Puttering about

Not much going on. The new neighbors appear to be in over their heads. I built an "arabian nights" style tent where the old shop was, sold the first of my silks, took a bunch of unused inventory and boxed it up, did some shopping... Had the client crash on me three times while I was emptying my trash from inventory. There's been lots of noise as various RL companies enter SL, but except for Nissan and Reuters that noise doesn't appear to have been intended for anyone in SL. Meet&Greet events with authors, musicians, and the like are cool, but I just don't get the point of the "Hey! We have a building!" events.

I experimented with the Tinies builder kit and made a tiny poodle. Been thinking that having a tiny avatar will be useful for

Building - the normal sized AVs get in the way a lot. Pointless for some of the new sandboxes though - some of those are no-scripts which means AOs don't work. No AO == no tinies. I wonder if invisiprims work there? If they do and I can click thru them, I could make an AV that's just a floating head or eyeball...

New Shop

My little shop outgrew the green pavillion. So now it floats in the air. 10Mx20M, not counting the half circle. And there's room to grow.


I've seen where people use transparent backgrounds on pictures of avatars as "mannequins" but I like the effect better when they're on cylinders. When you move around they don't go all 2D on you.

Vending Poodles

I went thru my saleslist and mailed my proud poodle owners a giftbox. They also get a special off-white polo that isn't for sale. I sent them a copy of the new eyes too (the ones in this pic.)

I was flattered to see some profile pics with poodle avatars in them. :D

I spend some time updating my poodle vendor sites to include the new shirts and eyes, and updated my profile information to include shop locations.

The classifieds listing is getting teleports; the only person I saw TP in came in looking at cages... I ran a classifieds search on cages and was surprised at how few are there. I may have to make more...

Poodle-phernalia?

Saw Jennifer McLuhan's Polo Shirt Tutorial and had to make one. I made the texture white and tinted it inworld. Instead of the preppy aligator she's got a little poodle. The shirt texture has short sleeves, but she's always been the sort to cut 'em off.

I'm tempted to go thru my list of buyers and send one to everyone who's bought a female poodle AV from me. Trying to decide if that would be considered spammy or not...

ahhhhh...

Alright, the love is back. *blush* Get me in-world for a few hours, no lag, lots of time to play, made some new clothes, and I'm a happy camper again.

*grumble*

Hooray for having 1M accounts.












The grid status page claims everything's working. I can log in and see my inventory, but my AV doesn't appear, my bank balance doesn't appear, and I'm stuck motionless in a strange underwater neverland. I've been around a couple months and have seen SL when it's working; hopefully not too many of those new account holders are sharing my experience tonight.

Building Reflections

I wandered over to the new Wired site. I've enjoyed a lot of their articles. The build left me feeling oddly disappointed. This article by Caliandris Pendragon pinned what I was feeling in a phrase. "in" SL and yet not "in" SL.

The Wired site was a total letdown for me; the motherboard and bits outside were delightful (except for the view-blocking particles bigger than my head) and creative, but inside the "buildings" were vacant and impersonal offices/conference rooms. A desk, with one chair on one side and a pair of chairs on the other. Good conversations don't happen across a desk. It felt like going on a first date with someone gorgeous who can't talk about anything other than their hair.

Many corporate builds seem to be nothing but reflections of RL. Why have miles of hallways in a world where you can teleport? Reception areas without a host/ess? Dozens of empty offices and conference rooms? A whisper travels 10M, standard talk 20M. Offices and conference rooms tend to be clustered in RL buildings - if they were being used in SL you'd have to IM or be stuck overhearing other conversations. These structures aren't designed to be used.

When my neighbors explain why they've built a fancy house complete with bathrooms they talk to me about having what they've always wanted, recreating a place with fond memories, wanting to explore a building virtually before deciding whether to build it in RL... there's a lot of motivations that go into such builds. They're reflections of both the real world and of their builders' aspirations and dreams.

Starwood's Aloft hotel build makes sense to me. It is both advertising and a conversation - "There's this hotel I want to make... what do you think?" American Apparel's store reflects how they want to be perceived and makes a handy vehicle for experimenting with RL/SL cross marketing.

When I see yet another big office building filled with unused impersonal spaces, another unresponsive block with a logo... This is a reflection of your organization, of its hopes and dreams, of its adaptability, of its willingness to explore and take risks... What are you telling me?

I've got a bit of advice for companies moving into SL. If you don't understand it, spend a little more time exploring, learn a little more about the place. Three words.

Borrow Philip's pants.

Introducing Mr Thunders

I finally got around to creating a male "normal" avatar I like. Some freebie clothes, a 50L male skin from PixelSkin, and hair from Adam n Eve. Female AV stuff is everywhere, but finding male hair and skins is a total pain.

With this background, he does look a bit like an escapee from a cheesy romance novel.

Watching myself build

So I ended up building a train station. You probably already knew that was going to happen. The open design choice with a tight prim limit and physical space was too much to resist. After the winners are picked, I'll post pics. It was a lot of fun to build.

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Been noticing stylistic habits showing up in my builds lately.

• The use of sounds and scripted interactions I've mentioned earlier.
  
• Few textures. Maybe in reaction to all the malls? *grin*
• Aggressive use of negative space.
• Obsessive. Textures align well, every seat has a sittarget, etc. This is nothing new.
• Repeated design elements. I think some of this is the medium - holding down shift makes it simple to copy prims.
• Strong symmetry. This last one surprises me. I've always created balanced things in every media, but this is new. It might be specific to "spaces" for me; I had a realtor once comment that the homes I liked best all had strongly symmetrical layouts.
• A focus on the complete scene. Tying a build into the local scenery is really important to me. I wonder if this would change with a larger plot? I tend to pick plants based on what neighboring plots are using, and I like to cluster them with any the neighbors have on their property lines. The borders are there, but they aren't so... sharp.
• Strong dislike for photo realism. I like the strong colors and clean lines common with cartoonier styles, and my sense of immersion breaks every time I examine some impressive detail and realize it isn't 3D.

Last Names for Sale

Second Life last names are now for sale. And they aren't cheap! At that cost, one can hardly claim that the corps aren't contributing though. ;)