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 As a finishing touch the sushi bar has been replaced by a retro barbecue (2nd pic): you can get wearable hamburgers, kebabs and - something else - is it sausages?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.

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.

Creation, Stools, Fauna, Meetings

Friends met in SL: 2 x 1 (good); No. of artifacts created: lots (good); Linking skill learnt: 1 (good); Seagulls purchased: 2 (not sure); Hours spent (vainly) trying to import animated sit poses: 3 (bad)

Have been busy creating benches and stools in the office. Can now Rotate, Position, Stretch, Import Image, change Texture and change Colour.

Have also learnt how to Link and Unlink. In both cases involves pressing CTRL+3 then clicking on relevant objects, then selecting Link or Unlink from Tools menu.

Had much fun importing pictures of flowers and sky to make them Texture for stools . Also managed to make cone Hollow and positioned it to be a parasol. Bought windchime and changed Textures so that rather than fake bamboo now tones with rest of colour scheme.

Then (as happens) became heady with new skills and bought 2 seagulls and a rainbow. Have positioned rainbow over sign. Seagulls are perhaps step too far as now when sit in roof terrace hear quacking duck, windchime clinking and seagulls cawing in rather aggressive fashion.

When putting up benches in office spent ages trying to use pose balls to get animated sitting.
Mostly had no effect, but in other cases ended with strange postures which at first found puzzling and now realise are poses might not want to introduce into serious information literacy meeting (ahem). In the end left with default Sit which fortunately seems to come with Object.

Have had two meetings with Silversprite Helsinki who has been doing report on UK Higher Ed in SL for Eduserv. Will mention when this gets published as should be v. interesting. Top picture shows us chilling out on the roof. 2nd picture shows one of my many useless shopping trips in search of scripts for sitting poses that aren't rude. In third photo can see artfully placed rainbow.

Excitements, Reboot

Items marked in RL: 0 (v. bad); Instant Messages sent: 2 (good); Crashes whilst in SL: 1 (bad; Blogger's automatic save v. helpful, otherwise would have been v. v. bad)

4 Exciting things
1) BBC Radio 4 book of week Tim Guest's "Second lives", allegedly "revelatory journey through the electronic looking glass of alternative life online." Hmmm: extract this a.m. sounded v. Radio 4, SL evidently no longer cutting edge. Expect next thing will be Tom and Brenda selling Tom Archer Sausages in SL, & Jolene and Sid operating virtual pub/casino. (Archers is v. good radio soap, I am addict in RL, actually Archers in SL would be exciting too)

2) IM-ed members of Information Literacy Group to say that meeting at 11am UK time. Forgot to say what day (tomorrow), oops, so had to send 2nd IM. Have arranged to meet in Abo Akademi under cherry trees. This is really because kimono looks good under cherry trees, but don't say this in IM.

4) Visit Kansas State Library and adjoining Readers Garden. Recline and watch self doing strange hypnotic page turning gestures (see pic). Resist urge to sign up for book discussion. Actually not hard as don't want to discuss any books on list.

3) There is a Sculpted Prim contest. Enough said.

Notice that AF is online. Should I attempt meeting? Not sure. In RL AF has not answered latest email, BUT has offered friendship on Facebook. This all gets v. complicated. Decide will sneak away, but anyway decision taken out of hands as at this point computer freezes and have to Reboot.