Prims, glitches, trees

Prim gateways to the cream of British academia: 1 (v. good); Retrospective tree house posts: 1 (good) (if retrospective).

Am currently on travels again, trying to fit marking around doing academic things in exotic (Thessaloniki) and less exotic places (Manchester) (OK, suppose Manchester is exotic to some people). Am thus getting few opportunities to meander round SL. Am restricted to brief sorties to see what is free this morning from the Designer Showcase Network (see previous post) and pick up IMs and the odd prim.
Most useful prim is not from the DNS, though DNS has subsequently yielded some cute household goods from Second Spaces (cushions - you can never have too many - and bathroom vanity jars - well, why not?), and more useful poses. Also one gown which will try on when can prise self out of current outfit. Other stuff more dubious, though sure will find a use for the operational swing door, they always come in handy.

Will note here that, whilst unpacking, noticed odd glitch in SL, that everything was being rezzed and copied twice over. This was baffling at first when rezzed box containing various DSN objects, and they appeared to still be there even after deleted them. Then noticed that was getting 2 sets of objects, landmarks, notecards etc. and also when examined land, list of of Object owners was duplicated. Hmm. Am hoping this is strange quirk to do with wifi connection in Thessaloniki hotel.
Anyway most useful item is from Graham, who has produced simple prim that when you click it turns into searchable database of UK university SL properties. Cool or what. Includes Infolit iSchool, am pleased to say, plus 40-ish others. When you select a university, the map pops up with the right place marked and you can teleport in with one click.


Have placed this useful prim in the library on Infolit. Could not resist texturing it with pic of me and Nigl in academic garb on a seesaw. First picture, above, shows 3 stages in the process of tp-ing to a university. Image for first step has illegible text because a) This is a small image b) "twinning" glitch appears to have affected this prim as well, so here you see 2 conflicting hover texts and c) did this quickly in Photoshop and think I stretched the photo by mistake.

Actually the whole thing is illegible unless you CLICK on it to see the picture full size. If you do, you will see the hover texts and dialogue onscreen. Best thing is to visit the library in SL and have a look.

Speaking of places on Infolit (to change the subject) appear to have failed to blog the new tree house on Infolit. This is serious omission.

Had been feeling that previous tree house was starting to look its age, and then spotted a feaure about tree houses on a blog. Thus the Denmark tree house somehow found its way into my inventory. It is v. atmospheric and has operational lift. Came with candles that emit fireflies (romantic!) or butterflies (colourful!) and candles that emit bird sounds (some of the birds actually sound like they are being done to death, but still).


Took off roof of top house in tree house to make romantic/utile platform, and this is where last week's infolit discussion was held. Since still have not uploaded chatlog etc etc will give sneak preview of one of the participants, namely Pancha, who was wearing a supercute butterfly Avatar.

Sculpties, Emails, Neighbours

Sculpty classes missed: 1 (bad); Discussion lists and SL groups spammed with notice about 4th June meeting: 10 (good: unless you got all 10 of them, I suppose); SLED post score: 28 (good, ish); Lucky chair dresses snagged by alt: 1 (yay!)
On Monday attended first Educators Coop chat for a while. Unfortunately had not been able to go to a making-sculpties class organised by Rx, which was shame as sounded v. good. Pic shows Rx and a cube he used with screenshots of how to do things. Also shows unflattering view of Bluewave typing, sorry about that, Bluewave.

Received notice about Educators Coop Retreat at end of month which sounds v.v. cool, so looking forward to that. Remember RL friend going on retreat where chocolate was forbidden and she had to sneak out to munch furtively on a kit-kat bar. Obvious advantage of virtual retreat is that can be indulging in all sorts of pleasures of flesh (within reason) whilst simultaneously taking part in retreat.

Have sent out oodles of emails and notices re the meeting tomorrow at noon SL time, in which (I hope) people will turn up with good ideas for developing the H1N1 (or, as I choose to call it in populist fashion, swine flu) information literacy build. At what point does this become spam? Hope someone will tell me if it does.

A SLEDer has analysed all the SLED posts for the last couple of years and posted a list of how many posts each person has sent. Rolig Loon came top, Graham also topped the 100 post mark, proving what a helpful person he is. I came in (as my RL alt) at 28 posts. Fear that most of those were announcements of meetings, as rarely contribute otherwise. On other hand, organising discussions is a contribution. They certainly aren't doing my career much good, anyway, so I hope someone is deriving benefit. (Hmm, must have had a glummer day than I thought)

On to more cheerful and even less impactful matters: have been zipping round moving the island from spring to summer, ripping out flowering cherries, bluebells and tulips, and putting in birch & aspen trees, garlic mustard and poppies, plus a couple of lavender bushes outside the Centre. As a finishing touch the sushi bar has been replaced by a retro barbecue (2nd pic): you can get wearable hamburgers, kebabs and - something else - is it sausages? I really mustn't go back in to SL just to find out.

Back on my own land, yet more new neighbours, these ones (last pic) with a rather more morbid tone than usual. Note the twin skeletons holding hands across their graves. However, was much cheered to get unsolicited IM from complete stranger just to say she'd wandered onto my land and liked it a lot.

P.S. Dimitrova finally got her free Pizzacato Poppies dress after a mere extra hour of waiting. It was almost worth it. But not quite.