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Woot! I get to propose the challenge this Sunday! What should I have folks seek out? I've only done a few of the challenges, but happily Dolmere's been keeping track of what has been done.
My challenge is somewhat related to Jacek's... what has SL brought to your RL? And don't say "a better appreciation for my loving family" because we won't believe you. :D
My response coming later.
You may not have noticed (and definitely won't have if you're reading this in a feed reader or some consolidated blog rolling thingie) but I changed the image over at the left edge of my page. Just to switch things up for a bit. Also added a twitter module on the bottom right, which, no doubt, I'll be as bad at updating as I am this page. In fact, if you look at it tonight, it will tell you I'm currently reading.
Well.
Technically I guess I am, right? I'm reading what I type.
I know, I know, I'm grasping at straws here.
I'm leaping back onto the not-a-meme bandwagon and answering the most recent question...
Do you consider your avatar an extension of yourself, or a character you can control? (question posed by Jacek)
I am Coal, Coal is me. There are some pointed differences (in SL you never have a bad hair day or discover that a mini-marshmallow you accidentally dropped next to the laptop has melted and become one with your favourite pajama pants), but overall, I see Coal as an extension of me. I don't, in fact, have antennae in real life (although I am fortunate enough to have several good friends whose brains I occasionally time-share).
Coal was my name in several other online communities before SL and my nickname within my family since pretty much the day I was born (my cousin couldn't say my real name). I've never really had another nickname that I answered to. Except Coalie, which really doesn't count.
She talks like me and the opinions expressed tend to be those held by the RL person. :D I type like I talk, really. In some ways more eloquently (thank you Mr. Backspace), but over the years my writing has become very stream-of-consciousness. Coal behaves in the ways that I behave in RL - except that I have more patience for shopping in SL (no doubt because everything fits there and you don't get in the dressing room only to discover you've got entirely the wrong size/colour/cut/material/store) and have never line-danced (or wanted to).
Coal wears clothes that in general match my taste (granted, hers can be a little more risque because they don't tend to be affected by things like gravity, laundering, stains, propriety, or making-my-butt-look-fat).
Coal's hairdo changes colours, but is pretty close to mine in the cut (I am always on the lookout for something closer). In fact, I was thinking about cutting my hair (offline, I mean) and tried on a variety of hairdos (in-world) to see what they would look like.
I have a couple of alts. The first one I created to figure out how group stuff worked... and it got kind of fun to play with. So now if I'm bored and see an interesting new last name go by, I create an alt. If you're honest, it costs you a one-time-fee of $10. If you're not honest and say it's your first account, it's free, but frankly... I'd rather buy an alt than go see a movie, so I pay. I was also a Girl Guide when I was a kid. :P
The odd thing is, I've found that the longer I'm logged in as the alt, the more they will start looking like Coal. Or like me. It's kind of creepy. But I feel like a git wandering around all ruthed, and a few stabs at the sliders, and some prim hair later... the avatar starts looking like Coal's overly-made-up sister. Or whatever.
I don't think I consciously chose to make Coal look like me. The evolution has been an ongoing process - she's not there yet, and there are certain things about the RL me I doubt I'll ever incorporate into Coal (and vice-versa) but figuring out how to work the sliders to make her chin look like mine has been fun (for some definition of 'fun').
Um, oops. So I forgot my blog password. *blush* Yup. Firefox has been helpfully filling it in for me, and... somehow the autofiller got scrambled. :P Took me forever to figure out how to go in and fix it - Movable Type's "password hint" that I entered was a hint for me to remember my password (which is what you would think a "password hint" would be), but apparently I was supposed to put down my birthplace, because that's what the password recovery thing asks for and compares to what you put in the "password hint" field. Blah.
Anyway, quick summary of what you missed because I couldn't babble about it here: intended to take a holiday, had to cancel last minute due to family medical stupidity, work, work and more work, bought some stuff at the Ayeshe's Angels yard sale, and the weeks went by in a blur other than that.
I'll be back to posting "normally" (well, normal for me, lately) soon.