St Valentine's Day and such

It is a mad, mad world!
Poor Visciouspen failed to take top place with his lovely St Valentine's day chair at the NCI newbie builder blitz tonight. But luck had not entirely left him! As he sat waiting for Miss Right to arrive, who should appear but... Mecha!

A closer look at his face though, revealed that Visciouspen was not altogether pleased with his prize.

There was at least one Ozzie rolling around laughing.
However with wonderful Beverly to keep a gentle hand on the shuddering rudder of NCI, things were soon rectified and Sandplum rose victoriously into his arms to swing gracefully around the mall boards.

Another Day

Hmm
Another day in Second Life!
Seems like I have been burning the candle at both ends. Lots of real life work and many hours of Second Life doesn't leave a lot over for sleeping.
When Otenth first ceeded me my town plot, he renamed it Fotherington Gardens. Since then I had failed to give it much thought. Recently however I obtained a cherry blossom tree with particles of falling blossoms.
I am in love with these trees.

So I laid out a platform and put trees along the edge and a row of flowers too. Noice!

I have had to run a major chair repair campaign. No doubt someone knows why a sit function will work one day and not the next, but that person isn't me. I have to admit that I have not spent much time with visitors in my house so I hadn't tested any of the chairs since I first spread them around. A surprise visit by Lukos and Sarinah turned embarrsssing when I had nothing to offer but cubes for sitting! Humph.
Fact: Apparently three people means camping ground. A fourth person joined us and attempted to raise money by camping on Rusty the guard corgi. I love Second Life! Why doesn't anyone camp on Real Life Rusty?
So I have had a personal blitz. Theme- chairs.
Cushions on floor, chairs and a park bench on my other bit of land leaves me with significantly better entertaining options. Viewing Lukos's back as he lies smothered on the bed.. not so good, even if he is comfortable listening to the music that pipes into my house.
Otherhalf has spent a few nights listening to ridiculous options to replace the streamed music. So far, Otenth's choice appears to be superior.
I took some really pretty pictures of Lukos and I sitting under the trees on the new bench however Lukos was having a bad hair day so I won't post them. Be grateful, boy! However I reckon that this is the perfect place to sit, watch the sun set, share souls and suggest greater Audrey content for blogs.
Fact: There is a point when there can be too much Audrey in a blog.
I keep thinking I have attended my last Building Blitz, only to find opportunity to sneek in one more. I worked too much over the weekend and when things went quiet yesterday, I decided I needed an early mark to do some chores. I was pretty chuffed to find that even after the chores were done, I was able to get to the NCI oldies blitz. Theme... Games.
So I built a slot car set. I really struggled with two things. I couldn't target the tiny cars and making the wire cords was a complete pain. Third prize though was excellent and my kitty now has rent for two months as long as I don't buy anything else in that time. No texture uploads. No clothes. No buying sounds. I don't think I will make it! LOL
Just before dinner last night, I had 10 minutes to spare before I needed to start cooking so I tp-ed to Aley's sim. There is always something there to explore. So I was in the pirates lair and thought I would give the toilet a go. ROFLOL. The toilet was not happy to have an occupant and threw me across the room!
Next thing I know, I am sitting on the sink, and a rocket powered bus pulled up at the window and tooted. Aley had arrived. I love Second Life!
Pity I had to go and cook dinner as our chat had to be short, but Aley gave me a few tips to try to float my boat. Not enough though. I got the sit fixed, but when I hop in, the boat rolls 90 degrees. Then we can sail around sideways with me underwater. Funny as anything but I would like to look less stupid if possible.
Final photo is of the curious question asker... met him at NCI and he was full of questions. Including where I lived.
Of course I was happy to show him lovely Wyre. The photo also gives you an idea how much better my images are now that I have the band width to deal with the graphics available.

P.S. He had no idea who I was when I next saw him! A lasting impression, obviously.

Water Sports

More fun in SL I went surfing.... but discovered the bikini in my inventory was just a smigeon short on fabric, so I surfed in capris! Next spot of fun is boating. I am trying to build a boat. I have a dress to wear but that is as far as I have got. Meanwhile I will pretend in some one else's boat!

Parade at Caledon

I am hopeless with dates in RL. The confusion that is added by SL running 19 hours behind Ozzie Eastern Summer, makes it even harder for me to figure when I am missing something!
Today I got lucky and was on line to be reminded to attend the float parade at Caledon. The 72 people in the sim with floats gave lag a whole new meaning.

Magnificent turn out that my photos do not do justice to!
You can see me in the foreground with gift hat and flag... no actually the flag is buried in my skirt.. but I did have one!

Well done everyone and thanks for the entertainment!

Look Up in Aley's Sim

Talking to Aley the other day, she dropped the line that i should look up next time I visit her sim!

Profoundly good advice!

What's more- there were two levels above what I looked at still to be populated.



Going through the gas cloud I emerged at a place that felt like I had just stumbled across one of Arthur C Clarke's monoliths.



Rama revealed?

Lighthouse Beam

Aim: Install lighthouse light with rotating beam
Resources: Linden Building tools, free scripts from NCI and the human resources at NCI
Action: Take particles scripting class. Learn how to script a beam of light. Install and add script for rotation.
Project Status: Completed

Ha! As if it would be that easy.

I took the class and it was a lot of fun, but it did not cover making steady beam of light. Neverthe less I learnt that there were plenty of parameters to explore. So I did. For a day. Without success.
Marious then gave me a hand. With a copy of his green lazer, I stood on the hill at Wyre and spent another day. Still I did not have a crisp beam of light. I am now facing the likehood that particles never were the way to go!

So I decided to skip the particles and instead use a textured cone with a texture animation script. Tadah! Very acceptable.

Installed it. Happiness! I stood on the ground and appreciated the view. Then I ran up the stairs to enjoy the view from the top.
THUD!
I couldn't get off the ramp. Thud..... thud.... I flew up a bit and was able to manuever out onto the deck, but then I couldn't walk around the deck.
I looked. Thought. Worried. Then noticed that someone was at Nox's so I flew over for some advice.
We considered it likely that it was the ghost of bits I had just moved around and Nox suggested asking Otenth to restart the sim.

Oblidgingly, he did.
But it didn't work. I IMed Aley but she was off line. I dragged Corcosman over to check that I wasn't imagining it.

More thinking. I decided that it seemed that the computer was somehow remembering where the beam sat in edit mode, even though it was now rotating. So I uninstalled it. And yes I could move easy once more. More thinking. If I make the beam a phantom... then it shouldn't do it again.

Viola!

It worked. Shortly after, Aley IMed me with the explanation.

It turns out that this script for rotation is client based only. It is seen to be moving, but in fact the object is where it was left rezzed. So making it a phantom is the only way to go!
Of course everyone I dragged into this probably would have expected that I had made it a phantom in the first place...but I didn't know! Honest! I need a course in when to use the various categories of prim. Something like "From Physical to Phantom"

Don't you feel sorry for those people I drag into these adventures? In the interests of my belief in "passing it on", feel free to contact me if you would like a free, functioning lighthouse beam!

Aley Arai's Entire Space Sim!

One of the things that has been really wonderful in NCI has been sitting at the feet, figuratively, of some of the best of Second Life's people.

At the top of our heap sits Aley!
Aley has been a wonderful patient teacher and helped me so much in my laggy days. I know that if I had been in her shoes the day she helped me with sit targets I would have ground all my teeth to stumps. My lag was killing me and I had no idea that I was actually doing it mostly right and failing because of the lag. Aley stuck with me until it all sorted. When she first told me about her sim I rushed over and got stuck in the lift. I tried again. Same thing. I couldn't get the images to load quickly enough to negotiate the trucker's stop.

Just when I was about to give up I met Aley after shouting a "hello" into the sim. Aley loaded me into her space ship and at last I was seeing this magnificent place! She was dragging me through. My slowed computer didn't have to predict... just stream what was being seen.

As you know, my lagging is behind me now. I actually suspect I am doing better than average in SL. Since then I have been back a couple of times, travelling under my own steam.

What a wonder. The textures and the detail are gobsmacking. Aley has already told me I need to "look up" next time I go.... so I think it is safe to say that this is a sim that is going to need to be a regular landmark to watch it evolve under her wonderful hands.