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.

The perils of ducks

Ducks acquired: numerous (good); Crashes experienced: 8, or was it 10, no, think it was 11 (bad); Psychedelic glithes: 1 (v.v. bad)

Had formulated idea that since already have oodles of unrezzed stuff in inventory should not acquire more, but, heyho, saw an ad for this duck bobbing game at the Wayward event, and off I went. Proved to be not the most enjoyable experience since the venue was incredibly laggy, a combo of lots of people (it's featured on the SL login page) and all the fairground rides.
Additionally, flying had been disabled.  Simply fail to understand why someone who wants people to stay at their events disables flying. Means you spend more time camming round, or chair-hopping, or hopelessly double clicking your mouse to try and go above a crawl.

Anyway, despite this, persevered driven on by fantasy of bobbing for cute virtual ducks. Was not really intending to indulge in any other purchase but predictably ended up with
1 seat in form of old weathered ferris wheel carriage
1 air balloon
2 ducks which can sit on shoulder
1 elegant whicker lounge with gauzy canopy
1 pair free mesh eyes
Was there something else? Have vague feeling that may have thrown 50 Linden at some gacha or other. All these were encountered before coming across bobbing ducks. Painstakingly worked way round event, crashing every few booths. Think rot started when had crashed twice in Soy booth and in the end felt sort of emotional attachment to the Soy ferris wheel carriage that had been dithering over, and bought it. 2nd pic shows this in situ, has replaced equally cute truck/shower from MMG at end of garden. Hope you can see have tried to be a bit arty with this pic, with strategic seagulls and shadows enabled.

Crashing got worse and worse, until part of computer screen was obscured by sort of tangle of pastel coloured shapes, which think was own graphics card saying help help help. Therefore eventually rebooted and then wasn't quite so bad i.e. only crashed every 10 minutes rather than every 3. Was then able to appreciate that Wayward sim was actually v. nicely set out with all sorts of cute items to sit on/ride, including numerous carousels (teacups one, cat one, seahorse one etc. etc.) and other rides that zoom round and round or up and down. First one tried remained static, but enjoyed ride on The Vortex (see first pic taken as whizzing) although way pose worked meant that could only glimpse self squeezed between 2 seats, perhaps in fear.

After having to go round event twice, found ducks. Vendor had also created beanbag game (see 3rd pic). You click on the item, you attach beanbag, you click on bean toss board, you toss it, end of story. Somehow felt ought to get a bit more for 250 Linden. Tried duck bobbing, and found that curiously, when posed by bobbing bucket, did not lean over bobbing bucket but rather hunched up several feet to one side. This gave a moment's pause (is this bugged?) but desire for cute ducks overcame common sense.

As can see from 4th pic, unfortunately the bug continued when got booty home and unpacked it ie when SAT on bucket, immediately moved to right and hunched. Am too apathetic to contact creator to say "It's bugged" so am hoping someone else will do this and will have corrected copy dropped on me at some point. This does generally happen, only the other day got a less buggy version of some complete outdoor bathing set that had of course forgotten had ever bought.

Upside is that after have bobbed for a while, get given a duck which attaches to head.

Can forgive people a lot for random freebie head duck

The usual

Hours spent at Jewelry Fair: 1.5 (bad). Items bought at Jewelry Fair: have already forgotten (bad) but was certainly lot less than COULD have bought (good).

Since have not yet fixed proper laptop, one that started going clunk-clunk in April, am now rather restricted about access to SL when away from office. To begin with, new netbook allowed some access, although generally of slow grey lumpy kind. Still it meant could attend those kinds of educators meetings where all you do is find a seat and then throw in the odd bit of text chat to show you aren't just letting your avatar sit there while you go off and make coffee or check your facebook page.

Anyway, gaps mean that when do get back in have loads to catch up on. Cute items for Spruce Up Your Space or Super Bargain Saturday that might still be out and available! Paying rent for shop in Juicy! Feeding the cats! And of course have the weekly obligation of the 52 weeks of colour challenge, which now has ONLY SIX WEEKS LEFT, gosh what will I find to do with my time when that finishes.

Obviously a couple of things are - going on hunts and visiting fairs. Have tried to give up fairs as tend to be v. time consuming, somewhat laggy, and also inevitably feed shopaholic tendencies. However, when doing Brick Red outfit for current Week of Colour Challenge decided that hadn't got quite the right earrings, so a visit to the Jewelry Fair that just opened was the only logical solution. Results can be seen here and here. Found v. pretty peacock feather earrings, only prob being that if viewed from front they disappear into hair. Think this is something to with alpha textures. Anyway, easy solutions are to
a) wear updos so is no hair in immediate vicinity of lower ear and/or
b) take pictures from side, where feathers magically appear again.

Am accumulating vast store of lore of this sort. Not sure what will do with it all, but then probably don't apply most of stuff that have picked up outside SL either e.g. once restored and re-caned a chair but don't think have been once required to reapply this knowledge in intervening period. What find slightly puzzling is that researchers who have researched SL fashion scene have tended to pursue v.v. dull questions about identity inside and outside SL, yawn, rather than interesting stuff e.g. why you might prefer Truth hair to Lelutka hair (in my case answer is simple as Lelutka don't do blue hair).

1st pic shows particularly tempting booth, and 2nd pic shows one of the Jewelry Fair sims ("Fire") Interesting that last year's organisers seemed agonisingly concerned about exhibits only using small number of different textures, no animated items, no particles, layout designed so that people's computers only had to absorb limited no. of graphics at a time, strict instructions about de-primming yourself before visiting etc. etc. This year all that has been jettisoned, as may see from rather murky pic, sim was filleed with animations and textures, and one often found oneself having to plough through a lava chasm to try and get to the next booth.

Talking of lava, the 3rd pic shows part of a short and enjoyable Quest that BareRose had, where you had 4 skyglobes with scenes in them that you had to navigate. In this one you had to go across narrow bridge with giant swinging axes, at risk of boiling to death in the lava. At the end you got some cool armour and a beautiful flying dragon. In final pic can see me swooping over Cowell on my dragon. Wheeeee.

4th Rez Day

Years in SL: 4 (good); No. of rez day greetings: one (better than nothing)
Have not tended to make much fuss about rez days, though had toyed with idea of having a party this year. Am not v. good party person since generally assume that will be disaster and no-one will turn up. However, more to point, am snowed under with work, plus have been handicapped on SL front because:

1) Have been away from office for 2 weeks and therefore dependent on laptop for SL fun;

2) Said laptop started making clunkety-clunk noises about 12 days ago, never a good sound for a laptop. Think bit might have got loose and interfered with fan. Laptop did not crash, but hope to get good bit more mileage from it, so am not risking using it til it's been (hopefully) fixed by Samsung Laptop Expert.

3) Seized by laptop deprivation, made impulse purchase of cute Samsung mini-laptop. Whilst have bonded with new purchase for blogging and suchlike as is lighter, smaller and has more battery life (plus was cool conference accessory), is basically carp as regards SL. Can get onto SL, but spends ages being grey, graphics never resolve properly even on lowest settings, and it sort of flickers periodically. Therefore is OK for emergency SL (collecting & sending IMs etc.) but not for much else.

Thus, no time for party organisation. Was even late for first time with 52 weeks of colour posting, so posted Periwinkle on Saturday and then today celebrated with Tangerine (this week's colour) and then pics of rez day outfit, also seen above. Floaty eh. Will wear it for LILAC conference report meeting tomorrow, though possibly minus the butterfly hair corsage.

Checked up on land: as usual several things had crashed into my parcel in Noyo e.g. this jet fighter and had to return them.

Also made sure cats were ok: turned up they needed updating (you can tell this because they have Update Me in red hovertext above them). Update included exciting new animation, Play. When click cat and then click Animation and then click Play and then click Yes when asked Is It Ok To Animate Your Avatar then you do a throwing-the-tiny-coloured-ball animation, and if all goes to plan, cat starts patting and chasing tiny coloured ball, very cute. Only problems were:

1. When had Played with Quilt and then clicked Quilt again to get Qulit to jump to be cuddled, Quilt obstinately refused and started chasing ball further and further away, well outside her cat range. In end got her to Jump Home.
2) When tried Play with Naomi later, she was stuck in a corner and kept ignoring the ball, so I got her to jump home. Then started to click Play again, but it crashed. So may be a few bugs in animation.
Also, is tendency for ball to get stuck under sofa or behind chairs, in which case cat sits and stares at it until you come and retrieve the ball for her. This seems somewhat like RL. Cutest thing is probably when cat picks up ball and drops it at your feet (first cat pic), though not sure have ever seen actual cat do this, is somewhat beneath them. 2nd cat pic shows Naomi running after ball. Note cat and ball shadows (other shadows are from the windows).

So that was the day in SL.

Will not list all dull jobs should have been doing instead of playing with virtual cats, creeping round lag-laden shopping precincts waiting for vendors to rez, and posing in new clothes on romantic sea shores. Would be just too, too tedious.

Awesome-ish

No of sessions am moderating at VWBPE: 4 (good) No of speakers with whom have not made contact: 1 (bad); No. times crashed out of SL in last 18 hours: more than 18, I think (v.v.bad)
Have not had serious crashing problems for a couple of years, but am currently attending the VWBPE conference and with huge crowds in first session was just like old days of no sound, greyness, bits of sim suddenly vanishing (see first pic) and sudden crashes. Sims created for conf are steampunk and awesome (see 2nd pic) but wonder if also a bit lagtastic. Particular worry as am moderating sessions shortly and do not want to crash in mid-moderate.
But enough negativity! Loads of speakers and lots of them v. interesting - and all free! And you can attend the conf in slippers.
As I am doing.
Or is that too much information.
http://vwbpe11.vwbpe.org/

Lost and found

Hours spent trapped in SL: 20 (v. bad); Minutes elapsed between reporting problem and getting fix: 5 (v. good)
Last night was footling about on Infolit iSchool when crashed. Nothing new there, but when tried to log back in, got message "The system is logging you out right now. Your account will not be available until ..." and then it would always give a time that was always 5 mins later than the time I tried to log in. It was v. late so gave up in hope that might sort itself out, and couldn't try again until this evening since am currently in Gothenburg and today was being conference chair for an event about information literacy for which had been lead organiser.
However, when DID try had same problem. Then logged in as Dimitrova and found self hovering in place where had crashed (see pic, Dimi happened to be dressed a la greek goddess at the time). Odd, though was grateful it had happened on Infolit, where am less likely to get bumped around etc.
Anyway, phoned LL at some expense from Sweden and helpful person quickly identified that SL had been "trying to save attachments" after crashing, & failing to do so, obviously, so she just restarted the region and then could log in OK. All attachments in place as well, as far as could tell. One embarrassment was that when asked to spell Sheila Yoshikawa, got v. muddled. Realised that have typed it countless times, but have possibly never been asked verbally to spell it before. May be some message here about literacies, but not quite sure what.

Moving in circles: it's time

Educators meetings attended: lots (good, if circular); No. of these meetings starting at 10pm or later: all (bad)

Have not organised any meetings since Christmas, but have tried to get back into swing of things by attending the Virtual Worlds Educators Roundtable meeting more regularly, and also organising committee meetings for Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education.

Unfortunately former start at 10.30 pm on Tuesdays and latter start at 10pm on Weds and Thurs, so means that am getting late night habit again. Broadband reception on mobile stick has also been v. variable, so means that if want to be sure that can actually attend meeting have to go into office (rather than stay at home, attempt connection, login and rez v.v. slowly, catch a few minutes, crash, then stare at little light on mobile stick til it turns requisite blue colour again, indicating some minimal connection, so whole cycle can start over again).

First pic is from VWER meeting on 12th Jan. Unfortunately am now totally unable to remember what topic was, am sure it was riveting at the time. [Added later: I just checked. It was "The Future of SL and VW through the Eyes of M. Linden." I think my contribution consisted of suggesting making it easier to add metadata to Objects. You can't get much more riveting than metadata, can you.][Added still later: realise that had already blogged this in previous entry. But am too lazy to take it out of this one]

2nd pic is from the VWER this week (2nd Feb). This was a talk about ethical and legal isues in SL. This was also revieting, obviously, but am afraid that chief memory is that one of the speakers was wearing a demo skin. Could tell this as it had DEMO written on it in various strategic places. Was distracted into wondering whether this was a mistake (you may remember I spent some time wandering round with demo eyes without realising), or some sort of anti-consumerist statement. Anyway, you can find all the VWER transcripts here: http://vwer.podbean.com/
3rd pic is me at a VWBPE organising committee meeting. This looks v. similar to other pics, except there are less of us. The VWBPE organising committee is chaired by Zana, who is a wizard person, being hardworking, well organised and pleasant. Actual conference is 12-13 March. This pic was taken at around the point when felt compelled to volunteer to do more work, viz being one of the leaders for the poster stream. Unfortunately this has set me up for yet another post-10pm meeting tomorrow, Saturday i.e. starting at 11pm. Hey ho.

On another note, have just seen irritating new essay by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams in which they propose doing various things that quite a lot of teachers have been doing for years, as if these were new ideas and they were lone radical voices. They include v. large number of dubious generalisations about collaboration, as if was always Good Thing That Students Love (evidently THEY haven't done much teaching). Not that am AGAINST collaboration, far from it, hasten to add, but is not solution to all world's problems, by any means. Essay is called Innovating the 21st-Century University: It's Time! Lord knows in UK can't get away without constantly Innovating, or at least producing Annual Reflections and Strategic Plans and so forth that say that you are. Perhaps is different in USA?

Was going to link to essay, but then thought, they have publicity enough, why give them another link. If you are v. keen, just copy the title in Google, and up it will pop.

Waiting

Sim crashes: 1 (bad); Concerts attended: 1 (unexpected) (but pleasant, obviously)

Am speaking on panel about Innovation in SL education and libraries this evening. Is part of opening celebrations for new Innovation Infoisland. In fact was due to be speaking in 9 mins time, but instead am listening to live improvisatory recital from AldoManution Abruzzo, together with everyone else on the panel and about 40 others, due to earlier sim crash and thus delay to all proceedings.

When happens is going to be rather of a Speed Panel as we only have 10 mins each, a challengingly small time even in RL. But - hark - the music has stopped. So must stop blogging and go to Panel instead.

RL/ SL /ZOMG lol

ZOMG moments: 1 (embarrassing, but sort of cool); OMG moments: 1 (v. bad); No. of La Rinascente bags collected: 7 (bad); No of free autumn leaf blowers discovered: 1 (good)

Am back from Milan now, but am recalling a ZOMG lol moment from RL. Was a special concert (for harp and stradavarius violin) put on for the conference in Milan Cathedral. As cathedral is v.v.v. big, are 2 giant video screens either side of nave so audience can actually see what is going on at the front. Was swaying along in trance like state to one of the pieces when in corner of eye caught sight of own face magnified to horrible effect on screens. Perhaps was only person in audience that seemed to be enjoying things. At any rate was rather offputting, and found myself thinking "If this was SL, would be saying ZOMG lol at this point" So, now I have.

Also had special conference event in La Scala opera house in RL and celebrated that by doing fashion shoot in the SL La Scala replica. Whilst was doing this, Heyjude asked me to test out her voice audability, and 1st pic shows that. She was going to meet Claudia Linden, posh, forgot to ask her why.

Otherwise, Milano set me pondering about RL vs. SL shopping. Am displaying in 2nd pic evidence that can shop in RL. Appear to have had subconcious urge to collect every size and style of bag available in La Rinascente. La Rinascente is similar to Liberty's in London, in that after about 10 mins everything under 100 Euros seems incredibly cheap, which is how ended up with dinky packet of pasta costing 4 Euros and chocolates costing a mere, ahem, 20.
One RL/SL difference is that in RL, esp. as was Milan, decided to wear most elegant garb for swanning round and looking at RL frocks. Similarly, when went to opera could adorn self with jewels, shoes and shawls without worrying that fashion police would be checking my Avatar Rendering Count. In other words, in SL you (or I) (or other fashion bloggers) buy lots of stuff, mainly to dress up on own or with a few close friends, and take pics of self, but cannot wear full finery at kind of events (dances, concerts, fashion shows) where would dress up in RL, because it would add to the lag. At shoe/hair/skin/clothes fairs you are even encouraged to abandon your hair.
In contrast only fashion moments in RL were officials stopping women with bare arms from going into cathedral, and ordering them to put on MORE clothes.
Today's OMG moment was less pleasant in that something is evidently wrong with home PC, since after a shortish time screen went multicoloured and then blank, and when rebooted and feverishly started running virus checkers and diagnostic stuff, in mid-check screen just froze and blanked. Oh well, will persevere with checks.
On a happier note have bought some cute landscaping stuff. Got pack for most realistic and sparkly waterfall ever (from New Trails), though also, has to be said, the most laggy. Has four layers to each part, including particles and mist, and can put together combination of waterfall, water panel, water curve and water pillows to very pleasing effect.

Also found new shop (called SHD) with tweeting 2 prim birds, stone dragon that hisses at you, nice autumn ground cover and very pretty Xmas lanterns, all at reasonable prices. Also there is a freebie instore, this leaf blower, and there are some freebie stone plants (little plants that look like stones, have seen them in RL In botanical gardens) hidden in an angel as part of - some hunt or other.

Focus group

No. of focus groups held in SL: 1 (good); No. of RL eyes suffering from blurring: 1 (bad); No. of times crashed during focus group: 6 (bad); Mistakes in logging text chat: 1 (bad)
[Seem to have written this but not posted it. Perhaps I thought it was too dull.** See whether you agree!] On 30 April Pancha held her focus group investigating library and information people using SL for Continuing Professional development & networking. This is part of a research project by Pancha Enzyme & Zeno Silvercloud for EAHIL Workshop 2009. Was a small group, which actually worked v. well. I had offered to be Observer, sorting out latecomers, setting up recorder for Informed Consent (logging names via the blue thing in the middle of the circle of chairs) and noting anything interesting that I Observed. This is a recommended role to include when you are doing focus groups.

Was interesting to see what stimulated most comment - for example people tended to talk about teaching and supporting learners, rather than collaboration and networking, til steered gently back to the main question. Also there was a lively response when one person said that SL didn't seem to have that much advantage over a chat room - shows that having conflicting opinions teases out complexity.
Pancha (seen - she is on left - with focus group member) did great job, but own input was compromised in number of ways:
a) Had woken up in RL that morning with itching & blurred eye. Worried, had gone to optician who referred me to eye hospital. Turned out to be nothing serious (front of eye had dried out... well it wasn't v. pleasant, to be frank) and was sent away with some ointment. However this meant that did not really want to stay late at work, so used SL from home, which meant that...
b) had v. dodgy connection via 3G mobile stick. Was Ok for first half of focus group, but after that was crashing in and out in yoyo-like fashion. Last pic shows how S-L-O-W everything was to rez (see last pic). Final depression caused when found that ...
c) although had remembered to change the path for my text chat log to a drive on this home computer, had NOT noticed that the "log chat" box in preferences was not actually ticked .... thus found afterwards that had logged all the IMs from people and none of the chat.
Oh well, lots of Lessons Learnt.
** This blog, not focus group, obviously.

Sensible activities

Educational meetings attended: 3 (mostly good); Problems with Voice: 1 (bad); Strange transporations and crashes: several (bad); No. of eminent researchers sitting on lap: 1 (amusing)
As well as seeking out virtual bonsai, bubble chairs and valentine freebies, have manged to fit in some work-related activities. First picture shows AJ's weekly educational discussion, where Pathfinder Linden held forth. This was a week ago, and must confess that remembrance of what he said seems to have leached away.

Passing swiftly to an event that is fresher in the memory, on Monday attended the SL Researchers meeting. Brainwave Bernal was talking about the CLIVE (Center for Learning in Virtual Environments) project, and Salamander, i.e. efforts to tag and record learning objects in SL. In UK most efforts to get academics to upload and share stuff have been pretty unsuccessful, since a) academics are not sharing creatures; b) universities aren't sharing organisations and c) who wants to use other people's stuff anyway? By the time you've hacked it around enough that your students recognise it as relevant to them, you might as well start from scratch.
However, having said that, certainly HAVE used other people's stuff in SL, rather more than in RL. Is this because it is more fun to hack around? Hmmm.

Was attending this and next meeting from home using mobile 3G stick. Stick appeared to be particularly challenged. To start with could scarecly move, then when attempted to sit down was apparently whisked to corner of sim (0,0,0) and Aussie researcher Seeker was sitting on my knee (see picture). Even wierder, SHE evidently saw herself back in the meeting place and was carrying out text chat with people there. Having struggled back, waited for Brainwave to start his presentation. By time he had worked through 3 slides in perfect silence had deduced that he was using Voice and I wasn't hearing it despite having Voice active. Fixed it by logging out and in, but really must stir self to get a proper broadband connection.

After this meeting, whizzed straight over to the Educator's Coop where Metaphor Voom talked about the v. interesting things he was doing. Students select RL adverts which show human bodies, put them on billboards in SL and embed notecards with critique about the ad. Metaphor had prepared a template board with notecard so they only had to master a few SLskills. He felt that they were interacting more with each other's work and we agreed that having them on large boards had an impact. The layout was also newbie-friendly.
At this meeting I spent whole time on a box, since (a tip) in my belagged situation it was easier to sit on a box and move that round by editing it, than to try and walk about. BTW you may have noticed wings, cute eh, but possibly also a bit twee, so will not be wearing them in front of students or indeed the Vice Chancellor.

Launch!

Centre for Information Literacy Research launched in SL: 1 (v. good); No of people attending: 12 (v. good); Drinks consumed: lots (good); No. of times computer crashed when about to start welcoming speech: 2 (v. bad)

Am recovering from general hysteria induced by hosting first virtual gathering. Generally counted a success and already some nice coverage of event. Art Fossett blogged about event here on his blog and there are excellent photos from Peregrine Juneau here on flickr

Have prepared press release and since have not said on this blog what Centre actually IS , here is the link to the Centre's website: http://www.shef.ac.uk/is/cilr/ . Centre also launched in RL this week and hasn't physical office, is more a focus for information literacy activity & liaising with other researchers. So to have SL office is v. nice as well as giving justification for designing roof gardens and buying launch-party outfits (although as see in pics in end am wearing old butterfly skirt, though with newish top and latest batch of jewellry).
Good things were that 4 other people from my Department attended, plus Maggie Kohime from the library. 2 people (Art and Peregrine) attended from Eduserv (who donated office space). Also were 4 people from outside including IH. Managed to give speech welcoming people (more on that in a moment), Art gave v. elegant speech and I presented gift box. Then were some interesting conversations. Party lasted about 1 hour which is longer than had thought.

Will talk in future posts about various features that installed in office last night in flurry of activity. One of these was the bear poster (Pegegrine has good photo on flickr) of which was rather proud, which instructed people how to copy freebie bear. Bear (illustrated here) is blue in colour with CILR written on ears, "I love information literacy" text hovering over it and a notecard inside with basic info on the Centre plus some useful links etc. on infolit.

Half way through party when drink etc. had oiled wheels of conversation emerged that in fact must have got permissions wrong as people weren't able to copy bear, thus detracting from its cuteness. Will need to investigate this but couldn't fix immediately as bear is formed of linked objects. Lesson here about perils of tinkering with SL scripting when actually have zero idea of how it works and am merely cutting and amending in line with helpful tutorials found through googling on web.
Other major embarrassment was that computer crashed TWICE, of course waiting until was about to begin welcoming speech. Was trying to paste in lines from prepared MS Word script and machine couldn't cope with all activity on screen plus that. When got back in computer evidently had enough, since was only inworld for 3 mins before got dreaded screen of death.

Was saved by colleague who had logged in computer in lab so was able to continue from there. If am going to organise any other events will have to use that from beginning.

Anyway, have other snippets to blog including Embarrassing Photos of Colleagues, but will save that for another time. Visitors had v. good ideas for discussion topics & people kindly saved transcript of session so can pick through it in detail at leisure.

1st photo shows Ishebel, plus Nigl and Yuxuan from my Department (Nigl's photo is also on the sliddeshow behind him). The 2nd photo shows Art's speech, the 3rd photo shows the bear and the fourth the conversation after the launch.

Waterslides

Computer crashes: 2 (bad); Emails received from Group Members: 4 (good); trips down waterslide: 2 (good).

Log into Gmail account and find 3 Group members have replied to IM. Am v. pleased, as 4th Group member (HD) had replied to RL email albeit somewhat cryptically, not surprisingly since HD still in limbo on Orientation Island and RL version of HD cannot access SL until techies come to connect new cool Mac Powerbook. Meeting with 2 members of group next week looks possibility. All getting rather serious.

Celebrate with trip to waterslide in Bedfordia, admire effect of new kimono wooshing into water, also pose beside Bird of Pardise flowers, v. colourful yet cool (see pic). Have spent longer than intended since one of the earlier computer crashes appears to have locked self out of University server where all files are stored. This means cannot finish urgent and important tasks before morrow, should benefit by claiming early night, but instead drawn into more procrastinating in SL.

Decide to visit Cybrary Island where had unfortunate grey lumpy naked avatar experience when meeting PB. All now normal as v. few people about. Visit UCD library, watch Sky News (same nonsense as on RL news), fill in questionnaire. Am asked when visit SL. Does not have option "Whenever require displacement activity to avoid difficult and boring tasks" (i.e. v. often), so click "ignore question". Also visit Special Libraries House, a little sparsely furnished. Find grander building and pose in armchair (see pic)