Dalek Deco Rift

I never realized (which translates into "I didn't pay attention because I ran inside before the façade rezzed") until the other day and watching the first of a three-parter from series 3 that the town square The Doctor frequently parked the Tardis for extended visits was in Second Life and in a rezzable area, perhaps for the purpose of allowing Tardis owners to refuel.  I see Sevhen and I will be making that pitstop soon.

It would be fun to have friends in the Tardis emerge with us in a procession out of the box until there was a small crowd.  Unfortunately it isn't my region and there's an autoreturn limit of ten minutes, so including GoSpeed to DJ for us during the pitstop is out of the question. 

Then of course we would all pack up and go back into the Tardis and move on - probably to my diner for eats...

And someone would record it on video.  Not me because I lag from it.

By the way, someone let the Dalek out again yesterday.  They opened the back door.  The thing made its way to the road, where Linden Labs returned it to my inventory.

Your object 'Roaming Renegade Dalek v1.10' has been returned to your inventory lost and found folder by (???) from parcel 'Route 4' at Hydrangea 53, 161 due to parcel auto return.

Daleks are fun.  I put one in my dumpster out back for anyone who wants a copy.

Cartoon World...

It's too yellow, even for me.  I'm thinking of wood paneling or lapis trim.  It needs more contrasts.  I have a lapis texture I made 5 years ago for a deco nightclub that I can adapt.  I'll put it to the test.

I was in the Grand Central area this morning for a dr apptment and took a closer look at the Chrysler Building and how they approached window designs. It looks easier than I thought.

I have a design already drawn which I'll fine tune with the things I've learned visiting the Chrysler.

Afternoon: More and more people like the pitstop idea.  Sevhen and I will try a short one tonight, but there may be a bigger todo eventually.

Wild and Wacky Grid Doings and Stuff

Learning more about my Tardis, I've set a personal landing point by the freebie dumpster. There are two more sets of levers which offer locations: one is for landing locations set as private, the other for what might be recent locations.  And a third which works with commands to list all landing locations in a specified sim.

3 out of 2 ain't bad.

From first hand experience the DCL network removes deleted landing points from the database after a time, so why are there still dead locations on the list?  hmmm...

Restored the nicer but noisy timescoop to the Cartoon World lobby; you can't get updates without a rezzed product.

Someone who made a neat underhenge for the Pandorica (there are a few now) responded to my inquiry about their restricting the sim from child avatars.  While they can make whatever rules they want for their estate (and I always comply), I have to express what a shame it is when someone makes a rule for the wrong reasons in an effort to justify a bias.  His perspective was, to paraphrase: "I've seen those news clips on YouTube about pervs and Age Play, therefore child avatars are all dirty old men and I don't want them on my property."  Sorry Marianne - that place was cool and I would have liked to take you there on an adventure.

What would The Doctor have said about that?

In other news, Snurky donated some of her bait money to Burning Life for the land lottery.  It's time she got into some projects; she's a deserving avatar.  Burning Life is privately funded now and they need our help.

There are textures missing from my inventory.  All steps taken have not restored any.  I can always re-up them, and I had to in order to restore Errol Flynn trailer access on the gallery property, but I already paid for these the first time.  I think Linden Labs should eat one month of tier, because it was most of the orig Bay City Cartoon World structure and tons of art which cost me (the online comics alone add up to a small fortune).

Emeraldgate.  The fun continues.

Dr Who audiobooks.  I've acquired two off iTunes: one read by David Tennant in the first person and one read by Matt Smith.  I like them, but feel they should be called audioshortstories.  Compare with several CD *sets* I own of Robert Picardo reading Voyager novels; you can best believe those don't come out to under 2 hours per book.

I'm planning a second Dr. Who comic after the current one I'm working on. The second might be for the Tenth Doctor.

Re The Teen Blog Post

In response to the article re The Future of Teens and Second Life  

I was hoping they'd be restricted to the PG regions, but there is a problem: controlling accessible, audible and visible content from the borders.  Two years ago I had land in a PG region, and right on the border was a glass building with photos of explicit sexual acts for sale.  A little higher up and further to the west was an S&M shop with a big, badly drawn poster of two women engaged in something no one should have to see involuntarily, and again it was right on the border.  I wonder if rezoning might be in order, because some people who aren't "mature" get their kicks out of breaking the rules; everyone loses because of them.


As for the shortsighted people who cry Age Play and point at child avatars, let's get this clear in the event plain English didn't suffice the past thousand times people tried to make it clear:

1.  Age Play are fantasies performed by adults. The content and imagery are what come into question, not the actual age of the participants.

2. When did you know of any teen who portrayed a teen or kid?  Do you know the topic of discussion here and the difference between what avatars people choose to portray themselves and the age of participants?

3. On those two points, are you ignorant of the fact that people in SL who portray children are of age, probably older than most people posting, and are usually portraying children as a signal that they are engaged in child-friendly and family-friendly activities in SL?  I know for some people SL is their way of expressing their sexuality and making up whatever they can't do offline, but they should try to be a little more open-minded and respectful of the diversity of SL's cultures and realize that some people didn't have much of a childhood, and this is their chance of having one. SL is a way for people to recapture their innocence.

And if point 3 seemingly had nothing to do with the Teen Grid or of teens migrating to the main grid, then congrats for noticing.  It hasn't anything to do with this topic whatsoever.

I want to add that many adults are acting like childish bullies about having kids somewhere on the other end of the map from yourselves.  If you have those tendencies to act on your sexuality in parts of the grid where it isn't appropriate, then maybe it's good you leave, as it IS against the terms of service for this site.  The opportunity to express your sexuality doesn't comprise "anywhere you feel like it" or in nonconsenting people's faces. Go to your home or zindra or private estate and do what you want.  This place is so big it's absurd to think this cannot be worked out.

It seems the teens posting here are far more mature, don't they?

Ole Yeller

I dunno - can a building have too much yellow?

It's bright and cheery with the potential to ward off Bloodlines stalkers. 

The old parcel is empty for the moment.  Maybe I'll put a small, lowprim park there, or maybe a little kiosk like the kind I always wanted a small parcel in Nova Albion for.

The comic is progressing slowly, perhaps a bit too "safely."  I just want things to look good. 

Way back when I started taking Character Animation in Cal Arts, I grew averse to backgrounds, a consequence of penciling hundreds of poses over a quick set of lines representing an environment set on another level (pencil tests are backlit).  This never left me, and I'm always wanting to get right to the characters.

I'm like that about characters too.  I have many shallow and incidental types in the story - not to mention a villain.  It's hard to put equal effort into figures one has little regard for, so I've made a consious effort to slow down to catch these.

There are many characters which are intentionally simple. They represent simple avatars.  Then almost-realistic.  Then there's representing actual people on the grid.  My notes for the comic are over 4 pages, very little of it about plot.


More info as it becomes available.

What Would Lanneret Do?

Rethinking my strategy for Cartoon World.  I definitely want to redo the ground level building.

What if it resembled Club Lapis on the inside?  Club Lapis is an elegant 1920's Art Deco nightclub I made in VRML for New Year's Eve celebrations.  Personally I find the concept a bit too elegant for my sensibilities.

At some point in a VRML creator who spent time in Cybertown will always think back on Lanneret.   It's my time now.  I keep thinking back on Lanneret's Art Deco furniture collection, with its wooden inlay reminiscent of Native American patterns.  It was classy and whimsical at the same time; I can picture a building with a style like this.

I don't need to give Lanneret's SL moniker; he never recreated his deco work here.  He fell off the face of the VRML Earth in January 2002, showed up a couple of years later in SL to recreate his Asian lines, disappeared, came back again, did more Asian stuff, then disappeared off the face of the Earth altogether.  Or so the story goes from three virtual acquaintances who knew him best (which isn't saying much).

Inlay.  I'm already using wooden inlay for my floor pattern in the current gallery.  I'll have a LOT of rethinking to do, but at least there's a direction.  I researched Deco furniture extensively in the mid 00's and found he had derived his pieces from antiques.  Well most builders do in some form or other.  After all a Cape Cod house is a Cape Cod house, right?

I copied over a few meager screenshots from Lanneret's deco furniture from my living quarters in Jupiter Station.  Here's one:

Ah those old 800x600 days... One of these people owns an estate in SL.  One is rumored to be dead.