Month: May 2010

When Chestnut Plurks

Slowly but surely my health is returning. About time, too, I say. Last night I was taking a break from my book, catching up on Plurks, emails and the like. Then THE plurk posted: Chestnut listening to Kyle Beltran at Tribeca…. Come dance with me.

When Chestnut invites me to dance with her, I can’t refuse. Apparently, neither can Sean. Within minutes, there we were. (Okay, to be fair – Sean was there, but not dancing. *grin*) Dancing with Ches, listening to Kyle, laughing with friends. A lovely evening. 🙂 Thanks for inviting us to the party, Ches!!! ❤

Keyboard Dancing

I never get out on my own. Once I login, I start chatting with friends. I’m usually hanging about at my house chatting. Or I head off for live music and dance and chat. But I rarely go exploring on my own. So it’s a very good thing that I have friends who drag me out to fun places. I have learned that when Calli, Panacea or Oura IM me and say: Come here NOW! that it’s best for me to listen. *grin* And you all thought I was so headstrong. Panacea finds me Peep racing, musicians and carousels. Oura takes me shopping and to good music and to cool builds. Calli takes me to revivals and trains and music. I am soooooo far behind on my blogging, believe me.

So I was hanging about relaxing the other day. Yes, relaxing. It was post-deadline day. Calli sent the familiar IM: Come here now! Even as I typed “where is here?” I was hopping in the taxi. As I rezzed, I found myself on a giant keyboard. Of course, as has happened lately, Calli and I exchanged hello, how are you and then she crashed. *grin* Really – I bathe regularly. I waited for her to return, but this appeared to be one of those “the whole machine has gone pfffft and needs to be rebooted entirely” crashes. So I wandered up and down the keyboard. As you strike a key, whether by walking on it or touching it, the note plays and a musical notation appears. I love it. But the graphical notes fade so quickly I wasn’t sure that my pictures were capturing them. So I sent the taxi to Oura and Jonah to join me. More SL strangeness – Jonah could tp in but Oura could not.

I had Jonah walk up and down the keyboard while I snapped pics. I tried to play a tune, but either I’ve forgotten everything I once knew about the piano and playing music, or that keyboard is not tuned as I expected. *grin* The keyboard is in Floyd. It looks to be a lovely community. I’m wondering if there is a barbershop quartet to sing beside the barbershop poles. I didn’t have time to do much exploring, as RL was calling. But I think you can see from the photos that Floyd deserves an encore performance. 🙂

Rockin’ Away

Well, we did it. We made the RL deadline. Handed over the video to the client. Many, many thanks to a wonderful team and folk who worked day and night and weekends to get their part done. You are the best partners a gal could want. And one day, I will actually post some of that video here. I hope. *grin*

But something had to give in that push and unfortunately that something was my health. I sort of hit the wall and went splat once the footage was recorded. So I have been in recuperation mode. I’m on vacation and I’m actually sticking to that – resolutely ignoring emails from work, not looking at the many feeds. I sleep, I do nothing, I read and then do more nothing. In sl – I’ve retreated to my playhouse. I go to live music, chat and do a lot of nothing here, too. *grin* Oh wait – that’s what I ALWAYS do.

Oura, however, decided that my spirits needed a boost. So she got me a new toy for my playhouse. Oh, anyone could have a rocking horse. *I* have a rocking giraffe. I rezzed him out today. His name is Jasper. Why Jasper? Because one of my absolute favorite books as a child was Jasper Giraffe. In it, poor Jasper falls down and hurts his knee. Polly Parrot flies through the forest telling everyone and the presents and get-well cards stream to Jasper. *grin* I loved it. I could read it endlessly. Make my mother read it to me endlessly. So Jasper has taken up residence in my playhouse.

Calli is always inviting me to do fun things with her (and then she crashes when I get there). I have 2 not-yet-written-posts about cool things Calli found. So I was very happy to invite Calli to join me and try Jasper on his initial run. She was dressed perfectly – they matched! Then we sat and shmoozed til she had to work and I had to nap. A lovely morning.

Time to Lend a Helping Hand

I don’t really care what the media reports: I don’t think the economy is turning around all that quickly. We are all feeling the problems of a slowed, stumbling economy. But some people are getting hit worse than others. Cypress Rosewood, an SL musician is having an especially poor 2010. It was just a few months ago his home was burglarized, his musical equipment stolen. Thanks to some good fortune and quick-thinking friends, most of the equipment was ultimately recovered. But not all. And there was damage. So it seems particularly cruel fate that the flooding in Nashville, Tennessee has cost Cypress his home and store. Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start to heal the world. I have no doubts this week. I’m doing what I can to help Cypress Rosewood.


The following is lifted verbatim from Honour McMillan’s blog, with her permission:

Over the past weekend Cypress Rosewood lost his home and shop to the devastating floods in Nashville Tenn. Friends of Cypress have responded and are calling for a benefit held this Fri Please note times we hope you can stop by and give some support to one of SLs’ beloved musicians.

Just look at the line up of great SL Musicians appearing at the benefit:

* Von Johin
* Arman Finesmith
* Skye Galaxy
* Senjata Witt
* Frets Nirvana
* Gina Stella
* Anek Fuchs
* Bluemonk Rau
* Joaquin Gustav
* Kolor Fall
* Zachh Cale
* Moondoggirl Moomintoog

This has been a tough year in terms of disasters and a tough one economically. It’s been tougher on some than others. We can’t fix all the problems of the world or make all the bad stuff go away but we can help one of our own. The fact that we can also enjoy an amazing lineup of musicians is the gravy. 🙂

If you can make it to Mardi Gras Park on Friday, May 7 and help out Cypress then I hope you do so. Please share this with your friends!

Stolen Moments

One more day…. just one more day and we should have recorded the footage we need to have achieved the current milestone. One. More. Day.

But I am not the only one working and trying to make deadlines and submit machinima. The call went out from another group last week. “We are recording life in our virtual world, we need some bodies. Please come and join us.” I can’t resist an invitation like that. First, because to me that sounds like a party. And second, because I know the day will come when *I* will be saying “Help! I need bodies to fill my virtual world.” So I blocked out the time on my calendar.

I got there a bit early and settled myself at the checkers board I’d built last fall. I was joined by a friend but as you can tell by the pieces, we didn’t really play. We were too busy negotiating terms of the game, prizes for the winner, penalties for the loser. I tend to think of the two of us as the Immovable Object meets the Irresistible Force. *grin* Fortunately more folks arrived before we actually had to play. We wandered all over the world, sim to sim to sim. As the scheduled time drew to a close, people began logging out. Until just a hardy few were left. I took them to MY favorite places: the beach and the duck pond.

Someone has left a rocket launcher by the beach blankets!! We had a great time firing off the rockets, listening to the noises, watching the particle explosions. I was laughing aloud at my desk. It really was a wonderfully fun stolen moment in the middle of doing work. We tp’d to the duck pond so I could show them my ducks. Yes, those are MY ducks. I refuse to be mature or good-natured or a good corporate citizen on this matter. *grin* MINE MINE MINE!!! My team leader gave them to ME!!!! Oh. *clears throat* Excuse me…. Ahem. Okay, so I took them to the duck pond where we relaxed for a few moments more. Then it was time to go back to our desks – which are located in different states and time zones.

Virtual worlds provide a wonderful chance to share thoughts and experiences with people you might never have met in the purely physical world.