I'm not on drugs ... I just love Mondays!! :-) ...

.... and the reason for this apparent madness is simple; Mondays mean (after dealing with the fallout from the weekend at the loonie bin, otherwise known as work!!) I get to spend some quality time with amazing people in SecondLife.

Now ... I appreciate to the casual reader that probably still seems like a very bald statement, very suggestive of the diminished mental capacity associated with the ageing process - LoLoLoL :-)  The truth though is that if you met the people I am talking about you'd be counting the days down each week till the next glorious Monday came along.

The focus of all this joy and wonderment is The Pig & Whistle pub; specifically the pub from 1pm - 3pm SLT each Monday. DJ Mericat Ireland (more famously know as - Meri  LoLoL) brings her special Indie/Alternative music choice to the pub in a two hour flawless DJ set that each week amaze me by remaining fresh and genuinely engaging.

Along with the central whirlwind of wonderful fun and energy that is Meri there are a growing number of regular and very special individuals that make up the kaleidoscope ebb and flow of conversations and laughs that Mondays always are: A few of these unique and talented individuals are; Graz Firecaster, Jellie Arrowmint, Paypabak Writer, Josielo Ceriano, Thomas Thaler (special mention here - Thom IS the light that shines for Meri !! Awwww ... he is a great guy!! ), Almo Unplugged, Serotonin Raymaker, Aston Mindes, Lucifer Bates, August Abrahams, Perl Hesse, Boo Latoe, Geert Parx,Cisa Batista, Cosmic Beres, Deatoris Toll, Dirty Adored, Filthy Adored, Dominic Nico, Duggie Rubble, EdenSky Cortes, MaeBee Tomorrow, Mars Gelber, MattG Blackbart, Piet Lundquist, Annie Anton, Sean Bernheim,  Skytour Sittingbull, Sqidly Toxx  and there are lots more who all deserve to be mentioned but hopefully they will forgive this daft, goofy old Brit Bird for not making the list exhaustive ... Pleassseeee!!!

What really stands out against the predictable, pixel perfect backdrop that SL tends to end up being; is the very 3D, interesting & interested 'Full-On' personalities behind the Avatars that all of the Monday night regulars in our pub are. There are rarely evenings when there aren't 2 or more 'Hot Topics' that fire back and forth across in local chat ... often heated but very, very, rarely out of hand. If you have an opinion you can be pretty certain that once voiced you will be challenged to support it and if there are people who share it they will wade in on your side.

I have perhaps suggested that Mondays are somehow a huge melting pot of rabid debaters .... thats would be the wrong picture to give you. What I am trying to say is there aren't many times when something isn't being talked about and all of the substantial 'News Topic Bites ...' will be layered between plenty of ribald laughter and ... I have to be truthful some very 'Adult' themes and moments!! How much fun is that!! LoLoLoL

The best way undoubtedly to understand Mondays at The Pig & Whistle is to come along and be prepared to enjoy, relax, converse and be pulled into this amazing and totally brilliant band of people I am proud and happy to call my friends!!

Yayayayayay!! It's Monday .... It's Meri .... Time to get dressed and P A R T A Y!!!

Babette announces Marriage!!

... otherwise known as 'Catching Up Part2'

After a hectic weekend celebrating with my best friend Babette (she has just announced she is getting married in Real Life Yayayay!!) I thought I'd try once more to write 'Catching Up Part 2.' ... I suspect there may end up being a Part 3 by the time I finish ... But that's just my style; endless wind bagging and loss of focus :-)

Soooo ... Squinting hard and trying not to be distracted wondering where that great pair of shoes came from that Sue just walked past in (I think she has lunch at 1 ... I can find out then!!) ... What else have I not recorded some thoughts on.

The list is undoubtedly very long but I am claiming a certain immunity from remembering everything due to my age (this excuse works wonderfully well for lots of situations - lmao ) but I have just checked back to the last couple of entries and the outstanding items that I really must talk about are certainly Mericat Ireland & Thomas Thaler's joint Rezz Day celebrations; there is an ad-hoc video I captured trying to just get a quick impression of the wonderful atmsophere - I'll put the link at the bottom when I get back from work. Equally without doubt I have to highlight the 'Mad Hatter's Festival' created, organised and hosted by some truly wonderful and talented friends, chief amongst them being Mars Gelber and Skytour Sittingbull.

I am actually going to start however with a mention about two more changes/additions to OneFinalDarkness since last year ... and the most amazing of them is the new Love's Trinity Ballroom. This wonderful addition to the Sim now stands where we used to have residential rentals which, probably as a result of the generally depressed markets (Real Life & SecondLife) never really took off so has be re-inventoried (is that a word!! -  it is now!!) for another time.

The design and build, as I am sure no-one will be surprised by, was done by Babette. She really found her calling when she came to SecondLife and started experimenting with building and design. Everyone who comes to either perform at the ballroom or visits one of the regular live music events there comments on how lovely it is. If you find Babette and ask her about it she will start in with a list of things she wants to change ... but that's designers for you; never resting, never satisfied!! :-)

Personally I think she deserves our praise and once again if you haven't seen the ballroom then please pop along and have a look (slurl: Love's Trinity Ballroom). Better still keep an eye on the Google calendar, available from the OneFinalDarkness site and come see us during a live music event there ... the atmosphere is superb. Just as a taster you can check out performances by Elvera Lerner and Cranston Yordstorm from the links to videos below.

One more mention concerning Sim business. There is another 'Rezzable' theme from Babette for the Themed Event area of Love's Trinity. This one is absolutely superb .... a full Western theme with Saloon Bar, stage coach, stables, Outside Loo (very funny; I keep getting trapped in it lmao) it even has a church!! Inside the Saloon Bar you will find the piano (playable; check out the animation and the sounds :-) ) and of course a bar and stage area for the dancing girls ... I am assuming that is where I come in and I don't suppose I will get paid for it!! LoLoLoLoL

The new theme will be christened soon probably with a suitable line dance installed for the party and some great tunes from DJ Thanatos796 McCallen and brilliant hosting from Shelly Macchi (both very very dear friends of ours) ... I will be underdressed trying to look decorative somewhere as usual and Babette will be trying to underplay her latest accomplishment - as usual!! :-)

Moving off Sim now and the first stop is Mericat Ireland and Thomas Thaler's joint Rezz day celebrations. Held on the sim at the secret garden area associated with their Indie Music club (slurl: AAI - highly recommended) this was a warm and friendly occasion with, not surprisingly, superb music and a constant flow of friends and acquaintances from the AAI scene rezzing in and out ... returning from RL interruptions at times and generally a huge amount of goodwill and friendly banter going on. Mericat and Thom are definitely top class characters and represent for me a focal point and source of brilliant times and entertainment. Both Babette and I have met so many wonderful friends as a result of that lucky chance where we met up with Mericat and Thomas and they started doing DJ sessions for us at The Pig & Whistle on OneFinalDarkness many many moons ago!

Click this link for the casual video I took at the party ... which hopefully gives you a clue to how wonderfully busy it was. I wouldn't have missed that party for anything and feel privileged to know these wonderful people.

As a final note for this entry I have to reflect on the 'Mad Hatter's Festival'. This 10 hour long music event was organised by Mars Gelber with great support from Skytour Sittingbull and any number of other wonderful people all of whom need to be congratulated and I apologise for not having the full list. The music was presented as a series of sessions by well known DJ's amongst them was Mars herself, Skytour, Mericat, Cosmic, Almo and many more. The music was from many different styles but each DJ did their usual amazing job and truly although I only managed to be there for about 4 hours it was a stunning achievement all round. Again I managed to grab a short video which can only hint at the enormously great time everyone had with a constant flow of visitors in and out this has to be rated as a very successful event which I can only hope they all have the courage to put on again in the future.

As I expected there could be a 'Catching Up Part 3' but I think I can be forgiven for not writing that and I will be trying to be more contemporaneous (love that word!!) from now on ... I might have to invest in one of those really smart TV anchor ladies suits that you see on the TV!! LMAO

Thank you for being here ... and I'll see you in SecondLife soon!! *hugs*

[Link to Elvera Lerner at Love's Trinity Ballroom - still in production]
[Link to Cranston Yordstorm at Love's Trinity Ballroom]

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Broken Nails!! Grrr!!

I really was going to do 'Catch up Part 2' as the next blog ... I really do want to get some words down about the lovely things that have happened recently including the rezz day celebrations for Mericat and Thom and the Mad Hatters Music Festival put on by Mars and lots of truly wonderful friends ... these events deserve their own article and I WILL get there (manic tittering from ditzy blonde echoes round the room).

Soooo ... for now I just wanted to mention that I have been breaking my nails on a video making package from Serif called Movie Plus X3 and the results are now hosted on you tube and linked into the OneFinalDarkness website (which has also been updated and revamped).

I actually wasn't joking about the nails ... (Grrrrr) ... I lost two yesterday when I tried to catch my mouse as it dropped off the workstation; ANOTHER  trip to my local nail salon on the way home.

I am posting this from work so I will add some links tonight when I get back and then start on 'Catch Up Part 2'.

Love you all. See you soon in Second Life.

P.S. As promised the links for the current videos are:

Mericat Rocking The Pig & Whistle
Cranston Yordstorm Live at Love's Trinity Ballroom
Yahshvah Shinja Rocking The Pig & Whistle Live
Chandra Deed Live at The Pig & Whistle
Chandra Deed Debuts at The Pig & Whistle Live

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Catching up .... Part 1

After kicking my lazy self back into action yesterday and in between many, many hectic moments of flying around like some demented PA (which I am NOT despite my managers thoughts on the subject!!). I was thinking about changes, since last years Blog entries (Gods is it really that long since I wrote anything!!), to the OneFinalDarkness & Oceans End Sims and the events that take place there. I was also thinking about some wonderful events that have taken place on other Sims which have been organised and marvellously run by some very good friends of ours; topics for more Blogs ... Yayayay!!

Anyway back to my musings today. I think the first incident that crossed my mind related to the redesign of the beach areas that blend between Oceans End and OneFinalDarkness (I was thinking about this while standing in a queue for Coffee ... not for me ... please don't ask me to explain why I do these things; I must have push-over tatooed on my forehead!).

Some months ago now Babette and I were shopping and generally chatting in IM when she suggested that she thought the beach front areas on the two sims looked rather plain and could do with being re-vamped. This thought was not entirely without some background as she had recently completed a project doing the exact same thing for an aquaintance who was trying to set up a new club. I had seen the truly wonderful difference that Babette's inspiration had bought to the beach area she had transformed at that other sim and couldn't wait to see what she would do with ours. For those of you who regularly visit our sims and have the time to explore I am sure you will join me in thanking her for a brilliant job. If you have yet to visit the Sims then for the beaches alone I would have to say (and yes I know I am biassed LoLoL) it has to be worth it.

Several hours later when I eventaully had 5 minutes to sit down and briefly slip my heels off (why do I wear them for work ... at times I really do wonder!!) I was drawn to think about tonight in pub (The Pig & Whistle) when Cosmic Beres our good friend and latest addition to the DJ's plays his weekly set. I always look forward to Thursdays and Cosmic's choices he is just a little younger than Babette and I and always produces some truly wonderful sets that make great and relaxing listening. In addition to looking forward to Cosmic I mused on the recent dramatic change to the way The Pig & Whistle looks. Once again it started during a shopping trip (I am beginning to realise that I may have to Blog about those as Babette and I do a lot of shopping LoLoL) and Babs said 'I think we need a new image for the pub!' This one was a little trickier for us to settle on but after quite a bit of searching we came up with the new bar and related furniture which set the new theme and which frankly makes a much better use of the space within the pub area. There was quite a lot of work done but I am certain that anyone new arriving would think it had been like that forever because the design is just right ... all the elements mesh together and compliment each other and yet again we have our resident style guru and image director Babette Bellios to thank for the superb new look Pig & Whistle.

On that note I have several more ideas ... but for now I am off to The Pig & Whistle to enjoy Cosmic's set and hopefully see a few regular faces at the same time *S*

Wiping the cobwebs off the Blog ....

Well it has been quite some time since I was inspired to write anything .... So what has changed?

To be truthful nothing fundamental has changed but I was reminded of my woeful lack of Blogging by some wonderful articles written by two very wonderful and interesting friends in Second Life, Mericat Ireland and Jellie Arrowmint.

I recently updated the OFD website with new pictures and videos following a series of quite major changes in recent months to Oceans End and more recently to The Pig & Whistle.

One of the changes to the website was to properly implement the Contact Info form and the 'Other Questions' form.

This morning I was pleasantly surprised to find a message from Mericat telling me how she had mentioned The Pig & Whistle in her new Blog article and would I like to check it out.

Even with my wooly overnight brain still huddled in the warm corner behind my left ear Meri's Blog looked just lovely; even without her name at the top the lady's inimitable style shines through crystal clear.

Lots of great pictures are surrounded with a superb set of prose which bubble along in a bright refreshing way. By the time I reached the bottom of the article I was wide awake (well ... Awake enough to go jump on Charlie LOL).

After the Neanderthal had shuffled off in search of food I went back for another look and slid across on the link to Jellies Blog. You really have to read this lady; sharp style great energy and very engaging!

I will have put the links in for you to hop over with by the time thyou read this and if I can coax my brain into life tonight I will do some whizzy Blog link recomendy type thing in the sidebar (I know there is a proper way of describing it ... but I am old LOLOLOLOL).

In short.... These are great ladies and you can't do better than follow their spotlights (or is that Bloglights!!) onto the worlds we span - RL & SL!

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Builder's Buddy ....

This strange title is inspired by my recent foray into the LSL Portal in a bid to work out how to build/write the custom rezzing system we needed for the colour change furniture layouts in the newly Theme Change equipped Love's Trinity event area.

I had expected this particular task to be full of pitfalls and problems which would take some serious thinking time to work out. As it turns out it took just 5 minutes of searching to find 'Builder's Buddy' in the LSL Examples Library. Builder's Buddy is a fully fledged scripting solution for managing rezzable builds; aimed primarily at the ever tricky problem of moving large unlinkable builds into place it turns out to be exactly what I needed.

Builder's Buddy offers two scripts, one is the main rezzing/derezzing and package creation script and the other it's companion item script which manages positioning. I very quickly had a prototype system working which allows a control panel to store large quantities of packaged rezzable layouts and a simple but effective graphical selection system allowing the user to decide which package they want to rezz out.

I was truly astonished to find such a polished and rock solid script solution such as this freely available for use/adaptation. A little further thinking made me realise that many of the existing commercially available systems in Second Life where clearly modelled EXTREMELY closely on these scripts; some of the commercial products are particularly expensive as well! Undoubtedly there are many value added things in the commercial packages but to be truthful with such a large chunk of the rezz/derezz problem solved the rest of the bells, whistles and flutes are easy to write in. In less than 6 hours the access control list I needed to implement was working fine and the control of options on transfer was already handled by the original script so with maybe another 2 - 3 hours of fiddling with notecards and some info passing to managed theme package the whole thing will be completed and at ZERO cost!

It really does seem that with some persistence and experience it is possible to have an awful lot of things and systems in Second Life without it having to cost Lindens ... you just have to be prepared to do some research and apply some serious thinking and common sense!!

I can highly recommend to anyone looking to spend lots of money on either things or systems in Second Life to at least explore how difficult it really would be to create the solution yourself ... you may be surprised!!!

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Product update ...

The main parts of the theme switching system are now in place for Love's Trinity. Babette has finalised another of the requested theme's (a forest glade with artfully constructed ruins and plenty of atmosphere). The multi-choice floor system is in place and ready to expand with themes and general requirements and the remote colour change tables and chairs for the more formal settings are complete along with most of the bugs worked out of the colour and access control panel for the colour change system.

The remaining hurdle which I anticipate will be overcome by the end of this week is a custom rezzing control for the various alternate furniture layouts, most specifically tied in with the colour change tables and chairs. These products allow any of the authorised staff members to rapidly switch amongst the available themes; a typical time to replace one theme with another is less than 90 seconds perhaps stretching to 120 seconds if the colour changer needs to be set up and the tables and chairs deployed.

All together we have bought to production a flexible theme delivery package which is open ended in it's scope and simple to use providing a confidence building experience for the staff and a polished performance for guests.

None of this has come without stress on our part ... the development of the system and the processes that surround it has been quite testing. I think it is however true that both Babette and I have learned a great deal about some of the limits that surround the ownership/security model that Second Life implements and on a personal note the challenges in delivering working scripts for the systems has been immense, but satisfying.

I think it only fair to pay tribute to the LSL Portal Wiki and all of it's editors and contributors. Without the LSL Portal nothing which has been achieved on the scripting side would have been possible. The examples are very good and altogether the portal provides an excellent and flexible programmers resource. I would also like to pay tribute to Babette's persistence with the themed builds. Some of these builds (in particular the latest 'Forest Glade') have proved extremely tricky to bring to fruition with a combination of challenges which include large quantities of alpha textures and the very high standards which she sets for herself in terms of finish and detail.

With at least another month perhaps 6 weeks of high summer to go I am confident that we will have a few more themes ready for the autumn/winter season and it is highly likely that we will be releasing a commercial version of the theme control system in it's entirety. I suspect it would be much too ambitious to take on the likes of 'HoloDeck' systems as there are some very accomplished and well accepted systems in that category ... however none of them are cheap! I believe our complimentary themed products will be appealing to people who are prepared to work with the system and who are happy to accept lower cost of ownership as a trade off against slightly more complex user interaction.

I am certainly looking forward to the challenge of commercialising our theme management products but I am equally certain there will be significant challenges along the way!!

A W E S O M E!!

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The long lazy summer is here ...

... and just like last year everywhere has started to go very quiet! I am hearing reports from friends about clubs shutting down, I have seen notices from people who are actually selling their sims due to lack of business. One of the less dramatic but nonetheless still important trends that is occurring is that businesses are making large cuts in prices on everything from home rentals to combat weapons.

In a lot of ways this is interesting for those residents who are principally consumers stretching their Lindens out nicely. For those of us providing the goods and services it is of course rather lean times. I am yet to be convinced that more than a handful of people make any serious money running businesses in Second Life and from that point of view I always counsel new people looking to 'Make a successful business!!' that they need to be realistic about their economic expectations. On a personal level both Babette and I are content that what we do is satisfying in itself and any income is a pleasant thing ... but not to be either expected or relied on.

There are other ways to view the business model in Second Life and I suspect it may help some who are new to Second Life to appreciate that the economics are rather less like a bustling modern metropolis and much more like an ancient southern European holiday resort that is essentially a ghost town out of season. In this case summer is out of season in Second Life; people seem to spend the long summer evenings catching the breeze outside with friends and a long cold alcoholic beverage rather than sweltering in front of a PC!!

Babette and I view the summer as a quiet opportunity to catch up with some of the development ideas that we have gathered over the busier, cooler quarters of the year. This is our chance to build the things that we simply haven't the time for when we are in full swing and personally it is a time to either rewrite scripts that need bug fixes or as now develop a brand new Remote Colour control system for the furniture we are using with some of our 'Rez on Demand' entertainment and wedding themes.

Scripting in Second Life is much the same as any software development environment where you are writing control and interactive systems which are heavily reliant on environmental factors ... in other words it is frustrating and time consuming!! The issues are even sometimes not about what should be happening but about the fact that Linden Labs have yet again 'Tweaked!!!' something without proper testing.

With all of the frustrations though I have to say I find the scripting projects I take on in Second Life to be most rewarding ... they are usually a complex octopus of a problem that takes a considerable amount of determination, perspiration, inspiration and of course a fair helping of 'Cussing!!' to make it work.

Over all I think the summer in Second Life is a fine time but I do empathise with the business owners who sit staring at their empty shops and apartments wondering who is going to pay the next months tier to Linden Labs!! In short beware the business model in Second Life it is not entirely what it appears to be from the beginnings in mid winter when Second Life is crammed with people avoiding the cold dark nights by sitting in front of a PC in a nice cosy room!!

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Despite Linden Labs...

... And their appalling handling of Second Life as a paid for service; the weekend was not a total loss.

Babette and I have completed the start-up phase of the new Theme Switchable format of our beloved Love's Trinity. It was the first project which we completed back in the Ikyoto days which was driven by design and passion rather than practicality ... 'Form over Function' ... We transplanted it with great care and pride to it's new home on OneFinalDarkness and we have carefully protected it ever since.

It was a chance comment by Shelly that triggered us into finally making changes to our much loved and adored Love's Trinity Temple area ... a comment and an echo back to memories of when we regularly constructed themed sky boxes.

Shelly asked if we had considered doing some more themed event builds and perhaps using the popular 'Holodeck' technology. I am pretty sure Babette and I said much the same thing "Hmmm .... That sounds like a good idea!". In short order several things happened; I looked into the Holodeck options and had to report they would be both prohibitively expensive and far too restrictive for the scope of our typical themes and, we both realised the ideal space to use would be Love's Trinity.

After a little more research we decided to use 'Primtechnics Platform Rezzer' package which is similar to Rezz Faux but has access list control ... Perfect to allow our regular hosts to swap out the themes without having to involve either of us.

Babette launched into action and created the 'Gothic Temple' variation of the original, specifically because she had already made preliminary design decisions after a request from another good friend Masiko who wanted to hold her wedding at Love's Trinity but wanted a Goth Theme. I helped out with the design of the production and packaging work flow plus the 'Theme Switcher Panel' to allow easy presentation and selection of the themes.

With the Goth variant ready to go I helped Babette to carefully package up our original and still much loved temple area and that now resides safely in the 'Theme Switcher Panel'. With the system tried and tested Babette and I have put a 'Moroccan Courtyard' theme together and have plans for at least 4 more already with great suggestions from Shelly and some natural choices springing easily to mind.

I think if it were not for our delight at turning Love's Trinity into a wonderfully versatile and open ended themed resource the weekend would have been a fiasco to cry over. With 5000 sims offline and confidence falling to an all time low events and clubs were deserted and performers and audiences alike were annoyed and upset.

In amongst the scant acknowledgements from Linden Labs (and pitiful indeed were the updates) perhaps not surprisingly there was no suggestion of a compensation package for all the lost hours when businesses, clubs, and the multitude of other diverse established Second Life ventures were unable to even log in to the system.

Well done Linden Labs ... Score 0 out 100 for customer concern and satisfaction!!

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Second Life and Shopping ...

... Is this a perfect match?

In a lot of ways the answer to this is 'Yes - It is!'. There are few of the complications of Real Life with system level clothing being a perfect fit every time just as the designer intended.

All is not completely rosie of course once we move into the arena of sculpted and prim attachments/clothes and shoes. Once you move away from system level clothes/accessories then much of what you actually get for your Lindens is down to the skill of the designer/maker of the particular items. Without wishing to draw particular examples into comparison I think most people will be able to easily see that some prim shoes for instance are of a much superior quality to others and hence they attract a premium price.

So then back to the original question ... is Second Life a perfect match for the Shopping Experience. I think it can be, but, rather as in Real Life, you still need to either get some good recommendations or do some serious searching and wandering to find the best quality your money can buy. Designer shops/labels/sims abound in Second Life and there is a slew of fashion magazines published in Second Life to attest to the continuing popularity of 'Looking Good!'. Personally I enjoy the challenge of finding a special outfit or particular piece of clothing or some really nice shoes without having to negotiate with my bank to fund my shopping experience .... I can however see that for some it is a bewildering and un rewarding experience with some of the search results promising so much and in reality delivering some very mediocre offerings when you actually TP to them.

One way in which we can all make our shopping experience more productive, interestingly, is to invest a few lindens in one of the Fashion Magazines I alluded to earlier. The point about the articles (some sponsored) and advertsing they carry is that these represent high value in world businesses that not only believe they have a good product but are confident enough to put their money where their corporate bragging sits; they have a reputation to uphold so you can expect to get good quality items and good customer service.

There is one note of caution I would sound to all potential shopping addicts .... sometimes you might be well advised to think hard about what you are buying, because sometimes you really could make it for free!! I know we aren't all accomplished scripters or builders but occasionally it is easy to get mesmerised by all that is out there and spend your money on something which is actually very simple to construct.

One last comment before I rush off to get my latest pair of killer heels ... LoLoLoL ... take a friend with you. You won't need them to help carry anything but you may need them to help you remember where you saw that perfect bargain you wanted to go back for later!!! *S*

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Second Life mimics Real Life ...

... of 'course it does!' I hear you all cry. But there are some areas in which I really wish it didn't. I don't particularly like talking about the negative side of Second Life but occasionally there are incidents which are impossible to 'Gloss Over!'.

One such incident occurred on Saturday; two days ago as I post this. Babette had arranged a live music event with a particular Second Life musical couple. The times had been agreed and ... I am being completely truthful here ... we BOTH forgot the time!! To make matters even worse we were both distracted from Second Life by important Real Life incidents just as the musicians were turning up (earlier than we had remembered) and started to demand tags for rezzing instruments. Both Babette and I understand that we were at fault for forgetting the time, however, the attitude from the musicians was in my opinion unreasonable. The IM's were strongly worded and the phrase 'Unforgivable' was liberally splashed around.

What is the point of this blog entry?

In short it is to draw attention to the many people who appear to have forgotten that club owners, sim owners and others who run/own other Second Life assets have a Real Life as well. More importantly Real Life comes first!!!!

Let me stress that for all the Second Lifers who are trying to treat Second Life as Real Life .... IT IS NOT REAL!! It IS A GAME!!

By all means ask what has happened when arrangements break down in Second Life; that is natural and reasonable. Please, PLEASE, PLEASE, however don't expect people to be hovering on your every word at the other end of an IM session; you will be disappointed and certainly anyone expecting anything else needs to get a huge shot of 'Reality' from the nearest pharmacy and get yourself shot up with some normal perspective.

I am certain that this will be one of my less widely appreciated blog entries ... I am equally certain that the individuals who displayed such unreasonable behaviour will not see it as such and will continue to believe that Second Life is the only thing that counts in everyones life !! ... Thank all the relevant superior beings both Babette and I and many of our friends in Second Life enjoy it for what it is, a game, and make sure that we enjoy our Real Lives as well.

Enjoy the Game, Enjoy Second Life ... Remember when the phone rings or the door bell goes you have to use your legs not a TP to go answer them!! *S*

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Second Life a learning opportunity ...

... I was speaking to Mericat Ireland during one of the regular Monday night Music events she DJ's for us in The Pig & Whistle on OneFinalDarkness. I was explaining about the new Wedding packages Babette and I were developing for the Love's Trinity area of the estate; I told her about the website we are developing for the estate (Http:\\www.onefinaldarkness.com); I mentioned the machinima techniques we use to produce promotional video clips for the site and our current integration with services such as Google Calendar and Flickr.

Not long after I had got into this list of things we do Meri turned round to me and said 'You girls are just so busy trying all sorts of new things in Second Life ...'; Meri is of course right! Indeed it is one of the most appealing things about Second Life; it provides opportunities to explore new things and learn new skills. In fact it's not just about opportunities ... to some extent unless you have an endless supply of money it is essential you learn at least some of the new skills that go with trying to run/promote a sim; it is prohibitively expensive to try to pay others to do all of the work required.

Neither Babs nor I believe in solutions being exclusively homegrown ... we tend to find there are still clear advantages to using some bought in skills usually in the form of objects for specific purposes which would otherwise take months perhaps to properly script. What we have both discovered though is that many of the items/services which are for sale in and around Second Life are not really that extraordinary ... they only survive because people don't have the inclination to push back against their own limits and try out new challenges.

A good example of this last is sculpties. There are a number of software packages and inworld devices which allow anyone to begin experimenting with the sculpted objects that Second Life has in it's rich repertoire of building blocks. Although I would agree that making sculpties is not 100% straightforward it really isn't impossible to produce some of the less complex shapes like cushions for seats or seat pads for furniture ... even parts for simple weapons are not that difficult to construct. I for one would always suggest that everyone at least has a go at all of the various building disciplines and other such related tasks that abound in Second Life simply because ... you will probably surprise yourself!!

It's not even just the skills and services and tasks that I would recommend experimenting with. There are so many different types of lifestyle represented in Second Life and of course there are no long term issues or problems to be experienced as a result of choosing to experience any of them. If nothing else everyone should at least visit as many sims as they can to see and be amazed at the bewildering variety and depth of peoples imagination and patience that have led to hundreds of unique and wonderful environments.

In short I believe Second Life is probably one of the most flexible and approachable learning experiences i have come across for some considerable time and for anyone thinking they may be a little past adapting to new things and ways or working/thinking .... think again ... Second Life will fire up your brains and turbo charge your creativity!!

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Weddings and wedding packages ...

... for quite some months now Babette and I have talked about the Ballroom area at Love's Trinity being rather underused. It is a beautiful romantic area with great views and a general sense of grandeur of the Greco/Roman times. We have started to arrange some events and have the great privelege of Elvera Lerner singing live here tomorrow 9th June.

 

Babette has already begun the planning for a program of music events to follow Elvera and during those discussions we started to explore the idea of using the ballroom area as a wedding venue. It is a natural fit in many ways with it's already romantic environs and vistas so it was conceptually simple to see how the area could become a gorgeous wedding venue. Once we had this vision Babette just took the idea and went into overdrive; she has already produced a Gothic Wedding Package that can be deployed into the ballroom area and there are plans for a series of alternatives with the option for bespoke packages.

 

As of right now we are still working out a framework of costs to reflect the amount of time we have put into and would need to continue to put into this concept to make it practical ... but also we want people to come and enjoy the moment and we appreciate not everyone has lots of Lindens to throw around.

I can highly reccommend asking to see the venue and it's options if you are considering a Second Life Wedding ... we would love to see you have a wonderful day and with all the other romantic areas around the OneFinalDarkness Estate I am sure you will have a superb romantic day to remember *S*

Camping Skirmishes ....

In the early days of OneFinalDarkness when we were still on the ikyoto Sim one of the principle measures of success of any Sim was the ubiquitous 'Traffic' figures. I suspect that many Sim owners felt much the same as Babette and I did; a certain un ease with the idea of paying people to sit around or 'Pole Dance' on the Sims to bump up the 'Traffic' numbers.

Despite the un ease we fell into the accepted pattern at OneFinalDarkness and tried to make things at least interesting for the 'People!!' who camped with us. In some odd way much of the layout and attractive vista's which abound on OneFinalDarkness were born in this time as we often tested the camping ourselves and asked questions of each other like "Would you sit looking at that view for several hours??".

It was around this time that Babette and I had the good fortune to meet two people who would soon become great friends and real champions of the OneFinalDarkness Sims and our attempts to promote them. The first of these people is Shelly Macchi; we started talking, ironically, because there were issues with the early camping systems and both Babette and I felt that if people were putting the time in then they should be paid so we asked people to tell us if they had any problems receiving their camping money.

The first purely business like conversations we had soon blossomed into regular chats which led us inevitably to a friend of Shelly's who had also started on the camping; Thanatos796 McCallen. Quite an unusual name ... but many names in Second Life are ... and it turned out he is also quite a DJ. There were undoubtedly many more conversations than my ageing memory can recall before the topic arose of Than (as he is affectionately known) becoming a regular DJ for us. Once Than was doing some regular slots for us it was only a short time before Shelly joined him on a regular basis as a host for the events and quite honestly they are such a good team and have gone from strength to strength.

I have of course digressed a little there!

In addition to our newly found friendships, what Than and Shelly also gave us was an insight into what was actually happening with the camping!! It turns out that Babette and I had naively assumed that the avatars we saw camping where linked to real people on a one to one basis .... they weren't!! Shelly and Than were able to show us incidents were as many as 10 avatars were being run by the same person using what are referred to as 'Bot' programs. To say we felt used is an understatement!! The first step was to try different 'Anti-Bot' camping systems but once alerted by Shelly and Than's warnings Babette and I regularly checked for 'Bot' activity ... at almost each turn we discovered Bots taking our money!!!

We still have camping on the Main Sim today ... but it is controlled by a closed, invitation only, group and we insist that any one wishing to join is seen as being a regular visitor to the Sims and taking part in events; it's not that much to ask really as the events are often themed music events and have prize money for best in theme.

At one time we were probably paying out 15000 Lindens per month in camping fees and in reality receiving nothing in return. Some people complained when the way sim popularity, as measured by the Lindens, changed and traffic became less important as an indicator. Since then better ways of getting people to see the Sims have arisen, Earn2Life is a good example of earning opportunities within Second Life and it's companion SLBiz2Life (for the business owners wanting to invest in effective marketting campaigns); these initiatives have bought us some good, solid, genuine traffic some of which has turned into regular shop renters and indeed friends.

Overall I don't regret the camping and it's various skirmishes because of the tangible benefits in terms of friendships that have arisen as a result ... the only disappointing thing is realising that, in what should be an ideal world where everyone has a chance to excel and be the best they can, real life intrudes and the darker side of human nature shows through with some individuals choosing despicable means to further their own personal gain.

The camping will continue on OneFinalDarkness ... the difference these days is that it is more a way of saying thank you to all the regular people who help to make the Sims here what they are, full of life and fun, and as a result keep inspiring Babette and myself to keep modifying little bits and trying to make things even nicer for you all .... One last thought ... Please!!

NO Camp Fires !!! LoLoLoL

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I am new to Second Life ...

... What do I do now? I have genuinely lost count of the number of times I have heard this and similar questions. I always try my best to help people new to Second Life particularly if they have stumbled onto us at OneFinalDarkness; both Babs and I remember being new to Second Life although in fairness that is now over a year ago and we are both very comfortable in our second lives.

The way we look at new residents arriving on our Sim is as an opportunity to help them avoid some of the stumbling blocks of the early days of Second Life and maybe give them a chance to enjoy some safe relaxation in a friendly environment. We always encourage them to come along to our regular events and we often find that when they have been introduced to some of our friends they rapidly start to enjoy Second Life to it's fullest extent.

We are very lucky to have a wide range of friends and some of them enjoy producing music events for us such as: DJ Than and his hostess Shelly (they are US based) or perhaps Meri or Sean they are UK based. With this quite broad range of times we cover and provide events during there is usually something that people can find to look forward to (see calendar here).

In addition to the events we also provide a camping system for people who have demonstrated that they are regularly at events and around the sim. The camping is not for huge amounts of money but for someone just starting up it is a very approachable way to start exploring Second Life with no risk to pocket to be concerned about.

One of the great joys is to see people starting to branch out in Second Life and on more than one occasion we have been able to give them a flying start at the commercail side of Second Life by providing either very cheap or even sometimes Free Rental Shop Space. There really are some superb ideas out there from new residents and unlike us rather more 'jaded' residents the enthusiasm can be infectious!!!

I won't pretend that there haven't been some heated moments with new residents ... In reality we all know it is a virtual world ... we also know that rezzing a full size replica of a B52 in the middle of someones bar isn't exactly going to kill anyone ... LOLOLOL; but of course words have to be exchanged over such incidents and although the vast majority of new residents say 'Oooo I am soooo sorry!!' there are those that take the attitude 'So what ... why shouldn't I do that!!! '. There are different approaches but the one Babs and I find most positive is to be as firm as possible and ask that there are no further instances or polite persuasion will probably have to escalate. We haven't had any real issues so far which is a credit to the general maturity of the people we see attracted to Second Life.

As a summary and an answer to the question ... I would suggest people use common sense and if they don't understand something they find someone to ask rather that blunder on ... we all would prefer to answer questions than pick up the dust of a broken Sim or have to dust off the cobwebs from a banned list.

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