Linz, Ice Strawberry, Venise, AutoGrill

Linz, Ice Strawberry, Venise, Autogrill, Linz real peoples secondlife,

Autogrill in the Italian Venitian area -
the coffee is as usual very very good. These Autogrill stops along the high way is very interesting, it sells everything like a grocery store. Pasta, bread, milk, cheese, vegetable, books in a pile, magazines, a large range of sandwiches, chocolates, sunglasses, gadgets.

The French highway stop over Arches etc. Very neat and tidy, no real coffee, only machines!!!
The toilets are cleaner, newer, cuter. But not so full of life. Its boring, cold, bad drinks, bad food.

I think about the cute camping in Linz, thats secondlife for some people, many cute little elves, little glass pot flowers, tiny tiny lawn infront of wooden carriages. Behind the counter, there was a hand painted canvas of the camping with the nice lake behind, somebody really loves this camping. The brush strokes are so carefully put together, so much tenderness.

The camping in Venice is practical, and no more. But the people at the cash is funny, a very handsome young blond guy, he answers and seem very ready to get back to his football magazine. When we left, he gave us two sovenirs, a red color ball point pen with the name of the camping printed on it.
While i was there, a couple of older people came in their car with a huge fold out tent, they looked like seasoned campers.

All I thought of was, when I get that old, would I enjoy camping in a non-scenic camp ground?

Another car next to us opened up with an aluminum fold out table - i saw it at the nature shop at the Louvre boutique - it looks very nice... I liked the table very much at the shop, here it is rather more urban chic than all the things around us. I see inside their tents, the two folding army cots in the same series, very chic and sleek. They stayed one day and the next day they are gone.

Opposite from us is a small caravan, he hung out carpets to dry, maybe he lives here for a long time! there was a tiny fold out bikes with small wheels.

I wouldnt want to live here long term. I like living in nature, with trees, sun, and simplicity... the one solution i find is the yourte, it is both with nature and settled with modern comfort. I would feel sad if I lived in a camping car all year round...
a wooden cabin would be so much better. There is something sad about living in a house with wheels... isnt this strange?

A boat on water, is it sad to live in a boat?
Anyway, I came home and glad to sleep in my bed and putter around in the bathroom, kitchen, reminds me of what and how should we live? What is the purpose of life?

Ice Strawberry, Russian film

Swann met ice strawberry in Linz, Ice Strawberry took a photo of Swannbb - people were very excited about exporting sl to rl. People walked on the street, so many avatars in rl! I even got an exported chocolate glaze donut, and real linden dollars. Free clothings. The whole set up was called Second City. Most important thing is that everybody had great fun! Adult and children alike! Berlin in sl. All the rl avatars told me that since they came into sl, they havent slept.

Then, in Venice, at the Biennale de Venise, in the Chinese pavillion, swann saw the installations, very interesting. Weapons made of kitchen knives and colorful sweaters wrapped in wash basins - I think. Very creative, in such a challenging site. Very beautiful and reference to the everyday. There was a video of a Girls Virgin Garden, a girl dancing in the nude in a long shot, she is enjoying herself, and chirping in bird talks to birds.

Very fitting from all points of view, in such a difficult space - because, its already filled with huge oil drums, full!!! only space left was the ceiling and in between the barrows!

Very successful.

More later.

Half Hundun Guqin in sl!

Since I learnt to link and delink yesterday, I cant help it, I took out the chouchou koto and started to take it apart.

12 strings, pluck pluck pluck, 7 left. This is a 94 prim instrument! pluck pluck pluck, the frets, each one of them are made with 3 little pieces; so at the end of this exercise, my land is littered with little pieces of white bone like things!

Then there is the silk headboard, silk inlaid, pluck pluck, all out. The bridge at the top and the bottom.

How to taper... i got a couple of friends over and we tapered test cubes, they showed me how.

So, I practiced on a new board that I made to be about the same size... so I try it on throw away stuff first. Good. Works.

I tapered, and re-aligned the top and the bottom.

An error message comes up, no signal to trigger music. Hmmm, ok, no problem, I just put it together first and see.

So, its now put together. I try to sit at the guqin, hahahaha. The avatar just flips upside down! but the music plays!

So I disassembled the guqin and re-organised the boards, and the avatar now sits upright and plays! Perfectly! HOOOO, one days work!

Now, i will put in Digital Guqin music, and that will be the instrument part. Next will be the fancy robe I will make for SuDongPo! Hahahah, apparently hes a fat man... he invented the DongPo porc - a slow cooking stew of very fat porc, very yummy though... hahahah. And for someone who lived in year 1500s - got to check... as he is my favorite writer, poet, intellectual...

He will be in my tableau of "Playing the Guqin under a tree" in Secodlife Qin Garden...
You wait and see, everyone is invited to take on the avatar of SuDongPo, and play the guqin... hahahahahhahaha

Got to sleep now, will be off to Ars Electronica tomorrow, and then Venise.

So surprised this problem is solved in one day !

Laggy laggy

Boring day, but I learnt to link, delink objects... I removed some of the sitting balls and stuck them everywhere... hahahah so now, you could sit on the flower trees everywhere on leaves and - everywhere!

Actually in sl, everything is prop - there is no need to have anything at all to sit or whatever. Everything is to create ambiance. So, now I think of it, particle are made to help people express themselves, either through a rosy fog, bursting with little hearts, or green clovers to give cheery good luck , or fire work, or whatever. The whole point is to help the verbally short people to give a kick to their speech...

Reminds me of the 3 euros perfumes, I was laughing so much when I first saw them - BI, or I love you, or Passion, or MAN MAN etc. Very direct, no mistake about it, the one who gives such a gift is very direct. We might laugh, so corny, but that the comic book age, we are impatient with words... hahahahahh

Today, I visited everywhere. A friend answered my IM, but I had a crash. Right at the critical moment a crash. :(

Linden Lab is not yet a stable enough platform for certain work. I read the sl conference proceeding - one of the message from almost everybody is - lots of latency.

Laggy laggy...

Canadians, Medical Doc's pre-internet ghostly secondlife, teenagers, timid people

Read the sl tutorial site, it tells you ABC's of sl life. So I looked in the photography section... oooh, its linked to a special designer wear site, an underwear made to measure - hmmm, from the very formal clauses, I am certain the clothes are made for sl use. And its 30US per baby doll, tie-me-up strap swim suit etc! ooooOOOOoooo

How many sets did the designer sell? Doesnt say of course. But some people really take things seriously - more than rl?

I got a bling - and so I invited some people over, and two Canadians showed up. One does a particle effect business in sl, he makes several hundred US$ per month. He showed me showers of fire, maple leaves, maple leave flags, etc etc. This is pretty good! He gave me around 50 LM for sims that he likes, this will be on my list of to visits for the next few days.

Then, at noon, I consider my work done. How beautiful rl is, my tree looks so alive outside, with depth, and nuance, not flat cartoony trees, the grass the smell, and I sit next to the window, finally, opened a book I bought a year ago.

A book of line drawing and short texts by a medical doctor. Very unusual, because he professed that he is timid and due to a natural born characteristic, he made little friends. Definitely brilliant as he speaks many languages, and very well read - this is evident from the text he writes to accompany the little vignettes that he draws.

I read it for one hour, and at the end, I came back from his world to my world. His world is a Kafkaesque, with a quiet poetry - sombre,full of anxiety, and mysterious spiritual paradoxes - a sort of secondlife, as he seemed to be not of this earth or he seemed to live in a limbo between our world rl and a world beyond at the same time. Heavily smelling of a twilight zone. Could this be the reason that he made few friends? There was a photo of him in the book, a rather large portrait of an unsmiling handsome, robust built young man, behind him stacks of books on medicine, philosophy, art, all piled up not on bookshelves but a wall of columns of books. Actually I enjoy putting my books this way too. Seems more minimal, pared down. Its a way of storing books without damages. The drawings were spiritually sombre worlds, silent and poetic. I think, should he ever enter sl, he would enjoy it - and maybe sl could save him from this limbo imprisonnement. And possibly, his "characteristics" that made him so friendless is this ambiance of from the other world - some people have ultra sensitivity to previous lives... maybe he is of this ilk. (though he says he has friends, I think he is just the non-boisterous, quiet and reliable type of friend). He is an amateur, not a professional, this could also be seen in his drawings and his texts. They are a form of romantism from the 30, 40s, written in the style and tone of a gentle, elegant, genteel society of Shanghai where names of people and places are referred to by a single alphabet. He would say, I lived in "H city" - this is not a contemporary trend in storytelling - people like to be as loud and as transparent as possible in our days - Though he is from the North, so where did this style of writing come from? His world is formed from reading, because he is a loner... and serves night shifts at the hospital - thats why this book is an extension of that booky, historic literary world.

He lives in the secondlife of the pre-internet world. People read books and build stories from books.

In the current sl world, there is a lot of noise, and very few slow, poetic moments. It is equivalent to a world where anybody who took the time could publish a book - so imagine, the amount of self-published books there are! However, it is not so bad, because it is NOT a book. A self-published mediocre book will have almost zero reader - here in sl, its rather like a pub - jokes, shared times do not need to be at the level of eloquent professional performance. Sl is a huge shared convivial, social space.

Yesterday, a German friend tp me to a sandbox where he worked. As his English is hesitant, he gave me the impression that he is a very timid person... he slowly told me that he has learnt to make... and before he completed his sentence, he jumped ahead and asked me what I did, so I said, I did shopping and bought some houses. I rezzed a flower for him to see just to get the motor going; immediately, some voice came over, very loud, very rude... saying, "asshole, dont try to sell freebies here!" I dont know if that voice was talking to me, but, such rudeness, loudness - I hope its a teenager only - shoots before he thinks... but still... hahahah sl is like rl, looks like much crap everywhere.

My friend disappeared immediately, did he have a crash? ... so very sl - pooof - gone!

Poser 7, scripting, hair, wedding, gift

I found a gift this morning, a Rietveld chair - such a nice object. I saw it on a neighbours lawn, and wrote to the creator and its in my mail box! Such a beautiful gift.

Such I have to make headways, i asked Spirited Dog about using his Antique chair but what about the pose, if its pre-scripted what to do to change it to a both feet on ground pose? Spirited Dog said that just put something else to sit on, so we click on that object script and not on his chair and everything is fine.

So next, fingers, and arms animation... and sitting pose

Poser, my new team mate informed me yesterday, is what animators use - confirmed by Spirited Dog, so i downloaded a demo version. In no time, the male model began to look like a Francis Bacon painting... :) All twisted... animation is a precise art!

Hair, you could grow it from the skull...

In the demo, there are facial expressions of a lean smart white boy, I laughed when I see the expressions, it is basically your nice spunky geek facial expressions. And then i looked at the Poser illustrations, yes, these are the new illustrators, they are a far stretch from Vermeer, the faces are rigid - betraying the illustrator doesnt really see the movement of the muscles beneath the skin... hmmm

An oil painting in the old school if done half decent shows fluidity, but this illustration package is an abstraction of the construction beneath... the movements are not aligned with the muscular support - thats why faces all look rather stilted... like - too much botox...

Anyway, no one could afford to have good paintings... its mainly for advertising, photography replaced old classical portraiture. But if you come back to the question, in the old times, who could afford to have an oil portrait painted by a professional painter?

I kept on getting IMs from Everwind, weddings, somebody wants to know how much it cost to have a wedding in Everwind. I wanted to attend a Wedding in Everwind, the Medieval role play castle thats so beautifully done. A bendwood lawn chair has 27prims!

I want to see a wedding in their castle, the banquet hall, there was an old fashion storytelling session and dwarfs, elves and witches. I met three Japanese avatars in warrior clothes at the prison room.

Japanese and Americans are the most active players in sl.

Guqin in sl, Flowing Water, hot tub in Green peony w piggy back pink flower apt.

Still early, but my work is done today at noon!

Very rare.

I must start learning sculpties now, to make the Half HunDun guqin object.
Two friends came by this morning, no, three, Grim, Ikune, and Taka.
They all liked the hot tub, all soaked in it, chatting at ease - with all their clothes on.

Now, should I make things complicated by providing swimming suits or bathing robes or any such trouble some moves? Nobody seem to mind sitting with their baseball uniform, ceremonial kimono, or their black robe... but sometimes clothing add ambiance - you cannot eliminate everything until it is just words... afterall, why do we bother with 3D virtual worlds?

I added the pink flower ontop of the green, suddenly this is really complete. Mentally, the hot tub salon is great, transparent, joy, water, air, and more cosy day bed upstairs, private.

I will move it to position it just so perfectly... wish Five would come see her land now...

Next, one of my friend will join the Guqin research-creation studio as support team member. This is a break through. Now, I must make the sculptie object myself.

Nice to have friends to drop by, this is my favorite part of sl.

If my idea works and scheduling permits, we might just make it in time - for a special event - live in sl.