Youtube; Comments; Pumpkins; Climate

Youtube views of SL video: 11,795 (disconcerting); No. of pumpkins deployed: Infinite (orange, mostly)

'Tis the time when SL gets buried in sea of pumpkins, witch brooms, fiendish masks, burning barrels, candles, skulls, omnious crows etc. etc. Whilst is lot of orange and black around, this year seems to have more than usual amount of monochrome/pastel/cubist/abstract Halloween knick knacks as designers strive to stand out from crowd of standard orange pumpkin with scary face / skeleton hand holding dribbly wax candle / starey skull with plants in.

Thus purchases this year include cute pastel colour-change kitty pumpkins, cute kitty covered in halloween blanket that roams round floor (just not seen in above pic.), and arty black and white pumpkin arrangement with glass jar. Am pictured with Halloween items old and new including v. good value tent that fits cat cafe theme unervingly well ("Paw readings"). For only 29 Linden yesterday (yes **29 Linden**)  you got tent, sign, witchy table, witchy papers and glitter effect, cat waiting to have paw read, chair with pose to look like paw reader and even 2 cats queuing outside (thank you, Chez Moi, did you make a mistake with the pricing?). With usual overload policy have added 2 assorted crystal balls on table, a giant sparkley spider web, string of "pumpkin kitty" lights, vintage pumpkin cat on roof and creeping fog effect. Can also see in pic above: rideable devil cat, new Halloween cart, working tarot reading set, creepy phonograph and 2 edibles: some kind of sushi and a pumpkin sweetie giver.

However, life is about more than pumpkins in the shape of cats, so on  Sunday attended one of Marly's Climate Change sessions. Several people created builds that expressed a position on climate change, and then we all had to imagine the arguments for that position esp. if it wasn't our own. Can see here pretty build which was expressing view that there will be no progress unless human consciousness changes. Fat chance with that one probably, but suppose one should be optimistic. Realised that am complacent sort who feels have done bit by not having washing machine or car on physical life (yes, really, not either of them, ever) but fails to sort rubbish into recycling types, most of the time, uses planes and buys too many objects. On the one hand all those pumpkins, tents and carts (as mentioned above) will take up zero landfill space when delete them, on other hand am consuming electricity as if it came from magic fairy electricity fountain rather than evil consumption of coal, gas, or nuclear thingies.

Moving on (since do not actually intend to stop consuming electricity) have discovered that have unexpectedly successful Youtube video. Had thought that the pinnacle of my Youtube fame was video on Abstracting which has clocked up 1,804 views. By the end of this video you will be able to explain difference between indicative, informative and structured abstracts and distinguish between an abstract and an introduction. Pretty thrilling stuff.
However, when uploading another video (on how to use a known academic paper to find yet more academic papers; such is my life), came across video from 6 years ago explaining how to create an avatar to enter SL. Was about simply to delete it, as is outdated, when noticed no. of views i.e. 11k and that had even got 16 comments which is more comments  than in all my other videos put together.

Comment which immediately springs out is of course "Ugh this girl voice..." which assume is not compliment. Since have always thought of voice as strong point (it hasn't got plump, wrinkled or wobbly, for example, so has advantage over some other bits of physical me) feel rather offended.

Get over it, dude, that's my voice and I like it.

I have nearly 100,000 items

Items in inventory: 96,971 (bad)
Seem to write more unfinished draft entries than actual entries on this blog now, but was struck by sudden fear that lack of inactivity might lead to Blogger consigning Adventures of Yoshikawa to blog limbo, so here we are. SL is usual round of buying, decorating, kittycats, more buying, educational discussion, more buying.

In fact kittycat population has been static and there only about 4 of them that aren't permapets by now: doubtless Rosebud, Ninetails, Snowflake Morpho and Praline have inferiority complexes thinking: Why Not Me? Why aren't I permanent? Am I not cute? Of course they are all cute but the answer is that: Ninetails and Snowflake, you are slightly weird SL celebration cats with odd patterns; Praline, you are so tiny I keep tripping over you as you get lost in the carpet, do I really want to do that permanently? and Rosebud, you are pink, bright pink. However, despite these shortcomings have had all of them for at least a year, and Ninetails a lot longer, so permapettery is almost inevitable. Just look at Rosebud (above), she may be pink but she's adorable, just adorable, she even knows how to coordinate her toys with her fur.

Since Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable moved to a different sim last year, have become chief designer of the island/discussion space, which mean lots of trees, plants, cute gazebos etc. Here I am with the Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable greenhouse which frankly has no function OTHER than being cute.

Meanwhile inventory bulges with unopened gacha and other items. Since have not yielded to temptation of mesh body, expenditure on clothes has gone down (since most of them don't fit me) but expenditure on everything else is bouyant, at least from the vendors' point of view.

Breaking news! Inventory just went down by over 1000 since realised I hadn't emptied trash for ages. Hurrah! Problem solved! If only all of life's problems could be deleted so easily.

Digital; graveyard; tagged

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

Gacha, gacha

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

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

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

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

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

Panic; Consumption; kittycats; the old round

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

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

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

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

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

So, same old, same old.

Cats, Weirdness, Cats

No. of cat cafes set up: 1 (good); No. of new kittycats acquired for cafe: 2 (v.v. cute); % by which kittycat food bill goes up: 25% (bad); No. of people who think I am creepy, lonely, antisocial and altogether ought to get out more into the FRESH AIR: approx. thousands (bad)

So week of Yoshikawa on FutureLearn Play MOOC has come and gone (i.e. last week) in which generally speaking politest thing that people said was that SL was not for them, am exaggerating for effect though not outrageously. Talk of SL creepiness etc. was somewhat dampening of spirits as difficult not to take personally (was tempted to thrust Facebooks pics on them shrieking "Look I have friends!" or perhaps as Facebook also virtual that not such effective strategy, think only solution would be videos of me hiking in woods with friends and family whilst doing good for some charity or other).

But heyho SL has kittycats and whilst one has kittycats who can be downhearted, they frolic, they sleep in cute poses, they sit at your feet and ask to play and nowadays they rarely disappear under floorboards which is bonus. As relaxation and inspired by RL cat cafe that visited, as noted in last post, have created the Shore Thing Cat Cafe which is now OPEN FOR BUSINESS though of course all food and drink is free, it being pixels. Is in particular v. wide range of cakes, and drinks include champagne chilling in bucket.

This pic is most popular of cafe shots on Flickr and shows corner with assorted cakes etc. and pics of the cat cafe cats plus one rather professional pic by Nina Heartsdale who does cute mashups of kittycat pictures with artworks. Decided to give visitors a range of cats, so did indeed buy black cat was shown viewing in last post. He is now full grown and called Hawthorn, and have invested in teacup kittycat (so tiny!) which is Siamese chocolate tortie. The other 3 are Jennifer (Bengal snow), Snowflake Morpho (Advent cat) and Sabrina (Firestorm), so colours for all tastes. Hmm, perhaps that statement is catist, obviously also each cat has own personality and is not constrained by gender, breed or colour. Hmm again also note that may be heteronormative element to kittycats since can only be Male or Female and can only pair up a male and a female kittycat for breeding purposes, and not possible e.g. to form kittycat civil partnerships. But will pass on from this to wallow in cuteness once more.

SL cat cafe Merchandise and a Facebook page are logical next steps. But why stop there. Am now dreaming of extending empire to Noyo and beyond. Could have minimalist cat cafe on Juicy (minimalist, as am allowed only 25 prims, ie.e. 2 kittycats a cake and a cup of tea). Next stop, the grid! Soon there could be a Yoshikawa cat cafe in every continent! People would be snapping up the virtual cute cat cafe t-shirts! and mugs! Cute cat cafe videos on Youtube! It could go viral!

On the other hand it could just consume hours and hours of my time, but since I am apparently creepy, sad, antisocial and weird am sure there are lots WORSE things could be doing.

Will finish with pic of me tickling Praline. ZOMG she is so cute.

Cats; Comments; Houses; Preparation

No of cats transferred to cat cafe: 3 (good); No. of comments on Futurelearn MOOC; not so many as last week (reassuring); Houses bought: 2 (good); Percentage of required preparation for future presentations/life/work successfully completed: not nearly enough (bad)

Whereas should be setting up useful posters for newbies, decluttering, preparing landmark givers, constructing items which simply yet effectively tell the story of information literacy (etc etc) in preparation for the possibly-not-hordes of people storming into Infolit iSchool because of the Play MOOC, am in fact in process of constructing the Infolit iSchool Cat cafe. This is inspired by a cat cafe in London, which recently visited and v. nice it was too although really rather competitive as all the people visiting the cafe wanted the cats to spontaneously love THEM, and if that didn't happen, to photograph the cats in cute poses.

In SL is a bit simpler as kittycats periodically tell me they love me in text chat and unless they are asleep then anyone can pet them as much as they want.

Have almost finished cafe in new L2 Studios home. Spent oodles of lindens to secure 2 very neat sets of tables and chairs in a gacha (also got 2 sofas, 4 odd tinny decorations and a musical bear surplus to requirements, but that's gachas for you). Sofa in pic doesn't match in colour, but was from latest round of collabor88 and cushions have little cats on so nice touch. Have absolutely loads of random food items in inventory and is mostly a matter of which ones to pull out.

2nd pic is of Tassie, felt that she was telling me NO I do NOT want to work in a cat cafe. However didn't get that vibe from Jennifer and Snowflake Morpho so there they are settling in (1st pic). Have now added Serena the Firestorm cat who technically belongs to Zoe, but of course Zoe is my puppet and does what she's told being 2nd Alternative Avatar.

Is terrifically tempting to use cafe as excuse to buy more kittycats. Visited sim which is basically devoted to stalls and shops vending kittycats i.e.it is one giant kittycat shop. Was very taken with a couple of them notably the black kittycat with odessey (mismatched) eyes (middle row on far left). Also almost got sucked into real-time cat auction, with about 15 people gathered round bidding on 10 assorted cats including an absolutely adorable teacup (tiny) cat (shown) below, but would have to bid at least 1000 Linden and let's face it already have several kitty boxes in inventory (offspring of Tassie, Marl etc.)

That black one is very cute, though. Very.

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.

Nostalgic kittens

VWER meetings attended: 1 (good); Kittens worn on head: 1 (nostalgic); Photos taken of feet: 3 (worrying)


Attended Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable meeting last night. Will note in passing that until about 2 weeks ago had thought it was called Virtual Worlds Educators Roundtable and have referred to it as such for years. Embarrassing. Whatever, acronym is VWER and will refer to it as such. Organisers i.e. me, Kali (Our Leader), Grizzla, Beth and Shailey now v.v. organised and have Google doc in which we mark who is moderating which week. Interestingly, invitation into this Google doc was sent by Yahoo email straight into Yahoo email spam folder. Perhaps is Yahoo policy to sabotage Google, stranger things happen.

This week Grizzla was moderating and when TPed in noticed quite soon that she was wearing kitten on head (see 1st pic). Had rush of nostalgia as a year or two ago I was one attending with same kitten on head, she had IMed me to say "cute kitten" or suchlike and I had told her where to get one, which she did. In solidarity, also put kitten on my own head (see 2nd pic, right). Am wondering now if she noticed. At any rate felt nice to recall happy shared kitten moment.

Currently am v. excited as embarking on RESEARCH into MY INFORMATION PRACTICE of being a VWER person. Involves a lot of 1) reflecting about me 2) talking about SL 3) Excuses to pose and insert pictures of cute kittens, exquisite feet etc. so all good. Research is with Swedish person who has never been in SL, so obviously great treat ultimately awaits him, but at moment am doing lot of explaining e.g. how to wear shoes. Readers of this blog, or indeed anyone who has got beyond the hello sky hello clouds why am I trapped under a table help help phase of SL will know SL feet are tricky things.

Had just written long rambling disquisition (note long researchy word) describing v. tiny bit of what you do in VWER, and started talking about how wearing clothes is something a VWER moderator ought to do. Will rephrase that. Obviously since we are not on Adult sim, ahem, wearing clothes is requirement, but is good idea if also have clue about how to change look if want to and know how others might be seeing/judging you. In my case this means sending millions of Lindens into coffers of fashion designers and agonising whether bangles coordinate nicely with nailpolish. However e.g. in case of Thinkerer who is v.v. expert but mostly looks like just popped out of newb shell at dawn of SL time, know that is his conscious decision to look same all time, and have heard him describe it as part of his brand. So can't assume that just because someone looks a bit newbish that they ARE newb.


Nevertheless can't help wondering sometimes if people who I know are no newbs really want their feet to look like that. Does it look ok on their viewer? Do they not look at their feet? Do they think it's a retro look? So, after had briefly cammed in lovingly to own exquisite feet as featured in last blog post, took pictures of other people's feet. Will note that as usual Grizzla was wearing v. smart and interesting shoes but had better not mention anyone else in case it is indeed a case of I Never Realised MY Feet Looked Like That and cause embarrassment.

So have 2 VWER participant practices to ponder here:
1) Kitten wearing
2) Taking pictures of people's feet.
In RL think first would be eccentric (and also v. difficult, hard enough to keep kitten on lap let alone head) but 2nd might well end in call for security guard and stern talking to, as crawling round taking pictures of people's footwear is not what might be called accepted practice at RL meetings. In fact very much the contrary. Whereas in SL can take ALL SORTS of pictures without people knowing unless of course you post them to Flickr or your blog, which in this case I will not do.

Re: kitten wearing is this:
1) Bonding ritual to assert membership of VWER elite Community of Practice
2) Pathetic attempt to win favour with Grizzla
3) Sign I have too many kittens in inventory
4) Look it's a KITTEN, it's CUTE, and I am wearing it on my head because I CAN, enough said.

Anyway, took kitten off head before shooting scene in mock-up of phone shop with Zo, as didn't want to look weird. Though if viewers of final vid don't think two pixelated beings pretending to be interested in pixelated phones and tablets isn't weird, a kitten probably won't make much difference one way or the other.

Sheila Yoshikawa has just won a ::: B@R ::: Magical Inappi just for being here! and I am Disconcerted

Barerose items won 2: good and bad; People unexpectedly encountered when teleporting into home: 1 (disconcerting)

Am gift stalking in Barerose again. Tried yesterday and was rewarded by a gear bikini and today bagged a magical inappi. If wondering what Gear Bikini looks like, wonder no more as is pictured right, although as as said bikini is v.v.skimpy have retained long hair and taken mid-distance pic. Perhaps should have ditched boots as well. Bikini is rather unlike usual garb in which tend to cover all skin areas except face, so am filing that one in Unlikely Costumes folder.

Am sporting Magical Inappi in 2nd pic., which turns out to be rabbit-like shoulder-pet thingy. Will need to name Inappi: you get 2, so obvious solution is calling one In and the other Appi, though in fact neither one looks particularly 'appy (joke).

When TPed in to latest home, found random person there, so quickly TPed out again. Then sneaked back to take pic. Suppose more sociable person would have invited him to sit down and offered tea. Anyway, he does not appear to be bothering cats, so suppose is OK.

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.

Hot tubs. Time. Change/ no change.

Blogs disappearing beyond recall: about 20 (v. bad)
Sudden panic has driven me back to Yoshikawa blogland. Have class where force students to create team blogs, and yesterday found that team blogs from 2011 had suddenly gone phut, they were ex-blogs. Blogger sounded v. calm when told me each time that there was no such blog, but was v. upsetting. Think it is because students created them using uni email accounts which since expired, so are not active bloggers. However, idea of Adventures going phut too awful for words. Decided needed to Keep Blog Active.

So, surprisingly, here are a few random thoughts of the day.
1) Hot tubs, changing yet changeless. Hot tubs were amongst early purchases in 2007, in fact venerable examples still inhabit inventory as throw v. little away. This hot tub is in some ways an advance (it has curves, water goes in and out, there are 6 poses in each corner, it is not very many prims). On the other hand, it still looks pretty much like a hot tub circa 2007 in essential i.e. has wooden bit on outside, watery bit on inside, a few folderolls like candles and think those are meant to be rose petals although they look more like mishapen saucers, you sit in it, end of story.

2) On the other hand, seems to have been great advances in gym equipment. Look, am evidently strongest avatar in universe since can lift heavy weights with one arm. This was in a shop the name of which escapes me (no change there, then) where I ended up carrying off a punch bag and some bongos. And possibly something else. Did I buy that fireguard? Think not. Was one of those shops with lots of things at 300 Linden plus, so when you come across something cute at 90 Linden you immediately snap it up. Punch bag has v. amusing set of animations and bongos have both sound and silent options whilst you play them, so can practice without annoying neighbours. Since bought them and then forgot had bought them do not yet have pics.

3)World's End Gardens continues photogenic. Saw in someone's blog that WEG is about to go phut, too. So thought should visit it a last time. Bought a clump of blue roses and did a lot of posing with some balloon animations that discovered in inventory. Arty or what.

4) Eyes and cats are go.
 Kittycats are still darlings of my SL, and the animations just get cuter and cuter (hold! follow! make random inane remarks!). However sometimes the kitties go a bit odd, with part of the body sitting up (for example) whilst the rest of the kittycat body stays put. Had particularly disconcerting moment when Marl's eyes stayed where they were whilst rest of head was lowered. This brings together two of my most popular tags i.e. eyes and cats.

Think this is possibly Art. Question is: who created it, me or the kittycat? Still, since Linden Lab now owns everything created by anybody in SL, is rather meaningless to ponder on this.

New life

No. of new kitten boxes: 1 (exciting!)
Finally succumbed to temptation to let my kittycats create beautiful kitten boxes together. Set Snowfall and Tassie to "breed on" a few weeks ago, which meant that at once was having to shell out more Linden for kittycat food as breedable cats eat twice as much. Then after about 10 days set Tassie to partner Snowfall. Tassie made some coy remark about only having just met (as if! she was there when he emerged from the kitten box, there is photographic prooof) which evidently comes from the kittycat random-twee-remark generator.

Have not been in SL much for the last week, and therefore was surprised and delighted to get an IM announcing the happy event (i.e. Tassie giving birth to a kitten box). When went inworld at first was unable to locate a) kitten box b) Tassie or c) Snowfall. After some camming around discovered a) (Kittenbox) abandoned outside the house (see first pic) b) (Tassie: fond mother) chasing butterflies round the opposite side of the house and c) (Snowfall: proud father) hiding under the floorboards. Seems like the new kitten box is doomed to be the victim of a dysfunctional family right from the start.

The new update allows you to click on the kitten box and see a 2D portait of the yet-unborn kitten, so you can decide whether to birth it or not. Obviously once it has looked at you with its v. cute whiskers and pretty ears it is more difficult to resist. Look! He has his mother's eyes, they are so adorable! (etc. etc.) And he would make a charming mate for Ninetails, in only a few weeks they could be making kitten boxes of their own. It is a primrose path to pouring linden into the kittycats coffers (i.e. for more and more food).

Should note that this breeding thing is a frightfully chaste process, as apart from eating more kittycat kibble there is no noticeable change in kitty behaviour and certainly no Lewd Acts. Once had retrieved Snowfall from under the floor and Tassie from her walk outside the house, let them wander round until they fortuitously both ended up trapped by a japanese screen, and I took a picture (3rd pic, Tassie is on the right)

They may be saying "let our kittenbox live". Or they may be thinking "when is our next kittycat kibble meal". Or as they are in fact pixel cats, it is also possible that they are not thinking anything at all.

BTW if you have any views one way or the other, feel free to comment on whether Son of Tassie should be released from his box to eat up my Linden.

Lost and found

No items in inventory: 58,000 (good); No. of items in inventory when logged in last night: 19,600 (v. bad)
Was procrastinating on Infolit iSchool last night, changing some furniture in the Wilf Saunders library, when thought would try rezzing some possible replacement builds. Need to consult Maggie first, but as demolishing common room to put up a conference centre, am considering making library into library/social venue. Am sure David Cameron would approve, as he and his chums always seem to be encouraging librarians to do things librarians have been doing for years e.g. lending CDs and selling coffee.
Anyway, was only when kept getting no hits in inventory search that finally realised that was not because too many items are in wrong folder. Was, rather, because NONE OF THE FOLDERS HAD ANYTHING IN THEM.

Icey finger of fear clutched at heart, but did some quick googling, and soon came across  lots of Don't Panic messages which indicated that was most likely that inventory wasn't loading. Followed some instructions from Rolig Loon (who must spend all her lifelife doing helpful posts) and within reasonable time inventory was cascading back into inventory folder.* Phew!

As a reaction to this decided to create new pixel life, so rezzed a kitten box I had purchased foolishly a couple of months ago and lo! there is a new kittycat for me to cuddle. It is a Bengal cat, with Odessey eyes i.e. they are different colours. Cute or what. Have called him Snowfall. This makes 6 cats altogether which is seriously approaching crazy cat lady territory, particularly when you look at the price of KittyCats food. First pic shows us all waiting for the kitten box to hatch, and 2nd pic shows Snowfall though at that point he was still just called Kitten.

Stone looked distinctly unenthused at the idea of a new male cat on his territory, and has taken to hiding under the floor even more often (see 3rd pic). Meanwhile, Ninetails is now full sized, but Snowfall is still at that age where he could get lost underneath a cushion, let alone underneath the house.

Whilst in Kitteycats main store noticed there was a HUD that enabled you to get your kitties to return to you even when you don't know where they are.
Hmmmmm. On one hand may regret not buying it if really do lose cat completely one day. On other hand, have been Hunting the Lost Virtual Cat for 5 years now, ever since Mitsy started throwing herself into sea on Eduserv island. It's a sort of ritual.  And at least kittycats don't disintegrate into disembodied paws and heads like Mitsy did.

BTW am also labouring at a serious post on "Twitter vs. SL" reflecting on experience of Twitter-only discussion about info literacy. Will of course be last word on the matter of Twitter vs SL and do not offer any prizes for guessing which one is winner in my book. Do they have kittycats on Twitter, who whimsically hide themselves under the floor and behind the furniture?** I rest my case.

*Practical info. To get inventory back, cleared cache (in Preferences, think it was Advanced tab), logged off, logged back in somewhere else and typed an "a" into the search box of inventory, then waited impatiently as the inventory count went up and up.
** the answer is "no".

Cats, Hair, Bots

Emails received from virtual cats: 10 (good); Visibility of mesh: erratic (bad); Tail positions: unfortunate (v. bad)
Was overwhelmed with emails from Stone and Tassie on Monday demanding food and attention. Such an improvement on RL cats which can only meowl and look pained, not only have SL cats mastered email skills, also can tell me preceisely how hungry they are e.g. "40%".
Fortunately got to them before they were 100% hungry as at that point they retire to their themometers and blankets and linden must be paid to get them back to good health. Here I am showing Tassie I care, using cute "hold" pose. Is only one thing wrong with this pose, as can be seen if look closely at pic. Prompts thoughts such as "is that a kittycat you are holding or are you just glad to see me?" Would probably be good idea if kittycat tail vanished in this animation, or at least coiled discretely out of sight.

Am wearing new hair from Truth, but expenditure has been curbed somewhat as am being v. cautious about buying mesh clothes. Was incident of being filmed by Pancha when wearing nice mesh sweater and hair and looking like I had no torso but a bald head, and also when bumped into Kali and friends and it emerged that they were using non-mesh viewers.  Can't imagine why anyone who doesn't know what mesh is would read this blog, but anyway, mesh is new way of making stuff, using computer aided design; like sculpties, but it's not sculpties, it's mesh. Plus side of mesh is that it can curve to follow your avatar movements, minus is that you can't resize it if it's this flexible "rigged mesh".

Thus to fit different sized avis you get several sizes of (e.g.) the dress, which is all very well, but they are "standard size", which means you end up a standard size rather than your actual shape. This generally means buxom, with a small waist and biggish hips but a flat bottom. Do not want to be that shape. Combo of ill-fitting clothes and social embarrassment of having vital bits missing = avoidance of mesh.

Am also myself finding that when come across new mesh objects they are invisible first time round e.g. try on a mesh skirt and it looks like it isn't there. Relog and magically I can see it. Increasing numbers of people at meetings are thus suffering from bits-missing syndrome e.g. in VWER today there was chap who was mostly just head and extremities, and last week there was a woman was was mostly hair (see pic): very nice hair too, went off after the meeting to find the shop.

Next pic also shows mesh issue (see chap on far right, look no body) in after-VWER visit to a bot-shop where was being shown the Quasimodo Merlin bot (the one with steampunk wings: actually realise now that you can't really see him in this pic, he is hidden by my Big Hair, that thought bubble is coming out of his head). Quasimodo was eccentric bot who disliked people he had only just been introduced to (he actually said "I dislike x", x being Suzanne who was just trying to make polite conversation with him). Therefore ended up being something of a bait-the-bot session, though in a polite educators sort of way. Quasi has been programmed to write vogon poetry and his poem for me on the subject of "Jubilee" was as follows (copyright to him, obviously)
"among shops futuristic jubilee
Label interpreted jubilee!
You extended parkey.
Out of the water, budgeted bugbee.
All taste fielded plumlee.
Good and plenty, allocated lordy.
Sheilas suit entertains parkey"

Could spend hours deconstructing this. The first lines seem to be corruscating commentary on the extent to which the Queen's Diamond Jubilee has been turned in a commercial event. "Parkey" is of course reference to popular but ageing UK TV personality Michael Parkinson, a former chat show host. "You extended parkey" must be compliment to the dedicatee (me) implying that my witty repartee would stretch Parkey's powers, and indeed provide him and his audience with entertainment ("Sheilas suit entertains"). This appears to be in contrast with some dull minor royal who has been foisted onto Parkey as a guest ("allocated lordy") with an affected plummy accent ("fielded plumlee"). Not sure about the fourth line. Perhaps there has been flooding, but fortunately there is sufficient Parkinson Show budget to mop it up so we are "out of the water".

Great stuff.

And to finish with, here I am balancing on a table.

I celebrate my Rez day with the cats

No of years in SL: 5 (good); No. of cats in SL: 5 (furry; well, sort of); No. of times interviewed in SL: lost count (bad)

Another year another Rez Day and here I am celebrating my 5th, with the same old animated birthday cake over my head. Earlier in the day had been marginally more social.
Had been asked by Kali to transcribe at the VWER meeting, and so had hour rattling away at keyboard. Up side is that had to stay awake and pay attention, down side is that by end fingers felt partially detached from hands through overuse.

Took along newest kitty acquisition, vis, Tassie. She is seal point siamese, and is named after The Silver Tassie, as in Burns' poem. In fact almost called her Tassel*, but thought that sounded too much like I was considering using her tail for a bell-pull. Since she is still only a few days old, she sits on my shoulder rather than being held, which is very much in the cute-or-what-category. Can see in the 2nd pic what Tassie looked like when newly rezzed i.e. small lump of clay.

Returning to subject of Rez Day, had thought about attaching sign to head with something amusing e.g. Rez Day Girl! However a mere nanosecond of reflection revealed that this would not be amusing at all, so didn't. Did receive one IM from someone wishing happy rez day, so am grateful for small mercies. Outside SL have reached stage where get v. few actual birthday cards. Thank goodness for Facebook, as got lots of Happy Birthdays on there, where would one be without social networking.

After the VWER meeting, got interviewed about teaching in SL, by a PhD student. Was thinking that could probably get article out of analysing all the squillions of interviews I've given about my teaching in SL. Would be interesting to compare what had said each time, though probably only interesting to me.

* I know that Tassie isn't short for Tassel, but they sound jolly similar.

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.

Gift, Exhibit, Orange

No of items found in inventory when search "pumpkin": lost count after 50 (bad); No of gifts: 1 (v. good); No. of free prims on Infolit iSchool: 526 (bad); No. of times neighbour's security orb attempted to eject me from own land: 18 in 3 minutes (bad)

Tis the season of mellow fruitfulness and halloween overdrive, so am stuffing inventory with floating candles, spooky houses, spooky greenhouses, tombstones, poisoned cauldrons, and some v. questionable items, namely a noose pose set and a burn-the-witch bonfire. Latter is great fun as you stand at the stake with flames licking round you, making unrealistic shrieking noises.

As usual have set up Halloween house on Infolit, this year in a shack on the hill. New items include aforementioned cauldron (dispenses apples which cause you to fall dead) and v. good ghost in form of flying pumpkin, from New Trails. Pancha has contributed an animated skeleton and some freebie candles that she created for a Day of The Dead project. Also had tombstone that dispensed ghost that followed you round saying she wanted her mummy. Spooky.
However, when visited tomb just now, the GHOST HAD DISAPPEARED, and was no longer to be seen in the Contents tab of the tombstone. That is even spookier, frankly, and also means product no longer works. Could ask for replacement, but on the whole that is just too much effort.
Meanwhile have a pumpkin for all purposes: pumpkin heads, pumpkin lights, pumpkin chairs, pumpkin to look like cats' heads; pumpkin soup; pumpkin pie; pumpkin gun; pumpkin earrings; pumpkins that come and hit you if you click them; static pumpkins of every size and hue; not to mention pumpkin-coloured boots, necklaces, shrugs etc. etc.
Am trying to show restraint, as it tempting to just pull everything out and Paint The Island Orange. Is easier since am fighting continual prim war. Students have been populating their mini islands, and I have been encouraging them to fill islands with stuff, but has now reached stage when really want to say DO YOU REALLY NEED YET ANOTHER PALM TREE but is easier to just keep zooming round trimming prims here and there.

Latest things to go were an old barbie (40 prims, see pic) and the cardboard house that was lurking under the Farradane Centre. Have fond memories of getting drunk with Pancha and Ishbel over that barbie, but is four years old, so postively vintage.
Autumnal colour added to by a) my final "52 weeks of colour" frock, which have selected from Caverna Obscura and b) v. pretty set of marigolds in vase on cute rustic stool which was unexpected gift from Hanaya's owner. Have got v. few blogger gifts to date, in fact think has only been 4 of which 1 (set of shoes) was v. useful, 1 (jewellery from Magpie) was pretty, and 2 were useless as were short dresses of kind do not wear.
At once opened box and tried to take pic to show gift-giver. Was thwarted for some time
1) Went to Fantasy Woods corner of Noyo. Was immediately bombarded with messages saying that was about to be ejected: neighbour must have set his security orb thoughtlessly wide. Loathe security orbs. IMed neighbour and await response.
2) Crashed
3) Logged in and went to autumn house and started to rez marigolds,
4) Crashed
5) Rezzed marigiolds
6) Crashed
7) Crashed again. Perhaps was Curse of the security Orb.
8) Tried logging into Infolit iSchool instead. Success!
9) Noticed Quilt was missing. retrieved her from under building. How DO they get down there.
10) Posed with Naomi. (see pic)
11) By this time had forgotten why had gone into SL in first place and started playing with Quilt.

Will use marigolds in final 52 weeks of colour post, as harmonises so well with dress. Am sad 52 weeks challenge is almost over. However, at approx 2 hrs per post x 52 weeks = 104 hrs, means have spent 3 working weeks on blogging virtual clothes for not many people to look at. Hmmm. Still, it was fun.