Embodiments, Part Two

Embodiments of Self is a series of posts begun in early February which feature a handful of avatars that, to me, have stood out from the crowd. Avatars in Second Life are a way to silently communicate certain aspects of yourself to others, whether you realize you are doing it or not. They are also an endless source of fun and entertainment.

I love collecting shots for the Embodiments posts. It forces me to really keep my eyes open to the amazing amount of work and thought that have gone into someone's avatar design. I also have to move pretty fast sometimes to get the shot I want since none of them, regardless of how they look, are intentionally posed. (A bit of my photojournalism days showing there.) Continuing the series of posts I started earlier this month, I present another small collection of cool avatars seen in my wanderings of Second Life.

First off, Coyote Momjii from some Caledonian wanderings. This avatar was one of the few that stunned me into absolute non-action for several minutes. I think I actually drooled a bit on the computer...

Following up that is Derry McTeague whom I saw at the "When Worlds Collide" show. I was struck by the beauty of her pale face and striking eyes.

And then, there was the avatar of Lady Smashcan. I loved the interplay of the name with the image of the punkish faery girl.

Enjoy!

What is "A Game?"

Just taking a quick moment to pass on a link.

Life of a Game

The article, coming off the Terra Nova site, continues commentary on the question, "Is it only a game?"

If you're interested in online game worlds and their interaction with the real world, I highly recommend the site Terra Nova. There is a lot of good level-headed thought going on there as well as many different forms of research aimed at the virtual world experience currently happening.

Intersections

My good friend and mentor in the real world was interviewed in Second Life last night as part of a real world/Second Life radio show called "When Worlds Collide." I took time off from the expedition to cheer Jesa Li on and give her my support through an hour long interview which touched on her large scale landscaping projects within Second Life, her writing, her in-world store, and the fact that she is 70 years old and in-world. (The last one being a bit of a rarity in the realm of virtual worlds but perhaps not as much as you might initially think.) Another thing the interview did was touch on a very important angle and opinion which Jesa and I share. This is that Second Life can be just as powerful as the real one, that your experiences in one world can encourage and empower the other.

The radio show is hosted by a real life and Second Life musician and entertainer, Cypress Rosewood, who played two tracks of his beautiful works with native american flute before the interview. "When Worlds Collide" is a weekly show, every Monday evening, which features a personal angle on what is happening within Second Life and is located in a large studio on the Land of the Masters in Jarag sim. It's sponsored by RadioFreeNashville.org. The show carried an audience of around twenty folks in-world and I am unsure of the audience out in real radio land. I was glad to find out about it and will be trying to take in more shows because I think it pinpoints the personal experience, the interaction and mixing point of real and virtual. Good stuff.


Jesa was a bit nervous at first but seemed to relax about half way through. She did great. In her words, "I've been interviewed on radio and television but that, that was a very odd experience." After talking with folks for awhile, she retired to her An Lios garden where I was able to see what she and friend, Whizbang Corleone, had been up to.

It was good to take a break from the Frontier's Horizon expedition. After a few hours of trudging along the ground and trying to navigate invisible walls, it was nice to sit in one place and take in a social event. I also got some good shots for another Emobidiments post which should be up tonight or tomorrow. I also want to encourage more folks to check out the "When Worlds Collide" show if possible.

Far In The Background

Can you hear it, sense it? I suppose you have to be a fan to know what I am talking about and it's hard to do with all the frost, snow, and windchill. It helps if you're someplace warm but I got a whiff even while walking in the negative windchill yesterday. It's like hearing voices on the wind or a whispered conversation in the other part of the house. Its there, a warm full buzz of activity, but you can't make out the details.

If you close your eyes and get real quiet you might be able to pick it up, feel it. Can you?

It's a warm summer day with big white clouds that race over a brilliant green and well lined field. It's a distant crack of a bat. The solid feel of impact as a ball hits the pocket of your glove. It's chatter from the dugout, quick bits of infield communication, the dust rising up from a second base slide. Is it a bunt? A swing away? Fastball? Curveball? Will he go for the steal?

The sound or smell of it lasts only a second and then it's taken away by a wash of cold air, a snowflake on the cheek, or the crunching of snow underneath your shoes. You're brought back to February and trying to undig your car from the snow, trying to build a fire in the fireplace.

But, if you listen, if you look for it, it's there. It makes the cold a little more bearable.

Of course, if you're not a fan, I understand.

You're just going to have to trust me that it's there.

Country in The Winter

The past few days have been a bit hectic. A winter storm came creeping through a few days ago and pretty much turned everything on its side. I say creep because that is exactly what it did. Slithering in with some spitting sleet, then rain, and then when it had everyone lulled into a false sense of safety, it froze everything solid and placed just enough snow on top of it to cause numerous problems. It also killed electricity to somewhere in the number of 30,000 people in the area, one of which was me and mine.

As the entire house is powered by electricity, we spent an afternoon getting candles and supplies out and available. We then spent an interesting evening huddled in the living room around the fireplace which, by luck, we do have. Though I expected the power to not be on for a day or so, the electrical workers were able to get powered restored to us sometime in the middle of the night. Many thanks to them and their efforts!


Morning was spent digging out and turning our attention from staying warm to playtime. I grabbed the camera while the kids took advantage of the snow and took in the large hill in our front yard. This delighted them because it takes a major snowfall to make the hill sled worthy and it has not happened in awhile.

The roads were still bad and the hills we have to take to get out were covered in ice which led to no one really going anywhere for a second day. Time was spent with the kids and taking advantage of the extra day thrown at us to get housework done. We also had to take some time and reorganize everything that was moved while trying to shelter up the living room and the fireplace.

Needless to say, with three kids home from school, it's been a hectic couple of days.

Enough for now, enjoy the pics!

The Experiment

I thought I'd take a series of posts to discuss things involving the expedition, my dear Rusty Buchanan, and Second Life in general. Treat it as the first behind the scenes episode on the imaginary director's cut DVD that gives you a look back through the monitor window. The images seen in ths series of posts are random shots from my SL wanderings with no real context attached to them. Gives me a chance to show off some screenshots that were gathering virtual dust.

I first encountered Second Life back in 2004 and was amazed. Unfortunately, I got distracted by other virtual amusement parks like Asheron's Call, WOW, and City of Heroes. I drifted away from SL. Late last year, a dear friend of mine on the west coast discovered SL and invited me back as a way to stay in contact. We had been using Yahoo messenger up to that point and that was, indeed, an intense change.

From that point forward, I wanted to treat Mr. Buchanan and that account carefully. Given my financial situation, I thought it would be fine to run without a credit card number and an unconfirmed account. It was not that I did not WANT to spend the subscription fee every month, it was that I simply did not have it. In fact, I had to give up both WOW and COH for the same financial reason.

I also saw the opportunity to try an experiment. Would it be possible to take an unconfirmed account and get enough going either through a SL business, contacts, or something similiar to justify spending the monthly fee? Would it be possible for a newb to get that far and what sort of prejudices might I have to deal with along the way? The goal was to eventually acquire a subscription account and own my own land.

A brief moment of explanation for those unsure what I am talking about. SL veterans reading this feel free to jump a few paragraphs forward. *grin* First off, its true, Second Life is free to play. Its one of its largest draws. However, once you decide to actually pay the monthly fee, your account become confirmed with a credit card number and several options open up to you. One, you begin to receive a weekly allowance from within the game of Linden dollars. Two, you are given the option to own land. Three, you are allowed into areas that some folks may have cordoned off from folks without a solid account. That's it, really. Otherwise, you are not penalized in any other way to run with a free account.

Of course, that's how it appears at first.

The other angle that is not readily apparent is that the griefer situation on Second Life has become a large problem since I was around in 04/05. What's a griefer? A griefer is someone that comes into world with a free account and then proceeds to be a pain-in-the-ass by purposefully doing things that ruin the experience for other folks. It could be as simple as leaving a bunch of complex items about your storefront to induce lag or as complex as an actual attack on the grid itself which causes the whole system to be shut down. Since they are using a free account, there is little that can be done to track the troublemaker. They're not anonymous, of course, due to IP addresses and such things, but its pretty darn close.

Also, to put it simply, someone with an unconfirmed account is not taken seriously. I understand this view perhaps the best because why should they be taken seriously? Someone with an unconfirmed account is effectively anonymous and not interested in paying their fair share, their dues that other account holders have been paying for months or years. Like I said, I understand this one.

Regardless, I decided to see what I could do by patiently climbing against the obstacles. I've treated it a bit like a personal quest to see how far a SL account could get after starting with no money and the simple basics. For now, as I look back over the past four months, it's not been without its low points but things seem to be working just fine.

Next Episode -- You Want To Start a What?

Winter!

My good friend over at Saturn 5 Photography has been doing something called "Come Out Shooting" for several weeks now. Its a weekly theme where a random word or concept is pulled out at, well, random and offered out for inspiration among us artistic types. Whether you are a photographer, writer, or any kind of artist, he encourages folks to send in something regarding the weekly theme. I've not been able to submit anything until just today! Finally!

The theme last week was Winter and so I took it upon myself to venture out into the results of yesterday's snowstorm to grab some quick shots. Unable to decide between my two favorites, the two images on this post are what I came up with.

Enjoy!

Rasum Frassum

Frustrations seem to abound this week which has, by default, led to all sorts of delays in keeping with the creative schedule I am trying to maintain. To name not all but a few; car's dying, hectic schedules, internet connection going bad for 24 hours, and now a winter storm. All seem to be conspiring to have me pull my hair out.

I had hoped to get some Frontier Horizon's items caught up yesterday but was only able to get the underwater cave post up. On the good side, a particular project happening at Caledon is moving along nicely. More on that later... My only regret is that due to said frustrations I was not able to give it the time I had intended. Hopefully, the coming storm won't interfere too much with connections this evening. But before that, I will need to get home from work safely. *grin* And, the other goal is to not be so tired that I cannot work on a short story that I wanted to have finished by now.

Storms happen and its the captain's job to find the best way through them or, if necessary, to find a good port for shelter. The goal is to not let the frustrations force a mistake out of you. Management of pressure.

Wish us luck!

Embodiment of Self

One of the other things I get to do with this blog is show off shots of things I think are cool within the digital world of Second Life but may not be able to post them over on Frontier's Horizon. Well, at least until the Great Expedition is over.

I love the artwork and skill that goes into avatars. Some folks take the chance to design the image of themselves they want to present to the digital world. I love people's choices and how creative they can be. I'll leave the psycho analysis as to why one presentational choice might differ and what personality traits might be evidenced by a person's choice firmly on the couch, in the shed, out back, in the woods. The bottom line about avatar choice is that its fun and, yes, sometimes it can tell you something about yourself.

And I love to take pics of all the creative and beautiful ones I've seen. With this post, I'm starting a series of cool and interesting avatars I see in-world. My apologies if I do not publish a name with them. Some times I don't even get a person's name because I am so busy operating the in-world camera. I'm clicking away and *poof* they're gone. Such is the case with the two presented here. I hope you enjoy them!

Abeam the Wind

I seem to have stumbled upon a schedule that works. It's not the schedule I was looking for or would have guessed upon but its funny what happens when you decide to just go with the flow instead of cramming your life into the boxes that you or others believe they should be in.

With my family of five, one car, and living in the country away from our places of employment, our schedule is not a friendly one conducive to relaxed creative ventures. Allow me to lay the normal gameplan out on the table. On days we both work, I am up by 6:30 a.m., out the door by 7:15 a.m., and to work by 8 where I manage to get in a little bit of creative time as I do not actually go on shift until a little before 10. Once done with work and sometimes being on our feet all day, its a fast-paced race home, dinner, deal with homework, and the assorted and random things that three children can come up with within 6 to 8 hours. You'd be amazed. Oh, I hear you out there saying, "No, we understand." And I'm telling you, unless you have three or more kids in school, you just don't understand. Children are an odd gift in my life that I treasure deeply. They make you smile, fill you with magic, and then, two minutes later, you're looking for something to throw at them. *grin* However, the magic they share with you is beyond compare

Once dinner is done then its time for either laundry, dishwashing, house-cleaning, and you-cleaning in either some random combination or a frenzied dash through all the stages. Squeeze in an hour of family time and then its bedtime for the little ones. We are fortunate that, in this, they are quite angelic. With the children asleep one would think, "Ah-ha! Time for creativity!" And to this I would say, "Ah-ha, you are right!" except for the fact that you're bone tired and the only real creative action you can perform is to pick the brightly colored mug instead of the black one in which to catch the drool leaking from the corner of your mouth. Or your ears...

No, it's usually at this time that my absent-minded brain goes on automatic and unless on fire with a creative project, I will begin to fade. Now, for many months I have pushed myself at this point. Snuck a bit of coffee in with some milk and jumped online to hash around in Second Life, opened the word processor, or grabbed Photoshop to work on a painting. Nights where I would stay up until 2 in the morning, bleary-eyed, falling asleep at my work desk only to get up and do it all again the next day. I do have the fortunate gift of only needing about six hours of sleep a night and, occasionally, much less. Yet, I was aware that I was pushing too hard and the schedule was wearing me down.

A few days ago, I gave up. I was exhausted, drained. I went to bed at 8:30 and, of course, woke up at 2:45 in the morning. Staggering out into the peaceful silence of the house, I flipped through some notes, flipped on the computer, and had the most amazing two and half hours before "the real world" kicked in. Curious, I tried it again the next night and the next morning it worked again. I was a bit stunned. Because I had been able to get the creative work done, I had a much better day and carried none of that creative pressure that can build up within like a volcano if you don't get it out. It makes for odd hours and puts a bit of a damper on the social life. With the Second Life expedition, it puts me in-world a little after midnight and exploring during the odd morning hours. This is good for lag and for my wee computer but hinders me a bit with contacts. Fortunately, Second Life is very international and I get to meet folks that I normally would not meet. When I meet them, that is. Regardless, I've been running on this schedule for several days now and, frankly, I'm amazed.

Could it be I've found the correct point off the wind where this ship sails the best? I suppose it's true.