Bone on… Updates!

I got an IM from one of the creators of Peek360 (a cool web app that sends a bot to a sim and takes a 360 degree panorama photo.) He mentioned me playing Half-Life, a game which I haven’t played in months, in our brief discussion and I realized, shit, I need to update my blog!

First thing’s first. I got about a third of the way through Half-Life 2: Episode 2 for about the third time before I succumbed to Headcrab burnout. Since then I’ve been playing many games and I’m currently playing Mass Effect 2. Also, occasionally Burnout Paradise, Aion and, yes, I still log into Second Life almost every day too. I just don’t do much.

Bone on Blogging

Second Life has taught me many great lessons. The most significant being that it is okay to be myself. And as a result, I’ve become more and more comfortable with my inner-nerd. One way this has manifested in RL is that, once a month, I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Yes, once a month I step in the shoes of Shenck, a spiked-chain wielding Shadar-kai fighter.

And since I love games (RPG, board and video), I’ve started a blog about them: Hi There, Owlbear!

Of course, Sehra and I continue to work on Fashbang! as well.

Bone on the Big Step

Sehra once informed me that she could be with someone who likes Anime or someone who played D&D, but someone who likes Anime and plays D&D, well, that’s approaching dealbreaking territory.

I only mention that because it makes me laugh and I needed a transition into the “big step” portion of the post.

Sehra has been my SL partner for over a year now (officially and unofficially). And this past December we transitioned into RL in the form of our first face-to-face. I don’t want to go into too many details. I will say that tickets have been booked for visit number two alter this month. So, yah. You get the picture.

Two things I learned:

1. Sehra is pure awesome, in both worlds.
2. Telling a parent, who has heard many horror stories about “internet people”, that the worst thing that can happen is that you’ll end up chopped up in someone’s freezer, is not always the best idea. God, mom, it was a joke!

Bone on Other Stuff

In an effort to get this post out the door, so to speak, I’ll cut this short. So…

More to come? Maybe. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I meant to blog on Sunday. Instead I played Half-Life.

It’s never a good sign when you start blogging about blogging. Obviously, there hasn’t been much going on on this site recently. In fact, I’m really only writing this to get in at least one post in September. Lame. Yesterday I plurked, asking for topics to blog about. There were some good ones. I’m posting the (mostly) complete list here. For my own reference and perhaps helping you out next time you’re struggling to find a topic.

• SL weddings from a man’s perspective.
• How to develop a satisfying social life in SL.
• How to win night club contests in SL.
• Home decor for men.
• Sex in SL.
• Being different people/avatars/characters in different games.
• How to get ready to go to a SL party.
• SL party etiquette.
• What you get out of fashion blogging vs regular blogging.
• How much easier or harder you have found having a fashion blog.
• What do you do if you forget to wear pants.

I couldn’t do them justice right now, though. Need to get warmed up. Think of a couple of good zingers. Cultivate some lulz.

You may have noticed the two topics that involve fashion blogging. That’s because I have a fashion blog now: FashBang. It’s a joint project that Sehra and I are working on. It’s mostly women’s fashion, but occasionally I’ll throw some men’s fashion or a weird but cool avatar.

Okay, I feel better. Expect more blogging soon.

Why Chickens?

I get it. I get the appeal of the whole SionChicken phenomenon when it comes to function. But I don’t get when it comes to the form.

Let’s face it they look like they are Playdough molded to resemble (loosely) chickens. They are ugly. I mean, if poultry had their own version of WTFug (probably be called WTBa-CAW!), they’d be plastered all over it. (I really should have put a picture of an actually SionChicken in this post, but then I’d totally be killing all potential giant cock jokes.)

As a whole, the SL community continues to gravitate towards the mundane when the fantastic is slightly to the right of it (my right, not yours). Why chickens? Is there a gene that gives people a deep-rooted desire to be chicken farmers that I simply lack?

And what really blows my mind is that Sion’s followup to the chickens is… corn! CORN!

I’d like to propose a list of animals I’d actually want to farm:

• Basking Sharks
• Wilson, the volleyball from Castaway
• Kiwis
• Yeti Crabs
• Chibi SLebreties

Duel with Darth Caustin

I’m a big nerd. If you haven’t figured that out yet. Let me repeat myself, I’m a big nerd.

One of the things I like to do in Second Life and it’s ancillary social networks is revel in my nerdyness. For example, to the left is my current avatar for Plurk. And if you know who this is, I want to be your friend.

This is Skorr. He’s the bounty hunter from Ord Mantell that Han mentions in The Empire Strikes Back. (Sehra says he has brain herpes. Which makes me laugh every time I think about it. I love they way that girl thinks.)

Do you know where you can find out more about Skorr? Wookiepedia. Yes, the Star Wars Wikipedia.

When I need a distraction or to defer boredom, I can sit and spend hours — hours — on that site, just looking up one obscure character/planet/battle/technology/alien/monster after another. The Star Wars universe is huge. So huge that there’s a dude who’s only job it is is to keep track of it all and fix continuity errors. I want that job.

Last week, I was feeling sorry for myself and decided that a little virtual retail therapy would do me some good. We picked Sehra up a new skin. But came up against a wall when it came to getting something I wanted. Clothes? Meh, I got plenty. New furniture? Meh, we’re running low on prims.

I briefly considered getting a car. A nice one. But then I figured it’d get about as much use as my sailboat. In other words, none  — and I live on a fucking island.

Then I remembered seeing some holocrons on Xstreet. What’s a holocron? Let’s ask Wookiepedia.

A holocron was a crystal-lattice device, in which the Jedi, as well as the Sith, of old stored phenomenal quantities of data, as well as the holocron’s gatekeeper. The Sith also had their own form of holocron technology, and they seem to predate the Jedi in using the technology by at least three thousand years.

Thanks, Wookiepedia!

This is the one I settled on. First of all, it’s a Sith holocron, which are pyramid shaped and far more visually interesting then the cubed Jedi variety. Plus you can turn it on ask it questions, the answers to which will be retrieved from Wookiepedia or Wikipedia. Neato!

Unfortunately, the texture work is terrible. It’s hard to notice from this angle, but any other angle is blindingly obvious. And the problem? Photo-sourcing.

The designer, who we will assume has permission to use the image, obviously didn’t notice that this picture has depth. And you need to take that into account when taking a texture from a 3D object and applying it a flat surface.

I must admit I felt duped. Both Sehra and I thought it looked pretty cool in the Xstreet image but was a complete eyesore in world. So I cracked my knuckles and loaded up photoshop to produce this:

Daila, JB, Hawks and Billy. This is why I was being such an anti-social tit that day. Darth Caustin appreciates your patience. And trust me, you don’t want to get on his bad side.

And just to end this post as awkwardly as possible. If anyone has any recommendations for Star Wars roleplay areas that have people roleplaying on them, lemme know. I’m not having any luck.

Love Thursday: Slide to Unlock

I love my iPod Touch.

I love browsing my snapshots with the Photos app.

I love digging my epic mine shaft with I Dig It.

And shooting my zombified neighbours in Zombiville USA.

I love reading my timeline on Plurk with iPlurk.

And I love making a cartoon robot sing with Bebot.

Oh. And I like listening to music too.

Meet Kate

I’ve been a dirty, dirty cheater. My mistress is Kate and I’ve been spending a lot of my play time with her in the Capital Wastelands when I could be in Second Life.

It seems that there has been a lot of games lately that have cut into my SL time lately. First it was The Sims 3, followed closely by Spore: Galactic Adventures, and finally Fallout 3 was on sale for 50% a couple of weekends ago. And ever since, Fallout has grasped its irradiated hands around me and held on tight.

The truth is, I’ve dealing with some not-so-pleasant RL issues and when I have some me-time to escape, I’ve been finding that SL has required much more work to immerse myself as opposed to the more directed experience of a game like Fallout. This is also why my blogging has significantly petered out lately, as well.

Instead of blogging about my adventures in the Capital Wastelands (like how I began to sympathize with the Tenpenny Tower Residence which resulted in the murder, execution style, of some hapless Ghouls,) I’ve decided to remain in a blogging hiatus. At least until I’m feeling like being the happy, fun blogger isn’t too far from the truth.

But I’m not gone. I still log into SL almost daily (even if it’s only for 5 minutes) and am an active lurker on plurk. I still read your blogs (mostly) and I’ve got Sehra to inform me of the latest goings-on that I may be missing, otherwise.

Speaking of Sehra. Obviously, since I’m not in SL much, we’ve taken up communicating via Yahoo and Skype. I figured out how to stream computer screen as a webcam and so a few nights ago we got to play Fallout 3 together. Well, I played while she laughed at the dialogue options and commented on how fun it was to nuke the town of Megaton. It was kinda fun.

Not a Tasteful Butt Shot Post (NSFW)

Last weekend we learned that Gala Phoenix was holding a photo contest. We spent Sunday running around the grid taking nude/semi-nude pics. We tied for fourth with what I presume is the entire roster of entrants that didn’t place 1st, 2nd or 3rd. Sehra got a free fatpack out of it, so yay. I thought I’d share our entries.

Special thanks to Daila for sitting on the elephant to keep in from auto-returning.

Obviously, there are some NSFW shots after the cut.

Tour: Artsy Skybox

Sehra and I just finished doing the interior of our the Artsy Skybox (we need a better name) and I wanted to share. Because a) it was a surprising amount of work and b) it turned out brilliantly.

The skybox itself is from YumYum.

The furniture is the White La Scala set from Abiss (including the chandelier), the mirror frame and books are from The Loft, and the mirror itself and the Alice stencil were created by yours truly.

The bathtub was purchased at Pestique. I liked the shape but the colours didn’t match so I re-textured it. I also added the “baked” shadow.

It’s hard to see, but the sphere on the table is from Kunstkammer. I believe I paid 20L$ for it. The vendor randomly gives you one several different stone textures. And it dings, glows and sparkles when clicked. Throw in another “baked” shadow and it becomes one of my favorite little decorations.

I’ll be sure to share the other boxes in another post.

This is getting out of hand… (Updated)

Thanks to Nikki (*glares*) we now have a fifth skybox. I keep meaning to do another photo tour but at this rate I’ll run out of virtual film before I can finish.

And we have waterfront property!

UPDATE: How one skybox turned into five four.

So, we have this great little — well, medium sized house on the beach. We consider this “home”. The main skybox was installed for simulated privacy purposes. This is where we log into and generally spend most of our time. And it’s much more fluid in it’s interior decor then we let the house be.

We then got the plot of land next to ours and doubled our prims, because we were running out. We built Skull Island and did all the stuff we wanted to in the house and skybox — and still had a crap ton of prims left. So, I suggested that Sehra make a girly skybox — one where she didn’t have to worry about my ego so much.

Originally I had a green screen built on the roof of the main skybox to take pictures. Unfortunately, I kept on having light from below bleed through and ruin some shots. So, the studio skybox was created. We also call it the “porn studio” and I consider it the unofficial “manly skybox”. It’s mostly empty with a green screen taking up half the box.

The artsy skybox was originally only temporarily rezzed by Sehra. But I saw it and loved the textures so much that I asked her to keep it out. You can see what we’ve done with it in the following post.

Then someone gave us chickens and Sehra built the chicken skybox. We are, again, short on prims, so it got taken down and the only surviving chicken is living in the studio, apparently.

So that’s how we came to have five skyboxes at one point.