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.

A sad sad sight

Heritage sites disappearing: 1 (v. bad)

Was taking some pictures this morning e.g. of this truck that crashed into side of new house when it slowly dawned that THERE WAS NO COWELL SEASIDE VILLAGE ANY MORE. At first had just assumed had set draw distance to a low figure and therefore wasn't seeing this pretty village which was the key reason for getting the land in the first place.

However, checked draw distance, realised could see things that were FURTHER AWAY (i.e. Abotts spacedrome) and eventually flew over to find that one whole sim's worth plus a bit more had been abandoned and was set for sale. This is what it looked like just now. You can see a bit of what it looked like BEFORE in the final pic in this post http://adventuresofyoshikawa.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/usual.html and Chimera posted some pics here http://www.koinup.com/works/in-second-life/on-pictures/tag/cowell/

It had a bit of a retro feel as it hadn't changed from when I discovered it in 2007, but still charm and atmosphere.

But not any more, it is an ex-village. Had panic attack thinking of dreadful things that could arrive there, and in grip of this got Dimitrova (since it is less disasterous for her tier charges) to buy up one chunk that includes the nearest half of the island bit and a slice going over the mountain on the right (it was all lumped in together). Will think what to do by Dimi's tier date in a week; can't afford to increase my tier overall, but would like to keep at least the island bit as a cushion, and could sell off a bit of what have at the moment....

Where did it go?

Stuff done: lots (good/bad/indifferent)
In terms of blogging have to award self mark of C double minus. Is more than whole month since last blogged. As have noted before, when v.v. busy in SL, then blogging tends to slump. So as a quick catchup:
No. of new student sky homes created: 1 (good)
No. of new autumnal trees bought: 10? 12? (who knows)
No. of halloween houses created: 1 (good)
No. of sessions done with first year students in SL: 4 (good? only they can tell)
No. of 3D versions created of information behaviour models developed through empirical research using a grounded theory approach: 1 (v. good)
No. of times Opinionator repurposed for specific exercise: 2 (good)
No. of Infolit iSchool events: 3 (good)
No. of fashion blog postings: 4 (good)
No. of houseboats bought: 2 (floating)
No. of tops bought: who's counting? (not me)
No. of unwarranted and surprise price hikes by Linden Lab: 1 (v.v.v. bad)
& so forth & so on.
Last item is one which has cast pall of gloom over proceedings since announced a few weeks ago that educator's discount was being removed, thus doubling price of island. Consternation, anger etc. followed. was then announcement that people could buy up to 2 years in advance at old price (which am trying to do) but still is bit gloomy in long term. Apart from anything else seems like Community of educators, librarians etc. will get fragmented.
Reacted by attending meetings and buying a lot of clothes.
Also pumpkins. Creation of halloween stuffage seems to have escalated to insane proportions, can scarcely go inworld without being bombarded with message cards about cute new pumpkin lights/seats/decals. Was tempted today by 50% off on cauldrons from What Next, but in the end got free Wizard cosi from NRD and 1 Linden staff from Tekeli-li and then wasted, ahem, ahem, spent hour or so flouncing round Immersiva taking pics.
Choose first one as looked vaguely apocolyptic e.g. SL disintegrating because of ill advised customer relationship management on part of LL staffers.