Reading Radar

Between Sougent and I, we made a decent (partially used) 6-pack. He made the plastic “ring” thingy and I made the cans. Yay, beer.

Actually these will be props for an upcoming project, believe it or not. If you’re gonna get involved in a project, make sure that project involves beer. That’s all I’m gonna say.

I mentioned meeting Matthaios Brandenburg on PI a couple days ago. He’s starting a blog of his own at http://virtualunreality.wordpress.com. He’s hoping readers will help bring ideas and help kickstart the conversation there. I just said “the conversation.” I really hate when the web 2.0 marketers talk about “the conversation.” There is no THE conversation, there’s lots of conversations.

Anyway.. check it out. He’s a nice guy with an eye towards finding out exactly how the metaversion known as SL can be used in his journey through teh intarweb. What I like is that he’s questioning why everything has to be so RL based instead of more unreality based. I like that in an avatar.

Ok, I finally got around to going over to Nowhereville and seeing if the remains of the SLPN building got swept up properly. The dumpsters were gone and the construction workers were gone, no more catcalls to Crap Mariner’s avatar, sadly. But happily, I got to see Keeme and Nika’s house. She’s done a great job on it. Even if that cat still needs to die.

It’s kind of close to the water, but hey. If a tsunami comes, we’re all toast anyway.

The clocktower looms in the background, proclaiming victory over… I don’t know. What’s it proclaiming victory over?

It makes a nice window view.

There’s always something burning on the stove. I think maybe Keeme’s been cooking in here. Is that the fish flavor dripping out?

As for Keeme’s rant about not having any space on the last DaR, what’s he talking about? Look.. his very own lil sharky.

The night view towards Edloe is nice. Made me shed a tear or two, but that was only because that stupid CAT was clawing its way up my leg again.

Nice job, Nika. Maybe we could hire you to decorate a movie lounge on PI for movie nights? Just an idea Itazura tossed out… Maybe we’ll make it happen.

Alright, I ADMIT IT!!!!!! It’s not original. But I finally put 7Seas fishing equipment on Podcast Island and Podcaster Island. Dedric asked if I wanted to go over to Woodbridge and fish, so I joined a huge crowd of people there… unfortunately I was lagged out, as you can tell by the green clouds where avatars should have been.

But the net result was, I found out how fun the 7Seas thing is so I bought the vendor kit and put a copy on Podcaster Island on the SW corner. There are servers on the shore and in the “floating hut” as well.

Then I flew over to Podcast Island and put in a vendor and some fishing servers there too. Hey, we have a dock, just sitting there….

Yay, unoriginal fun! Come catch something! Wait, I heard that at a party once. But this time I mean it in a good way!

What happens when an Englishman (Warf) meets an Irishwoman (Reino) and gets talked into hugging her (after.. much.. coaxing…)?

Looks like he gets what he deserves, that’s what. Oh, well. How could he have known she’s the Irish equivalent of Hannibal Lecter?

Dedric Mauriac, the original guy with blue hair, took time out of his busy schedule tonight to come help me get set up with what I need for running a php script on my server for converting rss feeds to SSS. I was looking for a way to get rss parsing onto my own server and have flexibility on how to implement the LSL scripts in-world to call that, so that we could create video players for the SLPN headquarters and the Destination Station on PI for video podcast viewing which are fully copiable so that they can be rezzed from a variant of Itazura’s RezzHud.

This kind of help goes above and beyond the call of duty and it shows the really giving side of community in SL. Huge thanks to Dedric for setting me up.

You can find his store on his Woodbridge sim next to Edloe, or check out his products on SLExchange. And finally, here’s a video from an SLCN tv interview with Yxes Delacroix.

One thing I almost forgot to mention, there is another scripter in SL with a free podcast player who states on his slexchange page that he’ll help people get set up if they want to run the php scripts on their own servers. I contacted him via IM and notecard (which he accepted) but never got a response. Even a simple “I don’t have time for this nonsense” would have been fine, because that’s an answer I can completely understand. The moral of the story is to support people who have a history of collaboration with others. Dedric’s always been really involved in helping others find answers to their problems.

One of the things I love about being a podcaster in SL is that people have access to you, if they want it, in a way that being a “normal” podcaster will never get you.

Tonight, I was up in the sky working on some typically unskilled build ideas for the new SLPN building on Podcast Island, when I got an IM from Mathaios Brandenburg. Yes, he has a name that will have Keeme Brown ranting about names again. Anyway, he’s a listener and he wanted to come by and say hi. I tp’d him over and we talked in voice for a little bit. He’s got some interesting ideas and some of his thoughts about doing things in SL that aren’t possible in RL fit in with what I’m working on for episode 35 of the podcast. What about 34? That’s going to be the recording from the SLPN meetup. If I edit it and podpress fixes their little Wordpress plug-in.

Sorry for the bad picture, it’s the one saved by SL from when I logged off. I didn’t think to get a picture before I logged off. I really wasn’t thinking about blogging about a random conversation, but it really illustrated the coolness of meeting people who listen to the podcast and understand that I’m just some dude and I’m every bit as excited to meet them as they could ever be to meet me. I’ve met too many cool people this way to count… I’d forget someone and that would suck, but you know who you are and it’s been fun each time. Tonight it was especially nice as it, along with a conversation and blog post from Crap Mariner, turned my mood about podcasting in SL for the positive again.

If you’re thinking of voting robot in this upcoming election, you might want to watch this video first. Clearly they are planning something. I’m not sure exactly what.. I think the Wright brothers got further on their first attempt. And his driving? I mean, you’d think robots and machines would be like cops and donuts, but… not so much.

On the other hand, I haven’t seen much of the martian lately, so is it better to vote incompetent, or absentee? Not sure… I think I’ll just vote for Donald Duck again.

Dizzy Banjo sent me a link to his blip.tv page tonight, for his “message in a bottle” movie. Dizzy made the exhibit for the SL5B and it’s a really cool concept. Check out the movie. And check out his other movies as well!

(Movie embedded with permission from Dizzy Banjo)

Listening to Crap’s ‘Podcasting in Second Life’, aka ipodjacker, I was reminded that I have a bone to pick with something I heard in a podcast once. The podcaster said that friends known only online can’t or shouldn’t be really considered friends in the same way that friends who’ve taken the last beer from your fridge or peed on the floor in your restroom can be. He’s wrong, and I keep meaning to do a podcast segment on this. Not a running segment, just a one time thing. I need to say to him…

MORON!!!

Anyway, for someone that’s NOT a moron, check out Crap’s new podcast effort for the SL5B.

“Click me!”

Crap, if you’re listening / reading / seeing blue turtles in the sky, I am working on those screencasts.