I Have Something in My Eye!

Written 27 July, 2007

I Have Something In My Eye!

While taking a close up while wearing my RAC brown eyes, I was able to really see the reflection in the pupil (Iris? Not good with eye anatomy). I had had no idea it was there!

See if you can see it! (Click on the photo for a closer view).

Learning New Stuff

Extreme close-up

 This is What Classes in Second Life Look Like

Written 15 July, 2007

Learning New Stuff

Sweetie and I have learned a lot of new things lately.

It started when we went to Linden Village. Sweetie picked up a bunch of back issues of the Second Opinion newsletter, which features article by Torley Linden-- the same Torley of the textures fame.

Sweetie discovered that Torley has a dozen or so short video tutorials, and came home with the URL. We sat cuddled up at the House of 1000 Pleasures and laughed our way through them. Torley is very funny.

We learned need stuff we should have known by then but didn't. We didn't know, for instance, that holding the space key down will stop a fall; in fact, it makes the av move very slowly in any direction. Way handy not only for breaking a fall, but for moving without overshooting your target. Great for moving next to a friend.

Simple, huh? But we didn't know it.

We learned that CTRL-0 will zoom your camera in to levels not possible by moving the mouse. Take a look at a closeup I took of myself. If you click no the snapshot you can see taht there are two people caught in the reflection in my eyes.

CTRL-8 will back you out, and-- this is really important-- CTRL-9 will reset your view. If you zoom in or out with CTRL-8 and CTRL-0, you'll be stuck there until you relog or hit CTRL_9.

The next trick will apparently be disabled when WindLight finally becomes available, so enjoy it while you can.

Take a look at the top of your screen. If you don't see Client and Server menus, hit CTRL-ALT-D; that key combinatin togges them on and off.

Then go to CLIENT>WORLD>Mouse Moves Sun You will turnon that feature until you turn it off or relog.

As Torley points out, it's really Mouse Mode moves sum.

Close your chat window and nit m to go into Mouselook. Now when you move your view, you'll see the sun goes with you. You can make it night, sunset, sunrise, midday, with the sun positioned in any direction you please. Way cool.

We were so happy we decided to teach a class. I set it up on Events and we were off and running. 25 avs showed up.

Cillian's Mystitool

Written 15 July, 2007

Cillian's Mystitool

Sweetie and I take great delight in telling people about Mystical Cookie's great gadget, the Mystitool. We love ours and have come to rely on them; in fact, we feel a bit naked without them.

Here's a shot of Sweetie and I with our Italian friend Cillian Dyressen; we're showing him how to use the Find Avatar function.

The Real World Grows Distant

Written 9 July, 2007

The Real World Grows Distant


In the eight months since I came to Second Life, my relationships with people in the real world have changed profoundly.

I’ve pretty much lost my best friend because of the time I spend on the grid. I remain close to my other best friend, but she doesn’t call me as often because she knows I’m likely to be on the grid.

When I have lunch with acquaintances, I talk about what I always talked about, but they don’t quite hear me because they know I’m probably talking about something that happened on the grid.

“I went to an art show yesterday, photographs taken by my friend Kat Kurda. They were stunning. I bought three.

“My Sweetie was acting as hostess, greeting everyone and handing out cards and being bubbly and charming. She was brilliant!

“Kat’s show was on the top floor of a Star Trek museum, and a lot of trekkies dropped by.”

I don’t tell them there was a Tribble loose in the room and it was trying to mate with my leg. Or that I crashed twice while diddling with the Client menu, trying to take arty photos.

But I do tell them a couple of the visitors irritated me with their MENSA-like pretensions and I couldn’t resist ribbing them gently—well, maybe not THAT gently, for Kat asked me not to argue with the Trekkies.

I tell them Sweetie and I went sailing and watched movies while Skyping. I tell them about shopping and about flying around in my blimpiquito (about which I will soon blog). I tell them I had to kick a gay German escort off my property because he was a rude boy. I tell them I love to stand on the observation platforms at Pele and listen to the ocean and watch the sun set.

None of it registers.

It’s not real to them because they’re not on the grid.

So after a while I stop talking to them about Second Life. And the conversation quickly runs down because I find I don’t have a lot of other things to say.

I’m a brilliant conversationalist, but the conversation suffers because I can’t really share my life with them, because it sails right over their heads.

And quite frankly, sometimes I would rather be on the grid than on the phone or at lunch with them—especially when they call while a film is screening or Sweetie and I are being intimate or sublimely silly.

I’ve always been a patient person, but lately I find myself irritated at things that waste my time—phone calls from people one talks to because one is too polite not too (I think everyone has a couple of phone pests), holding for the automated help systems of big corporations, attending meetings that don’t seem as important as they once did, and phone calls from strangers who want things I’m not obligated to provide for them. I even let e-mail sit for a day or two before I respond to it.

I was happy to cut loose my phone pests, and a headset has helped with being put on hold. And I’m rearranging my obligations to the not-for-profits with which I work to minimize the time I spend in both telephone and in-person meetings.

Call me addicted. Maybe I am. But I’m merely pleasing myself in ways I never dared to before. I just no longer have the patience and the time for time-wasting people and events.

If that’s bad, it’s bad, but people in the real world are going to have to deal with it. I would rather spend the time with my Sweetie and my friends.

On Saturday, my city held a cookout on the beach near my home. It was a two-minute walk, the evening was pleasant, and there were lots of my neighbors, most of whom I like. But after a hamburger and a hot dog and brief conversations with people I’ve not seen for a while, the air conditioning in my house and my monitor were calling me. I said goodbye rather than wait around for the concert which was to follow.

Before, I would have stayed and listened to the concert—but only because there was nothing better to do. But I said my goodbyes and walked home and logged onto the grid.

I’m sure it was a good concert, but I have 23,000 songs on iTunes and my Sweetie (who blew off her own event) was at Pele, awaiting my return.

There was no contest.

Here's a photo of my friend Boofhead Oh riding on my dragon av.

One Hell of a Fourth of July!

Written 5 July, 2007

One Hell of a Fourth of July!

Yesterday was Independence Day in the United States, and I have to say it was the best Fourth of July I’ve ever had.

Sweetie and I started the day with our friend Peter, talking about dressing up as American Indians and restaging the Boston Tea Party—this because I happened to have picked up a free tea crate the day before.

We didn’t actually have a Boston Tea Party, but I went so far as to pick up a beautiful headdress (and some beautiful Navajo rugs) when we visited Red Rock Mesa.

It was a nice place and we had a good time until we blundered onto someone’s goddamned security system, which transported us all to our respective homes. I’ll be going back there and sending the owners a note to give them a piece of my mind about the seeings on their damned device.

But that was the only dark spot in a glorious day.

Sweetie, busy with the search engine, was looking for fireworks shows. She took us to xxx, where we found a team busily setting up a show for 5:00 pm Linden Time. We wandered about the National Mall, where various displays gave nonpartisan information on various legisltation before Congress. Television screens featuring vintage black-and-white videos from the time of Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower’s presidencies provided charming counterpoint to the web links to the legislation.

We made a note to ourselves to come back, then went exploring, minus Peter, who had to go to the ral world.

Sweetie found a notice about a regatta, and teleported us to an area of 43 interrconnected water sims. I rezzed a free boat and we sailed from sim to sim (and my attachments all stayed connected!). In an hour or more on the water, we saw beautiful island and pristine beaches, a conservatory which featured a mangrove swamp, and many marinas and harbors. Dozens of buoys helped us in our course.

Afterward, we teleported to the place where the Flying Tako is sold, and I bought a sailboat for each of us. By mistake, actually, by clicking too fast on what I thought were free goods, but it was a happy mistake, for I have the feeling we’ll spend many pleasurable hours on the water in them.

Then we watched a fireworks show at what turned out to be Hillary Clinton’s headquarters. (I couldn’t restrain myself when we passed a microphone on the podium and I grabbed it and said, “I would like to thank you all for coming out tonight for the fireworks show. Please remember to vote for Hillary, and make a donation if you can. Enjoy the chicken.”

Then we embarked on a tour of Second Life political headquarters—notably, Barack O’Bama and John Edwards’ plots.

From there, Sweetie teleported us to the Swedish Embassy, which was charminly designed and filled with newbies, several of whom rather rudely asked us who were were.

Sweetie answered straightforwardly, but I said, “We’re from another planet. We come in peace,” and then “Klaatu, barada nikto. That means, Klaatu, don’t blow up the planet.”

I guess the Swedish don’t have much of a sense of humor.

Several newbies asked us for assistance, and I gave them boxes of Pele freebies, which include flight assist, a dance bracelet, a notecard with landmarks to interesting places, and assorted other goodies. I was dropping outfits that don’t particularly like on one very short woman when she began ragging on an avatar who had just walked in, saying her hair was a mess.

The newcomer actually had a beautiful flexi hairdo and a nice skin. Her AO was a bit slutty, but she was otherwise very well put together, and I said so. I told her she should have better manners than to make unwanted comment about others’ appearance.

She stubbornly persisted in her criticisms, so I told her I was glad she had come to a place where there was a slim chance she would learn diplomacy—and then Sweetie and I went off to explore the embassy.

In retrospect, I wish I had orbited her sorry ass.

-----

Eight o’clock found us sitting on the a blanket at the mall with a bunch of our friends, who Sweetie had teleported in. I’m glad she did, for otherwise there would have been no audience for what turned out to be a spectacular display of fireworks.

We oh’d and ah’d and Sweetie and I busily clicked on the rockets and sparkle cones that kept getting set out. In the background one of our acquaintances spent all his time trying to explain to his furry girlfriend how to look at the fireworks.

After she show, most of those present teleported to the Dragon Skybar, where we danced and talked. One of my old friends came by too, with a woman whose profile read that she expected to be paid for her time in the company of gentlemen. A new friend from Caledon, Gloriana, was a lot of fun as she got on Sweetie’s dance pole in all of her Victorian finery (Sweetie and I promptly switched to slutty clothes for our table dances).

Afterward we all teleported down to Pele, where we showed off the volcano and rode the little train (which has been having all sorts of fun little catastrophes lately. Then we jumped in the well for a good 15 minutes, laughing all the while, then rode my little merry-go-round. We ended the evening with a drum-fest and a trip up to Boofhead Oh’s art studio, where I proceeded to burn a UPS truck and Sweetie proceeded to pull out her alternate avatars.

Our friend all seen safely off the sim, Sweetie and I retired to our House of 1000 Pleasures, where we engaged in another form of festivity.

It was a glorious, a most glorious, an absolutely glorious Fourth of July!

Dragon Society

Written 26 June, 2007

Dragon Society

I’m unalterably opposed to elitism.

It’s just the way I am.

It’s why I never grew up to become a Republican. It’s why I would probably take to the streets with an AK-47 if someone yelled “Revolution” and fight for liberty, fraternity, equality.

That’s why, in a world where electrons are without limit, the contrived scarcity of virtual resources offends me.

I mean, copy it once, copy it a millions times, what’s the difference?

The first time I saw expensive “limited edition” jewelry, I laughed my ass off. Ditto limited edition dresses.

You think people actually fall for that bull?

Maybe they do, for there are an awful lot of people in SL living yuppie lifestyles. They live in McMansions when they could have a forested paradise, or a spaceship, or Bilbo Baggins’ hobbit house, or a pink sphere. They might buy limited edition electrons and think they are special.

The jewelry and clothing didn’t bother me, particularly, for there was other jewelry, other clothes.

The contrived scarcity of adult dragons, on the other hand, did.

I’ll be the first to say I have no idea why the manufacturer(s) at the Isle of Wyrms limit sales of adult dragons to twice a year and require one to register for a chance at an adult, and I understand and respect their right to sell to whom and when and how they wish.

But it just gets my bullshit detector running a mile a minute.

Ten miles a minute.

Twenty miles a minute.

I mean, the sales seem structured both to inject an air of mystery into dragon society and to make one feel grateful to have the chance to shell out $3500.

I reserve my opinion about dragon society in Second Life. Why? Because I know nothing of it. I’m happy and eager to find out what it’s all about. I have hopes that it’s wonderful and that the people who play dragons are wonderful.

But right now, because of what I perceive to be elitism, and because I’ve been less than impressed with the dragons (my dragon friend excepted) I’ve met to date in Second Life, I’m also skeptical.

And I must admit I’m a bit resentful because of the hoops I had to jump through to get my adult dragon. I’ll have to work to give dragon society a fair shake.

My dragon friend doesn’t feel the same way about the lottery; it’s a subject on which we have agreed to disagree. We’re able to do that.

Watch out, dragon society, here I come!

Why a Dragon?

Written 26 June, 2007

Why a Dragon

One of my good friends  has her reasons for being a dragon. We’ll let them remain private.

A moment of silence here as your brain cooks up all kinds of reasons for my friend to be a wyrm.

I suspect a lot of people have powerful psychological reasons for playing dragon avatars. Dragons, after all, symbolize great power, and fierceness, and myth, and destruction, and dangerous beauty.

And of course they are incredible, highly visible, socially acceptable (in most circles) phallic symbols. Face it— an encounter with a dragon is a reenactment of the ultimate rape fantasy!

And all that fantasy artwork with errant knights with swords trying to slay dragons—that’s castration anxiety in action. Mos def.

Yep, dragons are powerful emotional symbols. So no wonder people play them.

And then there's the role play aspect. Dragons are essential components for any sort of Tolkinesque RP scenario.

But for me, being a dragon is not a statement of any kind. It's just, on occasion, fun.

Big Draggies

Our Big Draggies and our Italian Friend Cillian

Written 26 June, 2007

Big Draggies

Perhaps the neatest thing about Second Life is you can be anything or anybody you want.

And you’re not stuck in one guise, either.

If I had to choose one avatar, it would be me, Cheyenne, just as I am—but from time to time I enjoy turning into a tiny bear, a little green robot, an energy being, or a dragon.

As much as I enjoy being a dragon, I’m always relieved to turn back into Cheyenne the young woman.

But it’s fun being for a while someone or something else.

-----

I’d known one of my best friends only a short time when I discovered she was a part-time dragon.

She put on her Luck Dragon avatar just outside her house in Dreamland Asia to show it to me.

I was mightily impressed, for she was my first dragon.

Awhile back, she and I went to the cathedral on the Isle of Wyrms and bought wyrmling dragon avatars—she an aquatic dragon, and me an ice dragon.

Wyrmlings are adolescent dragons, about half the size of adults and far bigger than hatchlings, which are so tiny they sometimes walk around with signs requesting other avatars not to step on them.

The wyrmlings are a good size, quite impressive, and ours are complete with a HUD that allows them to roar and screech, twitch their tails, and customize their colors and textures.

But nice as they are, they’re not adults.

Adult dragon avatars from the Isle of Wyrms are available only twice a year, at the summer and winter solstices, and require pre-registration with a significant ($3500L) refundable deposit. Only 120 or so eggs are sold, so registering doesn’t guarantee you’ll be allowed to actually buy one—but my friend and I registered.

We were both sick at the thought that one of us would get an egg and the other wouldn’t, but as it turned out we both got the chance to purchase an egg, woo hoo!

I originally selected a Fire Dragon, but upon reflection decided to stay with the Ice Dragon. Sweetie chose a Spirit Dragon, which is wingless and looks rather like a cross between a greyhound and a raptor from the Jurassic Park films.

Notifications of winners were sent out by IM on the 23rd at noon Linden time. I never in fact got a notification, but as soon as the lottery ended I put on the little HUD I received when I registered and found I had won. Woo hoo!

For some known-only-to-her reason, Sweetie had abandoned me, going off to show Spider some of her favorite places in Second Life.

As you might imagine, the IoW was crowded, so I idly orbited myself a time or to two until I was able to get there and pay my $3500 and pick up my egg.

Back on Pele, it took me all of two minutes to unpack my egg and become an adult ice dragon. Woo hoo!

My friend was shocked that I had already picked up my dragon, and I’m sure she chewed her nails until she was able to log onto Second Life and see if she, too, had won one.

And of course she had!

I had great fun turning into an ice dragon and flying Boofhead Oh around a little cluster of sims my friend Peter Stindberg had showed me (xxx, they have very inexpensive dragon avatars, only $750, and other nonhuman avs as well).

My adventures as a dragon are just beginning!

nb; look on the Isle of Wyrms for these dragons