Pushovers

July 30, 2008

I promised myself I would spread the bot hunting posts around, but a) this one is too good to hold back and b) that darned real life work thing cut into my exploring time tonight, so better to have a bot hunting post than no post at all. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to become the bot hunting blog.

So yesterday I found this platform in the sky full of bots. What made it different was that these bots weren’t stuck behind walls, nor were they sitting on poseballs. That, shall we say, was their downfall.

Hey, what happened to everyone? It’s almost as if someone gave them a one way ticket to Groundsville…

Ah, there they are, milling around in the open. Now they can shop to their hearts content. Goodness knows they could use some better clothes… and skins… and hair…

The next morning the bots were back up on their platform, so I had to help them get down to earth again. While I was on the ground making sure they hadn’t hurt themselves, I noticed this sign, which is almost worh a post all its own. It reads (NSFW):

At least now I know where 2 go if I needs sumthing 4 having an ordinary sexlife in SL. Becuz a interesting one would b 2 stressful.

Later that day, someone took the bots back to their home in the sky and built walls around their platform. Sometimes they learn so fast…

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Moonlight%20Island/109/52/668

10 Comments | silly | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

Not so unattractive

July 29, 2008

My friend Velveeta (that’s her in her camo “bot hunting” dress) asked to go bot hunting with me, so I took her along last night and showed her how it’s done. You’ll understand if I don’t explain how I break into these bot hives here. No sense letting the bot herders get a leg up on creating new and better countermeasures.

Bot hunting with a friend is surprisingly fun. Vel had to take a moment to lecture this group that they could break free and have better lives outside the box. She also wondered that they never got out to go to the bathroom. I suggested that based on the crouching, some of them didn’t see that as an obstacle.

Incidentally, the new set of default avatars has led to the interesting phenomenon of bots that don’t look so bad. You might call this particular group almost fashionable. You can tell right away that this bot batch has some fresh ingredients.

This other group we found, on the other hand, thinks that grey is the new black. This was a strange one. They were up on a platform in plain sight, but when you approached they were behind a set of invisible walls. That wasn’t too difficult to get past, but one wonders why they would do that. Maybe to prevent people like us from pushing the bots off the edge of the platform? Oh, if only we could have…

http://slurl.com/secondlife/The%20Sun/136/139/393

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Million%20Island/23/232/701

3 Comments | funny | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

Like a sexy nun

July 27, 2008

From what I can gather Demi Étage is a Japanese fashion catalog. Some time ago I found their presence in Second Life, complete with 25 freebie outfits that look just like the stuff you can buy in real life. Yes, you and your avatar can match. It’s either very cool or very creepy, depending on your perspective. 

I never bothered to write about it because my female friends told me that the outfits were of middling quality and didn’t fit well. However, I just ran into the spot again and something hit me. It’s not just the quality of the outfits that’s an issue, it’s that they just don’t fit into the styles we’ve come to accept in Second Life.

Look at them. They look just fine in the photographs behind them, but on the avatars it’s startling to see someone with every inch of their skin covered. Pretty much every outfit with a skirt includes leggings. On an avatar they look positively schoolmarmish (or like the sexist nun you ever met). We must not expose the legs! The legs are evil!

But when you think about it… I’m bouncing around with giant boots and tight t-shirts with my arms covered in tattoos in a kind of metro biker chic and no one thinks much of it. What reaction would it get if I dressed like that down at Wal-Mart (assuming I was that buff in real life, I suppose)? Many of the women I know are usually quite scantily clad (Not that I mind! Not that I mind! Don’t start wearing more clothes on my account!). In real life those outfits would probably provoke unwanted attention.

I don’t know if I really have a point in mentioning this, but it is interesting. Maybe we dress the way we do in Second Life because if we had bodies like that in real life, well, maybe would would dress that way. I’ve often commented that Second Life is the only place where, when I’m shopping for clothes, I will say, “Hey, that looks like it fits really tight…. I’ll buy it!” 

Maybe we’re just used to it. After living in a world with furries and tinies and assorted other creatures, maybe wearing a super-mini is no big thing.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tokai01/175/114/34

1 Comment | commercial, retail | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

Digital inbreeding

July 25, 2008

This bucolic little bot reservation seemed pretty standard when I filed made my way in. It’s a skybox with a lot of bots sitting on camping chairs. (Note to bot herders: Don’t think you’ve fooled me into thinking your bot farm is a camping area when you’ve sealed the bots in a box and you can’t TP inside).

Then Jessa looked over my shoulder, pointed at one of the bots in the front row and said, “Hey, is that a baby?”

Oh. My. God. They’re breeding now.

Alas, it seems that on their first experimental hookup they let siblings mate. How else do you explain a face like that? Accident with an automated rice picker?

And just in case you thought I was being unfair by not showing the little guys good side… there is no good side. Only the bad side and the worse side.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dania/167/100/764

5 Comments | funny | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

The wrath of dough

July 23, 2008

This one costs L$30, but you’ll have hours… okay, minutes of fun with it. File this one under General Japanese Strangeness.

Imagine yourself in a store where almost everything is upside down. The building is being held up by a stick figure, who must have eaten his Wheaties today. On the ground there is this object you can buy. Wear the object and play he included animation. If you are standing on the ground, you disappear and a little angry flexi white gingerbread man outline takes your place. 

I am not making this up. I am completely sober.

A little more research shows that you’ve merely been turned upside down, as shown above. Still, it’s a clever little toy and will no doubt give you minutes… okay, seconds of pleasure as you astound your friends by transforming into a little… angry… flexi… white.. gingerbread man outline.

Right, then. Sorry to have bothered you.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/JAPAN%2008/72/191/26

Leave a Comment » | commercial, international | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

Music to your ears

July 21, 2008

Jessa told me the other day that Gibson guitars has an island in Second Life. I figured it would probably be another one of those dry, corporate regions, but I was happy to find that it ain’t necessarily so. There’s a lot to see, some amazing builds, and a real dedication to bringing live music events to the region. It gives you hope that business just might figure out Second Life after all.

When you land on the island you’ll find a set of signs that will teleport you to various points of interest on the island. These are your friends, and you’ll miss a lot if you don’t use them. Some of the best spots in the region aren’t easily noticed just by flying around, hidden as they are in the components of the giant earthen guitar body that makes up the island.

If you do decide to fly around the first thing you’ll notice several lovingly gracted giant guitars. These alone are worth the price of admission (which, okay, is L$0). I may be biased, seeing as I love monstrously huge builds so much.

There’s a lot of video to see in different parts of the island. Videos of famous performers (using Gibson instruments, of course), the making of guitars, and various features, (Robot guitar, It tunes itself! I waaaaant it!). The island is strewn with freebies guitars, too. Many of them are clustered near the Guitar of the Month display, but if you don’t look around you’ll miss gems like the Angus Young guitar. Pity the poor guitar seller in Second Life — these are all excellent.

Most importantly, there are several performance venues, both large and small. Signs at the rez point note upcoming performances, and there’s also an update group you can join.

There’s the inevitable freebie t-shirt store, of course. What the shirts lack in quality (as usual, no shading to show body definition) they make up for in quantity. What I’ve shown above are maybe a third of the selections. I’m still not wearing them, though.

All in all it’s nice to see a business making such good use of an island. The layout is a little jumbled and unpolished, but that is almost part of it’s charm. It makes me think that this isn’t totally just a marketing thing.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Gibson%20Island/78/50/49

1 Comment | commercial, music | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

100th Post! My favorite hangout

July 20, 2008

I spend a lot of time writing about the weird, the wacky, and the wonderful things in Second Life. I’ve found a lot of incredible places, but the blog is a harsh mistress and I rarely end up back at them. I’m too busy looking for new places.

But when I’m not exploring, I hang out at the Shelter. Oh, Jessa and I have a home in SL, but that’s our private place and I ain’t tellin’. But the Shelter is my Cheers, that place where everybody knows my name.

I discovered it accidentally about a year ago when I dropped in on the building game Building Shelter. Literally, I just dropped in on a bunch of green dots in the hopes that something interesting was happening. And it was. What I found was a place where people didn’t just dance in costume contests (though we have that, too). It’s an actual community with regularly scheduled things to do together. 

The pictures I’ve posted here aren’t really representative of what goes on at the Shelter. These are shots I’ve taken with a semi-regular group I see when I’m having my morning coffee. The Shelter grounds actually span parts of two three regions and include a ballroom, a pool, a game show area, a game room, and something else I’ve probably forgotten.

Actual events take only a small percentage of the time during the week, but there always seems to be a nice group there. The real attraction of the Shelter is the people and the emphasis on a PG atmosphere and no drama. You might think it’s stifling, but really, it’s just a place where normal people can be normal. Well, normal for SL.

The Shelter was built as a safe haven for new residents who are looking for a place that isn’t so sexually charged as others. I was hardly a newbie when I found it, but I still thought it was the perfect place to hang my hat. And while people have a lot more choices in non-sexually charged things to do these days, the Shelter keeps on rolling along on the strength of a dedicated group of Coordinators and Volunteers. After a while I felt like I needed to make myself useful and became a volunteer myself. These days I run the weekly Formal dance (Sundays, 7PM SLT).

I’ve wrote a lot in my pre-SL days about digital communities. On the Internet can make beautiful web sites, but blogs are where people meet. In Second Life, people can make beautiful builds, but it’s people and communities that keep people coming back. I’ve made great friends at the Shelter: Interesting people who like me for who I am and whom I’ve grown to care about. I’ve found my community. Where’s yours?

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Isabel/50/244/82

5 Comments | community | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

Liquored Up

July 18, 2008

Lately I’ve been focusing my explorations on places where people are, as opposed to those beautiful but empty places I usually find. Naturally, I end up running into gatherings of bots, and I can’t resist breaking into their little boxes and taking pictures. People seem to enjoy it, so let’s see how it works as a regular feature, shall we?

Well, whoever set up this gathering was humane, at least. Instead of being stuck in a box they get to sit on dance pads in the fresh air. Not only that, but they make Lindens by camping. That’s one of the schemes bot farmers use to disguise their bots. They don’t lose anything by paying their bots camping money, since the money goes back to them, anyway. I can tell they aren’t real campers because of a) their extreme Ruthiness and b) the fact that the camping pads are stuck in the sky with no platform or teleport to them on the ground.

By the way, when I checked up on this spot the pads were empty, so if you’e looking to earn an easy L$2 every 10 minutes, there you have it. I left myself camping there overnight just to mess with the owner.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tru%20Colors%20Island/46/62/310

Here’s quite a large gathering. Most of them are pretty standard looking, but one couple snuck in a goblet of wine. Maybe everyone is passing the goblet around. And what’s with the crouching? It looks like they’re trying to set the record for most simultaneous farts. From the looks of things, I’d say they succeeded.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Live/44/132/344

And lastly, here’s a lovely set of Ruths (okay, lovely isn’t the right word), a couple of whom just had to be different and get the prim hair. Sometimes a bot just wants to feel… pretty.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pearls/39/102/761

Leave a Comment » | commercial, funny | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

One hour sim

July 17, 2008

Imagine, if you will, having a whole region at your disposal, but you only have an hour (or so) to turn it into a work of art. Eshi Otawara did. Her blog post explains more, but she built this entire region-sized poem with only the letters r, o, g, u, and e to start with, left over from an earlier project. (Eshi, by the way, is the person who ran the marriage proposal poem contest I won a while back).

I don’t think I could make a single letter in an hour (at least not ones that looked this good). What’s more, the whole thing is really Art with a capital A. Extending the poem along the ground, the positioning, the use of different text colors… wow.

These one hour builds only stay up for a couple of days, hence the quick bog posting. I wanted you to see this one before it disappeared. But if you don’t read this in time, don’t worry. There will probably be something equally stunning in it’s place. Which gives you a reason to keep coming back, doesn’t it?

No pressure, Eshi.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Desperado/153/255/65

1 Comment | art, builds, wow | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

Full Nelson

July 15, 2008

I would have been a much better wrestler in my junior high school gym class if they allowed and counted the kind of dramatics you see on TV wrestling. I was a 98 pound weakling, but acting… that I could do. I did manage to pin a guy, but that was only because (he claimed) I cut off his airflow. Whatever works.

My friend Kat is a competitor in Second Life Championship Wrestling, or SLCW for short. Here she is taking down a guy twice her size. They fight twice a week (noon SLT on Wednesdays and Sundays). I finally made it to a match this weekend. Considering that I don’t even like wrestling in RL, I was very entertained.

Aaaannd he’s done for. I hope he wasn’t planning on fathering any children. I didn’t even know who the first couple of competitors were, but in short order I found myself getting into the spirit of things, yelling “Bite him! Kill him! Ruin his credit score!” The dramatics and the characters encourage that kind of response.

I don’t care if he’s an avatar or not… that’s gotta hurt.When you think about it, SLCW wrestling is no less real than RL wrestling. It’s a show, they know it, and they gave me an hour of fun. You can’t ask for more than that. Despite the occasional technical difficulties (one guy missed pinning the champion in the final seconds of their match, ow!) I really enjoyed myself. My inner thespian is even thinking about applying to be a competitor myself. The Masked Blogger? Captain Thong? The Bald Brawler? Hmmm….

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Davey%20Jones%20Locker/34/68/23

3 Comments | games, sports | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Garth Goode

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