Friday, September 7, 2007

On Moving; On Identities; On Change

As much as I love my little Victorian home on the side of Mt. Caledon, I realized that it did not fit in with the identity I had decided to portray in Caledon. Namely, that of the exiled Comtesse de Tammas. I really enjoyed coming up with the background story and admit that I’m disappointed that Second Life limits the length of a profile to 500 characters. Needless to say, more will be written on the Comtesse de Tammas here in the future.

I had been working on a Second French Empire (1852-1870) style house to replace my Victorian home . . . . Certainly, homes of this style survived into the Victorian Era and would be a fitting dwelling for the exiled Comtesse de Tammas. But, it just would not fit on my parcel against Mt. Caledon.

As circumstances would have it, the parcel next to my own suddenly became available. A parcel still under the shadow of Mt. Caledon and larger than my current parcel (and flat too!!) with enough room to put just about anything on it that I wished. I scrapped the small Second French Empire house I had been building and built a very large mansion of the same period and style.

I love my new house and it is a fitting dwelling for the Comtesse de Tammas. But, my old Victorian home, the time came to pack up the contents. This made me sad, for I truly loved this house and though it had been a prefab, I had spent many hours lovingly customizing it and was truly proud of it sitting high against Mt. Caledon. I admit that I don’t have the heart to tear he down. And now it sits there still; empty and lonely.

 

Sunday, August 5, 2007

No Voice for Me!!

Having just downloaded the latest release of the Second Life viewer, which includes voice, I was excited to give it a try. On this quiet Sunday morning, I went out into the world searching for locations where I knew that large groups of people often gathered. What I heard was simply awful.

I thought that I was hearing voices . . . I mean, in real life I work with schizophrenics and they all hear voices and my Second Life voice experience must have been very similar--disconnected voices not coming from anyone. Now of course, the voices were real, but you couldn’t tell who was speaking.

And the quality was very poor. There appears to be a lot of background noise from the microphones and when people spoke, their voices varied in quality with lots of snap, crackle, and pop when they spoke. It just seemed to be a lot more noise in Second Life with voice enabled .

Not worth it! This writer shall be throwing her microphone away and keeping with the keyboard. I come to Second Life to enjoy the creativity, the quiet, and even, from time to time, escape real life, and this intrusion from real life isn’t welcome.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Caledonians Dance Undanted Despite 600 ft. Plummet

Sunday's Radio Riel dance was located at Miss Kiralette Kelley's roller rink located some 600 ft. above Kittiwickshire. All was going as planned at this perfect location for such festivities when suddenly, the floor simply vanished and many Caledonians plummeted to their deaths--oh wait, this is Second Life, nobody died after all, though it was quite amazing to see most of my fellow dancers falling from the skies. Attempts where made to repair the roller rink, but in the end, dancing continued among Miss Kiralette's petunias. Much fun was had by all!!



My Home Under Mount Caledon; Inspired by Port Gamble, Washington

My little Victorian Home, located in Second Life's Caledon on Sea, sits high against Mt. Caledon. When I first saw the parcel my home sits upon, I was in love with Mt. Caledon. The challenge was in how to place a home on the parcel without doing anything to the mountain. The answer presented itself when, in RL, I was driving through Port Gamble, Washington and saw the Victorian homes all sitting along a hill with tall foundations and long staircases leading up to the homes--it was the perfect solution. Now, not only does my home fit nicely without my having had to change the mountain, I have breath taking views. And if you stop by, be sure to check out the family of ducks which have moved into the pond behind the house--very cute!!