Blue remembered hills. And cats

Months since last blogged here: 4 (disappointing, but, whatever)

Had sudden urge to blog here, and discovered these pics which uploaded to blog in early December. Think must have been assailed by worry that was inflicting same old same old kittycat postings on world, and therfore went no further. But, whatever, kittycats are cute.

So, here you have a series of pics from start of Dec 2012, and will see what I can remember about them.

Starting point must actually have been pic lower down i.e. KittyCats update that meant you could PET OTHER PEOPLE'S CATS. In this pic, however, am petting own cat i.e. Stone, cute as ever. Think that Stone kept somehow disappearing through wall of house into garden. Still can't work out how he does that.

This 2nd pic is nothing to do with cats, but that old chestnut My Eye Texture Has Disappeared Woah Isn't That Spooky. This has happened to me before. It will happen to me again. But evidently I thought it was worth taking a picture of.

Only really odd thing is that on right can see straight through eye and head to window frame of house (house from which Stone had just made break for freedom) and on left can just see back of head. But not much entertainment value there, really.

So on to next KittyCat picture.

Here I am just having tp-ed inworld, to discover Naomi and Quilt flat out in cutest sleeping pose, with UPDATE ME floating over their heads. Is all a bit hazy, but think this update was pretty straightforward, just click cat, get update, rez the updater, and, lo, KittyCats now amenable to petting by all and sundry.


Suddenly remember was amusing moment last semester when coerced student wearing balloon avatar to pet cat for photo-op. Will try to unearth that pic and blog, just for completeness.

Otherwise, what can I tell from thsi picture? Appear to be wearing fetching oufit from Boho Hobo. Hmm, that is what I am wearing in this fashion blog post, which must mean that actually theses pics were taken in November not December. Landscape in background is late autumn, not winter; snow line has not yet crept down mountains (QED).

And so on to the next pics, in which, sated by pampering and petting own kitties, move to other people's.

Firstly, there are cute kitties in the Hanaya shop. There was a nice winter shelter out in front of the shop, with the kitties curled up on cushions, just waiting to have their new petting feature experimented with.

BTW, in case you want to try it for tyourself, should you come across a KittyCat in need of affection; you right click and select PET. This is in the place where it normally says SIT, so basically it means that your KittyCats now come with inbuilt poses for others to use.


The final pic was taken in Urbanized, when they introduced a new line of KittyCat cushions. The pose is in the cushion, rather than the cat, so you have to get the cat in the right position for it to look cute.

You have 2 options. You can wait for hours and hours for your KittyCat to wander randomly onto the exact right spot and try to pose before it wanders off again. Or you can right click on your cat, select edit, drag it into the correct place, and immobilise it with a judicious click on the menu. It is up to you.

Shop 2.0

Shops created: 1 (good); Products created: 11 (good); Price of most expensive product: $219.99 (that's real US dollars) (bizarre)

At RL conference proposed setting up RL web shop to sell items branded with international information literacy logo. Action now is to do this with colleague from US. To test out ease of setting up shop on Cafepress, decided that Sheila Yoshikawa store would be fun way of testing ... and indeed setting up shop only took 10 mins. However, inevitably wanted to fill Sheila Yoshikawa shop with Sheila Yoshikawa merchandise. End result is that 2 hrs later appear to have created new venture filled with unsellable products, which is taking on life of own. Have dreadful urges (so far resisted) to spend days photoshopping images to go on Modern Wall Clock etc. Also couldn't resist chosing some products that no person in right mind would want to purchase.

Shop can be found at http://www.cafepress.com/sheilayoshikawa. Most embarrassing will of course be if anyone buys anything. This is one of the pics I use on the merchandise. Cute or what.

Prims, glitches, trees

Prim gateways to the cream of British academia: 1 (v. good); Retrospective tree house posts: 1 (good) (if retrospective).

Am currently on travels again, trying to fit marking around doing academic things in exotic (Thessaloniki) and less exotic places (Manchester) (OK, suppose Manchester is exotic to some people). Am thus getting few opportunities to meander round SL. Am restricted to brief sorties to see what is free this morning from the Designer Showcase Network (see previous post) and pick up IMs and the odd prim.
Most useful prim is not from the DNS, though DNS has subsequently yielded some cute household goods from Second Spaces (cushions - you can never have too many - and bathroom vanity jars - well, why not?), and more useful poses. Also one gown which will try on when can prise self out of current outfit. Other stuff more dubious, though sure will find a use for the operational swing door, they always come in handy.

Will note here that, whilst unpacking, noticed odd glitch in SL, that everything was being rezzed and copied twice over. This was baffling at first when rezzed box containing various DSN objects, and they appeared to still be there even after deleted them. Then noticed that was getting 2 sets of objects, landmarks, notecards etc. and also when examined land, list of of Object owners was duplicated. Hmm. Am hoping this is strange quirk to do with wifi connection in Thessaloniki hotel.
Anyway most useful item is from Graham, who has produced simple prim that when you click it turns into searchable database of UK university SL properties. Cool or what. Includes Infolit iSchool, am pleased to say, plus 40-ish others. When you select a university, the map pops up with the right place marked and you can teleport in with one click.


Have placed this useful prim in the library on Infolit. Could not resist texturing it with pic of me and Nigl in academic garb on a seesaw. First picture, above, shows 3 stages in the process of tp-ing to a university. Image for first step has illegible text because a) This is a small image b) "twinning" glitch appears to have affected this prim as well, so here you see 2 conflicting hover texts and c) did this quickly in Photoshop and think I stretched the photo by mistake.

Actually the whole thing is illegible unless you CLICK on it to see the picture full size. If you do, you will see the hover texts and dialogue onscreen. Best thing is to visit the library in SL and have a look.

Speaking of places on Infolit (to change the subject) appear to have failed to blog the new tree house on Infolit. This is serious omission.

Had been feeling that previous tree house was starting to look its age, and then spotted a feaure about tree houses on a blog. Thus the Denmark tree house somehow found its way into my inventory. It is v. atmospheric and has operational lift. Came with candles that emit fireflies (romantic!) or butterflies (colourful!) and candles that emit bird sounds (some of the birds actually sound like they are being done to death, but still).


Took off roof of top house in tree house to make romantic/utile platform, and this is where last week's infolit discussion was held. Since still have not uploaded chatlog etc etc will give sneak preview of one of the participants, namely Pancha, who was wearing a supercute butterfly Avatar.

Water garden

Water gardens created: 1 (good); Visitors to water garden: 1 (good); No of creatures in water garden: 8 (good)

Have spent some time finding right seating for water garden and this seems to be it. Plump cushions with exotic feel and straightforward poses that would not give Wrong Impression to colleagues (e.g. by animating them in dubious fashion).

Water garden inspired by mangrove swamp area of Brisbane (Australia) Botanical gardens, though obviously v. different not least through fact that that is real and this garden isn't. Have good swathe of Decking plus variety of plants including two actual Mangroves which appear to be New Line at Heart Garden Centre (and one mangrove has dreaded Large Prim so may be confiscated by irate Lindens).
Also bought v. nice marble wall fountain which have installed on own property, what with there being a lack of water features (not).

Had gratifying visit from fellow educator/research North Lamar who liked island so could bask in appreciation for short while before returning to rigours of Academic Life.

Have been shamed by jolly blog recounting progress of educational island, at http://internationalschoolsisland.blogspot.com/. This gives all manner of useful info. However, they do not seem to have had to create whole island quickly like self, so have excuse. Have decided that was unconsciously striving for (non existent) prize of Prettiest Sim Created By One Person in Under 3 Weeks.

BTW: creatures in water garden are: frog (croaks); heron (stands enigmatically still); 3 butterflies (flutter); Duck (moves to and fro, to and fro); 2 small birds of indeterminate breed (swoop about and twitter).