I got several messages from different visitors to my store in Triangulum that someone had rezzed huge, ugly vehicles on my land, making it almost impossible to see what I was selling. Nice, it had been some time, after the double-decker stuck in my wall last month. Well, Mr or Mrs Griefer, I hope you had fun getting all that crapload of things back into your inventory, because I sure didn’t feel bad about returning it all. Besides, thanks to you, my customers now only have one minute to rez the boxes they buy at my store and get what’s out of them – or they have to go to their own land to do so. Granted, not many of my products are delivered in boxes, but still. It sucks a tiny little bit. By the way, your vehicles were really ugly. You could at least have textured them, for grid’s sake.

All in all, that was pretty weird, because I’ve always considered myself too insignificant a resident to be worth a griefer’s time. I don’t know why, I’ve always had this feeling that only people with “something worthy” (a well-known club or store) did attract this kind of attention – not the others. Maybe I’m just mistaken.

Eh, well. Things are back in order now, and my thanks go to the residents who kindly IMed me to let me know about it all. I couldn’t log in for long this morning, but if I hadn’t known, I probably wouldn’t have checked my second store today and noticed the damage by myself.

griefing | second life

I sure hope she likes it.

There’s still much to do regarding the water (movement, steam…) and the pose balls (because people can’t click and sit on them if I put them underwater… right, they can’t?), but all in all, in spite of these few months of absence, I haven’t lost too much of the knack for using the tools. I also can’t wait to try the flex options, not because it’s the hype, but simply due to the fact I haven’t dabbled in that new area yet. New for me, that is. I’m pretty confident this wasn’t implemented in January yet.

But enough words—hereunder is a preview of the alpha version of my little open hot spring bath.

building |pictures |rotenburo | second life

I’m going back to college in September, which has meant so far mucho paperwork, lookage for a room to rent (possibly NOT expensive, hehe), trying to get a State grant (but I’m too oooold), and other various things. I’ve also been trying other games, but not that much, I promise, and I still check in SL, even if not as regularly as I should. Really, I know I’d better get my shiny bottom into gear and finish the projects I was working on!

My two stores are still open, of course. Being away doesn’t prevent me from doing that.

On a sad note, though, a HDD crash left me without my source files for almost all my clothing, so I can only hope there’ll be no corruption of files server-wide, or another similar type of bug, because I haven’t retrieved everything from game yet, and if it happens… I won’t be able to replace the textures. sighsighsigh That’ll teach me to not use a hard disk as storage space, heh.

second life | update |

The first floor is, so to say, the “shopping area”: postcards, Maori artwork and costumes, books, and even a small stage—on which Luthien Unsung performed a traditional dance just for us when we were there yesterday. It’s already pretty interesting in my opinion, although the best is to come.

Up to the second floor I go. First, the Pavillion is beautifully done, that’s the least I can say. Lots of pictures of birds, fishes, NZ currencies and stamps, as well as a slideshow with landscape photographies. Second, it’s also very instructive: with all these pictures, come notecards telling the visitor a little more about what he’s currently looking at. Historical information disputes it to samples of birds’ cries.

The third floor is a reproduction of a meeting house, and of the “Marae”, the sacred courtyard in front of said meeting house. In there are displayed traditional Maori weaponry, pictures and statues. A few panels on the wall marked “Pakiwaitara” also hand out notecards that tell the story of the world’s creation, and more.

One post in one blog wouldn’t be enough to tell of all the wonders shown in this exhibition, so I’ll once again urge you, reader, to go have a look by yourself. It’ll be worth it, and a good use of your time.

new zealand | pictures | second life

All by chance, alright: he bumped into me near Blackmore Castle, as I was nodding off, half-AFK. We then visited his little place above Varney’s mountain—both very easy to see and well hidden, a peaceful garden of sorts with lots of trees and beautiful scenery around.

Then we descended into my store, which prims are off-alignment and as such are a curiosity laughs

Idle chit-chat after working on all the catalogs, hair and stuff is really a pleasant thing

second life

Hair—No kidding, I had never attempted at making hair with prims before. I didn’t go full-blown prims (although I tried, before deciding against it), I used a normal base as well. I find the result to be, well, not bad at all (meaning I’m wearing it in world right now to test it, and I don’t look stupid, haha). No doubt I’ll peruse this road again and more often in the future. After all, I make traditional Japanese clothing, shouldn’t I make traditional haircuts as well?

The Aozora catalog! (Or catalogue… whatever spelling fits your fancy, since Mr. Webster told me both are okay anyway.)—I discovered the THiNC Book system, combined with the printing press, which has been around for some time, just not under my nose during my extended break. I can say I’ve had much, much fun preparing the textures to upload, and now I’m pretty proud of my little catalog. It’s free, of course. I wouldn’t make my customers or potential customers pay for a catalog, heh.

On the other hand, I’m considering making a book someday—not a novel, something more along the lines of a book about clothing, with historical examples, etc. It could be interesting.

catalog | hair | second life

building | serenite | pictures | screenshots | second life

Clothes in SL tend to be of better visual quality than clothes in RL.

Seriously, in our daily lives, how many times do we see clothes with seams that match perfectly, and other similar little details? Clothes manufacturers just never bother about that (or if they do, it’s for the kind of very expensive, high-quality outfits that I can’t afford, and have even never seen from close-up anyway). On the other hand, in SL, it looks to me like every somewhat-serious designer makes the effort of at least doing their best to match seams and textures—not to mention skins, in which case it’s a necessity for the templates’ borders to not be noticeable at all. Perhaps this is because we can never get the exact look ‘n feel of certain types of real clothes, and we try to compensate for this flaw in a different way?

Of course, this doesn’t mean that I won’t care anymore and start crapping out clothes by just slapping some texture over the whole thing and not worrying about seams. It’s just another of my usual musings.

clothing | second life

Anyway, the Tana can now walk in a sexy way all the time. Even in heavy boots. Even if wearing fluffy slippers in the shape of a duck. Not that I have any. Should I ever sell my soul and get some slippers, I’d rather go for the Cthulhu-shaped ones.

No, I’m not drunk. Just glad that I can finally look at my avatar moving and not think “eek, looks dumb”.

avatar | second life