Toured Caledon sims

(and I'm gong back to take pictures and will add them later)

there are approximately 40 sims in the Independent States of Caledon, themed British Victorian and Steampunk areas. Most touch so that you can walk from one to the other. Some are physically separate, these are referred to as "crown colonies".  Some of the Caledon sims are more strictly Victorian, with a very Old World feel to their theming. Other Caledon sims have a steampunk edge with strange inventions, driven by steam (hence the name) that look like they could have been made in the Victorian era.

There are also some nearby related sims, Victorian in nature but not officially part of the Independent States; these include Winterfell (gothic Victorian), Steelhead (American Victorian), and New Babbage (steampunk).

They have a lot of events - dances, lectures, church service, weddings. And they have airships! Ok - I'm a sucker for airships/dirigibles. And steampunk ones are the best with moving gears and levers and exposed metal infrastructure.

There is an institution of higher learning - the Caledon Oxbridge University - with professors and scheduled courses, many good for new users of SecondLife. They also have a nice set of exhibits to help orient new users to the basic skills of using SecondLife. IT's much of the same info as on orientation island, but who wants to stay there?

You can become a citizen of the Independent States. Duchess Alana Steamweaver, my tour guide, made me a citizen and enrolled me in the citizens group so i get announcements of events and such. I hope to join the fencing club - that's what I took for gym class in college and really enjoyed it.

So pictures to follow

Class to teach students to write videogame music

no not at our school - at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

One of our graduates, Vanessa Schneider, sent me this link - http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2010/01/19/berklee_is_teaching_students_to_compose_scores_for_video_games/

Sounds like a great class. They have a summer program, too. The prof, Michael Sweet has a professional background in writing music for videogames - almost 100 of them. If you're in Boston look for their performances. And their games.

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At AgileWorld 2010 --- in SecondLife

I love not having to travel to conferences especially in the winter with travel delays, hot airports, and big bulky coat.

Rockcliffe University is sponsoring AgileWorld 2010. Good info about the agile software development process. I'm going to teach a bit about this in my business of gaming class this semester. So timely quality info

here are some photos for now. of the first session about the role of testing in Agile development. The speaker talked a lot abouthow agile is about collaboration ad that includes the developers/programmers collaborating with the testers. And turns out a ot of software testing is being automated - i didn't know that so have to check on those tools.

 

 

She had some testing resources to check out
Mike Coh's site - http://mountaingoatsoftware.com
Dawn Cannan (the speaker)'s site - http://passionatetester.com
the agile manifesto - http://agilemanifesto.org
Lisa Crispin - http://lisacrispin.com
Elisabeth Hendrickson - http://testobsessed.com

Then and Now - Changes in My Avatar

I"ve noticed that other SecondLif bloggers are posting pictures of their early avatars and their current avatars. In the early days I sometimes had pink hair and for awhile I had blue skin.

Here's a pic of me from probably early 2008 as my early picture and then a pic I took today. Glasses haven't changed but that's about all that has remained the same. I've learned a little more about taking photos in SecondLife, too - adding extra lights, for instance. Skins are now incredibly detailed - this one has freckles. The hair moves when i walk.

Do I look like either of these pictures? Nooo. I don't have the blue skin or pink hair from my even earlier pictureseither. But in SecondLife ou can look the way you want. So today..this is how i want to look. Who knows about tomorrow?

Some other stuff I did today in SL

I went to a couple of events that visually were very cool -

The first was an exhibit at an art gallery I like. the exhibit was about machinima. It wasn't a how to exhibit or here are examples kind of exhibit. They had video tetures all over hte gallery - walls, ceiling, floor - so that when you starting playing the machinima, it was everywhere. They even had a big ball in the sky theatre. It was like being inside a video kaleidoscope. Here are a couple of pictures. The machinima was filmed at a performance of Chicago at the Moulin Rouge. I tried to grab a pic with bright colors. Here the curtains are shutting at the end of an act. You can see the video on the wall in front of you on the small screen, on the right side of hte picture covering the whole wall, and on the rug.

Here's a picture from the top floor of the exhibit. The video is on the blanket on the floor, on the screen on the wall, and on the bedspread.

Here's a couple of pictures of the videoball in the sky. The machima plays all over the outside of the sphere and then is all over inside like being inside a giant kaleidoscope.

 

 

 

Then tonight I went dancing (again - no pictures of me dancing, I promise). The person hosting the dance was Tuna OddFellow. The music was...strange, irritating..The real reason we were all there was for the light show. Spinning graphics, particle effects, floating spheres

 

 

My Avatar has a Segway!

 A club I like to go to - Wiseguys - redid their sim over the weekend to be even more reminiscent of New York City. It's looking good to.

The first cool thing I saw was at hte landing spot you can get a segway. Right now you have to go somewhere else to open the box and wear the segway. But it was worth it.  Here's a picture of me doing a tourist photo op. I pulled way back so you could see the Statue of Liberty and some skyline. I have to go back and take a close up of me on the segway I think. I'll add that in a bit.

The club looks the same which is a good thing. It's a fun place to dance.

One more men's fashion show

I'm not all that excited by men's fashions it turns out. Lots of dark colors, pants, capes, kilts,

I decided to go to the Black Opal show because they had a very cool freebie suit in their store on teh fashion week island. Their clothes were interesting - steam punk elements elong with capes and cool boots. I do like the long suit coats.

Here are some pics of the set - a pretty good audience and today the lag isn't bad. The island crashed several times during shows over the weekend.

Steam punk wings - the gears all moved, the wings flexed. Very cool.

Steam punk arm decorations

More pictures of me

Hey - it's my blog. And over the years I've got a few pictures of me in here. Think of it as documenting the changes my poor avatar has been dragged through.

Anyway - this is my new favorite outfit. I call it my "mullet" dress. OK - i only say that to myself, and usually only in my imagination. It's business like in the front and all party in the back.  I found some new hair I like too. Not something I'll wear around the students, but it looks really good dancing at a Dougie Moonites concert. And no - there are no pictures of me dancing. Ever. Anywhere.

So here it is - the mullet dress. I should mess around with lighting and stuff but wanted to post before I lost my nerve.

Front - I'm standing in front of the waterfall in my little house. The dress is this gorgeous dark gray sweater knit. So are the socks. The boots are soft black leather. What's not to like at that outfit, right?

Back -  Even better! I love the collar and the bit of shoulders covered.

Made it to another fashion show

And another very different, cool runway setup. THe designer today is Eclipse. THey make clothes for role players.

Here's the set up - one central runway with chairs on risers on either side.

 

Some interesting outfits..all very dark and moody. But with amzing textures and boots. And lots of straps and buckles.  Here are a couple of pics

 

And Men in Skirts - gotta love it. Not sure what the purpose is of the skirts. There were some great capes too - i'd love an opportunity to wear the capes, so heavy and textured. And I got some action shots of the models walking the runway.

 

The Second Runway Show of Men's Fashion Week

So I went to the 2nd show - and the runway area was totally different. Not just rearranged - but totally completely different. And so colorful. Nice seating by the runway too.  Here are a few pictures.

Here's the door where the models came out onto the stage. Isn't that a cool backdrop? They used the company's colors. I loved the box and pole design.

Here's a view of the walkway and the seating areas. It loks like a big South Beach Miami piano shaped pool doesn't it?

Here's one of the models. I hae to admit - i'm not good at taking people pictures. Not in RL and not in SL. Here I was excited about the color and the set design. If i get to go to another show I will try to do a better job of shooting the models.

Freebies from FashionWeek

I got a free suit from BlakOpal during Men's FashionWeek. It is so cool. THey have many Victorian and pirate outfits for men and women.

Here are a couple of pics. I love the long tails and the details of the scarf. So pretty! And you can see my new hair from TinyBird - went a little redder than usual.

Mens Fashion Week in SL starts today

I'm not man and I don't play one on tv. But I have guy friends and guy students so I have an interest in what guys are wearing. And in some past semesters students have done really interesting projects on women's feashions. Maybe it's time for a group to look at men's fashion.

There's a whole sim set up for fashion week sponsored by KMADD. Here is a blog post with a schedule of events for the week:  http://madimage.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/mens-fashion-week-sponsored-by-kmadd/ --- A lot of runway shows, parties, concerts.

I went to the opening runway show for Subversion Designs. Here are some pictures. I ended up sitting next to the designer - that was kind of exciting. The audience was really supportive. Everyone did some model ogling. And we all admired the detail the designer had put into the textures he used. The leather was especially cool to see.

The first picture is of the early crowd sitting at one end of hte runway area. You have to cam around to see everything. That was ok most of the time but occasionally lag would make it impossible to move even the camera.  That's me on the right - the girl, not the guy on the wall. The designer is next to me, to my right. Behind the runway area and around the sim are stores for each of the designers created specifically for FashionWeek so you can study the designs a little more closely and buy stuff.

Here's a down the main runway shot -nice lights and textures. They had a sound track going with just music. Someone in text described the outfits.

Here are a couple of pics of models on the runway. Things were slow to rez so some pics are fuzzy.

Then the sim crashed - guess we were all having too much fun. I"ll go to some other shows and post some more pics. Go back and check out the stores this week - there are free gifts for men in some of them. Unfortunately they're not usually transferable


The SLURL for the sim  is http://slurl.com/secondlife/KMADD%20Events/218/38/22

Another set of pics of me

This time I"m sitting inside a piece of sculpture I built called (for now) "In a Moment, It All Flies Apart". It's nested bubbles that have trapped an explosion in a moment of time. It's big - one of the things I like about building in SecondLife. In the first picture you can see some of the buildings on the vampire land. In the second picture you can see some of the purple house I live next to. Thanks to my friends brock and Micah for their suggestions and reactions.