Winterfell; Goodbye Juicy: Primful for Xmas

No. of extra prims on Infolit iSchool: 5,000 (v.v.good); No. of extra prims on Noyo: 1,900 (v.v.v. good); Cottages rented on Winterfell: 1 (surplus to requirements, really)

During past month got v.v. excited by advent of prim bonus as Linden Labs upped the quota for mainland by a heady 7,250 prims per region, and 5,000 prims per region for islands. Is so many prims that actually haven't used them all up yet, though with Infolit there is reason for this, since extra prims for non-mainland regions have only just been released today. Unfortunately (or should perhaps be FORTUNATELY) have not had spare time to decorate out full prim allowance on Noyo so will have plenty of space for Xmas trees, Xmas baubles, Xmas signs, Xmas gifts, skating rinks, animated penguins, hot chocolate givers and so forth.

Will have extra place to decorate since had fallen in love with v. cute cottage on Winterfell, a 512 type plot with cottage already in place. Costs 300L a week which is exactly what have been paying for shop in Juicy for more years than care to remember (ok appears to be 8 years OMG, am not even going to try and add up how much that means have given to well-deserving Juicy sim landlord). Juicy shop was vanity project creating zero income from word go and has latterly been Cat Cafe with no pretence at money making. Was suddenly right moment to leave Juicy so packed up everything and in the first pic you have me and Hestia saying farewell.

In 2nd pic see new Winterfell cottage. It is book lined retreat, though now I look at 2nd pic have actually replaced that map cabinet and set of shelves with classy antique 4 prim dresser. However, still a lot of books on other side of cottage that you can't see.

In fact is not first time have rented Winterfell land. 3rd pic shows rather larger plot that rented for short time in 2011. Apart from fact that current Winterfell home is good deal cheaper to rent, is also nice to have something with novely of restricted size plus close neighbours who are guaranteed not to put up banlines, set up a casino or fill plot with giant revolving polar bears. (Was really thinking of other giant revolving things beginning with p, but don't wish to get flagged by Blogger for unseemly content, which seems to happen at drop of mildly challenging word.)

4th pic gives idea of what is like outside cottage, this is neighbour's house and my identical one is to left. There is sim policy which means outside should be decorated with things that might have been around in Victorian times, though at Halloween I think people were not observing this strictly since as far as I know Halloween  in Victorian England did not feature tableaux of animated zombies and self-stirring cauldrons, which is what my neighbour opposite put out (BUT STILL BETTER THAN GIANT FLYING Ps).

Meanwhile, back on VWER, the gravestones, poisoned apples and so forth have magically disappeared. Have erected small chapel, since, you know, Christmas is coming, and have hidden favourite tombstone-monument thing behind that. Could also not bear to part with witch broom generator, on which educators had jolly fun at end of Halloween VWER meeting. (see last pic)

Still will be very surprised if isn't a Santa sleigh generator or Rudolph Red Nose generator to replace witch broom in due course.

Am rolling up virtual sleeves to cover all available surfaces with Christmas cheer. And people had better enjoy it.

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.

Rattling around

Talks given: 3 (good); Of those, no. given about SL: 2 (good); Number of unexpected duckings in SL sea: 1 (bad)
Have spent last few days rattling round country giving talks, hey ho such is life of busy academic, high tailing it on trains whilst students beat vainly on RL door, ahem. On Wednesday gave talk about future of library profession in meeting needs of millennials (and so forth), so although not actually ABOUT SL feel was some excuse for showing couple of SL pictures. Actually zippy title of talk was Cutting through the hype to make a confident future library and information profession so can see that am able to Talk the Talk if not always Walk it.
Presentation on Thursday was Collaborating in SL given to European Business School Librarians Group (when I put this online I will link to it). Used my FUMSI “10 techniques for business in SL” article as framework and also asked Ishbel to talk in SL about what St Andrews Uni Management School is doing. Had originally been due to start at 11.30 but management guru who was due to talk at 9 couldn’t make it in time, so ended up doing the early morning slot instead.

Fortunately Ishbel was able to be in SL at 9.30 too so went famously except for when found myself unexpectedly falling through floor in Management School (in SL, that is). Turns out that management lecturer has multiple choice quizzes which dump students in SL sea when they answer wrongly. V. droll except if this happens when one is demonstrating SL in front of 40 eminent librarians from length and breadth of Europe in RL palatial surroundings of Ashridge Management School.
Ashridge is v. v. impressive being ex-Stately Home with amazing gardens and woods. In fact whole thing is a real SL fantasy of gracious living and landscaping, especially at springtime with bluebells in beech woods, wisteria climbing over ancient stone walls, hydrangeas, tulips and other props of SL landscapers, not to mention RL deer and assorted birds with associated birdsong. Recorded some Woodland Sounds with new MP3 player and will see whether can turn these into a sound effect for the woods in Infolit.

3rd talk was actually given nearly 2 weeks ago, but have failed to blog it, indeed could not remember exact title (it was about inquiry based learning in the first year), but all ppts from the event have now gone online here .

Did not take any pics at these events, so here are some I prepared earlier... the first one shows me flying past Hobbiton on the witch broom tour of the island. I finished by setting myself off on the tour whilst I answered questions in RL and one delegate said she liked the witch broom best. The second picture is one I used in the presentation - of a recruitment exhibition at Clemson University Graduate School.
The last pic is one of those SL moments - I tp-ed into my personal plot of land to find the sky filled with a giant prim. Where did it come from? Where did it go? Who knows. Anyway, it has gone now, as have (incidently) a couple of my neighbours. Fortunately no new night clubs, when I last looked, though.

Dance, dance, dance

Dances attended: 2: (1 = v.good and 1 = ok)
Lots of catching up to do, so will start with some social events. North invited me over to the Educators Coop disco. Will apparently be regular event. Was already wearing pink satin evening gown so teleported straight over. Added Undine hair for swooshy effect (am on far right of pic above, North is on far left).
DJ was v. cool (see 2nd pic) and also played v. good music, including oldies reminding one of Youth. By the end we were dancing in synchronised manner so felt v. cool too. Left as dawn chorus was tweeting, actually almost so in RL as event started v. late in UK terms.
2nd dance was launch party for a "British Invasion" exhibition on Infotainment, featuring Beatles etc.: pics, informative notecards, videos, sort of re-creations of rooms of period (although not as I remember from the time, ahem). Some others were in 60s mode, but I went for 70s hippy look.
Was pleasant, but did not really know anyone, so, as in RL, was less enjoyable event. Also omitted to say "Hi" to everyone as arrived and did not comment on awesomeness of exhibit, so is probably own fault that no-one said Bye when left. Or perhaps they thought I was wearing too many prims? Resolve to make more social effort at next dance. And wear fewer prims.

Catching up

Islands prepared: 1 (good)

As mentioned in previous post, have been so busy in SL that have had no spare time to blog same.

In next few entries will try to cover key points, but probably more pics than words. At present am still mulling over session earlier in day when students had second session on island. Excitement! But more anon.

Have blogged discussion sessions on Eduserv Island on serious Information Literacy blog. Basically last 2 talks did not suffer fate of previous i.e. people did actually turn up. Also only crashed out once and was able to upload chat history successfully to Leeds Met's useful widget thingy. Here are some nice pics of island, in particular Marsha11, in tree house with Bubble Wand. Also see here the underwater doughnut seating and the cafeteria.

Am so please dwith tree house have demolished large white house on own land and replaced with said tree dwelling, which is fortunately Copy, so could have whole forest of them had I prims enough and time.

Also have added twee fairy bridge to tree house since when was visited by North Lamar found self scrambling in graceless fashion across tree house base. Have been looking for excuse ever since could not decide between twee oak bridge and twee fairy bridge to span river & finally opted for Twee Oak (with Cushion Pose). Have now managed to notch up over 6000 prims. Oh dear.

15000 prims

Islands delivered: 1 (v.v. good); Prims to use: 15,000 (v.v. good); Hours spent on new island: countless (v. bad)

Had refrained from giving ongoing story of Lindens' lack of response to emails, chat, online tickets etc etc as regards delivery of island. It turns out that answer is to email Claudia Linden with tale of woe as after (literally) weeks of inaction, island was delivered within hours of whining email being delivered to her.

As consequence have spent so much time terraforming, planting, buying yet more houses etc etc that have had little time for blogging, sleeping and so forth.

The island (shape 4) comes terraformed but have altered it a good deal, wlthough mountain peaks are still roughly where they started. Also took pic of Object tab showing 15000 out of 15000 prims available for use. The first prim(s) were a stone lantern that I planted on a little outcrop I created at one corner of the island.

Now there are are a good deal less than 15000 prims, namely 11000 and something. Will feature various aspects of island in due course.