Digital archaeology; Kittycats are adorable

No. of unfinished blogposts: 67 (bad); no of kittycats 12: (v. good); no. of days before share SL insights with baffled, indulgent or indifferent colleagues: 5 (good/bad)

Had another go at retrieving unfinished blogpost drafts. Blogger says there are 67, earliest is from June 7 2007 (so just one month after rezzed) and the only text is
"In RL consider attending advertised event "Getting to grips with the Google generation: a hands on event" but fear that if lives up to title could be dismissed from post for Gross Moral Turpitude"
Golly wouldn't risk posting that now, though suppose I just have. More to the point, cannot imagine anyone would NAME an event like that now, unless they wanted a Twitter pile-on and a dismissal notice. 

Anyway, draft post decided to focus on was from 23 May 2017 and had headline "10 years; Kittycats are adorable". (actually, full disclosure, there was another phrase in the middle but have deleted it and now can't remember what it was). Full extent of draft post was:

 
[2017/05/04 13:13] Sheila Yoshikawa: yes you ARE adorable
[2017/05/04 13:13] Sheila Yoshikawa: oops sorry wrong window
[2017/05/04 13:13] Sheila Yoshikawa: lol
[2017/05/04 13:13] person1: lol
[2017/05/04 13:13] person2: awwww
[2017/05/04 13:13] Sheila Yoshikawa: and I was talking to a kittycat (hides face in shame)
[2017/05/04 13:13] person2: kittycats are adorable XD 

Any SL resident will immediately know what's going on here - you have various group windows open in chat, you have been lurking in some conversation in, say the Apple Fall group, about where to find a particular cute chair in their shop, then you notice how adorable one of your kittycats is, can't resist telling them, and there you go, wrong-window situation. Fortunately in this example (as is usually the case) other residents kind and forgiving, and am just grateful wasn't venting or sharing secret/embarrassing info. First pic is obligatory one of adorable kittycats, it was difficult to choose, they are all so cute, this is Beltane (asleep) and Rosebud in one of the cat cafes.

10 years part of draft blog post was celebrating 10 years since first rezzed on 3 May 2007. Can't remember doing much to commemorate it, so perhaps that why post never got posted. Looking back at chatlog, day appeared to start with

[2017/05/03 10:42]  Second Life: Unable to load gesture [KUE!] /pixie.

a lack am sure was able to bear this with equanimity, though may be a sweet gesture. Then appear to have attended talk from Kali about her research, can't tell for certain where, as evidently tped straight there, but later chat said "You have added "Ethnographia Island - Parcel 13" to your Landmarks folder", which may be a clue. Appears went entire 3 May in SL without rezday greeting, bit saddo, however next day was VWER and must have celebrated it then as announce at the start that am wearing original avatar to celebrate 10 years and topic was "Milestones, Epiphanies and Turning Points in virtual worlds". 

[pause of approx. 30 mins...] 

Have just tried to find whereabouts of May 2017 photos and failed dismally - have ones up to March 2017 and then from 2018 onwards: think 2017 was when got new computer? or something dire happened to computer? Anyway, SL stuff dotted around in various places. Finally resorted to Flickr and hurrah had uploaded pics from that VWER session so there they are (a) me as I rezzed in 2007 (gaaahhhh) and also (b) some of the others. 

In (b) the orange item on the table was some kind of Australian Uni mascot that I trailed round in 2007, for no particular reason, except suppose attached creatures were still a novelty for me at that point. 

Since the 2007-me is so ... 2007 ... have to finish with me looking much more me after hoovering up stuff at The Arcade yesterday. Even got some arty shadows in the pic, so, life moves on.

Lucky chairs; Nostalgia; Dancing

Free items acquired: 11 (good, on the whole); Time spent dancing in Rare dress: 30 mins (plucky); Av. no. mins spent waiting at lucky chairs etc., per free item, (i.e. total time waiting divided by no. of items): 9 (bad).
See that in last blog post became nostalgic after getting stuck in wall, this time am nostalgic after spending a good 60-90 minutes waiting for lucky chairs to come up with letter "S". Was chasing four poster bed in ChiaMia when saw not only lucky chairs but also Midnight Madness.
Midnight Madness is where if enough people slap the poster, you get whatever gaudy item is on offer, often without having to wait for midnight. Or, from previous experience, you slap the poster and nothing arrives as either item is unattractive, even if free, so not enough people slap, or place offering midnight madness is almost totally deserted and ditto. However in this case, items were OK bordering desirable, and lots of people were bumbling through in search of the four-poster (which was on discount for the Saturday Sale, or possibly the Weekend Extravaganza or some other desperate event aimed to part innocent avatars from their Lindens).

Can be seen in 1st pic waiting patiently for lucky chairs. These chairs had several virtues (1) Not set to group only (2) Only 10 mins before change letter (3)There are 3 of them (4) Reasonable proportion of items were worth having. Ended up with metallic photo frames and 60s vintage stockings which (unusually) included version for classic avatars, so a win. To be honest, more desirable items could have been mine had name begun with B, N, M etc. etc. At one point tried to boot up Firestorm and bring in Dimitrova to claim item that required a D, but unfortunately this crashed computer as was not only already in SL with official browser but also streaming live horse racing in Firefox. Was all a bit too much for the poor Viglan & its graphic card on a hot day. Again certain amount of nostalgia, as in early days of using SL computer would crash ALL THE TIME, but not something to be repeated too often, esp. as am not the world's best Backer Up of Files (in fact doubt whether am even best Backer Up of Files in my corridor).

Waiting for lucky chairs reminded me of great sport of hanging around in B@rerose until you randomly get dropped some strange item "Just for being here". Anyway, TP-ed over and in less that 20 mins had not only been dropped Gear Gloves but also Super Rare Card Dress. Inspired to have grand unpacking, so also scooped up new freeby group gifts from Fancy Decor (cake + patterned boxes) and from someone who does fractal art. Was going to be lazy and leave it without saying who artist was, but hey I took her free art, so at least should look up name [brief pause to dip into SL. Well, SHOULD have been brief, but was obliged to do SL update, sigh, which apparently now allows baked on somethings for the Mesh body and head I don't have. Sigh.] OK, art is by Milly Sharple and the pics are called Navajo, Roses and Lily, think is pretty obvious which are the last 2.
Also decided should wear dress, although not really my kind of thing, since is Super Rare so felt obligation. 2nd pic show me wearing both gloves and dress. Am still not sure what kind of Cards are involved in Card Dress, but it sparkles a bit and is evidently celebratory in some way. 3rd pic shows me wearing Super Rare dress accessorised with G Field boots and old pair of tights in suitably garish colours, also can see bed, a sample metallic photo Frame, 3 free fractal pics, cake and Patterned Boxes, plus geeky book cupboard, and a coffee table from a gacha (was hoping to get the rare house; still a gacha fool after all this time).

Not in pic are Sakura Curtains, 60s Vintage Crew Socks, Gold Minimal Candles and Shit Wall Art. In case of first 3 is because they were successful Midnight Madnesses, whose delivery had been attempted whilst offline/crashed and I hadn't yet worked out how to get them redelivered [answer=go to redelivery terminal, duh]. In final case can't remember whether this omission was because hadn't yet gone for 2nd bout of Lucky Chair stalking or because wall art is exactly what it says it is i.e. item with word s h i t on it, call me old fashioned, but don't think would be adornment for any self-respecting cat cafe.

Such was commitment to Rare Dress that even kept it on when TPed to the opening party for exhibition of Michiel Bechir and Tresore Prada's art (see pic 4) where was much dancing.
However, not sure is right thing for thursday's virtual Worlds Education Roundtable, where will be exploring Multiple Intelligences and need to look a bit less Rare.
In final pic am contemplating SL rezzed wardrobe and thanking my Lindens that actual SL wardrobe in inventory is not so small and drab.

Rez Day; Stuck; Scammed; Fairytale

Rezdays celebrated: 12 (v. good); Items bought today (so far): 2 (good); Time spent googling for name of maker of fairy godmother gown because was too lazy to go inworld and just check the designer: 10 (bad).

Today is 12th rezday. So far no-one has said Happy Rezday, which is bit sad, on other hand nowadays on physical world birthday only get handful of cards and have to rely for bulk of greetings on Facebook from people saying Happy Birthday because their mobile device has told them to.

Here is birthday portrait. Unlike UK royal family where trend is to take pic of royal child in ordinary clothes doing dull everyday things, have gone for Fairy Godmother in cherry blossom forest look. Why look ordinary when can be a fairy godmother?  In fact look came together when (a) decided to wear wings, since theme of last night's VWER discussion was "fantasy in education" (b) saw Beth arrived dressed as fairy and so googled "fairy" in inventory and came up with this dress which actually may have not worn since bought it in Feb/March 2018 (but wait - it was out of its box - must have at least tried it on). (c) Today snapped up umbrella with attached goldfish which was Fly By Friday offer. Et voila, I shall go to the ball.

Only downside to day has been splurging 500 Linden on a gacha item (Serenity Style- Vintage Box Car - GARDENER ULTRARARE) on Marketplace yesterday and finding today that all that was in the delivered box was a texture of the gacha key. However, this has only happened twice ever. Is surprising it doesn't happen more often, really. Should have been alerted by fact that (1) was no picture given on the posting (2) were only 2 items from gachas on sale from that vendor. You see I CHECKED but did not REFLECT. However will LEARN from this mistake. Or perhaps not.

Earlier whilst checking out Fifty Linden Friday items got stuck in a wall (see pic, inside the shower). How nostalgic that feels, haven't got stuck in a wall since last year at least, it used to happen all the time in younger days. Suppose that is what being SL 12 means, feeling nostalgia for times when you felt embarrassed and didn't know how to escape. At https://adventuresofyoshikawa.blogspot.com/2009/06/reflecting-on-glitches.html. reflect on transformational skills ie point where realised how could stop being trapped in walls, under tables etc.

Traditional rez day pastime appears to be hauling out pics of self on previous rez days and noting how much better one looks now without those flexi skirts/ system bodies/ ugly feet/ mad hair. Still have system body, but can certainly have smug reflection on how much better hair, feet and dresses look. On other hand: me at age 1 (see pic and https://adventuresofyoshikawa.blogspot.com/2008/05/happy-rez-day-to-me.html) - cute or what? Certainly fare better than comparing physical world me now and 11 years ago.

Will now go and get physical world lunch and try not to get stuck in a wall.

Gone cats; on Comments; too much stuff

Comments on fashion blog: 2 (bad); Cats disappearing into Lost and Found: 7 (very very bad); Amount of cute stuff that can be bought at SL events: limitless (so bad, it becomes good again)
My Blueness fashion blog is attracting comments, but alas not from what one might call discerning punters. Indeed a sceptical reader might think people were spamming the blog to advertise some tawdry search engine optimisation services. First comment reads "Its such as you read my thoughts! You appear to understand so much approximately this, like you wrote the e book in it or something. I believe that you can do with some percent to drive the message home a little bit, however instead of that, that is magnificent blog. A fantastic read. I’ll definitely be back."

This so barely hangs together as English that it almost becomes poetry (really awful poetry, obviously). Quality of the prose is probably explained by next comment

"I read a lot of interesting posts here. Probably you spend a lot of time writing, i know how to save you a lot of time, there is an online tool that creates high quality, SEO friendly articles in minutes, just search in google – laranitas free content source". Is evident that author A must have been using services being peddled by author B and in my view should ask for their money back, though the phrase "like you wrote the e book in it or something" has a certain ring to it.
Makes me nostalgic for the early days of spam where either messages were lovingly handcrafted by spamming maestros, or consisted of random chunks of text welded together with no regard for sentence structure, punctuation or meaning.

Moving on, had been looking at fashion blog because just posted new outfit (see above) presenting just a few of the many items hoovered up at recent SL events. The Arcade! Kustom 9! We Love Roleplay! Jewelery Fair! The Chapter Four! Basically, there is just too much cute stuff to be had, and my inventory is stuffed to the limit (i.e. 71,000 items) with things so delightful have never even opened the box let alone worn them.

Could have disquisition on moral decay of Western Society here (what kind of world is it where spend money on virtual hat consisting of giant butterfly, when should be doing marking?) however will move on swiftly to Case of The Disappearing Kitties. Was going quietly about normal business in SL, setting up a picture shot of me carving pumpkins amongst autumnal trees and grass (see first pic), when realised that item which had just rezzed was more than the prim count that I had left on the land. Strange.
Turned out that this was because SL had decided to send into Lost and Found
- 7 assorted kittycats
- 1 folding chair
- 1 set of washing, on a line.
Items are all scripted, but then so are oodles of other things. To cut long story short, kitties are returned to their homes, but still seems to be some kind of aftermath in which when "holding" a kitty animation does not work, so get unfortunate effect as pictured here with Marl.

Perhaps  is revenge of the spammers for sending their comments straight to spam.

It Began With A Japanese Lantern

Research discussions held: 1 (good); Metaphorical objects discovered: 1 (multilayered yet ambiguous, obviously)

Today used Sakura House as discussion venue for first time in long while. Is still original 2007 build, and causes nostalgia and happy memories of days gone past e.g. time when student holding Jack Daniels bottle stumbled into infolit discussion and fell unconscious at our feet. Felt Pioneer Teacher credibility status went up several notches as real student doing something recreational in SL is always a desirable outcome for SL teachers.

Topic of discussion today was research approaches. Pancha talked about constructivist grounded theory, Ridvan about case study with ethnographic texture, and I talked about autoethnographic study of SL that have still not done even after several years of printing out articles about autoethnography and filing them away in boxes/on hard drive. Suppose actually reading articles might speed process, but in this case managed to produce paragraph for notecard by copying out a few sentences** found in a textbook on Google Books. Will probably now have to buy book and put it on shelf, as author appears to be guru in field. Can Reading Book be far behind (answer: yes)

For uninitiated, autoethnography is ethnography about self. Actually realise must have blogged about this before (do search of own blog). Yes, July 2010 http://adventuresofyoshikawa.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/wasted-evening-or-pleasant-evening.html. Think have progressed since then as am sure are more articles in the Autoethnography article box now.

After meeting meandered outside Sakura house and reminisced about time when had just got island and put down a japanese lantern as the first object. Have recreated scene in pic, right.
Pancha observed
"the lantern is a good metaphorical object"
which actually hadn't thought of before and is Useful Insight for a budding autoethnographer. Was this lurking in back of mind when selected it as First Prims? Think that it was just that liked japanesey things and lantern was copiable. However, perhaps was more too it than that and didn't even realise!

In fact for purposes of autoethnography should reproduce chunk of text JUST NOW, fictionalise it and then reflect on it

1. Chatlog
[2014/04/23 13:21] Sheila Yoshikawa: that japanese lantern was the first thing i placed on the island after we got it on 2007
[2014/04/23 13:22] Sheila Yoshikawa: so i am sentimentally attached to it
[2014/04/23 13:22] Sheila Yoshikawa: (the one on the little island)
[2014/04/23 13:22] Pancha Enzyme: ooh i see now
[2014/04/23 13:23] Sheila Yoshikawa: i felt soooooooooooooo excited when i got the island and had 15000 prims
[2014/04/23 13:23] Sheila Yoshikawa: and a whole island to terraform
[2014/04/23 13:23] Sheila Yoshikawa: getting into the autoethnographic swing
[2014/04/23 13:23] Sheila Yoshikawa: actually
[2014/04/23 13:23] Pancha Enzyme: :-D
[2014/04/23 13:23] Pancha Enzyme: excellent!
[2014/04/23 13:23] Sheila Yoshikawa: not to be modest
[2014/04/23 13:23] Ridvan-Researcher (ridvan.atolia): u going to start from here then :)
[2014/04/23 13:23] Sheila Yoshikawa: ****
[2014/04/23 13:24] Pancha Enzyme: the lantern is a good metaphorical object
[2014/04/23 13:24] Sheila Yoshikawa: lol
[2014/04/23 13:24] Sheila Yoshikawa: indeed
[2014/04/23 13:24] Sheila Yoshikawa: shining light on my whole SL experience
[2014/04/23 13:24] Pancha Enzyme: :-D
[2014/04/23 13:24] Sheila Yoshikawa: It Started With A Japanese Lantern
[2014/04/23 13:24] Pancha Enzyme: yes!
[2014/04/23 13:24] Sheila Yoshikawa: 9 prims
[2014/04/23 13:25] Sheila Yoshikawa: but at least that means you can see it from a distance
[2014/04/23 13:25] Sheila Yoshikawa: i have a problem with a lot of these very prim-light objects
[2014/04/23 13:25] Ridvan-Researcher (ridvan.atolia): I am looking forward to be 1st reader of your paper Sheila :)
[2014/04/23 13:25] Pancha Enzyme: I still have vivid memories of meeting you and Ishbel for the first time in here and eating japanese barbeque

**** [line censored as was indeed being immodest and comparing ability to write fiction favourably with someone v. famous in autoethnography world, who knows if said person might google own name and "autoethnography", too dreadful to contemplate]

2. Fictionalised version
After the meeting I felt impelled to walk to the door and look our over the glimmering, shimmering sea to where the lone, stone lantern threw its light. I murmured, emotion catching my throat, "that was the first object I placed on this island". Ridvan and Pancha joined me. Together we contemplated the view. I recalled the wild exhilaration of seeing a new, virgin land blossoming beneath me, ready to be terraformed to my will. I smiled "Such and exciting experience". Ridvan jested lightly "So, your autoethnoethnographic journey starts here!" I nodded "yes, my systematic sociological introspection, as Ellis says". This time, this place, were good places to recreate my journey, to delve within and without. Pancha exclaimed "the lantern is a good metaphorical object". I smiled at her insight, observing "Indeed, for it shines light on the whole of my SL experience." As dusk fell, we recalled more happy times on Infolit iSchool. I felt invigorated, inspired.

3. Reflective account
Well can reflect that SL scenery evokes emotional response as would RL scenery and that also am nostalgic person with attachment to pixelated objects. Also that if am with another Immersed person with Shared Experiences can launch into reminiscence session as dull for 3rd party as is RL equivalent.

Ho hum not sure that is really deep reflection, but actually need to stop blogging and get home as tomorrow outside SL have got v.v. large amount of things to do and then off to RL Sweden where will be attending friend's PhD viva, which over there is public performance.

So, one more step on the autoethnographic highway!

**WITH DUE CITATION AND QUOTE MARKS, just to make that clear

Your object 'Duck' has been returned to your inventory Lost and Found folder

Sims reduced to earth, sky and sea: 1 (sad)

Received a series of messages from SL yesterday announcing that a variety of objects (stools, ferns, coffee makers, ducks, tabby kittens etc. etc.) had been returned to my Lost and Found by Art Fossett.

Knew that this could only mean that Eduserv island was no more. Went inworld today and found that there was nothing but sea and sky and, if went down a bit, featureless underwater land.
Presume that soon Eduserv sim will be only a Location Not Found. Hope that previous post on poor dead Mitsies didn't trigger this end of era experience.

So, Farewell Eduserv Island, you were loved once.

But, evidently, no more.

The walking dead Mitsy

Pieces of Mitsy still floating in Eduserv Ocean: many (spooky)

Realised that profile hadn't been updated in ages (much like this blog) and found that some info was out of date etc. etc. so needed to check pick landmarks. One pick is Eduserv Island and was surprised to find it still there since not sure Eduserv even funded any more. Even more surprised to come across pieces of cloned Mitsy still floating beside the old CILR office. Still some bits which move around and mew. No less spooky than it was six years ago.

Reminiscence. Mesh heads. Kitana.

Items gifted at Barerose: 6 (good); SL consumer trends as reflected in inventory at Barerose: 3 (trendy); Months since last blog post: 5 (whatever) 

Spent last night stalking raffle globe in Barerose. Reminescent of old times so decided ought to unleash new blog post. Am surprised to see after all these months that still have 31 followers (though have my doubts about the follower named ZaLV0fYV2Z7OF_LohUC0.m.j7rqKUg). Suppose they have forgotten were following and will be surprised and no doubt delighted to see new Yoshikawa post popping up on their dashboard.

Must have got bout of nostalgia for Old Blogging Times after seeing Barerose refreshingly unchanged i.e. still consists of huge structure like tacky gothic cathedral with walls filled with piles and piles of stuff in no particular order (see pics 1 and 2). Most stuff priced at something like 179 Linden which sounds cheaper than it actually is, so immediately tempted to snap things up esp. if e.g. box of cute floral chiffon tops which is nestling in a bank of costumes for obscure old anime series. Think Barerosers must really be fiendishly sharp businesspeople.

The Raffle Orb detects who is in its orbit and periodically shouts e.g. "ChocolateMunchie Resident has just won a ::: B@R ::: Gold Long Dress just for being here!" Probability is that wouldn't want most of items anyway, but is worth it to find out what some of the things are e.g. what on earth is an "Abs. Dress  C1", apart from being a dress, obviously.

My loot so far for hanging round in the Barerose orb zone (I am in evening dress in foreground of pic 2) is:
- Two mesh heads, one Furry, one not
- Knee length striped dress
- Display katana x 2
- Fancy white fantasy armour with wings
- Spooky Bat avatar
You can see them in their boxes here. Unfortunately none of these were item that caused raffle-stalking in the first place i.e snake neck wrap.Wanted it as in RL was born in Year of the Snake which is also THIS year, so from this you can guess that am at or nearly one of following ages: 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 96. Will give clue that isn't 12 or 96.

Anyway to return to loot, have to admit that anticipation was rather more than the actuality. Indeed to be frank; - are those heads Sheila Yoshikawa style? Think not. How often have you seen me in a demon avatar? Never. And what home requires 2 identical display kitana? Well, actually, could see those nestling in twin niches in some swanky Japanese mansion.

That trip to Barerose reveals top 3 trends in SL fashion consumerism, as evidenced by type of stuff on sale. These trends are:
- Mesh. Most designers now putting things out in mesh, despite fact that means that a) you can’t layer properly and b) you have to have a shape either very thin and straight or VERY curvy with unfeasibly small waist aka Standard Sizes (Xtra Small to Large).
- Petites. Apparently lots more people want to go round as tiny people, and now they have lots of clothes to do it in.
- Add-on breasts aka Lolas aka Tangos aka Lush (etc etc). SL now populated by far more avatars with huge fronts, which bounce in an oddly realistic and disturbing fashion. Or perhaps disturbance not that odd. Anyway lots of designers now issuing clothes with quaintly named Appliers which mean that their clothes adapt to these appendages. Started by being just designers of a more Saucy nature, but has definitely gone mainstream. Thus some of Barerose boxes depict t-shirts and fantasy battle armour of eye-popping proportions.
If this all sounds v. unpleasant is simple solution i.e. to use SL browser that can't see mesh. This reduces Lola-wearing mesh petites to a disembodied name-tag and perhaps the odd non-mesh fairy wand.

A sad sad sight

Heritage sites disappearing: 1 (v. bad)

Was taking some pictures this morning e.g. of this truck that crashed into side of new house when it slowly dawned that THERE WAS NO COWELL SEASIDE VILLAGE ANY MORE. At first had just assumed had set draw distance to a low figure and therefore wasn't seeing this pretty village which was the key reason for getting the land in the first place.

However, checked draw distance, realised could see things that were FURTHER AWAY (i.e. Abotts spacedrome) and eventually flew over to find that one whole sim's worth plus a bit more had been abandoned and was set for sale. This is what it looked like just now. You can see a bit of what it looked like BEFORE in the final pic in this post http://adventuresofyoshikawa.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/usual.html and Chimera posted some pics here http://www.koinup.com/works/in-second-life/on-pictures/tag/cowell/

It had a bit of a retro feel as it hadn't changed from when I discovered it in 2007, but still charm and atmosphere.

But not any more, it is an ex-village. Had panic attack thinking of dreadful things that could arrive there, and in grip of this got Dimitrova (since it is less disasterous for her tier charges) to buy up one chunk that includes the nearest half of the island bit and a slice going over the mountain on the right (it was all lumped in together). Will think what to do by Dimi's tier date in a week; can't afford to increase my tier overall, but would like to keep at least the island bit as a cushion, and could sell off a bit of what have at the moment....

403 Forbidden: The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfill it

Unintelligible messages received from Twitter: 1 (bad); Nostalgia factor: 5 (nostalgic)

Just tried to log into my sheilayoshikawa Twitter account and received the above message. Was not logging in for any serious purpose, so am instead assailed by sudden nostalgia for days when there were REAL error messages, ones which gave you no clue whatsover about what was wrong. Still do get those sometimes, but tend to be associated with V. Serious Meltdowns involving blue screen of death and stange series of numbers rushing over screen, which is not a situation where you can have a good old nostalgic wallow.
Sometimes they would be a bit like the one above, implying that it wasn't just some strange random error, it was a personal piece of malice directed at YOU. "The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfill it": that's an error message with attitude.
The most famous web error message was the "File 404 not found" one, which you got if the page you wanted no longer existed and the webmaster hadn't been bothered to do a redirect or explanation. You still get it now and then but there was a time when you would be more or less guaranteed to get it once a day, and there were some wonderful spoof websites and collections of amusing/dreadful 404 pages.
After half hearted googling have managed to retrieve a page which I think is one of the more amusing spoofs - except it is in what Google Translate thinks is Estonian http://puhkused.com/ Is that right?
[several hours later] Have managed to find ye olde Geek Haiku - ah, this was my favourite:

A File That Big?

A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

Sakura

Sakura bonsai bought: 1 (v. good); potted sakura hauled from inventory: 1 (good); sakura petal emitters removed from shop: none (bad)
Today went windsurfing in Bora Bora (for this photoshoot) and ended up browsing round the tikis. Discovered quite a bit of new stuff, including a whole gardening area that was new to me.
Included v. cute display of bonsai (see second picture), and could not resist cherry tree bonsai, which took home and positioned in entrance hall of the chinese house that is tucked on the hillside at Noyo.
From the start in 2007, have named my home land "Sakura" (Japanese for cherry blossom/ tree). So my first plot was called Sakura (as you can see here) and so was the land I have just given up and am still trying to sell ;-(( and now this new land in Noyo has been renamed. Have also kept in part of the original name, Urtahra (see here, Noyo was originally part of the Kahruvel Forest). I always have actual Sakura on my land, and you can see some of them outside in the first picture, a big pink tree near the entrance and some white blossom further off. I am lying on the rocky ground outside, listening to Ishbel's windchime and enjoying the view.
Also did a little bit of tinkering in the room next to the entrance hall, where have put some of my pictures (ex shop), a small sakura in a bamboo pot, an information literacy calendar, and a teleporter to infolit locations.
Have been meaning to put in more information literacy stuff, but so far that and Woolley the Sheep are it. Am wondering about putting Woolley (who contains definitions of information literacy and bleats) with the Heidi House sheep, but he might get an inferiority complex as they are infinitely better made. Well not infinitely, but a good deal.

Have also changed exhibition in my shop. Theme is now Glasgow Botanic Gardens, which visited last week in RL. Am v. fond of it: when lived in Glasgow, Botanics were only 10 minutes walk away. Background photos on walls and floor are of Kibble Palace (which houses national tree fern collection) and there are some photoshopped pictures of the carniverous plant displays plus some pics from a park in Prague. A stone dragon creature creaks and turns head to face you: have been meaning to find somewhere to use him for a while.
Display also includes falling sakura petals. This was not intention. Petals were part of previous display and spent at least 20 minutes trying to find out where the **** the petal emitter was. Tried CTRL ATL T to see invisible prims, cammed all over the shop from various angles and so forth, but thing is nowhere to be found. Anyway, falling petals not wholly inappropriate to this exhibition so in the end gave up.

Creatures on Infolit iSchool: part 1

Creatures on Infolit iSchool: quite a few (good); Average age of creatures: 2 years (approx) (bad)
Instead of doing anything vaguely useful, have decided to create a record of creatures on Infolit iSchool. Was prompted by squirrel encounter last week, thinking how the creatures are all getting on a bit and perhaps some of them ought to be sent the way of the really STRANGE deformed rabbit that lived on the hill behind Hobbiton, and which I quietly put out of its misery last autumn. On the other hand, some of them are still cute. Or are they just cute to me? You decide
First up is Mitsy the cat. Mitsy is definitely showing her age, and you only have to search on Mitsy (on this blog) to see that she has a history, mostly a history of getting trapped under buildings and disintegrating in the sea. However - she is named after a RL cat who is no more. In fact she is about the only SL creature I own that HAS a name (apart from some one-prim goldfish that arrived with names). So, Mitsy is likely to stay, even though she is the size of a small pony and regularly roams away to her doom.


In these next two pictures you see an orange parrot: it roosts, it flies, it screeches. The screeching is actually quite lifelike, and when it swoops around (see small orange blur in top left of 2nd pic) it looks moderately convincing. However, when it roosts, you can see it is just made of prims. Fortunately it spends a lot more time swooping than roosting. I got this bird in some closing down sale, and I have similarly retro crows and seagulls in my inventory from the same source.

Am not sure whether the cat and the dog in the 2nd pic count as creatures, since they each have springs instead of legs. On the other hand, the cat one probably looks as much like a cat as does (for example) Mitsy. Anyway, these are functional creatures since you can sit on them and wobble around to your heart's content. Like the parrot, they are in the Sure Thing cafe on the sea shore.
The parrot seemed appropriate since the Sure Thing is named after a RL cafe of the same name in Queensland, Australia. The RL rainbow lorikeets, that make an apalling racket at dawn and dusk, just over from the RL Sure Thing, sound a bit like the orange parrot, only more so.

So can sit back in SL and feel nostalgic for Aussie sun and sand with right sound effects.

Am thinking I could make this into a kind of i-spy guide: find all the creatures on Infolit iSchool. Can just see the contemptuous smirk that this would elicit from students. Librarians might enjoy it, though. Which is not an insult to librarians BTW, rather the reverse, I would say. He who is tired of i-spy is tired of life. Or has more interesting things to do. One or the other.

Presenting

Presentations made: 1 (wonderful); No. of natural breaks taken: 1 (convenient); No. of problems with voice: zero (good); No. of times buried unexpectedly in chair: 1 (bad)

Have given 10 minute presentation, possibly taking 12 minutes, but at any rate kept roughly to time. Here you see me seated on the podium with other panellists, with my introductory slide.
Had newbie moment when tried to sit in chair on podium and suddenly found self sort of embedded up side down. Even in SL is slightly embarrassing when done in front of audience. Knowclue (the one with wings) had similar moment, which led me to recall time in July 2007 when we were both newbies and met in Abo Akademi. I was wearing a garish assortment of garments and Knowclue had trouble unbending her knees. Happy days. I found the pic of this and sent it to her afterwards.

Back to 2009. In fact didn't use powerpoint, just had notecard which inevitably spent 3 times as long preparing as thought I would. Used voice, and although had had no time to test, it worked ok. Was talking about Innovative Media Literacy. Suppose should put notecard up somewhere and link to it, so (pause while copy it into textpad and save on server) here it is. Had good response though mostly people DO say nice things after SL presentations, whatever, so sometimes difficult to tell whether actually did go down well. Other speakers were Alexandria Knight, Larry Klugman, Celestia, and Knowclue Kidd, plus Valibrarian Gregg who was chairing.
Knowclue showed some nice films done by her students http://knowclue.wikispaces.com/Innovation, only drawback was that, whilst watching films, suddenly was unable to type in any kind of chat or IM, and list of Friends disappeared. Decided would be too rude to relog whilst still on podium, so waited to later, and was just grateful that no-one asked me direct question. Turned out afterwards that several people had the same thing, somthing to do with the media texture.

Is obviously one of problems in SL that have these glitches which cause one to need to log on and off. However earlier had enjoyed benefits, when decided that would like to answer Call of Nature before was due to speak, and could remain on podium in SL strapped to chair (at least, that's what the animation looks like) whilst flitting off to the Conveniences in RL.

Stayed on for next session, talk by Krull Quarr (who has v. nice whiskers, here is pic of him earlier, listening to concert), but not for later musical entertainment which promised "amusing modern songs about real life." Who needs amusing real life when can listen to a cat talking about scripting?

Because I can...

Library talks attended: 1 (good); Grape harvest pressings attended: 1 (good): Fashion shows attended: 1 (good, laggy); retro objects bought: possibly a dozen (bad)

Generally give abiliy to dot in and out of meetings etc. as prime benefit of SL. However also means that am attending all sorts of events that would not otherwise, thus eating into time when could be sleeping, cooking, writing peer reviewed papers, conversing with RL friends etc. Over last couple of days:

1) went to talk given by Puglet Dancer, on issues to do with librarians - one interesting thing was that one of those attending had got a full time job as "Immersed librarian". Will have to get quote from her for my article for CILIP Update. Was on American Library Association sim which has some natty features (e.g. banned books exhibit) but is somewhat functional (as opposed to brimming with decorative yet useless objects). Flew across to nearby ASIST sim afterwards, which is even more basic. Suppose I cannot grasp how anyone can have 15,000 prims and 64,000 metres at their disposal and not want to landscape it and fill it with animated squirrels and amusing sofas.

2) Earlier in the day had attended fashion show given by SySy Designs. Took a table unobtrusively at one end. Had attempted to dress in something with a low Avatar Rendering Count. Seems to be considerable ire directed at people who turn up at shows, hunts etc with a high ARC, although as current thread on the SLED list indicates, actually ARC isn't the main lag-causer.

Anyway, it WAS a bit laggy, but seemed friendly event and I was motivated to drop into the SySy store and buy a couple of dresses afterwards. Have fashion blogged the more successful purchase here.

3) This evening had no intention of doing anything but finishing aforementioned fashion blog post and putting up some poppies (for remembrance day). However, Riven had dropped me an invite to a grape harvest celebration and once there was charmed by dancing, as well as by grape treading animation.

4) Previously had got into retro mood and had been hunting out records, psychadelic posters and the like. Was searching yesterday for a record player, without really finding anything, but today bumped into the very item when browsing round the new Hotel Dare area, and followed link to main location which turned out to be a shop/club in a build by Melino Style, one of my favourite designers (that is the top picture, me looking through the record collection, or, more precisely, me doing a "sorting through the records" animation ).

Hmmmmmm. Think I should get some sleep.

Consumption, farewell

Plants bought: 38 (v.good); Statues of Bastet bought: 1 (high prim); Blouses bought: 1 (good); Pairs of shorts: bought: 2 (good, but rather piontless); Pairs of tights bought: 1 (good); Bracelets bought: 1 (good, though not quite as good as hoped); Pairs of pink ballet shoes bought: 1 (good); Pairs of silver silk jeans bought: 1 (good); Strange capsule lamps bought: 1 (OK); Amount of land sold: 2048 (v.v. good); Amount of land bought: 1024 (good)

After approx. 36 hours after submission of ticket, random Linden replies to say that credit card details have been obliterated in order to clear fault and must now input them again to resume normal purchasing behaviour. Thus am able to plunge into SL and make up for lost time by buying items listed above and here I am with/wearing a selection of them.
Cannot remember if mentioned that had put up 2 parcels of land for sale and sold one. Person who bought has already sold up again to one Sarah Nerd, who according to her profile buys any land which is set to sell to her at a certain rate, for resale. Decide this is worth trying since 2nd parcel shows no sign of shifting and bingo! she indeed buys land within few hours. Land immediately put back on market at higher price, but land is out of my account which is main thing.

Go about clearing rest of parcel that was my original first land. In fact next part to go includes first 512 sq m. I ever bought. Certain nostalgia as delete or take wisteria trees, tea house, carp, steaming green tea etc. etc. Set this bit to sale prior to clearing rest and go offline.
Within an hour this has been snapped up by some eager buyer who also immediately sets it to Sell, but in this case only at 900 Lindens more than was bought for. Can it be worth it, considering tier costs? Anyway, the pic shows me examining the for sale sign with some bafflement.
Bouyed up by this sales frenzy and the sight of all those Lindens in my purse I revise plan of keeping some of old land, empty, to boost prim count in new home (which is on same sim). Decide instead to sell it all, and buy small plot that has just come up for sale next to new home, for same purpose. Of course as soon as have bought cannot resist putting in plants, trees, a small brown bird and a purple butterly. But will try to keep it at that.

Last pic just shows Farradane House by moonlight.Soon I will turn the island to spring, so am enjoying snow whilst it lasts.

Dance, dance, dance

Dances attended: 2: (1 = v.good and 1 = ok)
Lots of catching up to do, so will start with some social events. North invited me over to the Educators Coop disco. Will apparently be regular event. Was already wearing pink satin evening gown so teleported straight over. Added Undine hair for swooshy effect (am on far right of pic above, North is on far left).
DJ was v. cool (see 2nd pic) and also played v. good music, including oldies reminding one of Youth. By the end we were dancing in synchronised manner so felt v. cool too. Left as dawn chorus was tweeting, actually almost so in RL as event started v. late in UK terms.
2nd dance was launch party for a "British Invasion" exhibition on Infotainment, featuring Beatles etc.: pics, informative notecards, videos, sort of re-creations of rooms of period (although not as I remember from the time, ahem). Some others were in 60s mode, but I went for 70s hippy look.
Was pleasant, but did not really know anyone, so, as in RL, was less enjoyable event. Also omitted to say "Hi" to everyone as arrived and did not comment on awesomeness of exhibit, so is probably own fault that no-one said Bye when left. Or perhaps they thought I was wearing too many prims? Resolve to make more social effort at next dance. And wear fewer prims.