Oh Tannenbaum; Winter planning

Xmas trees bought; zero, so far (good); Items in "November 2018" folder: 180 approx. (bad)

Possibly favourite event of year is Tannenbaum, not so much because of items on offer, but because atmosphere in Tannenbaum event is super-calming yet rich with Xmas promise (i.e. presents, food, real Xmas trees, soulful walks through the woods, more presents, more food). Whoever landscaped it and set the sim windlight deserves prize as would swear that can actually feel the crisp air and smell the midwinter forest. Not that in physical world actually go for that many Xmas walks in woods, but IDEA of walking in winter woods is always attractive.

So first pic shows me pretending to buy Xmas tree at Tannenbaum. In centre of gacha area is cute collection of Botanical Xmas trees, with vendors. Bought one of these trees several years ago, so no need to repeat, but found ancient and v. primmy tree by AM Radio in inventory, which has integral carrying pose, so there I am. Spent some time on this photo, to hide other customers, who were mostly not Winter-appropriately dressed (mini skirts! crop tops! with snow on the ground!) and thus would spoil mood of picture.

2nd picture shows Tannenbaum vendor booths with me deciding not to buy something. However, despite certain amount of restraint have still managed to amass wealth of new items as evidenced by fullness of "November 2018" folder. In fact, memory of visiting Tannenbaum event was of buying practically nothing, but now see indulged in 22 items, including bear ornament, kitten stocking, "winter scene", hanging icicles, paper snowflakes, and rustic fireplace. Had better get going on decorating asap or won't have time to put all this stuff to good use. As is evidenced by examination of "November 2017" folder where rediscover cute items such as "Joyeaux Noel 2017" Tea & Macaron Service Set and seasonal cupcakes which am pretty sure never even got unpacked.

On professional front, had been congratulating self on having booked sessions for virtual worlds discussion forum well in advance, only to find events falling through. Think there is a lesson to be learnt here: EITHER that if make arrangement with someone need to check up on it more than one week before actual event to avoid misunderstanding OR it is not worth bothering arranging things well in advance.

Second lesson seems to be one involving least effort so think will adopt that one.

And I have got 6000 files; Spring becomes autumn; I whack some noobs

No. of pictures still in my Second Life folder: 6000+ (worrying); No. of noobs whacked: 17 (unimpressive); No. of giant pink flamingos bought: 1 (v. good); Season following on from Spring on Infolit iSchool: Autumn (because I can); Parts of SL disappearing in random fashion: lots (bad)
As can see from above, SL continues as per normal. Was trying to upload some pics to Flickr but Second Life folder on my PC (where save said pics) refused to be ordered by date rather than by name. Upon investigation realised that this folder had approx 7,200 files in it, most of them pictures, and presumably am testing some kind of Windows limit for the no. of files you can have in one folder without it curling up and waving legs in air.
Did a quick transfer of the 1000+ SL pics taken in 2013 (that averages 3 a day hmmm, perhaps ought to reflect on that statistic) anyway even after that there were still 6000 pics left. However, it seems like Windows can cope with sorting that number so, hey, won't have to worry about that again for at least 6 months.
Probably need to say asap that noobs being whacked (see item 2, above) were of course not REAL noobs (i.e. not the 3D embodiments of real living human beings who have only just embarked on the adventure which is SL) but rather a twisted version of Whack a Mole, produced by designers Weather or Not.
Just searched this blog and realise with dismay that it contains little about Whack a Mole in fact only a passing reference namely here http://adventuresofyoshikawa.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/three-weeks.html. Have had Whack a Mole game on Infolit since (evidently) 2008 and jolly fun it is, little moles and rabbits pop up and you have to whack the moles and avoid whacking the rabbits. Good healthy fun for all the family. It essentially looks much like the Whack a Noob machine you see above/right.

In the noob version, heads pop up for you to whack, and you get some noob-like random chat generated e.g.
[13:52] Whack-a-Noob: What am I supposed to do?!
[13:52] Whack-a-Noob: So, what is there to do here?
[13:52] Whack-a-Noob: Help!
[13:52] Whack-a-Noob: this game sux!!!!
[13:52] Whack-a-Noob: the graphics aren't as good as WOW
[13:52] Whack-a-Noob: $100L please?
[13:52] Whack-a-Noob: are you a boy or a girl RL?
As can be seen in first pic, I whacked only 17 noobs. One problem, which was what decided me against buying it, was that you have to go into mouselook view (interface disappears, you have to target and click), so it requires more skill/patience than I have to master the whackery. Also, would only be amusing if you were sufficiently un-noob to recognise the noob responses and go hohoho so true so true. And is trifling matter of it being a teensy weensy bit anti-noob.  So on balance will stick with mole version.

Still, is against nature to leave a shop without shopping and could not not resist this giant flamingo with multiple sit options. Particularly like the "dangling from the flamingo" pose (2nd pic). You can also see other tempting items in Weather or Not's shop e.g. giant sushi and giant hamburger, but resisted those. Giant Flamingo joins the normal sized unanimated flamingos that already grace my inventory.
The third pic shows giant flamingo in situ on Infolit iSchool, with a little flock of pose-less flamingi, including one discovered in Inventory's Library ie everyone has it for free (go look!), but like most Library items it is constructed of zillions of prims and is endearingly retro. It's the borked-looking flamingo at the back. Felt impelled to put it out of its misery (Right Click, delete!) as soon as the pic was taken. (Question: why did Linden Lab think its users would be in need, specifically, of a mishapen virtual flamingo rather than (say) a mishapen virtual cat? Discuss)

So, onwards to final items in check list above, i.e. springing into autumn and random disintegration of Infolit iSchool. Had left Infolit in spring mode because had been filming for the MOOC on Play (of which more in future posts, if can be bothered) and was concerned that might need to do some extra filming to fit in with what was already done. However, filming over now, and appear to have passed summer by, so straight to autumn it is. Must be said that, in SL terms, summer is dullest of 4 seasons and one with least special trees, ground textures etc. So, not a problem to skip it, really.

Deleted or took various cherry trees, ground cover, and the odd lurking narcissus or snowdrop, changed all the alder trees to autumn using a HUD (one click and they all turn brown) and then brought out some old favourites such as the mixed leaf cover and the Heart brand autumn oak. Finally changed ground textures so the spring carpets of flowers turned to mossy and leafy greeny-brown.

Only blight on proceedings was that noticed later on that some buildings/trees/etc. were disappearing until you got v.v. close. Can see this in final pic; is blank space where you ought to see Sakura House (which, being called sakura (=cherry blossom) house retains its sakura even when everything else is autumnal/ covered in snow). Not sure whether disappearing was due to my graphics card or SL playing up, but think probably the former, as seemed a lot better after restarted computer.

Anyway, there I am contemplating the unusually bare horizon, waiting to hitch a ride in an automobile that will never, ever come, unless, that is, a passing noob finds one of the free vehicles in  the welcome pack and gets his kicks on route 66 by crashing into me.

New home for Dimitrova

New homes: 1 (excessive)

Was tempted into SL action by the announcement today of the "free homes" available for premium residents. This is an attempt to get more people staying in SL and starting to pay tier. You don't have to pay for the land, the ready-made houses don't count towards your prim allowance (a definite bonus if you only have the minimum area), there is landscaping, and paths between the houses, and you are guaranteed not to have a nightclub start up next door.
It's an interesting move towards a "housing estate" approach to mainland, away from a North American free-for-all: though of course some people have been offering these kinds of environments on a rental basis for ages.



I went premium with Dimitrova, my main alt, when I cut down my personal land, but found that I was going over into to the next tier if I kept the amount I wanted to. It was cheaper to have Dimi go premie, so I could sell her the land for 1 Linden, and make her a buffer between me and nightclub land. However, I then found it was more interesting still to move her around to explore living in a couple of other different places. Now she has taken up the Lindens offer, abandoned her old tiny plot (land prices, already dire, will go even lower, so pointless to try selling) and opted for a dwelling in what appears to be The Shire, except they can't call it that for copyright reasons, I presume.

The pictures show her 3 roomed house from 2 angles, plus one of the rooms. You'll see it has integral mushrooms. The houses are not really state-of-the-art design, but I imagine that is so the commercial house designers feel they still have some sort of competitive advantage.

I think that there will still be issues for newbies, since the rooms, being small, are difficult to position things in (the only "furniture" in it to start with was the fire, the other stuff belongs to Dimitrova). There was also a curious glitch that meant that any rugs I tried to rez were disappearing into the floor, and couldn't be spotted with any amount of camming round. However, there is more of a feel of safety and possibilities for meeting up with neighbours.

There were a good number of green dots on the map when she was there: though if everyone's an alt like me, community building will take a bit of time...

Meeting, meeting, winter warmer

No of meetings attended: 2 (good); No. of trees felled: 8 (good); No of trees planted: 7 (good); No. of times have tagged a blog entry with the word "chocolate": 0 until today (surprising: in RL would probably have to tag every day "chocolate")
Invigorated by RL train journey through Peak District (from Manchester to Sheffield; trees and snow look amazing) attended UK SL educators "Second Tuesday" meeting. There were what might be called Usual Suspects in attendance and chat was pleasing mix of banter (new year resolutions; cats; feather costumes; that kind of thing) and useful convo re education. UK educator meetings seems to have higher banter-to-Serious-Stuff ratio which is OK by me. Had not visited Bangor sim (the venue) before so that also interesting.

Couple of hours later was the SL educators roundtable, now renamed in 21st century fashion "Virtual Worlds Educators Roundtable", since meetings also take place in other virtual worlds. Was load of people there and lots of discussion (loosely) around points that one of the Linden's had made in a sort of "state of the grid" blog post. Did not make much contribution and at one point inadvertantly turned Voice Chat on (when checking to see whether someone else had an open microphone, ironic really) and AJ IMed me about it, which is shaming. However, did not have any microphone device plugged in so do not think will have been making much noise, unless laptop was providing own conversational contributions without my knowledge.

Following this checked up on some of my homes; renewing rent on Babylon 5 room, returning a suspicious looking item to its owner from my main home, and also having a look at the African sim where Graham is renting some land. All the African heat reminded me that was intending to make Infolit even more wintery, so tp-ed back, adjusted the ground textures a bit to get full snow in NE corner of Infolit iSchool, and changed trees around greenhouse to wintery ones. Also added an extra winter deer and suddenly remembered had Hot Chocolate Hut in inventory, and put that in too. If you click the cups or dispensor you get mug of warming chocolate with usual drinking animation that throws beverage in rough direction of face. Can then go and bother the deer. No dogs though, please.

Lest auld acquaintance

No. of months without blogging: 1 (bad); No. of friends selling homes in SL: 1 (bad) (but good for friend, hopefully)

Have been v. lax on blogging front due to various things including Xmas and RL visit to snowy Moscow. Was also hampered by curious fact that whilst using mobile broadband dongle with Internet Explorer was able to view blogs, order books online, Google, play vids on Youtube, do SL etc. etc., but not LOG IN to blogger.

Whenever attempted it, got minutes of "contacting blogger.com" followed by that enigmatic error page that appears "user friendly" but in fact gives you no more clue than ye olde error 404 (which internet veterans will remember fondly). Was probably punishment for using IE browser, since when tried Firefox today, was no prob at all. Curious.

Anyway, first couple of pics show of winter wonderland that is Infolit iSchool. As usual, conference platform has been turned into skating rink (first pic), with snow emitter, Xmas trees, free skates, skating poseballs, tankards of warm punch, festive cake and so forth.
Woodland area near Farradane centre is also fully snowed in (see 2nd pic). By now can find lots of stuff in own inventory by searching for "frosty" "snow" or "christmas", indeed have whole seasonal folder bursting with cheer. However, but did indulge in a few extra items, mostly trees.

Had a couple of presentation sessions to finish off year on Infolit iSchool which may blog seprately. Ishbel came along and was able to have a chat with her. 3rd pic shows us on the Info Literate sky platform.

She is giving up her home, Windygates - when last looked her lot was cleared up and offered for sale. Felt quite nostalgic - remembering first days with her and Citril, when we all lived within flying distance of each other (see early months of this blog). She isn't giving up on SL altogether, but isn't spending recreational time here so is sensible really, but still felt a bit melancholy.

Last picture shows Ishbel's plot: actually can quite understand need to move as has Acid House night club at end of garden, never exactly no. 1 on the favourite neighbour category.

Joy of moaning

Tree encroachments: 1 (bad); giant walls erected: 1 (bad)

Noticed recently that another new neighbour had started to erected yet another dull plywood house and on inspection saw that, as usual, my trees are poking through its wall. Here you see them encroaching, with view of edge of my property and next door's building on the left.

Decided that should forestall requests and move the trees away. Required a good deal of tweaking since there is a bank at the edge of the property and needed to be jiggled right and down. However, the building on my side there is a Ruined Palace so doesn't matter too much if a few twigs poke through the walls.

Ruined Palace wasn't bought as such and indeed was not intending to install it Ruined, but due to inexpert handling it ended up borked. Having seen effect, decided it was actually rather pleasing and Ruined it a bit more. Then added romantic foliage etc. as featured in various previous blog posts. It forms part of Bosky Glade which at different seasons has bluebells, snowdrops, giant pumpkins and so forth.

The top of the palace is unborked and have a couch on it, for decorous reclining and posing. As can be seen in 3rd pic, the spreading chestnuts still successfully block out the plywood monstrosity.
Are other undesirable developments in area. Fourth pic shows giant wall that someone a few plots away has erected. Not sure if is connected with some kind of night club situated nearby.

So here I am moaning about neighbours again. However, have decided that probably enjoy this. Is part of rich tapestry of being on SL mainland that neighbors come, build featureless, hideous or intriguing constructions, and then depart. Gives something to check as soon as get home, adding excitement to a dull day. Have also had a couple of very nice neighbours, and ones who WEREN'T nice have gone away quickly.

At present, people who want to depart are taking a while, it being a buyer's market. Can see the "for sale" sign on the right of the fourth picture. This has now disappeared since the owner has Abandoned part of the land, presumably to save on tier payments.

Suddenly occurs to me that have never exchanged a word with the only person who has been there as long as me, the owner of the smoked glass house on the left. She used to own a very large chunk of land, but has sold some of it off. Her profile is quite melancholy and hints at a sad love story. Perhaps I should invite her round for tea.

Enmeshed

Trees moved: 1 (irritating); Wire fences erected: 1 (bad)

The SL blogs I follow are producing thoughtful and sane postings, but I will take the opportunity, being on my personal laptop, with a good network connection (in Reading for a RL conference in a student bedroom: free broadband!) to post some pics that are on THIS machine.

Yes, it's neighbours. Got a polite IM a couple of weeks ago, asking me to move a tree. In fact person even said how much tree would need to be moved (3 metres approx) so it no longer overlapped new neighbour's land. Apparently tree was causing anxiety, though is perfectly well behaved tree from the Heart Garden Centre.

Tped in and found - a a sort of compound.

You see here the offending tree (which I duly moved) and the compound. This is a beach with unrestricted view of protected water. So why would you want to spoil your own view with wire mesh and a bunker-like house? Oh well, at least it only spoils MY view if I look sideways.

In fact has been a lot of buying and selling going on around me: well, actually, more, land being put on the market and NOT selling. One chap IMed me to ask if I was interested and when said no as am maxed up to tier limit, he IMed me AGAIN only 5 mins later, obviously (to judge from the message) under the illusion he was IMing another neighbor. Interestingly, he was asking for more money from the neighbour than he did from me.

Neighbour on other side is also selling up 2/3rds of her land - the rain soaked graveyard scene has been turned into a cute house, as I'm sure any Relocation Relocation show would have advocated. Though of course the graveyard might have been a big selling point to goths. Perhaps she should get a holodeck so people with no imagination of their own can see it with the ambience of their choice. That would be a jolly useful feature when selling RL houses.

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.

Sculpties, Emails, Neighbours

Sculpty classes missed: 1 (bad); Discussion lists and SL groups spammed with notice about 4th June meeting: 10 (good: unless you got all 10 of them, I suppose); SLED post score: 28 (good, ish); Lucky chair dresses snagged by alt: 1 (yay!)
On Monday attended first Educators Coop chat for a while. Unfortunately had not been able to go to a making-sculpties class organised by Rx, which was shame as sounded v. good. Pic shows Rx and a cube he used with screenshots of how to do things. Also shows unflattering view of Bluewave typing, sorry about that, Bluewave.

Received notice about Educators Coop Retreat at end of month which sounds v.v. cool, so looking forward to that. Remember RL friend going on retreat where chocolate was forbidden and she had to sneak out to munch furtively on a kit-kat bar. Obvious advantage of virtual retreat is that can be indulging in all sorts of pleasures of flesh (within reason) whilst simultaneously taking part in retreat.

Have sent out oodles of emails and notices re the meeting tomorrow at noon SL time, in which (I hope) people will turn up with good ideas for developing the H1N1 (or, as I choose to call it in populist fashion, swine flu) information literacy build. At what point does this become spam? Hope someone will tell me if it does.

A SLEDer has analysed all the SLED posts for the last couple of years and posted a list of how many posts each person has sent. Rolig Loon came top, Graham also topped the 100 post mark, proving what a helpful person he is. I came in (as my RL alt) at 28 posts. Fear that most of those were announcements of meetings, as rarely contribute otherwise. On other hand, organising discussions is a contribution. They certainly aren't doing my career much good, anyway, so I hope someone is deriving benefit. (Hmm, must have had a glummer day than I thought)

On to more cheerful and even less impactful matters: have been zipping round moving the island from spring to summer, ripping out flowering cherries, bluebells and tulips, and putting in birch & aspen trees, garlic mustard and poppies, plus a couple of lavender bushes outside the Centre. As a finishing touch the sushi bar has been replaced by a retro barbecue (2nd pic): you can get wearable hamburgers, kebabs and - something else - is it sausages? I really mustn't go back in to SL just to find out.

Back on my own land, yet more new neighbours, these ones (last pic) with a rather more morbid tone than usual. Note the twin skeletons holding hands across their graves. However, was much cheered to get unsolicited IM from complete stranger just to say she'd wandered onto my land and liked it a lot.

P.S. Dimitrova finally got her free Pizzacato Poppies dress after a mere extra hour of waiting. It was almost worth it. But not quite.

Identity, meetings, acorns

No of time in last 2 days people tried to chat up S Yoshikawa: 0 (good); No of times in last 2 days people tried to chat up Dimitrova Shostakovich: 4 (bad); People admiring skybox: 1 (good); Pictures taken of Dimitrova with windmill through nose: 1 (amusing, and not just because it's her that people try to chat up, obviously); No of mentions of this blog in Information World Review: 1 (v. good); Misspellings of "Sheila" in headlines of IWR: 1 (v. bad) ;Squirrels bought: 1 (cute, and appears to generate own acorns)

Have made interesting observation, namely that more people try to engage Dimitrova in idle chat than do me, Sheila Yoshikawa. Is this because DS gets about more? Think not, since SY is ever flitting hither and thither adding to her inventory. Is this because Sheila Yoshikawa is comely but faintly whimsical, what with blue hair etc. etc. and lack of matchstick thin legs, whilst alternative avatar (Dimitrova Shostakovich) has no bottom to speak of, waterfalls of dark hair, classic features and a Russian name which presumably some people (who do not know the work of Dmitry Shostakovich) might take to mean An Invitation To Fun and Frolics (rather than an invitation to meditate on death and the futility of human aspiration).

Could be whole PhD-s worth of research in people's reaction to 2 avatars and indeed think people have already got higher degrees from less. Anyway, both avatars took a turn in a splended new sim, Gion (after the Gion quarter in Kyoto, where the geisha are) which is v. lush and atmospheric. There were free fans and windmills, v. cute but all no transfer, and had decided that both avatars would benefit from having them in inventory. Dimitrova took Orange windmill to start with, but decided Red was improvement, when, alack, hair disappeared and 2nd windmill gave bone-through-nose effect (see pic).

This was comedy highlight of day, so can tell rest of day rather lacking on amusement front.

Last night met up briefly with Ishbel, who expressed liking of self-made sky box. Is definitely something v.weird going on when flexi or scultped prims in box, since prim skirt became transparent. Not good. Or perhaps could pretend was deliberate effect of immersive art.

Was taking photos of new animated grey squirrel in office this evening, when saw that Art was creating cool Giant Tree In Globe at other end of complex. After batting around globe, found way in and admired. Had good talk about possible education meetings.

Must also modestly note that this blog features (with information literacy one) in Information World Review, that esteemed organ, where Sheila Webber is featured blogger. Or, in fact is evidently another alt since Shelia Webber is mentioned in article title. Honestly (sighs).


Final pic. shows Art earlier in evening when had spotted him on Eduserv Island but discovered he was, in fact, Away. Would like, BTW, to emphasise have not taken up stalking to compensate for fact that unknown SL idiots prefer slim brunette avatar. In fact had better drop whole topic forthwith.