of yummy goodness (got to get into vlogger speak) in a virtual steamtrunk. Is addition to increasing numbers of schemes where you pay upfront to have a mystery box of stuff. You know who the designers are, but not the items. Up until Deco(c)rate (which is a pain to keep writing, what with those tricksy parentheses, so will just call it Dcrate), up until Dcrate had only gone for The Forest Event, which is variation on the theme, as when you pay the group fee, you can ramble round the v.v. cute sim (see below), snapping up the items, all for free, plus you know in advance what the things are.

The first box deal was Luxe Box, which have never even been tempted to buy, as most of the items are either (a) things would never wear because the are too skimpy and unattractive or (b) only for Mesh bodies (or often, a+b). I have stuck to what is now called the Classic Avatar body i.e. the body you are rezzed with. Given that most of my body is normally swathed in clothes, paying out a few thousand Linden and having to be clicking away at bits of alpha all the time seems not worth doing.
However, when everything is a home and décor item (as indicated by the name of the box, deco(c)rate) it seemed worth a look.  If you are interested in the Dcrate video it is here https://youtu.be/jsTFqxVHreY but am not embedding it as the resolution is too low. Had used normal resolution as for lecture videos, which seems fine for them, but for SL it is just not sharp enough (in fact am thinking - perhaps it isn't sharp enough for lectures either, hmmm).


Anyway, followed this up with 2 much shorter unboxing videos for !gO!'s advent calendar, which is rather better value than any of the crates or boxes, as you just pay 50Linden to join the gO group and then you can scoop up all the boxes, one at a time. The first dress alone was worth it, being a cosy long sweater dress of Nordic pattern, ideal for wearing whilst opening pressies on Xmas morning.


So! Here are the videos! Enjoy!!
Day 1!







And Day 2!

Winterfell; Goodbye Juicy: Primful for Xmas

No. of extra prims on Infolit iSchool: 5,000 (v.v.good); No. of extra prims on Noyo: 1,900 (v.v.v. good); Cottages rented on Winterfell: 1 (surplus to requirements, really)

During past month got v.v. excited by advent of prim bonus as Linden Labs upped the quota for mainland by a heady 7,250 prims per region, and 5,000 prims per region for islands. Is so many prims that actually haven't used them all up yet, though with Infolit there is reason for this, since extra prims for non-mainland regions have only just been released today. Unfortunately (or should perhaps be FORTUNATELY) have not had spare time to decorate out full prim allowance on Noyo so will have plenty of space for Xmas trees, Xmas baubles, Xmas signs, Xmas gifts, skating rinks, animated penguins, hot chocolate givers and so forth.

Will have extra place to decorate since had fallen in love with v. cute cottage on Winterfell, a 512 type plot with cottage already in place. Costs 300L a week which is exactly what have been paying for shop in Juicy for more years than care to remember (ok appears to be 8 years OMG, am not even going to try and add up how much that means have given to well-deserving Juicy sim landlord). Juicy shop was vanity project creating zero income from word go and has latterly been Cat Cafe with no pretence at money making. Was suddenly right moment to leave Juicy so packed up everything and in the first pic you have me and Hestia saying farewell.

In 2nd pic see new Winterfell cottage. It is book lined retreat, though now I look at 2nd pic have actually replaced that map cabinet and set of shelves with classy antique 4 prim dresser. However, still a lot of books on other side of cottage that you can't see.

In fact is not first time have rented Winterfell land. 3rd pic shows rather larger plot that rented for short time in 2011. Apart from fact that current Winterfell home is good deal cheaper to rent, is also nice to have something with novely of restricted size plus close neighbours who are guaranteed not to put up banlines, set up a casino or fill plot with giant revolving polar bears. (Was really thinking of other giant revolving things beginning with p, but don't wish to get flagged by Blogger for unseemly content, which seems to happen at drop of mildly challenging word.)

4th pic gives idea of what is like outside cottage, this is neighbour's house and my identical one is to left. There is sim policy which means outside should be decorated with things that might have been around in Victorian times, though at Halloween I think people were not observing this strictly since as far as I know Halloween  in Victorian England did not feature tableaux of animated zombies and self-stirring cauldrons, which is what my neighbour opposite put out (BUT STILL BETTER THAN GIANT FLYING Ps).

Meanwhile, back on VWER, the gravestones, poisoned apples and so forth have magically disappeared. Have erected small chapel, since, you know, Christmas is coming, and have hidden favourite tombstone-monument thing behind that. Could also not bear to part with witch broom generator, on which educators had jolly fun at end of Halloween VWER meeting. (see last pic)

Still will be very surprised if isn't a Santa sleigh generator or Rudolph Red Nose generator to replace witch broom in due course.

Am rolling up virtual sleeves to cover all available surfaces with Christmas cheer. And people had better enjoy it.

Witches; Death; Dilemmas

No: of witchy things bought: 8 (good); No. of Halloweeny items already in inventory: Numberless (or possibly, 666); Hysterical witch accusers encountered: one (awkward)

In a couple of weeks is HALLOWEEN which is always fun time in SL as great opps for becoming ghost, creating spooky haunted houses etc. etc. After a couple of days away from SL due to physical world travel arrived back just in time for Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable meeting, which was v. interesting talk from Greg Prumier who has been teaching in SL for 7 Years (that was in fact title of talk). When got to VWER he and a couple of others were variously standing/sitting by circle of cushions on one side of VWER area. Greg asked where to put presenter and so told him and then set out more of Dustbunny's Darling Sectional Cushions (which are indeed v boho and cute) in orange and red to match autumn theme of sim. Realised afterwards that didn't ask Beth (organiser and host of event) if she already had plans about setting up area, so hope didn't offend.

Anyway, next week am leading discussion on "Halloween and other festivals - can we use them for education in Virtual Worlds?" which is basically an excuse for me to drown VWER parcel in witchy stuff. Had not yet visited the Salem event, so tped over and had happy half hour trying out gallows props, deciding how many new mirrors I needed (answer: lots) and musing over whether should buy Besom hair with stylish witch hat (answer: of course). Snapped up sparkly spider webs, village stocks (with tomato giver for throwing at person IN stocks), pumpkin cookie-giver, sinister cloaked form holding moddable poster and a few other items.

During tour of event came across sign (see above)which said that Abigail Williams (famous accuser at Salem witch trials) was hidden on sim. After Black Dahlia hunt assumed that this might be challenging e.g. with small effigy of Abigail hidden up a tree somewhere, but in fact proved to be v. easy as simply followed path in wood and there was real avatar dressed as Abigail, pointing and muttering wicked, wicked under her breath. Was all very nice, but immediately felt like awkward situation, since this was an actual person (though presuably an actual person who was going afk a lot). Was not sure of appropriate behaviour. Should one say "Hi, I'm Sheila I believe you have some issues with witches?" or shout and point "Evil liar evil liar"? or was one expected to interact in order to learn fun facts about the Salem Witch Trials? In fact did the British thing of pretending hadn't seen her and scuttling back down the path. Am shown in pic hiding behind tree when crept back later to see if she was still there.

When got back to VWER had fun time setting out a Halloween setting that was spooky but not too gruesome. Am not sure if got level right e.g. felt that guillotine and people in nooses might be going to far for educational area, on other hand flying skeleton holding lamp and coffin with skeleton hand curling round lid somehow seemed ok. Set out cute rustic table with assorted Halloween food givers including cauldron of poisoned apples (when you accept one and wear it you fall over dead - see pic, am sort of slumped under table).

Might be challenging for newbies as have to detach apple to become not dead (as opposed to undead) (see pic). On other hand would give people someone else to throw rotten fruit at, when got tired of pelting miscreants in village stocks. Am sure there are educational life lessons there.

Hunts; Walls; I Am My Cat

No. of hunt items found: 3 (good); No. of hours spent searching for hunt items: 1.5 (bad); Number of gigantic boundary walls bought: 1 (good); No. of kittycats whose bodies I have occupied: 1 (so far) (not spooky AT ALL)

With October comes halloween hunts and one of fave SL designers, namely DRD, has a hunt in their shop. You get a HUD, you go around spotting Black Dahlia flower heads and get cool stuff when you find them. This sounds v. simple, but have trawled lower floor of DRD's store twice, camming into corners and waiting impatiently for all to rez etc etc, plus have gone round upstairs twice, and done quicker trawl of builds in their garden. However have only found 3 items out of about a dozen. Was at least glad to hear from DRD group chat that wasn't just me that found this challenging. Hunt object is small and also black, and as DRD do a lot of dark stuff and store is huge have evidently missed loads of dahlias lurking in corners and under carpets. Also they produce a lot of small fiddly objects that look v. like dahlias until they rez properly.

In 2nd pic you may be able to see object on floor that got overexcited about til saw was "film cans" not dahlia. Realise have got used to hunts where you (a) get a hint (b) have a large and flashy hunt object, so am probably lazy but frankly life is too short to spend more than 1.5 hrs looking for objects however cute.
Was, though, friendly experience, one avatar IMed me to ask if was on hunt and we exchanged cheerful remarks on lack of success in dahlia finding. Group chat also good natured except when spammer spammed chat with random request for 100 Linden which resulted in multiple insults and group bans for spammer. Would be careful about spamming DRD chat, probably contains people with arcane knowledge of spells and potions (AM JOKING know that people who like to recreate post-apocalyptic dungeons and spooky haunted asylums are quite likely frightfully well adjusted individuals who would no more think of cursing someone than of jumping the checkout queue in Tescos).
Anyway have ended up with (1) carpet (2) very cute tray of bedroom decor stuff (3) some sort of notice on a cute board PLUS there was a free thing just waiting to be nabbed on the 1st floor, vis several female corpses hung up on pegs, some of Bluebeard's wives according to the description. Obviously maker did not subscribe to the "it is all symbolic of mental abuse and Bluebeard's wives are now all enjoying fulfilled lives with more suitable partners, it's Bluebeard you should feel sorry for" line. It will be a useful item for my halloween decor this year.

Thinking of Halloween made me think of dungeons and caves, so wandered over to the Felix Alter sim as he does v. good v. reasonably priced cave and mountain decor. Did look at caves (see pic), but got distracted by what is v. good idea and wonder why noone else has done it. He has created high thin and attractive cliff walls (with walkable paths) for people to put round sims when they want privacy from neighbours. One of perils of mainland is suddenly having some huge hideous barrier penning you into your plot, because your neighbour doesn't want to see your beautifully landscaped gardens but would rather see some giant, implausible and out of focus picture of a tropical beach.
There are several options which mix and match, all priced at 250 Linden, and bought one and immediately put it to good use. Trouble with previous similar things is that they have tended to be (a) not thin enough (b) not that much more attractive than the hideous beach picture. Will post some actual pics of walls at some point but cannot pause to do that as OMG final thing is MOST EXCITING.

Namely, KittyCats have a new update and YOU CAN BECOME YOUR KITTYCAT. OMG.

In fact practically never desert my human form but took all of 10 secs to decide that I wanted to inhabit the bodies of my KittyCats. Took copy of body shape, made sure outfit was saved and then you just click on your chosen KittyCat, select something off the interaction menu, get a folder which includes a "KittyCat Transponder" you wear the folder and voila!

In fact it wasn't Voila! at first as simply became invisible. Wandered about a bit invisibly and then thought would try logging off and on and THEN trying the wear transponder thing again and this time it worked. I went through the spooky change thing (see pic, I am migrating, Jennifer is sitting all unconcerned to my right), Jennifer disappeared and then I WAS JENNIFER. I walked and ran and sat and flew. When you fly a skateboard appears underneath you. I may moderate VWER as a kitty on Thursday so went and practiced sitting at the VWER table (see last pic) and OMG I am so cute.

Was a slight worrying moment when I transponded back and initially the "Jennifer kittycat" in my inventory simply would not rez. However all was well when I logged out/ in and she now seems to be sleeping and pottering about quite happily again, all on her own.

Am deciding which Kittycat I will comandeer next. Probably Marl.

Is this a bit creepy? I don't care if it is a bit creepy. Thank you KittyCats creators for providing me with awesome features I never even knew I wanted.

Shop; Repeat: Squeak

No of items bought from The Arcade: more than intended (bad); No. of hours spent decorating houses: more than intended (bad); No. of items bought which squeak on touch: 2 (good)

First first time for a while was asked by fellow researcher to write some thoughts about teaching in SL, difference SL made to Life and Work etc. Reminded me that hadn't blogged here in a while. However, followed scholarly activity of reflecting on SL practice with usual burst of shopping and decorating, so afraid this blog will be same old.
First, June 1st, as anyone knows, means a new round of THE ARCADE that Linden-pit of a gacha event. Started by buying rare Hedera Caravan from Dust Bunny on SL marketplace, the ebay of SL. In fact this was particular extravagence as only really wanted it for lace awning that came as kind of extra (see first pic.). Thought would be salutary and informative to list subsequent orgy of consumerism. Should be lesson to reflect on how many of these will not get rezzed, let alone used.

Sanarae event
barberyumyum*53B (hair) (cute Japanese hair)
Car Neon Wall Decor (half a car, in a neon colour, to put on your wall)
Dreamer Tent (a very small tent, with some frilly bits, I think you are supposed to hang it from a branch. The one I got was red)
Candy Crunchers - Moon Bunny (what WAS that? blowed if I can remember. Ah yes - it was a kind of hanging ornament with a cute bunny on a crescent moon. Obvious really. It is now hanging from the duly-installed Dust Bunny lace awning)  (which you can't quite see in the pic)
.::THOR::.. Ticket on a plate (this is a plate with a receipt on it, perfect for cafe decor)

Collabor88 event
floorplan. potted cactus
Soy. parasol indian cotton (3 colours)
Soy. metal double chair
dust bunny . darling sectional cushion ( In 3 colours - red grey and later I came back for orange plus a boho hanging cloth with lights)
dust bunny . darling hanging plant (a hanging plant in a macrame holder) (think there's one in the first pic.)
+Half-Deer+ Ceiling Drapes (Drapes. For the ceiling)
Ariskea[Wild] Boho Plant Hanger (another hanging plant in a string holder. I can't get enough of them)

Truth hair shop
TRUTH HAIR Elira - pastels
TRUTH HAIR Fenella - pastels (shown above)
(Two first-class new hair designs, both styles come with and without hats)

Fifty Linden Friday special deals
Izzie's - Assorted Beads Bracelet (bangles. I can't get enough of them)
7 - Now Serving (this is a metal sign saying "now serving" and with numbers underneath you can change, perfect for shop decor)
JIAN :: Ferret Habitat (a large cage with three ferrets in it, which sort of twitch and you can change their fur colour) (see last picture)
#EMPIRE - Xylosma (sandals in 12 colours. For only 50 Linden!)

The Arcade
+Half-Deer+ Purrfect Patisserie Gacha (4 goes - got a malformed but cute kitty to hold, one to rez, and a pice of cake and dish of maccaroons with a cute kitty theme. These are obviously destined for the cat cafes)
Le Primitif - Fashion Office (what was this? I have no idea)

Nylon Outfitters - Cat Music Icons (times 3 - clever pictures of pop icons, as cats, in twirly frames)
Second Spaces - Bake Me a Cake (cooking utensil decor)
Mutresse - Witty Cats (a cat which looks perpetually about to pounce and wiggles its bottom, seen in last pic.)
Ariskea - Tropical Paradise (um, something, I'm sure since it's Ariskea it is cute, could be wooden sign in last pic.)
Sway's - [Atepa] Tipi (a small green tent, v well made)
O.M.E.N - My Pet Adventure Gacha (some sort of ornamental thingy)
Intrigue Co. - Carousel Cats (you wear it and you are sitting on a carousel cat, bobbing up and down PLUS you get a cute tiny rezzable ornament version)
Ingenue - Melisande Heels (shoes, green I think, Ingenue do beautiful shoes)

Yard sale
D-LAB+LIZAIL Peti - P Set 10 (a cartoony small penguin, and a small paddling pool)

!Go! shop
Mercy - tunic & boyfriends (a nice summer dress with linen trouser cuffs underneath, those are the boyfriends)

LaGalleria Prefab Houses
Seashell Planter w FERN
Starfish on Stand
Bird Yellow - touch song off/on(seen in last pic.)
(Free items from someone who makes large houses and upmarket furniture of the style you see in expensive but not boutique international hotels).

Gami gacha
Dimitrova went to this, but suppose have to accept that she was actually spending my money. There were some random bonus tokens, Dimi got one and she threw it in the machine thingy shown in the 2nd to last pic. A present came out - think it was earrings or a septum ring, or possibly both. Anyway Dimi is very street, so she wore the septum ring.

That just leaves the things that squeak. Firstly there's the cursed creations vendor above. Dimi was hoping to get Marshmellow, because that's her favourite cat in Neko Atsume,but ended up with Evil Spirit Fox Rare. Anyway, it squeaks when you touch it. She's pictured with an evil dark spirit lord who I presume is the proud father.

Now the mystery remains, what is the 2nd things which squeaks? Know that when started this blog post, definitely had 2 in mind, but am blowed if can remember which it is. Could be penguin. Could be ferret. For all I can remember, could be Seashell Planter w FERN. Unfortunately is no way to search through inventory for THINGS WHICH SQUEAK ON TOUCH (Linden Lab take note).

Note to self: buy more squeaky things.