Waiting; Tolerating; Curating

Years since last blog post: 1 (bad); Exquisite outfits bought since last post: innumerable (good); New rentals since last post: none (good).

Had "can't remember when last blogged, hope not so long ago blog disappears" moment. Turns out was a year ago and evidently at that point had grand plans to post detailed account of moving in to Ahiru. Well, moved in and have moving-in pics somewhere but probably on other computer so moving on. 

Was on VWEC duty today which involves standing or sitting about on the VWEC welcome platform (see pics 1 and 2), and then if anyone appears offering to help induct them into the wonderful educator's paradise that is Second Life. Have chosen slot at 9am Friday my time, which is 1am SL time, and after ??? months of duty only meaningful interaction has been with European educator I already know, who happened to have a holiday and so was mooching around in SL, as you do.

 Nearest apart from that was someone who rezzed and stood motionless for half an hour or so not responding to helpful chat and IM, turns out they were waiting for someone, so had to mean they already had communication and wayfinding skills but hadn't learned how to turn on BUSY so they could block out irritating IMs from busybodies "trying to help".

Will see that in 1st pic am wearing cute Chinese outfit, which spotted on Spectacledchic's Flickr feed and snapped up as soon as Kustom9 opened. Oodles of colour options for different bits, but ended up with blue, because, blue is best, and then homed in on these great boots when finally got into Fameshed. Fameshed was delayed by about a day as SL was having a Moment, or rather a moment lasting several hours whilst its servers fell over and they had to Roll Back to Previous Version a couple of times which meant the work people had done in setting up their booths had disappeared. 

Wasn't all the servers, and in fact the point at which realised that it wasn't just me not able to get to the sims I wanted was when saw chat on the Fameshed group inworld with people complaining they'd been waiting 3 hours for event to open and Fameshed people explaining the situation. As sidenote, is annoying when the place you want to loginto is vapour, and it sends you to one of the ghastly Welcome Hubs instead. With  mesh bodies, you just get used to lots of people initially rezzing naked before all the clothing bits cludge together. However if you happen to have been rezzed at an adult Hub, the point comes where you realise I AM IN FACT SURROUNDED BY PEOPLE WITH NO OR SCANTY CLOTHES THERE IS NO MORE TO REZ think they are aiming at the target market of those who have read media slurs about SL being all about sex. 

Hope don't have this happen when am doing demo for colleagues about SL, as would feed into stereotype, though of course last paragraph demonstrates that stereotype has some foundation. Am putting together lovingly curated link of annotated links about life in SL for this demo, though is possible that only person who'll read them all is me. Always have to remember although think SL and all its paratexts are entrancing, awesome, rich, creative etc. etc. etc. for some it is dull / weird/ childish etc etc.  

One of things am entranced by is self so here to finish is a pic of me in the Ahiru home, worshipping my otaku-themed PC, snug in the kotatsu. So much cuteness! I could look at it for hours.

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

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.