Nostalgic kittens

VWER meetings attended: 1 (good); Kittens worn on head: 1 (nostalgic); Photos taken of feet: 3 (worrying)


Attended Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable meeting last night. Will note in passing that until about 2 weeks ago had thought it was called Virtual Worlds Educators Roundtable and have referred to it as such for years. Embarrassing. Whatever, acronym is VWER and will refer to it as such. Organisers i.e. me, Kali (Our Leader), Grizzla, Beth and Shailey now v.v. organised and have Google doc in which we mark who is moderating which week. Interestingly, invitation into this Google doc was sent by Yahoo email straight into Yahoo email spam folder. Perhaps is Yahoo policy to sabotage Google, stranger things happen.

This week Grizzla was moderating and when TPed in noticed quite soon that she was wearing kitten on head (see 1st pic). Had rush of nostalgia as a year or two ago I was one attending with same kitten on head, she had IMed me to say "cute kitten" or suchlike and I had told her where to get one, which she did. In solidarity, also put kitten on my own head (see 2nd pic, right). Am wondering now if she noticed. At any rate felt nice to recall happy shared kitten moment.

Currently am v. excited as embarking on RESEARCH into MY INFORMATION PRACTICE of being a VWER person. Involves a lot of 1) reflecting about me 2) talking about SL 3) Excuses to pose and insert pictures of cute kittens, exquisite feet etc. so all good. Research is with Swedish person who has never been in SL, so obviously great treat ultimately awaits him, but at moment am doing lot of explaining e.g. how to wear shoes. Readers of this blog, or indeed anyone who has got beyond the hello sky hello clouds why am I trapped under a table help help phase of SL will know SL feet are tricky things.

Had just written long rambling disquisition (note long researchy word) describing v. tiny bit of what you do in VWER, and started talking about how wearing clothes is something a VWER moderator ought to do. Will rephrase that. Obviously since we are not on Adult sim, ahem, wearing clothes is requirement, but is good idea if also have clue about how to change look if want to and know how others might be seeing/judging you. In my case this means sending millions of Lindens into coffers of fashion designers and agonising whether bangles coordinate nicely with nailpolish. However e.g. in case of Thinkerer who is v.v. expert but mostly looks like just popped out of newb shell at dawn of SL time, know that is his conscious decision to look same all time, and have heard him describe it as part of his brand. So can't assume that just because someone looks a bit newbish that they ARE newb.


Nevertheless can't help wondering sometimes if people who I know are no newbs really want their feet to look like that. Does it look ok on their viewer? Do they not look at their feet? Do they think it's a retro look? So, after had briefly cammed in lovingly to own exquisite feet as featured in last blog post, took pictures of other people's feet. Will note that as usual Grizzla was wearing v. smart and interesting shoes but had better not mention anyone else in case it is indeed a case of I Never Realised MY Feet Looked Like That and cause embarrassment.

So have 2 VWER participant practices to ponder here:
1) Kitten wearing
2) Taking pictures of people's feet.
In RL think first would be eccentric (and also v. difficult, hard enough to keep kitten on lap let alone head) but 2nd might well end in call for security guard and stern talking to, as crawling round taking pictures of people's footwear is not what might be called accepted practice at RL meetings. In fact very much the contrary. Whereas in SL can take ALL SORTS of pictures without people knowing unless of course you post them to Flickr or your blog, which in this case I will not do.

Re: kitten wearing is this:
1) Bonding ritual to assert membership of VWER elite Community of Practice
2) Pathetic attempt to win favour with Grizzla
3) Sign I have too many kittens in inventory
4) Look it's a KITTEN, it's CUTE, and I am wearing it on my head because I CAN, enough said.

Anyway, took kitten off head before shooting scene in mock-up of phone shop with Zo, as didn't want to look weird. Though if viewers of final vid don't think two pixelated beings pretending to be interested in pixelated phones and tablets isn't weird, a kitten probably won't make much difference one way or the other.

I have new feet

New feet obtained: 1 (ok, 2, but they come in one attachment) (v. good)

Onward march of SLINK feet increasingly inexorable, i.e. % of new shoes which are not for SLINK feet low. SLINK feet, for those uninterested in fashion/dwelling under SL rock, are pretty mesh replacements for ordinary avatar feet. Said avatar feet are condemned by fashionistas for a) having malformed toes and b) having ugly cankles (those bulgy ankles you get when you shrink your feet to get into the size zero shoes).

So a couple of months ago took the plunge with approx 600 lindens and purchased said feet.

In fact main deterrent has been fact that would find it difficult to match pale skin colour. However Glam Affair just brought out SLINK Appliers for their palest colour, Frost, which means that once have SLINK feet attached, just need to wear Appliers and hey presto, feet and ankles same colour as legs.

Should be mentioned in passing that there are also SLINK hands (also de rigeur for fashionistas, but still not so convinced by them, your hands get stuck in one position, I think) and this week a SLINK body, but - baby steps, baby steps.

Since then have not taken SLINK feet off, except when doing lightning quick change into outfit for emergency reasons (can't now remember what). Feet are so pale! so smooth! So easily decorated with umpteen shades of nail polish! Have mostly invested in sandals since what is point of cute new feet if they are stuck in boots? Thus am now possesor of jeweled sandals (Zaara), explorer sandals (Ingenue), sandals made of recycled tyres (by someone or other) etc. etc. Main problem is shoes which disappear iif viewed from distance, so have to spend some time demo-ing shoes and then camming outside shop door to see if can still see them. No point in spending 200 Linden on pair of sandals which noone can see. On other hand, if shoes do disappear, then at least you can still see these lovely, exquisite feet.

Digital designing

Venues retextured for event: 1 (good); No. of items of clothing created: 7 (or 9 if you count all the bits of shoe separately) (good); Neon cherry blossom balloon dispensers deployed: 1 (good); Notecards created: 1 (good); Magic bottle created: 1 (good, if accidental); Quantity of floor mysteriously disappearing: half (bad)

In fact did all the above yesterday: today was digital literacies seminar that advertised a few days ago, where was being Chair and organising venue. Am now in brief post-event Euphoria, and chief desire is to zoom round SL acquiring new clothes and getting new Home to rights (in fact am going to have to do Emergency Marking even if it IS a Saturday night, v. depressing)
May or may not write more about the event on this blog: can legitimately put something on Serious Blog about content. Therefore on this one will mainly concentrate on fripperies i.e. clothes and decoration.
Had already retextured the venue used for ESRC conference in March, picking up colours from cute poster. Decided to push out boat with seminar memorabilia, starting with a skirt using semi-transparent textures of the poster, then to get a bit more creative did t-shirt (the well-worn template from Robin somethingorother) and Jeans (a template on some LL site), using the bluebird from the poster to create patches. Reused bolero template (bought for last event) putting said cute bluebird on the chest knot. Also found some sculpty full perm shoes on xstreetsl (I hope legit, they didn't look good enough quality to be ripoffs) and made blue shoes and stockings to match.
In fact for first time decided that could bear wearing my customised clothing for the event, though with some Shiny Things flats rather than my shoes. The Infolit Week in SL necklace and earrings rounded out the look, and also a small bluebird on my shoulder.
Before this had tinkered around with other sculpties, to make some kind of artifact to put in the pack. Ended up by stretching bottle sculpty, putting a sort of label on it with the seminar banner and "sit on me" and when you sit on it it disappears and you are sitting in a meditation pose in mid air.
This was not altogether deliberate. I WAS intending to put the pose in the bottle, and I was able to change some of the parameters, but I didn't know it was going to disappear when you sat on it (think the script must be assuming it is a pose ball, that you would want to disappear). Didn't work out how to rotate the sitter round 90 degrees either, but in the end thought it was quirky enough to pass muster. You could have a circle of them as seating, then when you all sat you would be suspended in air. Cool or what (don't answer that one)
Other disappearing thing that will mention was the floor. The venue floor is taken from the "Cercle" build that used as HQ from Infolit week in SL, rather a nice stone round. When standing about chatting afterwards noticed that half of this had vanished. Also could no longer see a variety of other things e.g. posters, Farradane Centre, half of Hobbiton. Had had a couple of people in the event who dashed around fruitlessly for most of the afternoon (and continued to do so as we stood and talked) so worried that had been griefed. Going back in later, it seems that the buildings are ok, and the posters are back, but the floor isn't. Did I delete it by mistake?

The eyes have it

Eyes missing: 1 (v.v. bad); Boots bought: 2 pairs. And lots of flats. And some sandals (good)

Am prompted to blog by disconcerting occurrence yesterday. Was out shopping for boots when suddenly noticed something odd in the ocular region. When looked closer realised that problem was complete lack of eyeballs.

This is a good look for Halloween, but not for chairing an Information Literacy Week in Second Life planning meeting (what I was about to do).

Was still Wearing my eyes, so assume that texture has disappeared from Linden Labs database. Once they disappear, they seldom return (cf. My Body Small Feet shape, which seems to have gone for good). This is v.v. sad, since they were Indigo eyes from Miriel that have had for almost whole of my Second Life. They were one of my first purchases, and I loved them dearly. Since Miriel has closed her shop, not much point in contacting her, either.

Fortunately I bought a clutch of eyes from her shop before it closed, and so in the 2nd pic you see me in Miriel's Winter eyes, which are also lovely, but not the beautiful deep blue of the Indigo ones.

I took a little comfort from my footwear. After 2 attempts had managed to snaffle a Sugarcube dress I was after (the first time the sim was too full, the 2nd time the dress inexplicably was not set to buy) and had decided that red boots were the thing. After some browsing round Js (which has a new boots line on sale), went to Tesla's, and invested in these snazzy peeptoe numbers. Subsequently heard about the "any shoe 25 Linden" sale at A La Mood (formerly Pretties) and invested further in 1 pair pink ankle boots; 1 pair pumpkin clogs; 1 set black embellished flats; 1 pair 60's flats and 2 pairs of platform sandals.

I suppose that's quite a lot of shoes, really. However, I did have to take my mind off my eyes.

P.S. The hat didn't cost anything at all. Can delude myself that this makes it a cheap outfit.

Buying

Suits bought: 0 (good); Ties bought: 0 (good); Shirts bought: 0 (good) HOWEVER Towel rails with wearable towels bought: 1 (good); Tibetan prayer wheels bought: 1 (good) (and so forth)
Helped Friend choose interview suit. Friend is male avatar, so decided to go in as Haruki (nb NOT to be confused with Harumi who has RL person behind him) so could be 2 Chaps going out shopping, which is perhaps not what proper Chaps do, but it seemed fun.
Was interesting insight into other people's SL since Friend evidently spends so few Linden that had forgotten where you click on browser to get more, whereas clicking on little Linden icon and hearing the Linden go tinkle tinkle out of my credit card and into Linden Lab's coffers is an everday event for me.
Plus side was that as Haruki has no gainful employment he is subject to whim of Sheila Yoshikawa (me) for Linden supply. As clothing one avatar in luxurious style is quite enough, Haruki is kept on short commons and thus is clothed in freebie shirt and pants. Anyway had fun trying on demo suit in Blaze and hope that interview suit will do trick for Friend at interview.

Dancing, parcel

Strange free houses collected: 1 (odd); Dancing bunny shoes collected: 1 pair (good)

Two of odder seasonal freebies collected before Christmas were the Xmas Parcel House and the Dancing bunny shoes. Christmas Parcel House sounded quite promising in theory and indeed could not be faulted in terms of size. However as can be seen from pic when unpacked house proved to have sinister nightmare quality much as if had in RL decided to paper entire house walls, ceiling and floor in v.v. cheap and nasty wrapping paper, type that is left in huge rolls in bargain bin and who can wonder why. Did include window through which could look into happy world beyond free of laughing snowmen and skating penguins (as usual click on thumbnail here to see full sized horror of this pic.).

Still, have kept in inventory since never know when might be called upon to create Xmas landscape for someone who I really, really don’t like.

Bunny slippers more fun in that a) are slippers with bunny elements, enough said, and b) have dancing animation in them.

This is not costume in which would be seen leading discussion on information literacy, obviously, but could come in useful at lighthearted social event, should I ever go to any.

Shoe success

Pairs of shoes worn straight from box: 1 (good, but men's); Pairs of shoes modified successfully to fit: 1 (v. good)

Have managed to buy pair of shoes which successfully modified (i.e. stretched) after purchase.

Had initially thought was doomed to life of slippers and men's shoes (see first pic) which are actually OK for some outfits but lacking in certain delicacy.

However managed to buy pair of flattish shoes which even go with outfit and have cute dragonflies on which stretched to fit nicely.



Bought same style in red. Name of maker is IDENTITY and there is actually a dress to go with shoes, but decided against purchase.

Feet; First shrug

Time spent editing feet: 30 mins (good); No. of pairs of shoes bought which still don't fit: All, except a pair of white slippers (bad); Time wasted trying to discover where bought these slippers: 1 hour (bad)

Have realised that have serious problem with feet, namely are so large that shoes disappear into them. This is illustrated in first pic.

Had cherished idea that fact they looked strange was due to rubbish nature of my graphics card but now see that feet look dreadful in other people's photos too.

Now have additional access to computer loaded with SL software in students' computer lab. This has better graphics card and so spend some time editing feet (as have previously said on own computer when try to edit self or clothes it crashes at once). Make them thinner and shrink to size 38. This is smallest that can make feet without them looking weird in relation to rest of body. However, most shoes still smaller and fail miserably in attempt to try and get them to stretch. Surely must be able to unless everyone in SL immediately shrinks feet down to miniscule size.

Apart from white slippers (see pic.), when wear shoes just see odd parts of them poking through flesh which is rather disturbing. Spend some time fruitlessly searching for place where bought slippers, to get some more in different colours. Will have to seek further advice.

Meanwhile, also make first attempt at clothes. Create new jacket, shrink sleeves, make shorter and have small opening at front to create shrug effect. Use texture of cherry blossom. This is illustrated in photo. Realise that easy to make clothes, but that creating all the fabric, seam and detailing effects needs expertise, which currently lack. However, may be possible to make simple CILR promotional items.

Shopaholic

Dresses bought: 6 or it might be 7, or 8 or ... (v.bad, although 3 of them were free); Shoes bought: 2 pairs (3 if you count the slippers: bad); Bracelets bought: 2 (bad); Fans bought: 1 (bad); Necklaces bought: 1 (I suppose that's not SO bad); Pairs of earrings bought: 2 (bad); Computer crashes: 2 (bad); Hours spent trying on new outfits: 3 (v.v.bad); Hours spent managing inventory: 1 (good)

Have developed dreadful shopping habit. Spent hours flitting between emporia, flying up and down in front of placards deciding whether frocks would look as good on me as on model.
Fear have left Boxes (in which clothes come packed) strewn across landscape in mad drive to Open and try on booty. Have to remember to Take boxes after contents have zoomed into inventory but easily distracted by sight of new bodices, underskirts, waving ribbons, veils etc waiting to be Worn.

Wonder whether there is already sanctuary for shopaholics in SL where Residents can be discouraged from Retail Therapy. All above in fact only cost circa £6, but still that is £6 for which have nothing to show except a few photos uploaded to flickr.
On whole shopping hassle free experience. Only incident was someone trying to sell me hair. Have decided that will keep hair as identifying feature. In RL have had long hair since age 12 and intend to keep it thus, so short blue hair is novelty. Have also realised that arms have tattoos on, a fact hitherto concealed by prediliction for kimono with long sleeves. As tattoos also something not aspired to in RL will keep for present.

Photos display some of new purchases which am attempting to mix and match although this takes some care as clothes not bought together tend to interact in very odd ways.

Shoes biggest disappointment since with current graphics card simply make feet look deformed and crumbling. However still prefer long skirts so worst is concealed. Best buy is Diamond Dress which cost only $1 Linden on discard pile in fancy store, since flouncy black skirt from this can be combined with top from another outfit and a feathery thing from one of my possible mistakes (a red number) to give v. classy effect. (see 2nd pic sitting in office).

Some pleated skirts also nice (3rd pic, the traditional Flying Shot), but disconcertingly disappear into chair when sit down. This effect is shown in first pic (meditating on some mountain or other) where looks OK I think.


With new stuff raining into Inventory decided must do some Personal Information Management and discovered that key to this is Create New Window which gives you copy of Inventory and enables movement of items between folders (not possible, as far as can see, when only 1 copy of inventory open).
Create various subfolders, mostly for types of clothing (surprise) and all looks much neater now, plus have deleted various objects the function of which remained obscure but had held on to them just in case.

As well as considering and rejecting new Hair, also tried some new Eyes (see final pic) but frankly not worth it, especially as eyes are almost totally obscured by fringe.