Remodelled

Common rooms remodelled: 1 (good)
Have been spending some time demolishing common room and Nigl/Ishbel's office, and replacing them with new common room/office. Not quite finished yet, but almost there. Aim was to free up some space in the corner of Infolit, for the health information literacy stuff.

Probably should have told Ishbel and Nigl before axing their cute cottage. However they now have pleasant area in new common room, so hope they are not too offended.

Screenr. Still cool.

No. of additional screencasts made: 1 (stop! stop!)
So, here is screencast about new home, as featured a couple of posts ago. Have decided sound bit too much like Queen showing plebs round Windsor Castle.

P.S. Have uploaded it to Flickr too. Sigh

More homemaking

Houses deleted: 1 (slow process); Houses rezzed: 1 (v. good); Houses disappearing: 1 (odd)
After the Infolit session on Thursday when Brielle did her excellent presentation, decided to have some r&r in SL after hard day in both worlds by finally setting up new home from "Y's" on my land. Had already decided to demolish the Ingrid Ingersoll Town House, which still like, but didn't really spend much time there and bedroom was frankly bit of a mess.
Took longer to demolish than had anticipated, since must at some point have UNLINKED everything and so had to delete prim by prim, v. tedious. Had originally intended to set up new house in roughly same place i.e. overlooking beach, but is SO laggy at ground level in the end made the new house a skybox.
Spent happy time filling it with some stuff from old house and some stuff had been saving up.
Key items for display were various objects with butterflies, and artwork. To start with put these in central courtyard, but in the end have created one room with butterflies/art and put bed in courtyard. Remaining room is kitchen/living/music room and has ended up rather cosy.

Will delight readers with some proper pics, but in meantime these ones show rather curious effect when last went in (to install a few cute items that had just bought in Kloka, namely teapot, box of tissues, tea set and comfy chair) and found that everything was there ---- except the actual house. Am sure house in fact IS there, since do not fall through space, and meet resistance if try to go through places-where-walls-were.
So did not panic, but took opportunity to take interesting pics of inside of house. Think I like it almost as much without walls, as with.

Something old, something new

SL designers returned: 1 (v. good); Cabinets filled: 1 (horribly easy)
Discovered last week that Effulgent Brown has a shop in SL again. Hurrah! My very first home in SL was a tea house, but once I ventured over 512 I invested in a series of Asian homes by Effulgent, all of which are atmospheric, cheap, and come with free packs of furniture. At the moment the ones which are out are the Wild Dragon (Sakura House on Infolit iSchool) and the Winter Lotus (one of the homes in the Educational Informatics village), though The Songbird is probably my favourite.
Although they don't involve sculpties and don't have the latest in texturing, think they still have a lovely feel to them.
Students must have agreed since Winter Lotus was one of the homes I had to install twice in the Educational Informatics village by popular demand (replacing the more "fashionable" shabby chic rooms that weren't dwellings of choice). Some of the furniture still works well, too, I think, and you can get a copiable home and a ton of Asian furnishings for a few hundred Linden.
Here I am in front of vendors at the House of Effulgent, Blarn Isle (170, 51, 27).
A new shop was Cheap Cheap which is indeed pretty cheap, and came away with cute cabinet, plate with caribou on it, a low table, a revolving iPod (not sure what to do with that yet) and a couple of other things I can't remember.
Have sort of given up on "if put something on Infolit, must take something off" policy at the moment, since my main teaching on Infolit is over, so am not expecting a legitimate large influx of prims. Therefore put cabinet in my office and loaded it up with some of the cute objects that were hanging round in my inventory. One of cutest is the wooden music box with a Japanesey lady who revolves whilst it plays a tune. Have had that unused in my Objects folder for well over a year. Also moved my Earthstones mug from my desk and one of the vases from the curio stand to the right of the cabinet.
Am planning on replacing one of the houses in my personal land, and this has given excuse to collect more stuff, including a kitchen unit from Bitter Vanilla. Attraction there was the tap (can have it on, off or dripping), washing up liqid that gives a bubbly sponge to wear, and fact that it DIDN'T have any larky animations in it. Am not prude, but I don't put up any nasty red ban lines round my propery and have ghastly vision of returning home one day to find complete strangers at it on my draining board (hm, so perhaps am prude after all).

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...

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.

Where is the minaret?

Parts of building disappearing: 1 (bad); Boats appearing offshore: 1 (bad)

Checked Moorish house part of property for first time for a while and discovered that there is problem, namely, middle part of minaret appear to have gone. V. strange. Has someone hacked in and deleted it - if so - why that bit? Has earth shifted downward, leaving top part of minaret stranded? Is it simply Linden Lab glitch? Was I so tired one evening that fell into trance and went around doing random deletions? In fact is not aesthetically displeasing and leaves pleasant view in gap where middle of minaret should be but that is not the point. Wonder whether will reappear just as mysteriously.

On other hand, a boat apparently called "Demo" has appeared offshore. Is not actually in my parcel, in fact is in open sea belonging to Eric Linden, so cannot get rid of it. Quite decorative in a way, but whole point of that land is uninterrupted view of sea. Hrumph.

Missed and attended

No. of education events missed due to foolish mistake re time: 1 (bad); No of castle warming parties attended: 1 (good); No of 20s parties attended: 1 (good)

Yesterday was due to be busy day in SL since had planned to a) attend castle warming party at noon SL time and b) attend interesting education session on team working at 1.30 SL time. However, when entered SL around noon (ie 8pm in RL here) realised awful truth namely that was too late for education session by 12 hours as it started at 01.30 (9.30 am RL time). Oops. Should really have realised as person facilitating it lives in Hong Kong in RL. V. foolish and will have to apologise since was limited attendance event and might have been waiting list.

Somewhat chastened changed into party gear. Invitation was really to Ishbel as is her neighbour with castle, but she had been told could bring friends so she asked me and Pancha. In fact am almost neighbour as is just in nextdoor sim to my home. Dress code was "historical" so had rooted through huge inventory and found Barerose "First Princess" outfit with natty crown, and paired this with poofy skirt and boots. Not sure was strictly historical, but in fact when teleported in turned out that most women were wearing vaguely low cut gowns so fitted in. Hosts are writing historical novel set in French chateau on which castle is based. Ishbel kept crashing out so withdrew early.
When got home again took some pictures of self lounging around in princess outfit, then followed up general invite to 1920s party celebrating - something or other to do with the 1920s I presume. Found a 1920s dress in inventory too. Have decided that will view this as validation of shopping policy (i.e. ready for any situation) rather than signal to stop buying NOW.

Testy; Time zones; in the Black Library; LILAC

Researchers taken for balloon ride: 1 (good); Discussions facilitated in the Black Library: 1 (good); Conference houses complete with appropriate foliage created: 1 (good); Conference t-shirts created: 2 (v. good); Conference bags created: 1 (good)

Had mentioned already (I think) that had encountered researcher about to do investigation into use of information in SL, namely Testy. Arranged to meet Testy on day after Virtual Worlds conference. Was almost disaster, since Linden Labs once more showed that SL is really in the USA since I arrived inworld to find I was an hour late. Apparently SL had jumped forward an hour because that was what happened in the USA. Had this been announced on the SL blog? No.

Anyway, once we met up had interesting talk about information in SL, information behaviour, avatar identity, Voice vs Chat and so forth. Asked Testy to lead discussion later on in year and she said yes, hurrah. Mostly had conversation relaxing in bean bag chairs, but then took balloon tour.

Next day I had volunteered to facilitate the "Lessons in SL" educators discussion. This takes place in the Black Library in Hyperborea every Monday, and the usual host (Buridan Simon) was at a conference, and I had volunteered to cover. You can see me in pic with witty sign over head. Wished to keep up his tradition of having no pre-set topic, which is even scarier than facilitating the normal discussions, but seemed to go OK with about usual numbers. A few familiar faces e.g. Ladyjane, came along, which was nice. Topics covered included learning spaces, HTML on a prim and environmental exhibits. People flicked in and out, but that tends to happen, also found self drawing things to close just before an hour was up as a sort of reflex action, whereas in fact these sessions normally last 90 mins. However was OK again and in fact discussing this sparked some more conversation.

Over next past of days have been preoccupied with preparation for sessions at RL conference on information literacy, LILAC, next week. Ishbel, Maggie and I had been preparing to do a session together, and I decided to have a special conference house with lilac round it (new line at Mau and Mej) on the island. In fact the sequence of events was actually that I saw that House of Effulgence had a really lovely new house (only 300 Linden including a package of furniture!) and was hunting round for excuse to buy it. Then I thought of the excuse.

Have been preparing a conference bag, and also a library landmarks box. Last pic shows me at Amsterdam Public Library on free bicycle you can get there, in front of cool display of downloadable music.

Brick wall

Brusque IMs received from new neighbour: 2 (bad); Huge brick warehouses erected next door: 1 (v.v. bad); Elven bands as neighbours: 1 (good, I hope)

Came into work yesterday to 2 emails redirected from SL from new neighbour. Both demanded that I move trees from neighbour's house & 2nd message all in CAPITALS indicating some strong feeling I presume. In due course go inworld and discover that said neighbour has purchased land next to seaside house and covered entire plot with windowless brick barn (see pic). Am not sure this qualifies as "house", however shift trees so leaves no longer encroach through walls, though frankly such is bleakness of barn that would think would be grateful for sign of life.
As can see in 2nd pic now have total brick wall view from some windows of house, though obviously is neighbour's inalienable right to do what dreadful things he likes with own land.
Fortunately rest of land on that side has been bought by Elven band, who (as one might hope) seem inclined to grass, trees and Elven dwellings. Hope will maintain pleasant relations with them since fear that Brick neighbour is unlikely to be someone that want to invite round for afternoon tea.

Dancing, parcel

Strange free houses collected: 1 (odd); Dancing bunny shoes collected: 1 pair (good)

Two of odder seasonal freebies collected before Christmas were the Xmas Parcel House and the Dancing bunny shoes. Christmas Parcel House sounded quite promising in theory and indeed could not be faulted in terms of size. However as can be seen from pic when unpacked house proved to have sinister nightmare quality much as if had in RL decided to paper entire house walls, ceiling and floor in v.v. cheap and nasty wrapping paper, type that is left in huge rolls in bargain bin and who can wonder why. Did include window through which could look into happy world beyond free of laughing snowmen and skating penguins (as usual click on thumbnail here to see full sized horror of this pic.).

Still, have kept in inventory since never know when might be called upon to create Xmas landscape for someone who I really, really don’t like.

Bunny slippers more fun in that a) are slippers with bunny elements, enough said, and b) have dancing animation in them.

This is not costume in which would be seen leading discussion on information literacy, obviously, but could come in useful at lighthearted social event, should I ever go to any.

Time

New houses acquired: 4 (but one was free); Skyboxes built: 1 (good); Skyboxes bought: 1 (bad, except it is v. nice); Relaxed time with friends: 1 (good)

Have spent too much time in SL and not enough blogging. Or even working. New semester has interfered a little with SL activity, ahem.

Am snapping up houses that might come in useful on the island. In particular feel triumphant that have been trying to find Japanese builder that visited early on and didn't bookmark. Today stumbled across shop (Minoru) when searching for something else (coincidentally, today gave out paper on information encountering for students to read). Bought:

1) v. nice open structure in pale wood that will do for offices or shop,

2) v. pretty skybox in teahouse style, and

3) pack of infinitely copyable bits of raised walkway, stair and bridge, v. good quality though also alas rather high prim.

Also bought rather more disappointing but cheap house (it looked better in the picture, must really only buy when have viewed). And did I mention the Victorian Steampunk skybox from SCM industries? Can't remember now. There was also a v.v. cheap 9 prim house and a free pod from some other builder, but frankly can do better than latter myself. Inventory now so stuffed with houses that have difficulty remembering which is which and will certainly not have room for all of them on island if wish to leave scope for Creativity.

Have created arty skybox out of squares and squashed sculpted prims. Am rather proud but fear others don't like it as much as me. One problem is that because of squished and sculpted nature of prims, sometimes bits of prim seem to be in different places, which might make one queasy.

Will be interested to know what Citril and Ishbel think, though suppose they will be polite. Invited them round the other evening and had v. nice time trying out spa-in-a-teacup in fairy glen part of property (Citril looked v. pretty), and also floating in rubber rings in front of larger Japanese home. Was also amusing moment when Citril changed clothes and whilst to her eyes she was modestly clad as far as rest of world was concerned she was wearing only bikini top.

Maggie Kohime (shown here in my skybox( visited today and was able to show her some possibles for the library's home on the island. She may go with another SCM Industries item: also basically a box but v. nicely made and with adjustable tinting in windows, and lighting.

Visit, look North

Visits to other teachers: 1 (v. good); New skills learned: 2, joining land and selling land (good)

Had heard North Lamar talk at CITASA conf about the Educators Coop island he runs, and then met him at the SL conference. We IMed each other in friendly fashion when we realised we were both in information Departments. This week I IMed him to suggest meeting.

After small concern about time of meeting (time zones are v. confusing and he lives somewhere in USA) he offered me a teleport. In particular was interested in the class he is running, in which a good deal of teaching and learning happens in SL. Curiously (or not) it has the same module code (inf315) as one of our modules here. North is a doctoral student and tutor at a US university and also does consultancy which is where running his own islands also comes in.

His module is in fact focused on virtual worlds, so is more obvious rationale for using SL than for my semester 1 class. There are (I think he said) about 20 students. I arrived near the sandbox area, then teleported down to the beachfront. There was an attractive block of flats which were the students' residences. In front of that there was a display of benches: each student had just had to build one as a SL task.

The use of the students' flats was v. nice. Each student had to tell the story of his/her life by arranging and assembling. See last pic for one example, Another student had been a pro surfer and his room had water all over it, plus pics of him and surfing friends etc. I had already intended to give each 1st year student a basic room to name and occupy and customise, but hadn't thought of giving a purpose to the customisation. Is obviously good idea. Would really have to focus task around their lives and information ... need to think about that.

North's students get marks for blogging each week and for the SL tasks, as well as a project. It all sounded v. good. I said a bit about our 1st year classes and my Dept. From what North said it sounds like there are fewer information studies faculty teaching in SL than had thought, though perhaps more will pop up this year.

North has meetings on education for his tenants in the Educators' Coop island. I gave him a notecard about the CILR meetings. Altogether a good visit and we plan to meet again.

Afterwards celebrated by learning how to join adjacent pieces of my own land together (for no particular reason, really) and selling off a small piece of land - or at least putting up for sale to next door neighbour who said was interested.

Princeton, visitor

Visitors's to Cove: 1 (good); Concerts attended: 1 (good)

Heard from Ishbel who agreed to come over for a little so I could show her some features of new home e.g. sky house. Whilst talking to her, fell off it. Rather long way to ground. One rather obvious drawback to sky houses.

After this should have packed up SL for night but had been in middle of exploring some prefab houses on another sim when Ishbel called, so returned there and one thing led to another.

Managed to resist sofa in form of giant ginger cat with waving tail. Did buy cheap swimsuit as only freebies so far have been rather skimy bikinis and reluctant to invest in beach wear. Whilst trying to decide whether to buy a railway (not, at present, I think) got IM about opening of Princeton University sim, with concert from AldoManutio Abruzzo.

Despite lateness of hour teleported in. To begin with was grey lumpy problem that occurs when many avatars gather on one sim. Misleadingly, one often seems to look OK to oneself.

However, things settled downand could enjoy music. In particular was haunting to listen to music whilst watching pulsating sculpture outside (see pic). Is v. useful that can zoom in and out of buildings with camera.

After concert looked round art installations and dropped itno Princeton shop where has usual selection of t-shirts, leather jackets and baseball caps.

On another note have become increasinly concerned that have a newbie walk. Have bought Walk animation and now just have to work out how to use it.

More stuff

No of hot tubs in inventory: 4 (bad); No of swings or hammocks owned: 4 (bad); No. of unused houses in inventory: 2 (I think; bad)

Have been keeping fairly quiet about new and profligate purchase of land in different sim to Japanese garden. Discovered beachside cove in new area, became v. excited and next thing had gone up another land level. Have decided that SL is major hobby and therefore OK. Not sure if this holds water.

Anyway, much enjoyment in landscaping grounds, planting etc etc. Will feature different parts in future posts.

Result of current shopping spree was yet another hot tub, this one with 14 (!!) poses integrated into structure including Reading, Daydreaming etc. One prob with hot tubs is no. of couple poses (e.g. Cuddle M and Cuddle F to name more innocuous ones), which sometimes entirely dominate Pose Count & would be unsuitable for planned Hot Tub Break Out room on island for students.

Made artful underwater garden and put up new swing, which (unlike hammock it replaced) does not actually swing but is v. pretty nevertheless.

Finally in search for Large Boulders (for Island rather than own land) came across whole Japanese skyhouse for 500 Linden. Prim count is v. large but at present have prim capacity so purchased and zoomed it into air. Main idea this this was also for future Island, but once it was in air decided it was v. cute and enabled one to say hello sky hello clouds.

Includes hot tub, meditation pad, wind chime, Tori gate, 2 small rooms and lots of rocks and steam.

Will definitely not leave it there permanently as for one thing spoils view from big house at back of land. However in short term is yet another busy feature and potential hot tub.

New view

Pictures taken of new house and garden: many (bad)

Here is example looking down to teahouse. With all the activity in the area (prims, night clubs etc.) is getting a bit laggy and thus rather stripey nature of grass.
Also view of larger house from the Tori (red archway).

Social visit

Homes visited: 2 (v. good); Adventures in loft: 1 (bad); Baths: 1 (v.good)

Have backlog of entries, namely further adventures in clothesmaking and slightly strange session at Second Life conference (SLCC). However will now blog on pleasant social outing after exit from conference session which was meandering to close.
Was invited to visit Ishbel and Citril in their ajoining homes. At 3rd attempt managed to teleport across (one of those situations where say goodbye to everyone then it goes ping and you fail to transport and are hung there like a lemon still in the same place).
Ishbel has rebuilt in style and had fun going round remodelled house and esp. using bathroom. Enjoy baths in RL so no surprise that enjoy them in SL but interesting to be sharing bathroom with Citril using, as they say, the facilities.
After brief struggle with doors also visited Citril's house next door, and the 3 of us are shown outside it. Other 2 had moon in background, and at time was asking "where is this moon you see" but of course realised afterwards that had Forced Sun so no wonder moon not in evidence. Ability to make it time of day (light-wise) you want in SL is useful feature but means that have no idea what time it is for people you are with, v. confusing.

Citril is still adding furniture, but already has impressive 4-poster bed in bedroom with fine view through large picture window. Tried out bed. 1st time this was successful (see pic) but when tried 2nd time ended up on top of 4-poster and when stood up was in loft. Unfortunately turns out loft has no exit so batted round like baffled moth in lampshade until Ishbel took pity and offered to transport me back to room. V. hilarious. Well, it was at the time.

Finished by tour of neighbouring land of which much is for sale. Am contemplating buying hideaway to use to escape from students (nb if there are any students reading this of course I do not mean that) but must work out finances first. Turns out all you do in SL to buy land is right click and select BUY just like for frocks and boots etc. V. different from RL. Probably just as well NOT so simple in RL, to be honest.