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 luck of the lost pig

Hours spent waiting for "S" to come up on a lucky board in February: 2 (bad); Hours spent on this blog in February: zero (bad, very bad)

Spent 2 hours a couple of weeks ago waiting for letter "S" to come up on this Lucky Board in the Aju shop. During that time "D" came up four times. Know this since actually got Dimitrova to hang round (so wouldn't be troubled by friends expecting me to do something more constructive than lurk round a lucky board waiting to snag a cute item of virtual furniture). Eventually "S" did come up and was able to clutch item to Inventory and later position it in yet another new house (see here). However of course when teleported into Aju yesterday, "S" came up straightaway. Why does that happen? Must be a Law of The Lucky Board.

On another note, when clearing up after the Inf6011 class last week I found this escaped pig outside the Educational Informatics village. It had been there for a year, floating in space, the result of some mismanaged piece of Editing or perhaps just of someone who had decided to Abandon Pig in mid flight. Anyway, it was swiftly Returned to its owner's Lost and Found.

Of course, could make up some elaborate story about pig making bid for freedom and an eternal flight over Infolit iSchools mossy hills.

But, after all, it is just prims. And, to be frank, not very ornamental prims either.

Hmmm, I feel a bit mean, now.

Sculpties, Emails, Neighbours

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The companionship of the Lucky Chair

Lucky chair dresses snaffled: zero (bad); Hours spent stalking dress in lucky chair: 1. And a Bit. But of course you can do other things whilst stalking a lucky chair (who am I fooling; bad)

Spent some time today stalking a free dress from Icing in a new lucky chair. Could have been writing thoughts on Education in SL, could have been marking, could have been getting an early night, but no. Did this as my alt, which somehow feel should be excuse - but - it's still my time, isn't it.

For those to whom a Lucky Chair sounds alien and rather Dubious, this is a device to lure people into dress shops, boost their traffic numbers and possibly get you to buy some other items either by mistake or out of sheer boredom. There is an item for free in the chair, but you have to wait til the first letter of your name comes up, at which point you Sit in the chair, there is a fanfare and the item (in this case, the Pizzacato Poppies dress) drops seamlessly into your inventory.

Or not, if your name begins with D and you have the letters P (x2), Q (x2), B (x5), O (x2, my alt is pictured next to an O, above), H (x50 million) coming up. Lucky Chair stalking is classic procrastination activity, and also becomes addictive as you wait for Just One More Letter.

A Brit makes money out of devising new types of lucky chair (e.g. the lucky random Easter Egg version), and a couple of months ago he blogged his RL redundancy and said how at least he was still keeping the wolf from the door through his SL Lucky Chair business.

Anyway, after you have finished looking at all the other items in the shop, Inspecting any moderately attractive clothes worn by other Lucky Chair stalkers to see who made them, and sorting your Inventory (all traditional Lucky Chair activities) you might actually start talking to the other Stalkers. People tend to be very polite & celebratory and this is an extract from the dialogue today (with people's names reduced to initials)

[16:25] *ICING* Lucky Chair: Hello J... M...

[16:25] *ICING* Lucky Chair: I'm looking for a player whose name begins with J. Your name begins with J.

[16:25] *ICING* Lucky Chair: We have a winner!

[16:26] *ICING* Lucky Chair: Please enjoy your prize. I'm now selecting a new magic letter....
[16:26] M... M...: YAYAYAYAYAY!! J....!!

[16:26] J... M...: YAY!

[16:26] *ICING* Lucky Chair: Next Prize: *ICING* Pizzicato Poppies

[16:26] *ICING* Lucky Chair: Looking for a winner whose name begins with.... R.

[16:26] J... M...: thanks M....!

[16:26] M... M...: you are welcome! a well earned prize for the hardest working person in SL!!!
[16:26] J... M...: :)

[16:26] J... M...: See ya later!

[16:27] M... M...: : Dimitrova..I love your outfit

[16:27] Dimitrova Shostakovich [for that is the name of my alt]: thanks! The dress was only 75 Linden

[16:27] Dimitrova Shostakovich: from Sari's

[16:27] M... M...: : oh! love Sari's

[16:28] M... M...: haven't been there for awhile, tho'

[16:28] Dimitrova Shostakovich: the textures had improved since I last visited

and so forth and so on, riveting stuff as you can see.

Feel there must be some research possibilities in this aspect of my (alt) life e.g. a discourse analysis of a random sample of Lucky Chair conversations, or an ethnographic study of SL fashionistas in their Lucky Chair habitus. As can be seen from above dialogue can qualify as participant-observer. Will add this to my huge list of Research opportunities Not Followed Up.