My Movie Poster

Over at New World Notes I read about Strawberry Singh's challenge to other bloggers: put our avatar into a movie poster. The movie can be real or otherwise.

How could I resist that?

I spent a couple of hours this evening-- time when I could have been building jewelry or repeatedly falling out of the sky-- to create the above poster. It's a reasonable copy of the poster for the film Emmanuelle:

I was unable to find the fonts used-- most likely they were created for the film-- but I was able to approximate them. I put less text at the bottom because let's face it, production credits for my knockoff were limited to myself. I did, however, manage to line up an all-star cast.

I made the avatar's image by putting myself against a black backdrop and focusing on the lower part of my face. I sat on a poseball so I wouldn't move and used Outy Banjo's great HUD emoter to open my mouth. I took a dozen or so snapshots before I got one with my mouth set just right. I loaded the photo into the free photo manipulation program GIMP and cut out the section I wanted. Then I removed my avi's teeth and changed the angle of the chin and the cut of the mouth opening to more closely approximate the original poster. After that I added fictitious credits, and Bob's your uncle.

I was hampered a bit by the resolution of my crop, but I made it work. The text is readable after doubling the size of the poster; before I did that, it wasn't.

It was fun, but I have a lot of falling out of the sky to catch up on, so I'm signing off.

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I Don't Socialize Much

Cheyenne, in Formal Attire, Contemplates Her hippoTech Servers

In October 2006, when I was new in Second Life, it was all about my social life. I owned nothing except a bunch of not very good freebies, but I was meeting people right and left in my wanderings and at the Ahern Infohub, which was my home.

A month later I owned a 4096 plot in Dreamland and was falling in love with an avatar I met on my first search for land. It was, yes, the mysterious and illusive Sweetie, the love of my virtual and real lives. She was standing on a hillside, tweaking a beautiful water fountain she had made. Next thing I knew she was building my house and I was falling head over heels for her.

For the next two years we were in world a lot together and socialized with a small but interesting bunch of friends-- but with time, we diverged. Quite a few stopped coming in world. A few went down paths in world that kept them busy and were just outside our spheres of interest-- roleplaying, for instance. As for us, we bought a sim and spent a hectic year developing it.

When Whimsy was in its full glory we set out to build a home for the many malfunctioning mechanoids of the Metaverse-- our robot sanatorium. That took eight or nine months, with a three-month hiatus in the middle while I tried to figure out how to fit in a system of navigable pipes in the tight structure of Rosie the robot's head.

By the end of that time Sweetie wasn't coming in world much. We were spending a third of our time together and our connection in Second Life was no longer critical. I spent my time tweaking Whimsy and Whimsy Kaboom and, occasionally, exploring the world Our friends-- those who were left-- were doing their own things. We checked in on one another now and again, but rarely visited.

By 2011 I was spending intensive months on ridiculous and nearly impossible projects, alternated with months of standing around doing nothing in particular. I spent a good deal of time at Infohubs, ostensibly to help newcomers-- and I did a lot of that-- but mostly to entertain myself. It was low entertainment. Most of the people at the hubs are rude, or poseurs, or psychotic, or all three-- but it kept my chat bar filled. Then I would be off on another building spree on Whimsy or would just stand on the sea decks on Kaboom and watch the humpbacks cavorting.

Lately I've been on another building tear, getting my Flights of Fancy jewelry store up and finally running and re-engineering the erupt mode of Pele the volcano and listening to Hawaiian music. And I'm still not socializing much.

My mid-year resolution is to get out more. More on this later.

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Another Photo from Sweetie's Discerning Eye

I didn't see the beauty in this build. Sweetie did.

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What's the Story Today?

"I'm sure the new clubhouse is around here somewhere..."

One of my real-life friends has a heart condition that leaves her short of breath and unable to do even simple tasks like vacuuming. She is, happily, able to get around in Second Life. She's been in world five years.

Her interests in SL mirror her interests in the real world. In her first couple of years she made more than one thousand U.S. dollars dancing on a pole. Her wit made her a favorite with customers, who tipped her generously. Today she owns a sizeable parcel on the mainland and keeps trying to form community-- and specifically a community of Southern female bikers.

She has never suffered fools gladly and she frequently feels bad, which probably explains the following:

Chey: What's with the invitation? Didn't I already join?

Sprocket: Yeah, you did, but I disbanded the group.

Chey: Same way you did last time? And the time before that?

Sprocket: Yeah. You were probably offline when I ejected you.

Chey: Okay, I'll join. But I hope this one lasts.

Sprocket: Of course it will last.

-----

Chey: Again? You kicked me again?

Sprocket: Someone griefed the clubhouse. I'm tired of this shit. I'm done. I closed the group.

Chey: Then why did I just get a blue menu with an invitation?

Sprocket: I just now changed my mind, okay?

------

Chey: You're resigning as President?

Sprocket: Yup. I turned over duties to Judge Camper.

Chey: You-- wait a minute! Judge Camper? Judge Camper? This Judge Camper?

Sprocket: Yes. Why?

Chey: Judge Camper's a guy. Or he used to be, anyway.

Sprocket: So? Half my ladies are guys. Maybe all of them.

Chey: I'm sure you're right. Second Life is confusing sometimes. But why are you resigning?

Sprocket: I'm tired of the shit.

Chey: I hear that.

-----

Chey: What? You're back as President?

Sprocket: Yes.

Chey: I didn't know you could do that. Just take a presidency back, I mean.

Sprocket: You can when you own the group.

-----

Chey: You resigned again?

Sprocket: I did.

Chey: That's what? Seven times in nine days? And I was kicked three times this week.

Sprocket: Four.

Chey: I never participate. Why do you keep inviting me?

Sprocket: You're my friend. I wouldn't feel right if I didn't invite you.

-----

Chey: ANOTHER new clubhouse?

-----

Sweetie: Chey, why are you in six groups with nearly identical names?

Chey: Don't ask.

Sweetie: And why do I keep getting invitations to join a motorcycle club?

Chey: Don't ask.

-----

Chey: Sprocket, It's been a week now with no resignations, new clubhouses, mass expulsions, or group closings? What gives?

Sprocket: You've not given me any shit yet.

Chey: Er, Sprocket, how many people are in the group?

Sprocket: Two.

Chey: I thought so.

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I Rethink My Southwestern Jewelry

When I was about six months into Second Life I set out to find some Navajo-style turquoise jewelry. Why? Because I like it in real life. I found lots of high prim fancy bracelets and necklaces and armbands, but not what I wanted-- and so I set out out to create some.

I'd had a few months to learn the SL interface and building tooks, but I was still a novice. I didn't quite know what I was doing (in fact, one prim I came across this week is named "Gem-- Don't Know What I'm Doing," but somehow I accomplished my goal. I was soon wearing belt, necklace, bracelets, and earrings in silver turquoise.

People responded well to the jewelry and I set it for sale. I maintained a half-ass store area, but most of my sales were on the twin websites On Rez and XStreet-- and, when Linden Lab purchased them, on the Second Life Marketplace.

Not wanting to co-opt the Navajo Nation, I called my jewelry Southwestern. I had nine pieces (two belts, two bracelets, three necklaces, and two pairs of earrings) in nine stones, available in both silver and gold. That made (quick math exercise) 9 x 9 x 2 items, for a grand total of 162 products to build, photograph, package, and set for sale in three different places.

That pretty much shut me down in the sales department.

I don't know why I didn't figure this out in 2007, but it would have made more sense to have nine products with a script to change their textures.

When the Marketplace did away with magic boxes and I was faced with re-doing all those products, I belatedly realized I need to change my strategy.

And so I wrote a script that allows the owner to select from nine semi-precious stones. The script not only changes texture, but color, and sets the texture density.

I toyed with the idea of including a command to delete the script, but as each piece contains only a single touch script, and since the jewelry is modifiable, I decided against it. I also decided against having the script change the metal.

I now have gold and silver sets in vendors at my store space 4000 meters above Whimsy. Within a day or two they'll be available at the Marketplace.

I'm going to move forward with creating a real store. Flights of Fancy will be athe wonderful (and huge!) Sub-Orbital Asteroid Retreat here.

I've set the vendors to give a 25% discount to members of the Flights of Fancy group; I'll also be sending gifts to group members twice a month.

I'll be documenting all this on my Flights of Fancy blog. I'll only occasional post store-related material here-- mainly when I'm excited about something.

Photos of Jewelry are below the line.

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FLICKR Gets New Look, Unlimited Photos

Yahoo owns the photo-sharing website FLICKR (and now TUMBLR). Last week the company rolled out a new and much-improved interface for FLICKR. Even better, the old limit of 200 photos for free accounts is gone. Now you get 1 TB of space (think a half million full-sized photos) and lots of space for videos. The 4-set limit is gone, too! Read about it here.

My FLICKR account has been mostly static since I used up all my slots years ago. No longer. I spent most of yesterday putting in photos I couldn't before. They look wonderful in the slideshow mode.

You can view my (free!) FLICKR account here. Try the slide show.

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Sweetie's Photos of Steam Powered Giraffe

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