Izakaya, experiential learning of sl, Ken Cioc

My memory of the first sim i saw was very vivid and magical. It was the Izakay Tereboro by Tokyo Tv. The head guy, Ken Cioc was always at this local bar place. And for some reason there is always a whole gang of people there. Poeple jsut sit around talk. As I did not understand any Japanese, it was always mysterious what they were talking about. So i had some bits of it translated. They were always talking about something heavy, very heavy. In anycase, as i was a newbie, i was a man and a woman, trying on different clothes. But as a man, i always looked too feminine, as if the avatar had make up on, or else, its jsut a lump, no character male.

The sim was very realistic set in 40s post war japan. Things were simple and mostly mechical and not the electronic goods Japan - reminds me of the era of a small msuuem in Japan. But that small museum was musty and dusty and even though nostalgic, it must not have been easy living. You can tell by the simple, worn, old moth ball feelings of the rough wood planks etc. People lived in such houses. But in sl, since there is no dust, everything is clean, straight lined. Charming.

The group of people at the bar were regulars. I thought, why are these people always here and in other places you have to offer camp money for people to hang around?

Then i figured its because of the bar man. The bar mann always greeted guests, and he was always polite, friendly. He seemed to be a mature man. His words are measured, makes you feel welcome. And one time, the bar girl even said, Swann welcome home! in English. Here, I learned everyday, you just chat and get a little closer to people learn about them. Like the little prince and the fox.

They were not friendly at the beginning. One time, a few women gathered together, and they asked me if i were pretty in real life. (How come she is here all the time, she must be very ugly in rl? No friend, no boy friend, no body...thats why she hangs around in this bar, not even a real bar, but an sl bar!)

Because i didnt understand the on going language, I am free to wander around in the sandbox and just watched people making things. I like to see their objects, its always funny with a special attention to detail way of making objects.

Later, there was a firework festival, and then the closing festival. All through these events, I think it was a piece of theatre, thats planned for a tv show thats aired - like an animnation film I guess.

I would like to see the show that was aired in Japan on tv, but it seems that nobody has any trace of this 2 months experiment.

How could that be, its a tv station! Someone must have a trace.
I will need to investigate more.

For me it was an experiential learning, very much like real life. My avatar was really me, i didnt play another person, i was walking around asking questions, dragging the timid people into bars, and offering them drinks. Then I was invited to join their club, then... finally, one day the big moment came, i found out where to buy the koto that was on display at the restaurant.

Ken took the care to actually tp me to the shop! I really appreciated that.

After this, I started the building of my guqin. I bought 2 kotos, just in case i totally broke one, i would still have a backup. :)

For me it was magic, but for the Japanese who were there - they were really working - not as an avatar flitting here and there watching, they were the puppeteers making the puppets and pulling the strings at the same time. I think the two months for them was very different.

Ken does not log in anymore.

His mission is over, he said he wont have time to come into sl much anymore.

Well, i missed the old Izakaya. It really felt like home, because of Ken.
I want to make a bar, that could generate this kind of warmth, but unders what conditions could this happen?

I have been to many other bars since, and I really cant figure out why people hang around and chat about nothing, there was no common topic of discussion ... great time... had fun... sexy dancing... how? what? I dont understand the pleasure of it that much.

Hiroko, Yosi, Five, new garden, Salmaru taxi, Digital Guqin Museum

Actually i hate shopping malls, i never go shopping in a mall. Gives me a headache.

My neighbour wanted me to open up a passage way so she could direct shoppers to go from the French Shopping mall to her own - i said no problem no problem - and made all my lace screens phantom - but she asked me to remove them, or better still move my house altogether!!! wowow... I cant believe my ears, she wants to make my garden part of the highway to her shop !

NO. That is incredible!

A garden cannot be made into a highway, the ambiance will be ruined !

There are all kinds of shopping experiences, underground grungy, soft boutiques, marriage salons, 50s retro styles, garage sale, they are all good. Only we must pay attention to the negotiation of various spaces, the ambiance etc. These two humongous black glasses in boxes - from the 80s and early 90s are styles of architecture that i do not like to begin with. On top of it, the merchandise are not specifically directed in any niche... its a general shopping mall. The kind that you find in a middle class suburban area - with no particular character.

So, finally, i had to be honest with my urbanist mall owner, I said, all shopping styles are good, however, i am making a garden, and i dont want black glass box shopping mall to be scenery. And sometimes, shopping spaces are not compatible, a mariage boutique is not the same as garage sale is not the same as grocery stores not the same as supermarkets, they are all different, they dont mix, I have nothing against shopping malls, only that i am building a Digital Guqin Museum garden, a clubhouse here, and I dont want to see shopping malls as scenery. Everybody could undertand that, cant they? Its not a question of preference of tastes, but everybody could understand that when you are in a green nice garden for a moment of peace you dont want to see shopping center and be in the middle of a highway visually...

and we all have our wishes and dreams. So, I understand this.
Hahahah, so goes the first serious negotiation with my good friend and dear neighbour.

She backs down - no more "why dont you move your mushroom house, you have other land... you are not the owner..." What!!! challenging by questioning my rights to landownership! (When people want something, they become very human, they just want it want it want it...)

She asked if i could rent her a corner - of course not, how could i ruin the volume of the garden by putting in this rikiki triangle of passage way? - so she could fly her highway by the corner... or remove my "donut" (what? i ruin my volume by removing "a donut"? ) ... its impossible. When it comes to stylistic differences. We cannot argu, it gets too sensitive. So we just have to see who is the owner, and how to resolve the land issues.

I have already made all my screens phantom so the shoppers can come through technically - in any case in sl, there wont be "wear and tear" due to high volume passage unlike in rl. I must preserve my esthetic design!!! Nobody comes this way anyway!

In fact, I didnt like having my mushroom spa house opening onto a shopping mall!!! But I kept silent. I didnt want to hurt the others feelings - besides as shopping malls go, this mall is already very airy and much more pleasant than those no frill shelving warehouses - so i kept quiet. However, its still a shopping mall - i dont want to open onto a shopping mall. Wrong combination.

Now that the Museum is developing day by day. The ambiance of the garden must be carefully handled - including human relationship and friendship - and no wrong ambiance compromise.

In fact I want this space under the spa house to be a cool hangout, a little bar, with a taxi, people can hang out, big billboard, have a beer, wine, a picnic, enjoy the views of fields and fields of un-occupied land beyond. This is the intermediate space between the real museum and a bar/social area - then beyond to the shopping malls.

The musuem will be farther up on the hill in the back, in a lace like tower where each brick is a guqin rezzer. You click, and will see rezzed instantly in front of you a model of a guqin with proper titles, in both chinese and English and you could test play it eventually. There will be one hundred of these working guqins. And I will select a special repertoire for each model. That will be quantitatively large amount of work.

Five flew in, she gave me a starry golden nugget to be placed on the ground, sparkling gold ground lights, so i put a few of these down. To guide the shopper to my neighbours shopping center. These look like fireflies. Very nice. Now, its a discreet guidance towards another space... whether its shopping, or whatever. Sexy bar, whatever.

And I notice, my neighbour has kindly put in new tree textures for her glass screen, so now i no longer see giant size rabbits and furnitures etc. A corner of the mall has been opened up and the traffic has been formally directed through Fives terrace into the shopping mall. Good solution for everyone!!

Yosi of the West Side bar has offered to put my poster in her shop. And she puts it in the center. Very nice on the glass block wall. This glass block airy nice bar with never any clients is next to the new Izakaya bar, with a parking lot vending area of Salmaru goods. Salmaru is one of my favorite sl designers.

Hahah, his objects have great charms. Loud slurping sound of eating ramen, soba, snoring animations with stomachs moving up and down... I offered to send him a real life gift postcard, but he said, he is Salmaru of sl, and he wants just to be known as such. sl is separated from rl.
He gave me many gifts, and among them, this lovely taxi complete with Salmaru avatar as chauffeur. Its perfect for the Digital Guqin club House.

When its parked below the mushroom spa house, cheers people up. They find it funny. People come to my club in a taxi! Or, the Swannjie Postal Service uses Taxis to deliver... Hahahahah


Hiroko bought 2 cards, one for her sister and one for her mom. She also wants to be my agent. Got to figure out how to do payment? This is a new micro business venture.

I put up the new poster for an updated realistic price starting 25nov07

Meanwhile, I send jpeg files of the same poster, to be printed in regular B4 size to be posted in real life in NY, in Toronto, in HK, in Shanghai, in Beijing, everywhere... whereever the contacts estimate that its suitable.

Now, i could see if anyone from real life wants a real life post card.
People from secondlife want them... what about people from real life?

A postcard coming from sl to rl is more interesting than a postcard thats simply rl to rl.

Something magical, a little like a miniature cartoon world blossoming into rl.

At least for the time being.

In two years time, when people buy their real clothes through tryiing them on their avatars instead of going themselves... this magic would have been long gone.

sl next step

sl just like in rl, just becasue you are invisible behind an avatar, you have to be very very careful. Just as polite in everyway.

Suddenly this sl is so poor. In rl, you can be all polite but there is the physical information, you can read and feel and understand intuitively. But in sl, if all this politeness, already behind screens - suddenly its like too much. Politeness is necessary, but i suddenly feel that we are in the dark. We dont see anything.

To continue in sl, i will have to pass on the other side now, not the consumer but the one who makes it run - in whatever capacity i could.

I suddenly dont feel like continuing all this polite talk... puppetry and more puppetry.

Its me, especially me. Most adults could do puppetry out of practice, they dont even feel the make up, its so natural, a second skin.

musuem sketch

In sl, we could do sketches easily by just dragging rough shapes, blocking off areas of places where we want to try out things.

The result of this is ... everyday people add and subtract, re-arrange. The huge poster that i had put for this nice little wooden boutique is gone, after just one day! It is now a huge shopping center. The poster will go back after the new shop is done but so fast. Blink and the shop has changed.

Sim owners has to constantly think of how to drag people to their sim. Changing of look, ideas, clothing collections. Everything has to move, frantic, even with this non stop activity - the sims are almost always empty.

As I was greated by this avatar, she said my house is here. I didnt have time to look, and soon shes gone. When i was done with my meeting, i jsut went in and strolled around to see what dream this gal had.

Next day, i came back, there was red tapes around the property. She was inside the house. DingDong out she comes - just like the lady that she is dressed in.

She said no sorry you cant visit... and then a bunch of japanese words...

I have never been refused before. Suddenly I think, this is one person i should take off my list. Because, in sl just like in rl, everybody should do what they like.

If they dont feel like showing their house. Then, I should also not wish to see it. Also not wish to see the owner as well.

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As Five so wisely says, never criticise others, just do your own thing.

some sl realities, white pet lion, Hiroko, DoubleDew White Tower Gone, grass root feedbacks, scripting class

I went to see how English learning is conducted in sl, while I was talking to a very nice white pet lion, in flew a learner. He has very precise goals in his English learning - no.1, only native speaker teacher, and no.2 erase his ummmms, hesitations.
I said that some foreigners speak a very clean and elegant English that no native speaker could compare - he didnt like this piece of new information and flew into a rage. very aggressive, he demanded that I read his chatline. And said what good is clean English when nobody understands what you are saying? The Wite Lion asked him if he thought learning vocabulary and grammer is important, and that hesitation in speaking is very important. This hmmmmm, in conversation is very important.

Within 2 minutes, I know this is sl. (The learner will go to a job interview tomorrow, he wants the job! He thinks he must erase this hesitation in order to get the job)

Digtal learners are goal oriented - of course, because the computer only understands very precise instructions. Because of this language specification, people who work in computers change their thinking in order to match with the nature of the computers. Precision, clarity in goal is the key to getting things done.

Whereas in the analogue real world, there is a fuzzy logic which is very important for survival - because in the real world thera are lots of unending richness of details that in a virtual world is not feasible, and impossible to render without limits.

On the otherhand, I am always amused that in sl, a lot of the snap shots are graphically clean, simply because the information itself is simple. All snapshots are clean lined, no fussy details to disturb the lines - but these pics are often flat and not very intersting to look at.

Sl is for everyone - sometimes its pointless - a total waste of breath to discuss things in this everybody's an avatar world.

Now I know more about sl.

Sl is a good teaching platform as it enables entry level for everyone, and soon the various expertise level goes up, you have to go from sl to rl then. Because sl is a miniature 3D immersive environment. When you want it to zoom in more, to enable more, you must exit to real life.

Just like in biology - beyond a certain scale, you are in another classification, you are in chemistry... :)

One nice thing happened today, the twin tower that i like very much, DoubleDew, is gone!
I liked it very much, open planning, clean and airy, no sex balls not an abandonned orgy castle like soooo many of the sl creations. However, i like it even better that the land is now available, i imagine that this is a nice a long strip of land with club fabulous tokyo behind me and Five Daisies infront, the musuem beside me and a long ride all the way down through Saitot mall to the waterfront edge to the ocean.

Suddenly i think, maybe Five is interested in this double strip too...

Hmmm I must ask her.


Hiroko in rl has a computer consultancy company - after I told her about the sl-rl postcard service, she immediately thought of how to execute the idea and unlike almost ALL of the other people who thought about privacy issues, and all kinds of limitations. She puts this query into action and propose to have it published in a magazine, and then marketing, and then,... etc etc.

The mama san at FoxyLady thought the idea is interesting but doesnt fit with her club also privacy issues. She is more daring than some other avatars and has at least given it a thought.

A girl at the FoxyLady said that to do this postcard business because of the address issue, i must ask the govenment of Japan to have accrditation ... :)

Where in rl could I have all these responses within a week?

So I do appreciate sl - it maybe rough, but, its speedy! and authentically grassroot level... hoooooooo

Last event of the day in sl
a scripting class... how do they teach online? a Scripting class?
At BCU beach-sky Classroom New Citizens Incorporated
Very interesting, very clear note cards with build in objects, a good class.
8 students
:)

Very convincing, good.
The lesson was on scripting chat, listener, sending messages... etc.

Saruku, Five, Salmaru shop opening

Today, I decided is it true that if you put your mind to make something work, it often does work. It is so hard to sell a post card to a Japanese person. I talked to many people and most of them says Niet, bad idea, you need to apply to the government of Japan first for the Private Information Mark... hoooo, for a dollar post card service!

Anyway, so I asked everyone, I mean EVERYONE. And most of them either they think its a good idea but they dont have 500 linden, or their cat will be worried... hahhahhah

Anyway, but a stroke of luck, Saruku came to visit, and he wanted to try my service!
So, my target has been reached today!

While I was trying my best to sell a card to a Japanese person, I visited all the places where i knew some people and came across the Grand Opening of Salmarus Shop today, as I really admire his work and having no other flowers other than potted chrsyathemums (so funeral like) or huge heather patches (not a all the kind of flowers for an opening...), i found a single rose from CFT. So i offered him that
hope he liked it... :) felt a small achievement! in sales)

Mystic Healer Table, WillowMoon, Tillys Grass, FoxyLady Club, Killer Queen, sl+rl concert

WillowMooon came by, she talked about people linking sl to rl, business, education, many ways, and Healers.

Healers?

What type of things do Healers heal? Depression, or something more dramatic?

She rezzed a Mystic Healers table, and it look like a massage table with balls all around.

I jumped on it immediately and she had her hands moving around my head, my middle parts, etc.

Hey, I do feel taken cared of, after all this little tiny avatar is me in some way,
i decided to make this avatar and gave it a name!

Just like Madame Bovary is Flaubert... except, its much more visible.

And the animation balls, what a very good use of animation capacities!

This is truly a good use for sl, healing! Through such nice animation capacities.

I feel that WillowMoon took cared of me!


I rezzed Tillys grass, this long wild grass, thats spawned, previously seen as monster grass, now is such a windy patch of nice long grass, so happy getting lost grass...

Went strolling in Anemura, I like this area, because I always find something new each time, and the air is not stuffy here, a strange mix of Western influence. So I came across this FoxyLady Club - you have to pay 5 linden to reach a skybox for a private room - hmmm, so I went up with a hostess because I want someone whom I could ask questions... she said I am her customer then... upstairs, there is nothing unusual a very nice Ryokan type of Japanese room - no sex bed, no sex balls, just two slow dancing balls. The owner came up, she is the mythic Foxy Lady, in a black grey Fox outfit, the front is open down to her navel. Peachy white skin, a Fox head mask covers her eyes. This is a kind of special bar, you know, my hostess says. I definitely felt that company here is a service that you buy. Of course, I think, could i have done such a job, in sl? If i spoke Japanese yes, but as is, its not possible. If someone wants an English speaking hostess, yes. I would like to try it. Under any circumstances you must boost up your clients self confidence,make him feel good! :)

Then i went to the Killer Queen bar, some girls were dancing, they offered to animate my avatar, and we were all doing the Hollywood choreography, the vampy dance. It was fun. But i didnt see the strip tease, apparently its on every night.

Then off to the concert, i didnt hear anything for ten minutes, so I left. I think the players enjoy the idea of giving a concert. There were a few people the setting is open air theatre. Nice if it were in real life.

Back to the Mushroom house, I like the wild grass.

:)