As has been pointed out elsewhere, I have changed my blog's style again. I'm a chronic fidgeter when it comes to this sort of thing. Constantly tweaking little bits of it. But I'm now getting to the point where my contacts are sticking to my eyeballs because I'm so pooped. Long day. So it's reasonably legible and I'm going to bed.
Mera rocks. I've said it before, I'll say it again. She and I had talked about the little "online"/"offline" status indicator that she made for our webpages, about making it customizable, so it could read "gone for groceries" or "hating work" or whatever. I figured it would be something we set by changing the php parameters, but nooooo... because it's Mera she made it so I can change what it reads while in world, using a nifty HUD. Crazy! I keep wanting to refer to it as setting my @doing. :)
So yesterday, Mera was showing me the new props she made for her building class. Which reminds me, until I get the album recovered (the only thing that the server crash really messed with was the album... well, okay, and my head, but that's another story), I should put some of the pics from her classes up here. :)
The above are from Mera's building class last Sunday. She had great props, and a great turnout, besides doing a great job of covering the info.
These are from her "Somewhat More Advanced" scripting class on Friday. Jeez Carl, you couldn't just call it "Intermediate"? ;)
It was another great class, and seemed to go over well. This Sunday (ie. today) Mera will use her newly-redesigned props for her building class at the Shelter, so hopefully they'll work well. I'm awfully proud, because she was having some script issues - having trouble making the HUD pop up for only the instructor - and I was able to spot the bug. Woohoo! Go me!
This, of course, got me thinking about how much I need a new job doing something that actually uses my brain (like debugging for instance), and so I spent a large chunk of the evening working on my resume. I'm doing an experiment with the layout, using CSS, which will really kick ass. Provided I can make it work. :P Maybe I should just go back to an ordinary layout? Because Monday is looming on the horizon, casting a pall over my weekend. And that just can't be a good way to live.
So I went to brunch with BushidoBrown Hightower and Mali Marbles this morning. Yes, "real" life brunch. Out in the big blue room. With the big flaming ball of fire. You remember? Had a great time, they're both fun people. I am now full of french toast happiness. While I was standing outside Renee's in Somerville, waiting for them to arrive, I noticed a Second Life sticker on the phone pole (BB got a picture, which he'll hopefully upload). When they arrived, I checked, and it wasn't any of us that did it. Still, there's over a million SL "rezzies"; sooner or later you're bound to unexpectedly run into one of them at the bar, a party, or, apparently, outside Renee's.
On my way home from the brunch, I thought of something really good to write in here. And do you think I can remember it now? Argh. Check back later, if I remember what it was, I'll post it up here.
I went to rip my White Zombie - Astro-Creep:2000 CD last night, and found my missing Great Big Sea CD inside the case. If you've seen a lonely-looking White Zombie CD (maybe it's at Renee's too?) send it home.
So I'm a dork. I guess I had the skybox set fully shiny, but never had shininess enabled in my prefs. Ooops.
The part on the left is the shiny one. Weird, huh?
It looked even weirder from outside, but I didn't get a pic.
Well shoot. I only get a couple evenings on this week, and now the grid's down. This is, frankly, annoying. On the other hand, I can finish reading a few blog/feed type thingies that I've fallen behind on, and let iTunes finish ripping a few more CDs. I thought I ripped most of my CDs to mp3 when I got my iPod, but I guess, for whatever reason that passed as brilliance at the time, I didn't. While I'm sure that there's a wonderful winamp-friendly plug-in to make the cd ripping go faster, I have iTunes already set up, so that's what I'm using.
Of course, I also have WinAmp running, streaming happy "new" music to all the world (okay, so no one's listening, but it's there nonetheless). I don't think I could do this while on SL without some major lag issues. Especially with... um... five (?!) Firefox windows open. I'm also setting up Google Reader, so that I can remember which blogs/feeds/etc. looked interesting. I have a really good memory. It's just short.
Hmm. It just occurred to me that I could go check out the preview. Um. Duh. Downloading the most recent copy of that is also adding to the load on my poor laptop. But it's also after midnight, and I'm meeting BushidoBrown and Mali Marbles for brunch IRL tomorrow (granted, not until 11:30, but still). So maybe I'll just leave the download doing it's thing and go to sleep?
Nah.
****
Five Minutes Later:
I have just discovered an incredibly important fact: SL is really boring when (a) none of your friends are on, (b) you can't get to your land, (c) you can't get to the Shelter, (d) any changes you make to your inventory (or the things in it) don't get ported back to the main grid and (e) you're lagged to Cincinnati and back. So I'm just going to update my iPod and go to bed.
I feel like I've spent no time on SL lately. I dash on for a few quick comments with Hen at breakfast time, while simultaneously working on line notes in another window (ask, if you really want to know what the hell I'm talking about) and eating breakfast. After work, I come home and relax for a minute on SL, sometimes while eating dinner, opening snail mail or just generally flaking out. Then I head out again for a few hours, to the theatre where I'm volunteering (see above, if you really must know the details), and by the time I get home it's time for bed, really, although I do sneak on for a couple of minutes to blankly stare at the screen (while starting to write up the line notes to send off in the morning). I've left my land exactly twice in the last three days, both times to go see things on other people's land.
You know, now that it's written out... it's no bloody wonder I feel like I haven't been on. I really haven't.
Happily, I've a few days off (nothing scheduled for Friday night or Saturday during the day) to spend on SL before another round of this madness starts again. I had better not pick up another addiction (especially not with the blogging one going on when I'm at work), I just don't have the time! On the other hand, I'm enjoying myself. Except that I miss regularly (read "daily") seeing my friends on SL.
Plus, I do feel bad because I'm missing not one, not two, but three Building Shelter games this week. As part of the Dreams Community Fair, Dolmere and Mera hosted a version of the gameshow. Mera said it went well, and maybe they drew a few more fans from it, which is always a plus. Then tonight's regular Thursday I can't make, and Sunday I'm only likely to be on for a bit in the morning, so I'm missing that show too.
Not only that, but I really have been el sucko Mentor. I think I can count on one hand the newbies I've assisted since getting the title. And I'm not going to assist any if I'm always hanging around on my land. Well, except for that one guy who wandered in, looking for "the water" because it was "a portal to the secret third life sim". Oooookaaaay. I couldn't really help him (I know, I know, you're shocked). As soon as my time is my own again, that's something I need to work on.
How the hell did I get so addicted to SL that one day off feels like ages?
Well, it's afternoon, and that means... time for a blog entry. When the job slows down a bit, I feel the need to post my babblings up online. I'm sure I could go through years of therapy to try to figure out why. But... um... I'm already paying a fair amount in tier... and I don't really... I don't have the time! Yeah, that's it! No time! :D Because I need to use the time to write in my blog! (Don't you just love circular reasoning?)
Hmm. Part of my downtime yesterday was spent reading Tao Takashi's blog entry about what consititutes real life. Very well thought-out. Kinda marches with my opinions, except I'd take it another step further.
I'm not at all sure that you can separate your Second Life from your "first" or "real" life. I vaguely recall some book that called it "meatspace." Um, no. "Offline life" works, I guess. I mean, you, as a person, are affected by the people you interact with, whether online or off. Henrietta and I had a great chat about this a few weeks ago, and one of the things that came out of it was the realization that some people on SL who were complete jerks when you first met them, become really decent people as a result of being socialized. They learn what is and isn't acceptable and approved and enjoyable behaviour in the community. The social mores.
And that spills over into real life. I constantly find myself thinking "Oh, I must tell so-and-so this" (except, of course, I use their real names), and thinking that I should point some website out to someone else. And I find myself using phrases in offline (outloud) conversation that people on Second Life use. Which is kinda weird, since one is written and the other verbal, but whatever. I've even noticed that I pause before swearing now, to make sure I'm not in the Shelter (PG rules enforced). Um. Even out loud (see above, re: therapy).
Maybe I'm weird to think that friends are friends are friends regardless of where you meet them? I have a ton of folks that I met online in my MUD days that now are constant fixtures in my offline life. My best friend in Boston, for example (who is due to give birth to her first child sometime this week! Ack!). But the particular MUD that I spent a lot of time on was prone to throwing parties on a regular basis, which people would travel long distances to attend. And boy, it's weird meeting people offline that you've talked to every day for months. Years even.
I just realized... 95% of my friends are really good typists. Heh. Man, you know you're a geek when...
But I digress. :) I agree with Tao that it's kinda disturbing to think of folks I like and see regularly online vanishing without a trace. I would worry, and wonder if they were okay. And, because we're all so paranoid about preserving our privacy, I'd have no clue how to even begin checking to make sure they hadn't fallen off their bike into the path of a semi or gone to jail for possession of narcotics (although, I can't really see anyone I'm friends with in the latter position...). I mean, it could be nothing, it could just be that work got busy, or the city dug up the phone line so they have no internet access (Oh no! Send help quick!). How the hell would I know? Worrying, really.
The server's back up, but I guess all is not right in the world, because Dolmere can't publish his entries. And he apparently has a stack of 'em. Oops. Well, hopefully it'll all be worked out soon (sys admin is working hard on it). Stay tuned, kids.
Server bit the dust yesterday. Not so much fun. At all. Nope. As you can see, the blog made it to the lifeboats and survived. :) The photo album... well, maybe later this week.
Is it really sad that I created an alternate location from which to write? Probably, huh? I'm over it.
I think I'll just leave yesterday's blog entry where it is for now. And I may have to redo this page again - I kinda liked the dark look. (For those of you just tuning in, I fidget with the style of my webpages pretty much incessantly.)
Going afb (away from blog) to check my mail now! Hooray!
Hey, I just realized that the last.fm server must be up! Check out what I listened to last - the track listing is on the bottom right. Okay, well, maybe on your monitor it's readable? Hmm. I think I'm going to have to relocate that - maybe on the left? I may have to tear out the style sheet and redo it myself without all the so-called functionality of the standard Six Apart one. Then at least I could modify it easily. We shall see. But it's exciting to have my track listing nonetheless.
I forgot to check while I was actually streaming to make sure the track name shows up on the top right.
And yes, I know that the Links section still looks like poop. I'm on it, I'm on it.
Another day at the salt mines... blech. Weekends just aren't long enough. I was actually startled yesterday, when someone mentioned that they needed to get up for work in the morning. It just kind of seems like my weekend was missing a day. Probably because I spent less time than usual on SL. :P That'll teach me. On the other hand, I got a lot accomplished. Tax stuff is all out of my face, some laundry done, that sort of thing. And, thanks to Mera, I have a swell thing over on the right that tells whether I'm online, and whether I'm streaming music. :) She rocks. Plus, I have a swanky new graphic. If you're using a CSS-enabled browser (like FireFox, Opera or whatever it is that folks on Macs use) (ie. not IE!) you may see something neat if you put your mouse over it.
This morning, before work, I went through the Building Shelter entries from last night and got them all prepped to go into the vendor. Whee. With luck, I won't have missed any vital steps in the process (but knowing me, I misplaced a comma or forgot to put the scripts in at least one). I did, unfortunately, mis-grab and got two copies of one of the "Private" entries, while missing a copy of Kerhop's kickass safe. :( Sucks. However I did get his rocking dance floor, so that's okay, I guess.
Did you guys see the nice comment from Torley on my last post? I feel all famous now that the watermeloniest Linden ever has read my blog. Actually, I saw Torley several times this weekend, so, I guess it isn't quite the brush with fame that I'm making it out to be. ;) But still.
One of the places I saw Torley was Mera's building class at the Shelter, which went phenomenally well. I must remember to upload some of the pictures I took of it. And to put a link to my album over on the right here. :D Duh! I was very impressed by her props, and have recommended it to a few folks, for when they want to learn building. It kind of reminded me of the Ivory Tower tutorials, but... with people, which is always better than without. :) And I learned some different ways of doing things than what I normally do.
I usually use the alt+arrow keys trick to move the camera, for example, not the mouse, just because the laptop's touchpad is not the easiest thing to control (although I'm far far better at it than when I got it). And before you go writing, "Well, why don't you just hook up a mouse?" I would like to point out that I'm generally lounging at my leisure on the couch (wedged into the corner of the sectional) when I'm wandering around SL. Yes, I have a home office, but... I use it to store stuff more than anything. *blush* So there's no surface to use a mouse on. Well, okay, a couch cushion with an infared mouse, I guess... but the arrow keys work fine. Really.
This weekend I donated all my spare tier to the Shelter, and when I logged in this morning, there was a message that the FFRC is now looking for some. :/ There's another group that's on my list of things to do when I somehow figure out how to fit more hours in the day. I'm a member and I've never been to one of the meetings (although I have read a few of the transcripts). They have a good purpose.
On the RL job hunt front, I had a brainwave last night as to my resume layout. So I'll be plugging away at that today (as much as I can at work). The content's been done for ages, it's just the layout that I'm fussing over (can you say 'anal retentive'? Because I can say 'procrastinating'!).
Gawd, I hope this post makes sense. I suspect I have a migraine coming on, because the whole world seems like it's at arm's length this morning. Or maybe that's just because it's Monday?
From reading Mera's blog this morning, it sounds like I'm not the only one getting a tad burnt due to overcommitting themselves inworld. :( I went shopping for hair with her yesterday, and she mentioned that she hadn't slept the night before, because she'd been online. Now, I've stayed up late before, but never SL-ed for 24 hours straight. And she was back online last night when I logged in at..11pm-ish. And still there at 1:30am when I gave up to go get some rest. That's a recipe for burn-out if ever I heard one. So perhaps it's simple exhaustion talking there. I really hope Mera can offload some of her schedule - she's fun to just hang out with. Not to mention that if I had the time and the ability, everything on her schedule sounds like a ton of fun.
Not a day goes by that I don't wish I had more hours on SL to figure out how to do X or learn more about Y or just hang out at Z. And yet, I spend a phenomenal amount of time, just flaked out at the lake. But this is supposed to be a relaxing hobby, not necessarily an intellectual stimulus (although that's fun too). Some of my favourite times on SL have been just hanging out with the cool people I've met there (and I've met a lot). Actually, now that I think of it, all of my favourite times have been relaxing with my friends there. :) So why on earth would I "waste" my precious time hanging with my friends on learning new things?
And although my RL job isn't the most challenging, and I can do some stuff online from work (like write in blogs for example), I can't learn things.. at least not very well. I get interrupted too often. And if I'm not careful I start to resent the people that are interrupting me to do my actual job. :P
Mera's got a way-cool thing on the main page of her blog that tells you whether she's online. I must ask her how she did that. And Dolmere had some PHP stuff that he pointed me to that apparently tells the status of the Icecast server. And I found a thing last night that someone else wrote to make the incorporation of del.icio.us links that much easier. And I do have a header graphic that I was playing with, I just need to fiddle with it some more to get it sized appropriately. And there's always my resume to finish laying out...
It's so nice to be missed. :) Gives a nice warm and fuzzy feeling. And no, I haven't been drinking. ;)
Unfortunately, RL stuff kept me away from SL for the second night in a row - and I was jonesing for my fix! So even though there are still guests in my living room, I'm on SL.
...And stuck in a volunteer meeting that spent half an hour discussing what acronym was best to use for the meeting. Argh. Bang. Head. Here. Aren't there newbies we should be helping? Oh, sorry, "newbies" probably isn't the politically correct term or something. Let's google it and see shall we? I think perhaps I'm too tired to tolerate this kind of bullshit.
So I'm there and writing here. At the same time. Multitasking, as it were.
I set up a last.fm account today, inspired by the cool track list thang on Dol's site. Unfortunately, the Audioscrobbler plug-in can't contact the tracking server - I think the server's down. So it's caching my playlist. And looking around last.fm, I am reminded that there's some music that I don't own but would like to. This whole streaming audio thing brings back my days of DJ-ing at the community radio station. I had fun doing that. My three hour stint started right after a medieval music segment - so I would pick out a long first track to give me time to get organized. Sometimes length was most important factor in my choice!
Why are people voting on stuff that they get no say in anyhow? Just email Jeska. Jeez.
So I was looking around the auction page today, because I noticed that a plot of land that had been for sale by Anshe was auction-coloured on the map. I'm always interested in what mainland parcels are on the block - I'm not really interested in the really-far-south continent - it's still a patchwork of teeny first land plots. Anyway, most of the other auction plots are 1024 parcels, none of which were calling to me. And besides, I've donated 2560m2 to the Shelter so I don't have a whole lot of tier left, so I need to husband my resources.
Mera is going to be teaching a building class at the Shelter on Sundays before the Building Shelter game, so I'm going to step in as official "entry-grabber" or whatever the title is. Since it's nearly 1:30am, I should probably throw out the last of the guests and get some sleep if I'm going to be at all coherent for the game. Plus there are a few things I'd like to get done tomorrow before getting sucked into SL.
I let icky RL stuff ruin my mood today, and I've done my best to fight it and be amused by SL (the shirts Dol made helped - much snickering and headshaking on my end). It kinda worked but I can't seem to maintain it. So I'm taking off early tonight before I start getting cranky(er) and (more) annoying. Maybe I just need an evening of wallowing in it.
With the very best intentions, I actually got offline at 10pm last night. Went to bed and proceeded to have some of the oddest SL-related dreams. I was arguing with someone (never my favourite activity, although it wasn't someone I particularly like) about my terrain texture post on the forums. I was getting frustrated at being unable to communicate in that way you do in dreams. They were disturbing enough to wake me up at 3am. At which point I told my subconscious to shut the fuck up and let me sleep, so at least I got three hours of "decent" rest. :P
So I can continue to blame any accidental stupidity on the fact that I haven't had enough rest. ;)
I was awake enough (alhtough I really do feel like I'm not all here) to finish setting up an audio stream this morning. Mera (who kicks ass, in case you're wondering) was kind enough to offer to relay the stream for me, since the server here is busy with webserving stuff. She's also got a stream of her own, and has set up relaying for Dolmere as well, because she's cool like that. So I installed the Oddcast plugin to make WinAmp start streaming stuff. Mera helped me make it go this morning (it's like she knew I needed her to log in!), so I now have my own streaming media on my land (well, one parcel, anyway).
I haven't been using WinAmp much since I got the iPod, just because it seemed easier to set up poddy goodness with iTunes. Well, iTunes has "kindly" reorganized all my music so now my WinAmp playlists can't find anything. :P You can turn this "feature" off, but that's a bit like shutting the barn door after the horses are gone. I need to poke around tonight and either recreate all the .m3u, figure out how to import my shiny new iTunes playlists into WinAmp or how to make Oddcast play nicely with iTunes. That last would probably require the standalone version of Oddcast instead of just the plugin. I'll see what I can decipher tonight. Hopefully my brain will have actually revved up to speed by then...
Well, sometimes being distracted mid-post by work junk is to my advantage. I did a quick google and it looks like I can snag the iTunes playlists into WinAmp fairly easily. I think I saw half a dozen different ways to do it, and it could well be that this newest version of WinAmp does it natively. I only just downloaded it a couple of days ago, so I haven't had a chance to explore. I probably only use a fraction of WinAmp's abilities, because, like Paint Shop Pro, it's a program I've been using forever and I figure that just doing what I've always done works. :) Plus, I have a very old WinAmp skin that I'm fond of, but I think it makes some features un-reachable.
I hate those days when RL interferes with SL and makes it impossible for me to actually complete my posts. So I'm not actually going to say anything useful in this post, except maybe about the stream. That's useful, right?
I had this brilllliant idea that I would just use the Link Rolls function from del.icio.us to put a nice list of links on the side here. Easily updated, easily formatted, it'll take out the trash and feed the cats, yadda yadda yadda. But it's not formatting nicely. If it looks nice on your screen, that's because I've since got the kinks out of it. But I'm going to have to leave it all... um, kinky?... for a bit because I am not going straight home after work. Yes, it's true, I occasionally spend time (gasp!) away from the computer.
My intention is to have several sections of links. One for friends' webpages (Mera's and Dolmere's for example), one section that's all useful Second Life pages (the forums, SLurl.com, etc), and one maybe for texture-related stuff (?) (like Robin or Chip's templates, or something). It'll be nice and handy and tidy and not at all squished to one side. Really. Just close your eyes and imagine it. Go on. Shoo.
Oh boy, this won't last. I'm posting sooo regularly here. Multiple times a day even. Maybe I should take up macrame or solve world hunger or something? Obviously I have too much free time on my hands. If only I could use that time for a nap. Stupid world. Let me sleep instead of going to work and everything would be so much easier.
Whoops. Please ignore the above paragraph; it's not where I intended this post to go. I was going to post a comment about how usefully I used the SecondLife downtime last night. :)
I rearranged my photo album and added a bunch of shots that I had kicking around. The picture from the Ruins made me sad, since that place was cool. The Mayan calendar floor rotated at one point, but I think too many people whined about it so they got rid of it. Silly Rainforest people! They should take a tip from Travis and know that no matter how many people bitch and moan, there's more that are quietly enjoying the floor. :) Although their floor was less likely to make your eyes melt than the Shelter's. :) They have now taken away the Ruins club and the shopping area, apparently. I haven't checked to see if the rollercoaster and raft ride are still there, but I suspect that most of the Rainforest sim is now residential. :( I feel like you do when you visit an old childhood haunt and it's been turned into an office park or mega mall.
Wow, I just realized that I'm a clothes whore in SecondLife. Is it odd that I spend more time getting dressed there than I do in RL? And definitely more time shopping. Buying clothes is so much more appealing when you don't have to experience the evils of a changing room, nor the unpleasantness of sizing (and even if the problem is 'these pants are too big!' it's still a hassle because you're stuck in the changing room without any way - short of flagging down a passing sales person, and they're all too busy hovering like vultures at the entrance to the store - of getting something that might be closer to the correct size). And happily, laundry and ironing just don't happen in SL. Not that ironing is part of my RL either, come to think of it.
grrr.... I'm poking around, looking at land. Some neat looking stuff for sale in AnsheChung's Islandia. Yeah, I know, Anshe Chung... but it has nice sand! And volcanoes. How cool is that? Anyway, I'm fly hither and thither there... and teleporting starts acting weird. And then I start having problems crossing sim borders. Strange. So I relog. Or try to. Except now I can't get back on and the website says the grid is "down for maintenance". Well that's just wonderful. :P
Except that when I check back a few minutes later... it says it's open and fine and happy. Evil lying website. I can't get in, so how could it possibly be happy? ;) Well, I need to head off to RL stuff momentarily anyhow, but it's annoying as all get-out to be unable to log in. And now it says it's down for maintenance again. Oooookay. Pick one?
Maybe we really ought to attempt to take over WoW or There? Those people can't possibly be doing anything more interesting that us. Or maybe it's time to break out my copy of SimpleMU and go old skool and visit TIM. I haven't been there in... okay two weeks, but -
Hey! I got on! Woohoo! Except now... still no teleporting and the map isn't working? Oh, Linden Labs, why have you foresaken us in our time of... oh! Look at the time! Gotta run!
So I've been checking out some land over in a sim near mine - neat sort of hilltop land. But I'm resisting the urge. I already feel like a bit of a git for having too much as it is. Mera's going to build me a low prim house or two (she felt the urge to build and asked for a direction), which I can then plop on part of my land and rent out, I guess. Except that I suck at promotion/sales/marketing, so those things'll sit empty for ages. Unless friends decide to rent them... and then I'll feel guilty asking for money...
...because I also suck at negotiation. :) Several times now I've agreed to take on different tasks without even asking how much it'll pay. :P Or if it'll pay. I am so damn nice sometimes, it amazes me. :)
But some things it feels silly to charge for. With the help of my fabulous sys admin, I set up a blog for Dolmere on the server where lovelymachine.com lives (which is also hosts a variety of other domain names, because you never know when you might need inappropriatelydressed.com). (That last part is a joke. I do not own inappropriatelydressed.com.) What's one more webpage in that mess? A drop in the bucket. Unless Dolmere decides to become a big shot, nationally syndicated author. ;) In which case... well, sorry Dol. You're on your own. :D
If I do rent some of the land out, I'll have to start paying attention to prim counts and stuff. Blech. But it'd be nice to be able to pay Mera for her work, because she's gotta pay tier too.
At last. 5pm. I get to go home now. Enough babbling on the blog.
Duh. Thanks to Dolmere for sending me a dictionary link, which actually made a neuron fire (Shocking, I know! And at work too!) and reminded me that I have a FireFox plugin/extension/add-on/thing-what-makes-stuff-go that does the same sort of thing. DictionarySearch. Looks up a word and opens it in a separate tab. I've had it installed both at work and at home for ages. Upgraded regularly. Dumb dumb dumb not to think of it. I blame cancer. What? Fuck off, I'm allowed to.
Well, despite the comments on the last post (you're just jealous, Dol!), I rather like the new look. Except the fonts don't render as nice on my work computer (yeah, yeah, I shouldn't be doing personal junk at work... I'll file that under 'mm-hmm'). So maybe I'll work on that today, since it will be like wading through molasses at work (although hopefully not as deadly), because anyone who works along the Boston Marathon route (and has any sense) will either be at home, or be outside, lazying around, eating something fattening, while the runners go sweatily by. But noooo, my office will be open today. So I will borrow their T-1 and get some stuff done that is vital to the well being to their employees (or at least to me!).
Yesterday, as you may have noticed, I changed up the colours to coordinate with the graphic (look at me, all matchy-matchy!). And I got rid of the white box behind the sidebars. Slowly but surely I'm digging my way through the default css template - this newest version of Movable Type comes with an evil one! Someone somewhere thought that naming styles things like "right" and "left" and "sidebar" was too difficult and it should be "alpha", "beta", and "pkg". Um. Ooookay. They wanted it to be more easily modified. So much for descriptive class and id names, I guess. I could rewrite it for ease-of-use... but it'd mean rewriting the html template too, and that's more fuss than I want to get into (although I did it in MT vers.3.16 for my other blog).
Anyway, there's a lot of classes and such that don't get used, or get declared multiple times. It's real fun to unravel when editing. Except not. I may try the hack and slash method yet! And they still haven't added a built-in spell-checker. I'm sure there is a module somewhere... adding that to my to-do list.
Had a creepy bug in world this morning (I generally have breakfast in SL). I was on my land, everything hunky-dory, flew over to the parcel across the sim border, and then walked back. When I looked around... something was missing. My bridge. And then I noticed that there's only one innertube in the lake. And the lounger by the bridge had also disappeared. And I think a couple of trees (although, I have so many, it really is hard to tell!). None of it had shown in my inventory (not in objects, trash nor lost and found). I checked the "About Land" thinking maybe someone had dumped some prims on me, but there's only the same number of items. I clicked the button to show the owner's objects, and all sorts of things get highlighted... but nothing where the missing stuff should be.
I started to write a bug report, but decided to try relogging first. And happily, everything was there when I reconnected. I'm sure it's some sort of a cache issue. It's amazing how upsetting it is when your stuff vanishes. It's like the angst of being bounced during that red-spring-thing on Saturday and the panic of not being able to reconnect. Although, I guess as addictions go... at least this one is fairly socially acceptable. Kinda. Despite the occasional evil eye from other folks who expect you to pay RL attention to them. Don't know why. Sheesh.
And it always seems like said RL people want to chat with me when I happen to get chosen as a game show contestant. Or when I have four different IM conversations going. Or when I'm trying to help 3 or 4 newbies at once, and failing miserably. And, strangely enough, some folks don't take well to being ignored in favour of questions about wine label designs. I don't know why. The only other times I get chosen for game shows seem to be when I'm working in another window, like writing here, or doing RL stuff like taxes. It's like the contestant-picker knows. I guess I should just choose not to be potentially selected as a contestant, but... it's fun. :) And I click the "Yes" button almost without thinking.
Well, I've now occupied the first hour and a half of my work day. I guess I should maybe do something useful... or go work on the css some more. ;)
I think this layout and style are at least marginally better. I generated it using the incredibly fun Movable Type Style Generator, then mucked around with it to make it look a bit better (less centered, different fonts). I have a few more things I'm intending to do. I want to move the sidebars a bit down and give them borders, and change the colours a bit to coordinate better with my nice graphic. Speaking of which, I made it my very own self. :) Hooray for Paint Shop Pro! At some point, I'll make a pretty graphic header to go with it. In the mean time, you can all just admire what's here.
I'm hanging in the shelter, holding down a couple IM conversations simultaneously, as is my custom, and suddenly I get a push/abuse message. This happens sometimes. Usually it's accidental. So I generally just close it. But others in the Shelter report the same at the same time. And all these giant red springs start appearing. It's crazy! Check out the pictures!
Apparently it was a grid-wide nasty viral-attack kinda thing. Fun. Except for the part where it's not at all fun. FireEyes set up some audience seating, because if you didn't sit, you floated up. So eventually I logged off, because it was so laggy and boring. Then I checked out the preview grid (also laggy, but at least there were flexiprims to play with). But I gave up on that when my client crashed. Decided to update the blog some more. :)
So. Today was my first day of real mentoring stuff. Logged on, put on the mentor hat, went to Help Island. Mera IM'd me and told me that there were big probs with Orientation Island - the usual sign that teleported people to Help Island couldn't function. So a mentor was staying there and IMing a Linden back on Help Island with names of newbies to force-teleport in. Mera had been up until 3am or something equally ridiculous. So off I go, like the keener I am, to Orientation Island, to help man the life boats. Or woman the life boats. Whatever.
So I get there, and there's one mentor on duty, and one newbie reading the signs. Kai (the other mentor) was having system probs - so she logged. And then there was me. And all sorts of newbies started showing up. Terror! Must. Fight. Shyness. So, I chat with them, find some that want to go to Help Island (HI) and IM Hermia Linden, who kai said was the one on duty. Nothing. She is apparently afk. And then I have more newbies showing up. And I start to get a bit panicky. But just the night before, Tateru had said that mentors shouldn't be afraid to ask for help. So I go on the mentor channel.
Half of them don't realize the sign isn't working (why wasn't everyone told on login? This would make sense to me). Some of them want to know why I don't just have the newbies walk over to Help Island. Others suggest IMing Hermia.
Not useful.
Hermia eventually comes back (she had informed people she was going, she said), I calm down, and the few newbs still around get whisked away. Six hours later, I'm still on Orientation Island. Kai has returned. We've been joined by Mera, and then Mitchell, for a while. Help Island briefly crashed. All sorts of fun has ensued. But it's six hours later and Kai and I are still there with no real offers to replace us. So I go on the mentor channel again. Um. I'm done. Someone else, please? One person voluneers. I'm told there are over 700 mentors and only one can find time to help here, when if no one helps, newbies don't get to help island at all? It's a Saturday, so most of us aren't working (some are, and I understand that, but still). Sure, some folks need to help on the actual help island. But.
Gripe gripe gripe. Okay, I'm done griping. For now. But watch out. And I'm taking the rest of the day off.
I was wandering around SL, noting how pretty everything seemed to look this evening. I think it's because I turned bump and cloth mapping on. Because I definitely don't remember the cuffs of my pants flapping when I flew before. Or maybe that was just an alpha goofiness? I'm still not sure, even though I spent some time flying around looking at my own ankles (which tells you something about the kind of person I am... although I'm not sure what). So being the inquisitive sort, I thought, "Well, I'll turn it off and see what happens." What, apparently, happens is that the whole damn grid goes offline! GAH.
So now I can't get back online. And it's making me cranky. Of course, cranky and amused at my own crankiness seem to be pretty much my default states so... it's not that big a deal. I can write stuff here. I can check to see if Dolmere's stream is running. I can finally do an Norton AntiVirus scan that I've been putting off because it slows down the client. I have finished my taxes except for actually filing them (tomorrow, after I open an IRA at the bank), but I can work on my resume. Which I'm using html with embedded css for, because I'm applying for the kinds of jobs where that'll be impressive. Or I intend to, anyhow. If you're hiring in the Boston area, IM me (provided the grid comes back... please, come back!?), and maybe I can network my way into a new job. Because boy, oh boy, was I tempted to install SL at work this afternoon to ward off going blind with mind-numbing boredom.
I could also work on the css for this page. Which I did a bit of work with while on the job - but I haven't uploaded so don't bother trying to refresh the page.
Some experimentation yesterday and this morning has proven that, yes, Mera's correct. My trees slow down my frame rate. But I looove my trees. So. Well. I can deal. Or I could upgrade the graphics card. Actually... I'm not sure I can in the laptop. :( Laptops are so evil to upgrade. I know I'm out of slots for additional RAM. Anyway, up in my sky box the frame rate soars.
Ugh. Just realized I now have to wait for the stupid AntiVirus software to finish the stupid scan before restarting SL. Well, I could pause it and check on the grid... maybe I will. If it's not up, I'll kill some more time writing another blog entry. Maybe I'll bitch and moan about having to work both Good Friday and Marathon Monday (aka Patriot's Day... but I work right on the Boston Marathon route). Won't that be something to look forward to? I know you can hardly wait.
Or on paper anyway. Or on the screen. You knew what I meant! Jeez. I'm thinking I actually rather like the Vicksburg default template in blue, now that I've changed the font. Or I like the colours anyway. I'll change the actual layout and probably swap what colour is used where - I like the darker blues, surprise sur-freakin'-prise. And I took some pictures of the lake to put up here. Tried using the higher rez camera - whoa. Careful there, pilgrim! Talk about lag city. The whole client just froze as my overworked laptop ate the monstrous bitmap.
Even PSP was having a hard time juggling bmp when I tried to edit it. To the point where I couldn't have more than two images open at once. Of course, I was also simultaneously running FireFox, ThunderBird, and SecondLife. You think that may have had something to do with the problem? Nah.
So not really realizing the above, when I first took the shots, I tried to open 8 or 9 in PSP. At once. This is my standard practice: take a bunch of shots; open them all at once; close the ones that suck; deal with the ones that are left. So the laptop was Unamused. To say the least. "Hi. This is your computer. Hate." I rebooted somewhat voluntarily. Which means I saved the couple of text files I had open. I forgot about that. Heh. I was starting my mods of the css.
If I'd ever found a use for all the Building Shelter photos I took, I would probably have played around with the style of that layout too. But I didn't, so my innate laziness dictated that I just leave it alone as is. What? It's still functional, after all, if a bit... unappealing.
So, other changes to the layout here... I already have the background graphic I'm going to use, I just need to get my butt in gear to pull apart the CSS template. My other blog's template has been messed around so much that it's not a good starting point anymore. Plus, I think that was a different version of Movable Type. Gotta keep with the times.
Akela mentioned at the Shelter the other day (yesterday? day before? no idea) that he has a job blogging about Second Life. I carefully bookmarked the page, but apparently in my browser and not at del.icio.us. I'm going to have to set up a Second Life listing of links there (I have one, but it's a mess of junk that I haven't really waded through recently). Anyway, I thought, how cool is that to get paid to blog. But I don't know if I'd want to be restricted to blogging about Second Life only because... look at this post. It's mostly about CSS and how the high res photos are huge (why this came as a surprise, I'm not sure). And I'm sure I wouldn't want to be paid to be "the voice of the SL community" or whatever. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.
I just remembered why else my laptop hated having those images open - I forgot to readjust my preferences settings back until the next morning. I had my draw distance raised, tree resolution turned up and shadows on and all sorts of other resource-hogging stuff going on. Sometimes I fail to notice the obvious reasons behind a system crash. :P
My forest, by the by, looks kickass with the draw distance turned up. :) Joy. Now all I need is the laptop that ate Manhattan, and it'll be all peaches and cream. Or something.
Tasman was mentioning that her fps consistently sucked in Isabel (I should put a SLURL there, but... use the damn map, ya git!). And there'd been a discussion about the fact that frame rate is determined on the client side (per Travis - I don't know from packets), and it should be consistent across sims. Well, mine is usually around 14-15 in Isabel. I left the stats panel open, which I rarely do because the thing is frigging huge and not adjustable. So when I logged in this morning my fps was 9ish. On Castaneae. Then I went to check out the upcoming community fair location in Dreams. And it soared up to nearly 20! ...um. What?! I don't get it - there was a ton more objects to render there (although my place has a lot of trees, and water... maybe the water makes the diff?). Plus my home sweet home should still probably be partially cached, right? So why the problem? Very odd. Warrants some further investigation.
So now that I've killed another hour or so of the workday... maybe I ought to get my butt in gear and actually work?
For they will make you look like a goomba. I'm now an official volunteer Mentor. ;) Huzzah! And I don't even need to wear a hairnet for this job!
Okay, I'm working on the style sheet for the blog whilst at work. :) Font has been changed to Courier because it makes me laugh.
Font has been changed again (later same night) because Courier looked like crap on my home computer. It's still an option, though.
Will work on the colour and layout later.
Can I whinge some more about how much I hate taxes? There may be one or two people who aren't sure how I feel! :P Well mine are almost complete (yeah, like I haven't been saying that for a week and a half!). I just have a couple more deductions to round up. Thanks to a loss (um, yay?) on the business taxes, I may not be paying out this year. Or at least not that much. Which means... more cash for land! Hoorah!
I stayed up too late last night, listening to the music Dolmere was streaming over Nicecast. I have serious stream envy, although why, I'm not sure, since if I want to hear my music, well... iTunes is right there, just a click away. Use it, you moron. I think part of the appeal is not having to DJ for yourself - you get to hear what other people listen to, which is infinitely more interesting because it's unpredictable. :)
I was doing my taxes while listening. Well, kinda. Back and forth. I don't want to miss anything interesting in the SL window, after all! I don't understand how people can keep their sound muted - the typing noise is my social cue that someone's talking to/at/near me.
Is it a bad thing that Travis thinks I have too much land? Heh. Oops. Apparently I'm in the same tier as the frigging Shelter. Ack! I am desperate to do something useful with my land instead of just hoarding it. Although, honestly, that's what I'm doing. Hoarding the land surrounding my lake. My lake is the important part to me really. And my nice snow land. I have enough tier to buy the land adjacent to the snow land, but I don't really want it, so I just ogle it occasionally.
I had hoped that Mera's building project (on some of my land) would inspire me to find some purpose... but that's kind of stalled, I suspect. She became a mentor and instructor yesterday. I'm a bit annoyed that I haven't heard about my mentor application, although really, Mera was probably an easy decision, practically a shoo-in. She is completely cut out to do that kind of stuff. And she's been vocal about wanting it forever. Almost since she started, I think. Definitely by week two. :) I've never seen anyone take to SL so quickly!
I wish I had more time. There are so many interesting things that I just don't have enough time to do or try or learn about. I redesigned my dance floor, after a lag-reducing tip from Travis. Took a while to get it right, but it means no timer calls. :) But it just highlights the fact that I need to learn more about coding.
I still owe MeiLin a rotating weather vane. Since I accidentally deleted the script in the one I'd mocked up, I got a bit frustrated with that project. :P And Dol's due for another installment of t-shirt pix. This time I will remember to beef up my graphics card settings before taking the shots - the one Tao Takishi took of Mera looked so clear!
And I need to get my shit together on selling some of the inner tubes (or selling something, anyway!). Maybe my dance floor, once I have redone the floor texture and built better lights. Come to think of it... there's no reason it all couldn't be made into one linked object and sold.
I wouldn't mind learning how to use Poser or Avimator. Some better (or even just different!) dances would be nice. There are some nice stands with animations, but most of them, after a couple repetitions, make it look like the avatar in question needs to use the loo. So I'd like to learn how to slow that sort of shit down - or else reduce the number of movements in one loop. The ao I have has 5 potential stands (I think this is the normal number that gets rotated through?), and if they even just had a couple of minor movements to break up the tedium, that'd be good. And an improvement over the standard (because the standard is soooo passe, doncha know).
I need to finish the overhaul of the style sheet for this blog, too! Yes, I hand-write css (and HTML), I'm full of completely "useful" skills like that. And I need some sort of header graphic. I have some ideas, but the last time I went to work on them, PSP crashed Windoze. Which actually doesn't happen to me that often (praise whatever diety seems appropriate).
There's another thing I'd like to learn more about in my copious free time: PSP. I've used it for years, and I know there's been a ton of really great features added in the last... oh, 7 (!) versions that I'm just not familiar with - or at least not familiar enough to use them and get the results you'd expect. :)
I'd like to learn how to add RSS feeds to my webpage. Hell, I'd like enough time to read all the RSS feeds that look interesting!
And it'd be nice if I actually referenced this thing in my Profile, huh? :P
I'm reading Richard Bartle's massive tome, "Designing Virtual Worlds". It's interesting reading, but... okay, it's not a page-turner! I need a nice springy afternoon to sit around with the windows open and just read for a few hours.
Okay okay. Enough whining about how there's not enough time for everything interesting, I should just be happy that there's so many intriguing things out there! If only I didn't have to work for a living! ;)
So last night, I finally broke down and tiered up to buy the land across the sim boundary from mine. This moves SL from the realm of 'hobby' into 'completely batshit addiction.' Yep, just call me Baroness Coal!
It started when I tiered up and purchased the oldest of my parcels. I bought it with the money from the sale of my First Land (did pretty well there, if I do say so myself, which I just did). The appeal of the new parcel was mostly the terrain water. I think it just operates better than prim water (and doesn't drive your prim numbers up). It reflects the sky and has the nifty-keen-o ripple effect thing going on (if you have that turned on in your preferences). The whole reason I bought land on SL was because I found it very relaxing to flake out in an inner tube and just spend time spinning.
I could see on the map hints that the water level in that area was near the surface of the regular land. In fact, I think the land was terraformed to the maximum height to try and disguise this (why, I have no clue). It was right on the sim edge, and the land in the neighbouring sim was considerably lower, so the water stuck out along the border. I bought it and I dug out my lake.
Then the adjacent lot came up for sale. It too appeared to be terraformed to hide the water level - but what if someone figured out my tactic and bought that land and sank it? My lake would become our lake! *gasp* No! I don't wanna share! It's my sandbox, dammit! So what else could I do? I bought it. And the next little bit that came for sale, even though it meant I had to tier up. Then the bit uphill from me, because my house was at the edge of the property line, and I didn't want the feeling of anyone hovering right there (this was before I built my skybox).
And then one day I teleported back to my land to find neighbours hanging out at my lake. You don't mind do you? Um. See above, re: sandbox. But I'm Canadian; we're indoctrined to not be good at telling people off. So I told them it was fine, but that I had to hang out for some reason. So I sat there like a stubborn lump and they continued what appeared to be a discussion of a fairly intimite nature, but eventually moved on. The second they did, I put up restrictions on my land to keep out uninivted guests. About two weeks later their land was on the market. I really didn't like having the restrictions, because I couldn't just spontaneously say to friends, "Hey, wanna see my lake?" - they got messages saying they weren't allowed in. But I also didn't like the thought of someday logging in to find someone doing the horizontal mambo on my front porch. What could I do? I had to buy the land! :D
With that purchase, I tiered up again (!!) and effectively owned a corner of the sim (less one piece right at the corner). That poor guy - all hemmed in by my trees. He was the first of my neighbours that I met, and it was more an across-the-back-fence kind of meeting, and not a 'scuse-me-whilst-I-kick-back-in-your-favourite-chair-and-discuss-my-sex-life thing. When he saw that I now owned on two sides of him, he was concerned about what I was intending, but I told him I just wanted a nice foresty area, and he seemed relieved by that. And so I showed him how to terraform down for his own little lake. :D I'm such a good neighbour.
A large portion of the sim is owned by one group, and they border me on one side. I met one of their main folks (the only one I've met so far) when I found several hundred prims-worth of object midair over my land. Looked like a furry avatar, curled up to sleep in the clouds. Took forever to find it (I finally listened to Mera's brilliant idea to use a jetpack to search). I IM'd the owner before returning it and it was the neighbour. He was as puzzled as I was but thanked me. A few weeks later, he asked me to move my skybox as it was pretty near theirs (I had moved mine up another 100m to 400, which is how high you need to be to not show up on the pretty web-map, and hadn't really grokked how close it was). :) I'm a nice person so I moved it, not only higher, but also to another one of my parcels that was further away.
But I still spend most of my time at the lake part of the property, and it faced... a wall. I put the wall up because the folks on the other side of the Great Sim Divide had houses. Right there, a meter or so from the lot line. Backing right onto my lake, pretty much. Yuck. Fortunately, these were rental houses that didn't do very well so I never actually saw anyone over there.
Then the one on the right went on the market. If I bought, I would have to tier up again. What to do, what to do? Well, duh. But it sold to someone else while I was hemming and hawing and gnashing my teeth (actually mostly just kvetching to friends at the unfairness of it all... although none of them were at all sympathetic since I own more land than I could ever use, and more than most of them). Then one night, as I watched, the lot to the left changed hands too - to the same guy (it went on and off the market in nothing flat). The former owner of that part of the sim appeared to be parceling off his lands and selling them. I had a bit more tier left before I would be bumped up, but not enough to buy the remaining bit. And it only over ran adjacent to my land for a few meters. But still...
So I approached the guy who was selling. He was amenable to divvying it up - leaving me with the less-marketable plot further from the road (but right in the corner of the sim). Yay! Terraformed, covered with trees, and I was able to raise the ground up to hide the goofy spot where the water stuck out. On that little stretch where my plots met anyway. And the trees nearly (almost) hid the giant spinning "For Sale" sign. So classy.
To make a long story even more long and involved (and no doubt boring, but I can talk land for days), the new owner of the land that abutted mine wanted to buy up 4,144m of Anshe land that was closer to the road. But he was maxed out. So he agreed to sell me 3200 and change for a decent rate, provided I would let him borrow some of my tier allowance to nab the Anshe land during the transaction. Which of course I did!
Now I've got this massive plot all terraformed and treed (I love the "revert" option on the edit land tool, which puts the land back the way god... er, the Lindens intended). What the hell am I thinking? I'm spending a chunk of change to acquire and maintain real estate on a server somewhere in California (I think), and for what? I don't have retail space on it. I did throw Henrietta's birthday party at my skybox (and made my first attempt at a dance floor), which was insanely fun.
Mera has approached me about using some of my land (either existing or something purpose-bought) for a larger building project. Apparently work on the Isabel infohub has just whetted her appetite. We had tossed around the idea of apartments, but we keep starting these conversations at 11pm-ish, and I'm usually winding down, just trying to get up the gumption to log out and go to bed. Hopefully we can get our heads together over the weekend. I wouldn't mind working on something urban - the run-down factory/loft-esque look kind of appeals. But it doesn't go with my land at all. No sir, not one bit. Maybe we can do it as a skybox? Some of them, you'd never know you weren't on the "ground".
Otherwise, maybe I need to hook up an mp3 stream, and open a club - my skybox party was a lot of fun. Henrietta took me by the Kaos Lounge the other day - what a neat place. There's a "universe room" that you can wander into (but leaving you really need to teleport... it's hard to find the exit). It makes you feel like you're floating among the stars. And it had a water slide down to the ground level. How cool is that? Answer: very. Granted, we couldn't make the slide work, but it's a fun concept anyhow.
It's not so much that I want to make money off the land - I don't really expect to. I'm looking at this the same way I look at money spent in the slots or at the roulette table in Vegas. An investment in entertainment. You don't play with the expectation that you'll win. Likewise, I'm not out to supplement my income with rents from SL. I would, however, like to get some use out of the land. It feels idiotic with me just wandering around. Maybe I should ask Mera to help set up some houses and then rent them. The houses built by Thili Playfair are fantastic (in every sense of the word). Something like them would fit my ideas for the land.
Or maybe I'll just sit by the lake some more. ;)
