![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
diannasilver's journalLog in Create a LiveJournal Account Learn more
| You are viewing diannasilver's journal Log in Create a LiveJournal Account Learn more | Explore LJ: Life Entertainment Music Culture News & Politics Technology |
Dianna's MusingsRandom thoughts from a would-be author. |
 |
| About this Journal | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thoughts and comments on the not-so-interesting, everyday life of a fanfic and would-be fantasy/adventure author. The guy featured on the background is Karavasu, the main character of the series of original stories upon which I've been recently writing. The rough draft of a number of scenes are available in the Aizvarya section of Stories on The Silverlands. |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Jul. 22nd, 2008 @ 06:09 pm Wow, long time! | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
Okay, so it's been what? Over a year since I last posted. >.< Well, things are going all right despite the higher prices on everything and my income remaining the same. It's a bit of a scramble at times, but so far, so good. I've been keeping busy, working and getting hooked on World of Warcraft. I've got a couple of level 70s, like four level 65s and a bunch of others of various levels. One server's Alliance characters and one server--and RP one--holds my Horde characters. I've also been busy creating art using DAZ Studio. I got rather hooked on creating 3D art in Second Life, and DAZ Studio's free to get and costs no monthly fee to keep your artwork in existence. Granted, clothes and ready-made props and hair isn't free, but there are a lot of freebies out there to find, enough to get at least a start on something. Besides, DAZ Studio's given me a reason to actually use my Deviant Art page (which can be found here) for more than just logging on to see mature content others have put up on DA. And, sometimes in my wanderings about on the Internet, I come across things I think are neat and/or cute. One such case is this Japanese page that gives you a couple of Javascript ways to put a virtual windchime on your webpages. I have the one hanging from the upper right corner on my site's index page now and I'm thinking about where I might use the small windchime picture version. (I love Japanese windchimes, so much so that Lopayzanilaya had a number of them hanging off the beams of the various teahouses and the kitsune shrine.) |
| ||
| Dec. 19th, 2006 @ 07:39 pm Apparently winter isn't quite done with the area | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
It's been brought to my attention that I probably should make another entry--especially if you're aware of how bad the rain then wind storm last Thursday night/Friday morning was. gratefulI lucked out. The lights dimmed out a number of times when the wind got really serious around 11:30 PM Thursday night (and yes, I leaned back in my chair and said out loud to the lights to quit that and to not do that. The rest of the Puget Sound region, not so lucky. There's still people without power, and the local electric companies are saying it could be this coming Saturday before everyone's back on. We had cold air move in after the storm, so the temperatures have been in the 40's F in the day and as low as 30 F at night. My work's corporate office lost power in the storm, but their backup generators were enough to keep the WAN up and functioning, so I was able to work as usual on Friday, as well as fill in a bit for coders who were later getting power back and getting on the WAN. Work got power back on Saturday morning. I usually listen to KIRO 710 AM, which is news/talk radio. Ever since the storm hit, they've been right there with the coverage and local calls, trying to get spokespeople on from the various agencies involved to give us all information on when the power could be back, shelters being set up, school outages, all the things that keep people informed in an disaster situation. In fact, one of the newer personalities, Don O'Neil (who happened to be in New Orleans when Katrina happened, and has taken a job up here after being displaced), gave up some of his vacation time to be on long hours Friday afternoon, early Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon so that he could be assured that the listening public could get the important information needed. Kudos to KIRO for their outstanding public service to the greater Seattle area during all this; they exemplify what the FCC broadcast licenses are supposed to be about. This storm is being called a 200-year event as far as how much damage was sustained by the power grid. There were a number of major transmission lines (the ones running from the dams along the Columbia River in eastern Washington up and over the Cascade Mountain passes) that were taken down by felled trees as well as major feeder lines to substations, let alone all the local feeder lines being whacked. At the height of impact, the power companies had a total of over a million customers (that's locations; each "customer" could be more than one person impacted there) out of power--700,000 alone belonged to the multi-county Puget Sound Energy. This storm was worse than the last "big one", the "Inauguration Day Storm" that took place on Bill Clinton's swearing in. I remember that one simply because driving home from my then-current job was tough, what with the strong side winds pushing my pickup truck around and I nearly had a metal sign ripped off some chain-link fence go through my windshield. One thing that's surprised me is the amount of people getting carbon monoxide poisoning. People have been saying over and over and over on the radio, DO NOT BRING ANY CHARCOAL- OR GASOLINE- OR ANYTHING-BURNING DEVICE INTO THE HOUSE. You absolutely must use those outside, not in the living room, not in the kitchen, not in the basement, not in the garage. Even putting the Hibachi in the fireplace (if you have one) won't work because charcoal briquettes don't generate enough of an updraft to pull the CO up the flue. Instead, it just dissipates through the enclosed space and takes the place of O2 on your red blood cells. We've had five people die now just from that, four of whom were all members of the same family. For a place considered one of the best educated in the US, the amount of CO poisoning happening is rather appalling. The physician in charge of Virgina Mason's Hyperbariatic Medicine said on the radio that the aftermath of this storm will probably be the worst incident of CO poisoning in the US. He said that yearly 1500 people are treated for CO poisoning; as of yesterday afternoon, they'd treated 63 alone (that number has obviously gone up. There was the four deaths announced after the physician spoke on KIRO, and this morning I've heard of another family of six all being treated for CO poisoning). So I've been fine all this time, and grateful I wasn't one of those hard-hit by the storm that rolled through. Here's hoping the rest of the region gets back to some sense of normalcy before Christmas comes along. Oh, and my traditional, homemade fudge was cooked up last night. I've got two experimental flavors this year. It'll be interesting to see how they cut up and what people think of them. |
| ||
| Dec. 5th, 2006 @ 06:54 pm So, winter decided to remind us how bad it could be for around here. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
As I'm sitting here typing this, the last vestiges of the snowfall from a week ago are hanging about hiding under shady areas. I can look out from my daughter's bedroom window and see patches of white amongst the green grass of my neighbor's lawn. gratefulCurrent Music: News/talk radio However, seven days ago, the story was quite another matter. I was sitting in the dark, unable to work, because the power had gone out--and it had been out since the snowstorm got serious late Monday morning. What really sucked was the fact that since I rent an apartment, I only have electric heat--and the night-time temperatures had been dropping into the low 20s since the storm had moved in. Come Tuesday night, it was looking somewhat grim. It was getting really cold in the apartment, and I was starting to worry not only about my betta in his unheated tank, but also about the cockatiels and my daughter and myself. Granted, going outside and checking about brought home the fact that the apartment was warmer than the outside--but it wasn't by much. My daughter and I spent most of the time napping in our beds while being wrapped up in three thick comforters. While I read while there was daylight, my daughter was on the phone on occasion to her Internet friends since they were wondering where she was. I would have called my own friend down in Arizona had I had her phone number physically written down somewhere (an oversight that's now been fixed once the power came back on). Apparently the heavy, wet, sloppy snow we got dumped on us was too much for one of the wooden utility poles to handle. The top crossbar broke off the pole proper and a power line snapped. That apparently set up a chain reaction that blew the transformer on that pole, the next transformer on the pole just to the east and then something further down the street to the east since I saw the PUD crew move down and check something down there about ten minutes before the power came back on. Imagine my dismay when I walked out to see how they were doing on the broken pole to see them down the street a ways and we're still without power. I was rather worried they'd leave without the electricity having been restored and have to come back on Wednesday to finally get it fixed, but it worked out. As I said, the power came back on about ten minutes after I returned to my apartment. It took us about a couple of days of the heat constantly going before I started feeling finally warmed up. I'm certainly glad I wasn't one of those on the northeast side of Arlington. I heard on the radio news they were without power for five days rather than two. Granted, what we get over here is mild compared to other places in the country. I admit, being a native Seattleite, I'm essentially a weather wimp. However, sitting around in temperatures ranging from 20 degrees F. to 32 degrees F. with no heat, no way of cooking or warming up food, and only a battery-powered radio to hear what's going on isn't exactly my idea of fun. It struck me as being a camping trip without the tent or campfire. Here's hoping that was the worst we'll see for winter this time around. |
| ||
| Nov. 9th, 2006 @ 02:05 am Computer fixed! Yay! | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
So, ever since my last entry, I've been dealing with an ailing computer. It turns out that this system has what's called a RAID array. Essentially, there's two physical hard drives that are then managed together as a single unit that shows up as C: on my computer. In my system's case, it's a RAID level 1, where the two physical hard drives mirror one another for data redundancy. Had my computer been a RAID level 2 and done the "striping" bit, where the storage on both hard drives is used as the total capacity of C:, I could have ended up with a computer completely unable to boot up. happyWhat essentially happened was that one of the physical drives that makes up my RAID failed. Restoring the computer to factory specs allowed the boot-up information to be replaced upon a good area of one of the disks, which then allowed me to be able to boot it up. And the messages I kept getting were that one of my hard drives had failed, but the computer would boot up first try with maybe a bit of a delay. Until Saturday. Suddenly not only was there a little clicking sound coming from my computer, it took four tries before the computer would boot. And the message I was getting had changed from a RAID member failing to a RAID member completely missing. So I called up the manufacturer. Turns out the hardware's still under warranty. After three techs, two runs of BIOS-based hardware tests and a call-back on Sunday, they authorized sending out one of their techs with a replacement hard drive. Not only that, but the third guy I talked to had me go through the restore CDs that came with the computer. It's a good thing he had me confirm what I have, since it turns out that I didn't have restore CDs for Windows XP itself or some of the nuts and bolts software for running the computer. Had I had a RAID level 2 or my RAID completely failed, I would have been SOL for manually reinstalling my operating system. Last night the tech came and replaced the bad hard drive. It booted up just fine, rebuild the RAID and now everything's just hunky-dory. I'm a happy person about that. The warranty expires come February. I'm going to look into buying an extension on it as soon as I can afford it. It certainly saved me a good chunk of change with this hard drive failure. |
| ||
| Oct. 19th, 2006 @ 12:55 pm Yuck! | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
Yesterday turned out to be something of a negatively eventful day to someone like me who stays on the computer quite a lot. blahMy computer suddenly decided that booting up to Windows was so horrible, it could only get so far, then hung up at the door, too afraid to continue on like some child forced to enter a scary place all alone. Looking up the problem and error message I was getting before the computer froze in its tracks on the manufacturer's website (I was using my old computer for that; my daughter now has that one as her own computer), there were only two solutions: Unhook all the USB items save the mouse and keyboard and see if that solved it--or do a dreaded rollback of the system to how it came from the factory. I tried everything I could think of to restore to a more recent save point, but no go. It either froze or I got the lovely Blue Screen of Death. In the end, I had to do the full rollback. The computer boots up now. But ever since I did a full hard drive disk error scan, I'm getting notices in the bios screen that something's degraded but bootable and one of the hard drives sensed has an error. It may be time to look into getting a new hard drive. Running through some of the diagnostics in the bios, the computer so far passed all the tests. I'll probably run another full error scan on the hard drive again, just to be safe. It took me all afternoon after that to do all the updates to Windows, my sound card, my video card and my Norton's. I have yet to reinstall all of the programs I lost. Luckily, I have a USB hard drive that had most of the pictures and files, and my friend had copies of most of the other stuff on her computer that she passed back over to me. But I'm still in the process of recovering, and man, it sucks. |
| ||
| Oct. 13th, 2006 @ 05:29 pm Sayonara, Second Life's Fox's Den | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
Well, it's been a couple of months since work's hired on more coders and as a result, I'm back to working just for my main hospital. The overtime was great, but now it looks like it's over with. melancholyAs a result, I just cannot spend as much as I have been on luxury, ego-stroking things like Lopayzanilaya in Second Life. As of today, the Den is no more. The land is sold; everything's gone. However, I did take a bunch of snapshots before hitting the dreaded "Return all objects" button. And I thought Friday the Thirteenth was an appropriate day to bring SL Lopayzanilaya to an end. For just over a year, the Den's been in Second Life. It had a good run, and thanks again to those who came to visit it and liked it. I enjoyed creating it and I will miss it, but it'll live on in my memories and on my computer's hard drive as screenshots. Still, it'll be nice being able to create something that I then don't have to worry about someone next door creating some ugly eyesore or lag-inducing club/mall that rather detracts from the effect I wanted to achieve. My creative efforts in this sort of thing--trying to bring to 3D "life" areas I see in my head as I write my stories--will be transferred to the toolset from Neverwinter Nights 2. I have the pre-release, preview version of the toolset and there's so much more control over virtual land in there than I ever had on the mainland in Second Life. Best of all, it's free; the only fee I have to pay is the one-time cost of getting Neverwinter Nights 2. Of course, in order to share, someone would have to have Neverwinter Nights 2 as well, download the module files, and run the module on their computer before seeing what I'd created. And right now, there's no Asian-influenced things in NWN2; Neverwinter in the Forgotten Realms is Western-inspired. So I won't be able to do Aizvarya there as I was able to do in SL. However, give the NWN community enough time, and I bet I'll see Asian buildings and stuff I can add, so eventually I may be able to create Aizvarya in NWN2. I do have a NWN 1 module that's Aizvaryan based still hanging about. So while I'll miss the Den and what I created there, I can do more elsewhere. And I have to be a responsible person after all. I can't afford to keep it; it would be irresponsible to not let it go and let my financial situation get really bad as a result. Real life takes precedence over Second Life, after all. |
| ||
| Sep. 11th, 2006 @ 07:24 am "Where Were You?" (Rest in peace, brave innocents) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
Seems like that's invariably one question that gets asked when discussing momentous events within living memory. And each generation, sadly, has its own event that it thinks of when that question gets asked. For my grandparents, it's probably Pearl Harbor and other moments from World War II. For my parents, it's probably the assassination of President Kennedy. I wasn't even born when that happened. To me, it's just another moment in American history. melancholyFor my generation (and those alive when it happened), it's probably going to be September 11, 2001. I'm one of the lucky ones. Not only do I live on completely the other side of the country from the areas attacked, I'm not aware of anyone I even remotely know who was one of the victims. I can watch and be horrified all I want from watching and hearing the footage and transcripts from that day, but I will never know the true horror of those who were there. Anything I feel has to pale in comparison to those who lost a family member--many of whom actually heard from their loved one on that day as it was all happening around them--or ran for their lives when the buildings were first hit, then the towers collapsed. I've seen the footage of people having to face an absolutely horrid, terrifying choice: stay and burn or fall multiple stories to the unforgiving ground below. I can only hope that those who chose to jump or fell because they could not hold on to the windowsill any longer had the mercy of blacking out before they hit the ground. But no matter how moved I am by any of record of that day now five years past, it pales compared to what the people who actually survived it or lost a loved one went through. I'll always be able to know how long I've had my current job. I was hired on in mid-August, 2001, and I was still going to the company headquarters for my month-long training when Sept 11 happened. Being on the West Coast, I woke up to the news of the first tower having already been hit. The rest of the events unfolded as I commuted to the company and concentrated--away from all the news--on learning how to code hospital charts. I didn't hear about the loss of the towers until my lunch time, when I went out to my truck and sat there, listening to the news radio going on and on. When I got home, I kept the TV turned on CNN and got caught up in what had been going on over there while I was a coder in training at work. I remember how proud I felt when I started hearing that the reason why United 93 crashed in a field was because the passengers--after hearing what had happened to three other planes--had decided to not sit back and complacently fly to their certain deaths. I'm sure they all hoped they'd be able to actually take back the plane and get help trying to land it and that they were taking the one chance they had to actually survive. It's a tragedy they didn't live and that the plane crashed, but at least they didn't take anyone else out with them. "Now that's the American spirit!" I remember thinking when it first became known the passengers of Flight 93 fought back. I consider them and the police and firefighters who died that day to be true heroes. For my daughter, it was just another day at school, far as I know. I'm sure they talked about it some, but she was only ten at the time--old enough to remember the main details, too young to really "get it". Last night, we watched a Court TV documentary on the 9/11 Commission which also ran through the timeline of the attacks and showed footage from then, and I could tell from her questions that while aware it happened, she just didn't know the details of it all. I answered her questions as best I could and let the TV program answer a few more. Though for me the memory of that day has blurred some and needs prompting by the footage to really see how bad it truly was back then, I'm certain it's not faded near as much for the families of those lost and the few who miraculously survived. To all those caught up in fate that day, my thoughts and prayers go to you. May we truly learn the lessons such a tragedy can teach us, and may the souls of all those lost rest in peace. |
| ||
| Sep. 5th, 2006 @ 09:01 am Happy Rez-Day, SL Fox's Den | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
And so it's been a year since I first began building Lopayzanilaya in Second Life. In that year, the Fox's Den has grown from four plots next to Sibine to nearly a half a sim, located mostly in Apoda. And once I settled upon the Japanese-style keep and moving the hot springs away from the future road, the core areas of the Den haven't changed horribly much at all. okayCurrent Music: News/talk radio Even so, I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth it. There's a few people who come and enjoy it--and I like walking around the Den myself--but neighbors do things that ruin the effect, it's expensive to maintain and very few people would miss the Den were it to disappear. I can do much the same thing--put places together that are fun to walk around in--for free in Neverwinter Nights. Speaking of which, I'm starting to play around in NWN again. I'm also looking forward to getting NWN2 and seeing what pretty areas I can make with it and its toolset. (I really need to learn how to dink around with things in Photoshop--well, Paintshop Pro X which is what I have on my computer--so I can make custom textures for NWN and NWN2 in the future. Building in NWN isn't as flexible as in SL, but at least that doesn't cost me a monthly fee to keep my work in existence.) Still, I am proud of the Den and I'm glad there's people around who like it. Now to figure out how to minimize the impact of the eyesore, huge-ass barn my new neighbor's plonked down on her land . . . |
| ||
| Jul. 26th, 2006 @ 08:57 am Disappointing | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
After eighteen months of thinking it over, the WA State Supreme Court released their ruling on the constitutionality of the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act". disappointedThey upheld it. In a decision that was 5-4, the Court decided that yes, the state legislature had the power to declare that only unions of one man and one woman are legally recognized marriages. However, the majority opinion also states that there's no reason to believe the legislature itself or the people--through our initiative process--couldn't one day in the future extend the privileges of marriage to same-sex couples. Regardless, to me it just makes no sense to discriminate in this manner. Couples are couples, no matter the biological make-up. In this day and age, when we have already what? 6.5 billion humans worldwide? the whole bit about procreation rather falls flat. We're not an agricultural society that needs to breed like crazy just to have enough kids survive into adulthood to keep the society going. And let's face it--in this day and age, there's many same-sex couples who started out trying to fit in and now have children from those past relationships, yet those children will not have the same "stability" society seems to think they need by allowing certain rights and benefits to marriage (I'm thinking of what the New York Supreme Court had said in their ruling, about restricting "marriage" to heterosexual couples because it's an incentive to get people who could have accidental offspring to form a stable family through marriage) that their playmates who have a more traditional parental set have. Children are children. And the divorce rate's at 50%. Marriage doesn't seem to make things "better" in this day and age. A same-sex couple with children is still a family, regardless. Again, society today is not what it used to be. We're not constantly fighting for survival any longer. If anything, our species is overbreeding for our planet's biosphere. Anyway, though I'm disappointed, I can't disagree with the majority opinion either. The Court is there to help interpret the State Constitution, and that's how they ruled. I was very disappointed and angry at the legislature when they passed that damned Act, because that's not what I wanted my representatives to do. They've looked it over and ruled that yes, the Constitution gives the legislature the power to make such a law, so no law-making from the bench. Well, here's hoping the legislature and/or the people decide it's worth getting rid of the Defense of Marriage Act. |
| ||
| Jul. 16th, 2006 @ 03:47 pm Errata | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
All right, in my previous entry, I stated that the Lion's Arch Club's interior looked much like the (usually empty) club across the road from the Den in Apoda. I made a mistake. Not only did I get the name of the other club wrong--it's !Wolf's Heaven!, actually--I did that club a disservice saying the Lion's Arch Club's innards looked like it. grumpy!Wolf's Heaven! looks better. For comparison: Here's the interior for the wolfy place. Not bad, really, and there's not all kinds of flashing, color-changing lighting either. Now here's the lionish place. It's busy with all sorts of flashing and color changing, but what really makes this pic are the four tiger-headed (side note: The place is called the "Lion's Arch Club". You can see all sorts of heraldic lions in the decor, as well as one silver sparkly-poo panel that changes from a lion's head in profile to the words "Lion's Arch Club"--visible here under the balcony. So WTF is up with tiger heads for the beg box?) panels scattered about. Each one of those is a not-so-subtle command to "Pay me! Paymepaymepayme, NOW!" tacked up to the wall or made a part of the stage by the guy who bought the four plots of land. (He's also the same guy who I was talking to yesterday, who was as dense as a fence post about what lights I was even talking about and complaining about neighbors making him change things.) Don't get me wrong. Donations of Linden dollars are one way to keep businesses and places you like to visit in SL going. I have two donation things on my property as well, but they're subtle and fit in. One's the money tree itself. Anyone can donate money to new people through it by paying the ring around the tree. Sure, the Lindens go into my account, but then the tree kicks them right back out, so I don't get to keep or spend those donations. And in the shrine itself--where it's entirely appropriate because you'll see the exact same thing in a Shinto shrine in the real world--I have a saisenbako (a Japanese Shinto donation box) that has kanji on it that states it's for temple donations. That money I do get to keep, but I generally turn around and donate that to the money tree. But the Lion's Arch strikes me as so desperate. Not only does the landowner have four "tip jar" panels, there's also a tip jar on the dance floor (you can see it in the picture of the interior, if you know what you're looking for) for a dancer that'll be working there when it officially opens, and four other tip jars at the entrance (two on each side of the front door) for four other people who will apparently be working there as well. At least it doesn't look like they're going to just plonk it down and hope people show up. That's one point in their favor. Although I can't find the Lion's Arch in Search in either Places or Classifieds or Events, their business groups are showing up under Groups. With DJs, dancers, security (who don't go in for drama! Right. One of the members of that group was the landowner I was talking to and he seemed to be making a big deal out of my question), and management, it looks like they're going to have events. I'm looking forward to seeing what events will be happening at "SL's hotest club". (I wish I were kidding, but that's exactly how it was spelled in the group information. They also have notecard dispensers stating how to turn on the SL 1.10 lighting system, with the text having a couple of misspellings there too. What's funny is they apparently have no clue that not only are SL 1.10 lights not blocked by walls, any computer can only render six individual light sources at once. They have far more than six packed into a relatively small area, so people are going to be constantly shifting light sources they see as they move around . . .) (Please note that at least !Wolf's Heaven! isn't a frigging shoebox club. It has a bit of style. It actually stands out some from all the other shoebox clubs dotting the SL landscape. And man, I still hate staring at that huge-ass windmill . . .) And a rant about a neighbor's rather ugly build just isn't complete without illustrating what exactly I meant by a "shoebox 'mall'". The textures hadn't quite loaded up all the way when I took the snapshot, but I don't think in-focus textures would make this look much better. As you can see, he's actually got three suck--er renters;yeah, that's the ticket--occupying his wonderful shopping experience. It's pretty drab overall, and very blah in the world of SL. Places like this are more than a dime a dozen, but he's probably hoping on the club being the actual draw. My point is . . . he's got nothing to draw people. At least, not from what I can see right now. Who knows? Maybe they'll have fun events that get people there . . . but I'm betting it's going to be the same-old, same-old as all the other shoebox clubs are doing to try to generate traffic so that people buy stuff in the nearby shops or donate to the tip jars. Yeah, I'm biased, but I think the Den is a bigger draw than this pretentious, overblown attempt at making a Linden buck. Sorry, Arch guys, but your place isn't going to be the "coolest ever". You know what it strikes me as? Some teenybopper's first personal webpage on the Internet. You know the kind . . . a ton of animated .gifs, funky pointer trailers, marquee text, "creative" uses of color. Your club is that website in SL. So unless you have a ton of friends willing to spend time there and donate their Lindens to you, or you have some really good music or events going that no one else has, you will not make it. I've seen two clubs far more creative than that come and go (Club Tiki on what was formerly Rina Nino's ranch, and the Club at the End of the Universe, which was next door to the garden in Bhima--and that one may have only moved to a private island sim rather than go away entirely), and the much better built !Wolf's Heaven! sits empty most of the time. All three of those were far better builds and much more "professional" than the crap I have next door to my shrine to Lopayzu in the far northwest corner of the Fox's Forest. |
| ||
| Jul. 15th, 2006 @ 03:24 pm O.o | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
Okay, so about two weeks ago now, one of the castles making up the two properties along the Hecta side of the Fox's Forest in Second Life was sold to first a land reseller, who divvied it up into five parcels, then sold to other people. One parcel became someone's home and the four parcels closest to the Forest were bought by one guy. irritatedWho then proceeded to plonk down a night club and a small mall that's essentially a three-story, nine-room shoebox on the land. No biggie, really, but I can't help but think that with all the other clubs in Second Life, this new one's not going to get much traffic just being there, existing. Now like the second day it went in, the guy did some local lighting using the new system. That's well and dandy, really--only he had these half-lights on the walls with a light radius of like 10 meters. The wall in question is right along the Hecta/Apoda border, so while the pale yellow lights at 10 meters were certainly "adding to the ambiance" of the club on the interior side of the wall, the same sphere also lit up the 10 meters behind the wall too . . . spilling out into Apoda, of course, and making a dark, romantic walk along one section of the forest suddenly quite a bit brighter than before. See, the lighting sources can't be occluded by walls; they shine through, filling the entire sphere. Now I've waited to see how this club and shopping space was going to pan out, since the guy is still obviously working on it. The lights that lit up the forest didn't change over that time, so when I happened across the owner sitting away in the club, I took a moment to stop and say in regular chat, "You know, you may wish to consider using a smaller radius for the lights along the wall since it bleeds over into Apoda and the castle next door." I then walked back up into the Fox's Forest. He'd added sodium-like street lamps, and all of them were not only orange lights but also at a decent light radius, so the only thing I found mildly objectionable were the lights in question. When I was in the club, I checked around for the source of the lights in question; since I also use such lighting in what little things I create, I have my client set to show me the light radius of anything I click Edit on. So I knew what things in particular they were that were lighting up the forest path. As I was walking back to the shrine, I got shot at by something. It missed, but a second shot didn't miss and I got shoved back a bit. I checked the new window we have for bumps and stuff. It wasn't the neighbor I talked to, but someone else entirely. Not happy getting shot at in my own forest, I sent in an abuse report. A bit later, I finally caught sight of the avatar that the script that had shot me belonged to. He was like some Jedi knight guy riding around on a landspeeder, zipping through the forest and almost ran me down . . . He quickly zipped off and I didn't see him again. Getting to the shrine, I logged off. A bit later, I get an email notice that's a saved IM from the neighbor, basically saying "Gee, I've had this place two weeks now. Why not say anything before and you really could have asked nicer, you know." Ara? All I said was maybe he should consider a smaller radius. That's it. No death threats or "I'm going to sic an Abuse Report on you." And he did say, "Come show me the problem because I've been on your land and I don't see it." I log back on and IM him back going, "Sorry, but I was sure I was being nice." He offers me a teleport to where he is, which I take, though I could have easily walked back there. The moment I get there, I click Edit on what I had before . . . only to see it was no longer a light source at all. I should have said right there, "Okay, those lights aren't lights any more. Problem solved," and walked off, but I really wanted to work with the guy. You know, find a compromise where he has lights and I have my walkway still rather dark at night. But no . . . I swear, this guy was either a "typical guy" or being intentionally dense. He not only whined about "I've only had this place two weeks and already I've had to change my vision to suit picky neighbors"--I got the impression his other neighbors must have said things about other things--but also about how he can't do anything about local lighting. "No, no, the builder can set the light radius to a smaller area," I said. He goes on about how he was using local lighting because that way it's less drag on the server, and how because I was unhappy that rather killed the ambiance of the club and how he had Adam Linden come over (personally, I bet. That's the jist I got) and everything was all right and on and on . . . I tell him to turn the lighting back on. He goes on about a light pillar and a dance machine--one of which has local lighting set at 10 m, but that's a purplish light and darker colors don't fill that sphere quite the same as the lighter colors do and the other is a light script. I told him those weren't what I was talking about. I repeatedly told him to turn the light back on the object I was talking about so that I could A: Show him how much that radius bled over into the Fox's Forest and B: work with him to find a radius that still lit his club up nicely and didn't make my trail suddenly brighter in a certain area. But no! Would he do that? Of course not! It took me five times to try to point out what the objects were in the first place, and then when I said, "Please just turn the lighting back on," he responded with, "Why? So then you can complain to the Lindens about it?" And in the end, instead of turning the light source back on . . . he just takes the thing off the wall. "There, happy now? Have to change my club just to please the neighbors. There, no light in your land now," is pretty much the attitude I got then. I just repeated, "That's not what I was asking. I was only asking maybe you should consider a smaller light radius. That's it," and walked off. Haven't heard from him since. Hopefully, that'll be the end of it, but we'll see. I have a feeling he's going to look for a way to get back somehow, like make me make sure all my plants don't overlap the property line. Now I don't get where in all this I wasn't being nice. I figured he didn't realize the wall can't block the light in the first place. As I told him, a light on a wall will have the wall as the center of a sphere illuminated by the light source. Bugs me a bit that he apparently had a Linden come over and personally inspect--that's what he claimed--but if he did, then he probably killed those lights in question before calling the Linden over, because I know they were light sources when I went checking. They were light sources when I chatted at his away avatar. They were not light sources any more when he teleported me over after I logged back in. Now I didn't Abuse Report him, so I have no idea why he was being so defensive and stating I was not nice about it. Though I have to wonder if a Linden contacted him in regards to my Abuse Report on the other person because I did mention I'd just got done talking to a neighbor when I was shot at on my own land. I specifically said in the report that the one stated as hitting me with a script was not the same person as my neighbor--but I mentioned the timing because it did seem suspicious that right after I talked to the away guy, I was hit with something. That's the only thing I can think of to make the neighbor act as he was. What's rather amusing is that when I rezzed in from the teleport, the neighbor had a couple other friends of his there going on about how the club was going to be a really great place once it opened up. Honestly, in my humble opinion, there's nothing stand out or spectacular about it. It's as busy and glitzy and box-like as any other of the multitude of clubs within SL. Heck, the interior looks much like the interior of the (mostly standing empty) club across the roadway from the Den's keep; all that's different are the decor bits marking it as "The Lion's Arch" club as opposed to the "Wolf's Den" over in Apoda. That and the numerous HUGE ASS boxes that scream "PAY ME TO DONATE TO THE CLUB". He's got like 4-6 of those in there on the walls and when I saw those, I couldn't help but think "Desperate much?" So unless the guy has live events there and advertises like hell, it's going to sit empty, empty, empty. If he thinks that just by existing it's going to make him a bundle in Linden dollars, he's sadly mistaken. On a related, happier note, I showed up again in the Metaverse Messenger. :) Look on Page Five to start. And as a result of that, I got an IM from the (I think) Alliance Second Life Library 2.0 asking if I'd like to come to the Library to talk about my writing and then take people on a tour of the Fox's Den. So it looks like July 22, if anyone's interested, I'll be doing just that. |
| ||
| Jun. 30th, 2006 @ 05:50 pm ARGH! The hazards of mainland living in SL | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
Okay, so now that I'm done with work for the day, I decide I'm going to wander around Lopayzanilaya like I normally do. Even though I have the land to auto-return anything not placed by someone in Clan Lopayzom, I still keep an eye on things a lot. aggravatedNow, there's been a relatively large plot next to the one I bought in Bhima that's one of those I've been watching. After being for sale for close to two months--maybe more--it sold to someone who then promptly dumped a house very close to my property line. Now I have a 'gateway' there--two fox statues marking an entrance--so I was a little tweaked they had all that room and put the house practically on my doorstep. Figuring they'd done that so they could enjoy the view of the keep's grounds from their house's windows. So three nights ago, I do my usual prowl of the Den and I noted that that lot was back up for sale. The next night, the plot of land was listed with Governor Linden as the owner. That normally denotes land abandoned for some reason. So imagine my surprise when I log in to see not only that plot back up for sale again--apparently it was abandoned in error and someone got hold of Linden Lab to get the property returned to them--but now there's also THIS on the property, rather borking over the Den's skyline. I suppose it's a ploy by the owner of the plot to get attention so that people in the area see that the land's for sale. I can't buy the plot itself because not only do I not have the Linden dollars to do so, I can only buy 144 sq. m. now for how much I pay in US dollars now and that plot's well over that in size. So here's hoping someone who likes the Den and wants to live next door comes along and buys the plot. Since it's the mainland, there's no "zoning" to keep a theme going in adjacent plots or keep builds that don't "fit in" out. It's a free-for-all where the only rule is you can't have anything of yours hanging over the property line if it annoys your neighbor. Bah. How annoying. Hopefully I won't have to have that hanging around long. |
| ||
| Jun. 30th, 2006 @ 08:36 am The big 4-0 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
Once upon a time--long, long ago--the thought of me and the age of 40 just . . . didn't compute. Waaaay back then, no way in hell could I imagine me being 40. pensiveAnd now it's here. Given the average lifespan of an American these days, this is statistically near the middle-of-the-road mark. It's all downhill from here. :P All things considered, it's not too bad--so far. I'd heard that people started "falling apart" after 30, or even 35, but the worst I have at the moment is a bad right knee that I have to be very careful of if I'm kneeling on it or the patella slips out of place and it's hell trying to A: straighten my leg at all and B: get my kneecap back where it belongs. My other knee is a bit better, but I'm feeling twinges in that joint at times these days, especially as I bear down on a bike pedal. Still, it's better to keep biking and staying active that way than the alternative. Everything else is going along well enough. I'm totally enjoying being able to work from home, and feel good showing off my virtual land in Second Life. I'm still being creative as well--which reminds me, I really need to add some more drawings to my website. I haven't stopped doing those on occasion and venovel still loves doing all the computer coloring on the line drawings I produce. Since the computer coloration looks so much better than anything I did with colored pencils and ink pens, I don't bother coloring my line drawings any more.Still writing too, especially on Aizvarya and occasionally picking up Megaloi as inspiration strikes. I just haven't posted them on the website only because, well, they're essentially originals and one day I'd like to try publishing something. I've heard it's harder to sell a manuscript if it's already been "published" out on the Internet, so I'll probably never post everything I've produced in either the Aizvaryan stories or the Megaloi ones anywhere so that I can try to sell them to an actual publisher at some point in the future. Not that anyone's really all that interested in my stories. Outside of a handful of people, that is. And though money's still sometimes tight--these next two weeks are going to suck, but that can't be helped--overall I'm doing better that I have at other points in my life. At least I'm not begging for paid work in one of the only public posts on my LJ in order to have some sort of an income. :) And so, when it comes down to it, it's pretty much yet another day. Though looks like Nature's decided to shake it up a bit. It's sunny and supposed to get to the high 70s for the high temperature. It's usually dreary, grey and rainy on my birthday. And on the Fourth of July. This is probably the fourth or fifth birthday I can remember where it wasn't overcast and misty or rainy. That'll make biking to the store this afternoon rather pleasant. :) |
| ||
| Jun. 5th, 2006 @ 09:37 pm More on the Fox's Den in Second Life | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
Another batch of pictures uploaded to Snapzilla: pleasedCurrent Music: Whatever my daughter's listening to on her computer . . . ( Read more... ) |
| ||
| Jun. 1st, 2006 @ 08:59 pm More fun with the Fox's Den | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
I can't help myself. I like what I've accomplished with Lopayzanilaya in Second Life. happyI've gotten around to adding a page for the Fox's Den as it appears in SL on my website. You can find that page here. There's still a few screenshots saved on my computer I need to upload and link to that page, but the really early stuff I recorded is there. I've got a new group of pics I've uploaded to Snapzilla. ( URLs and comments under the cut ) |
| ||
| May. 27th, 2006 @ 08:24 pm Let there be light! | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
Last Wednesday, Second Life released version 1.10. Among some of the new features added was the ability to turn any primitive you're editing or building with into a light source. creativeThis means that candles, lamps, lanterns, fires and the like can now actually shed light into the world rather than just look like they glow. And that light can be colored light. Now I'm a born romantic. Candlelight at night and all that are things I really enjoy. With the version of SL that came out just before, Linden Labs gave us all the ability to make it always day or night as far as the client was concerned. Though each sim would continue to cycle sunlight and moonlight as always, you could make it be always be one of four times and never see the in-world cycle of day or night. This is on the mainland areas; private "islands" have always had the ability for the owner to set how long--or even if--day and night in their sim would cycle. Because of all this, I've been dinking around in SL, making things that glow. Right now, my attempts at making something to sell for in-world money has been limited to a small round ball that gives off a glow like firelight (I left it editable, so that someone could turn the ball invisible and slip it into an already-existing fire so that it now also glows), a set of Chinese-like cloth lanterns in both small and large sizes, a shoji-type low floor lantern and an Asian-influenced garden bridge with two shoji-type lights mounted to a couple of the corner posts. I've been pretty pleased with the results, even if I may never sell any. :) It's fun to dink around with things that add that romantic glowing touch when nighttime falls in SL. I also walked around Lopayzanilaya, taking snapshots of the estate as it exists now and posting them to Snapzilla. So under the cut are more URLS to Snapzilla, showing off more of the Fox's Den than the other resident did back in October. These are contemporary, having been taken today. ( Links and comments under the cut ) |
| ||
| May. 19th, 2006 @ 01:32 pm Lopayzanilaya, the Fox's Den | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Location: Home. :) Yay for working over a WAN
I've mentioned before that I've got virtual land in Second Life and have dinked around with putting an estate together as well as making or modifying items. Now I know I've promised screenshots of my SL estate, but I've yet to upload any to a website to link here.Current Mood: happyCurrent Music: What music? News/talk radio yet again. However, there's a website that specializes in screenshots--snapshots as they're called--from SL mailed in by residents. I stumbled across some of the Fox's Den taken by someone else back on October (which would have been about two weeks after I bought the final plot of land for the original forest area and had created the forest itself) of 2005. So here's links to the snapshots of Lopayzanilaya: ( Links under the cut ) |
| ||
| Feb. 5th, 2006 @ 09:40 pm Well, darn. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
The Seahawks lost. disappointedThey did well, but not as well as they could have after the first quarter. Still, seemed like the refs were out to get them as well. But at least we got there. That's better than the twenty-nine years before. And at least it wasn't an utter blowout by the Steelers. That would have been really embarrassing. Thanks again, 'Hawks, for a great season! You didn't win, but you gave it a decent shot. Hopefully, we'll be back for Super Bowl XLI, and win it then. On another note, happy birthday, Mom! Hope it's gone well for you! And, believe it or not, my parents are the new Baron and Baroness of Aquaterra, our local branch of the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism). It's really hard to believe that, but I'm thrilled for them. What a big deal! That's enough for now. Back to working on a story based on White Wolf games that I started with a co-author years ago. (Yeah, I continue to do my best to just keep myself busy so I don't have to think about what gets me down.) |
| ||
| Jan. 22nd, 2006 @ 07:36 pm We're going to Detroit! | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
Woohoo! Seattle's Super Bowl bound! ecstaticIt's been thirty long years, but we're finally going to the big dance! I'm really excited, to be honest. Just finished watching the NFC championship and it was a damned good game. I'd heard at the beginning of the week that a lot of national sportscasters were picking Carolina to win by a small margin, but I'd figured it was yet again the national trend of discounting Seattle's football team as "not that good" because we're way the hell up here in this corner of the States. Sure, the past few years have been dismal. It's been hard to see the team struggling so since the really good team from 1984 (To put that into some perspective, '84 was the year I graduated high school). Seemed like we were always rebuilding, always trying to get the pieces together to make things click well again. Now we've done it, and Seattle's once again shown how much of a football town it really is. We've got the loudest crowd in the NFL, and we've gotten more false start calls on our opponents during home games than any other. If you'd ever gone to a University of Washington Husky football game, it'd be easy to see that Seattle has long been a football town. I'm thrilled we now get to finally watch the 'Hawks play in a Super Bowl. Thanks, Paul Allen, for buying the team and keeping it here. Thanks, King County, for putting together the tax package that helped finance the new stadium. Sure, I have a touch of nostalgia for the old Kingdome, but Qwest Field's a gorgeous stadium. And, thanks, 'Hawks, for coming together so well and having such an outstanding season and playoffs. So now let's kick the Steelers' butts and bring home those rings at long last! Go 'Hawks! |
| ||
| Dec. 25th, 2005 @ 08:07 am Merry Christmas, all! | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Current Mood:
I hope the holiday season is a bright, happy and safe one no matter what holiday it is you celebrate at this time of the year. bouncyGo, Seahawks! They won the game against Indianapolis yesterday, and looked pretty good doing so. I thought it was rather neat of Coach Holmgren to put Alexander back into the game so that he had a shot at tying that NFL record. You could just tell from the way Alexander was bouncing on the sidelines that he really, really wanted to get in there and score that goal to tie the record. I've got hope that the Seahawks will actually get into the Super Bowl for the first time, ever. That would be so cool if they finally got to the big game--and even more cool if they won it as well. It's been a long time waiting for us 'Hawk fans. Work's keeping me busy, which is a good thing, and I'm very much enjoying being able to not leave the apartment in order to go to work. Makes everything seem far less hectic, even if it's much harder to call in sick or something like that. I have to work tomorrow despite it being a holiday off for my company, but that's no biggie. The line of work I'm in, you have to have people working on the holidays, and since I work from home, it's not a big deal to plug in the work computer and do charts as usual. I tend to have the afternoons to goof off anyway. Still having a blast in CoH/CoV. I've got a Mastermind up to level 30 now, and my Stalker's 28. Since they gave me four more character slots on all the servers because I bought CoV, I recreated my Peacebringer on my heroes' "home" server, Guardian. This way I can pick Kitsune Samurai's pockets for enhancements as Sothis levels up. Over on Champion server, the original Sothis had a much harder time of it because I didn't have another hero on there with pocket loads of influence. Granted, my villains all face the same thing, but since they're in the first wave of villains created, it's not as bad. Pretty soon they'll have enough infamy to start outfitting lower level villains. My level 30 Mastermind's starting to get decent amounts of infamy, I've noted. So anyway, Happy Holidays, all! I'm off to keep leveling Sothis up. Need to get him to level 20 so I can earn a cape. Since he's based off Sailor Sirius from my Sailor Moon fanfics, his superhero outfit really needs to get the cape to finish the look. I just wish male superheroes could get circlets as costume pieces like the heroines do. That's really all Sothis would be missing from recreating Sailor Sirius's outfit. |
| ||
