Not a way of life for me, I guess

I guess I am still deluded by Maya, as they say in Hinduism. I could not stay with the ways of Zen and achieve enlightenment... so I have put away the robes and gone out looking for ballrooms.

First I came upon the Midnight Romance Ballroom, an elegant place indeed...


But then I headed for Tempura Island, and found the path to the ballroom itself so beautiful that I didn't even make it into the ballroom proper. I will have to actually enter next time.


Perhaps I can find some middle ground. Moderation in all things... but doesn't that mean moderation in moderation, so that one should go to extremes a little of the time?

Kannonji Zen Retreat

While I had the Zen monk robes on, I went searching for "Zen". Among the first things I found was the Kannonji Zen Retreat.

It's a beautiful place, with evergreens (cryptomeria, perhaps?) growing in a snowy landscape with paths set in large rocks.


There is space for group mediation and lectures, though no Zen master was there to whack me when my attention strayed.


Hotei awaits you along the path...


Over the bridge and up the mountain, you come upon Tibetan prayer wheels.


There are private residences in the area; pass them by in peace and you will come to a store that sells many things. Not all are associated with Buddhism, but all that I saw there for sale was quite lovely. I hope you'll pay the Retreat a visit.

P.S. I have the sad duty to report that it looks like the Buddhist temple at Varosha is gone from SL. I hope that Kannonji stays in SL for a long, long time.

Beautiful Chinese Traditional Clothing

The Legends of China sim was, according to Koinup, among the most photographed regions in Second Life last week. Having visited, I can see why.

To fit in with the surroundings and keep my promise to wear things I've not worn for a while, I put on the Zen monk robe I acquired late last year and set out through the beautiful landscaping and buildings of the sim.

There I came upon some gorgeous clothing.

As you know if you've read this blog for a while, I love ornate dresses. It's masochistic in a way; the only clothier accomodating prim breast users with such lovely clothing is Raven Ivanova of Smashing Prims... ah, well, "Sì dolce è'l tormento..."

Anyway, there I found the work of Stone Ryba. He does amazing traditional Chinese clothing, and if you share my love of beautifully detailed dresses you should look at it. He's a RL artist as well; CM Gallery has an interview with him that shows one of his RL paintings.

Cheesy Bacon^H^H^H^Heacon

While experimenting with Snowglobe, I came across a menu choice that I initially thought said "Cheesy Bacon". (I guess I was hungry.) It actually said "Cheesy Beacon". I selected it, and waited for something to happen. Nothing did.

At least nothing did until I came upon Tao Takashi's explanation of how to see the effect. Suffice it to say that the "beacon" is the red beam of light that points at a location you've selected on the map.

P.S. Hey, maybe this will replace "cheesy phrases" as a popular search leading people to this blog.

Snowglobe

I'm a sucker for new SL clients. I use Release Candidate clients when they come out. I've used Imprudence, and now that I've heard of it, I'll probably try the Emerald client as well. (Ixnay on Gemini; I can only find a Windows version.)

The "Snowglobe" SL client is LL's attempt to work around the ossification that the official SL client is subject to. (To use the current programming buzzword, it has a more agile development environment.) It's now available, and I think LL's decision is paying off. There are several reports of faster texture loading times.

When I first tried it out, I saw that maps were filled in more quickly, and though "Gee, that's nice." But the above-linked articles mentioned setting Advanced > Rendering > HTTP Get Textures, and that made a significant difference. I tried one of the slowest-loading places I know, the FallnAngel store, and while the objects still took their time, textures were right there. (I expect storekeepers and shoppers will especially appreciate the change. Stores necessarily have LOTS of textures to load, one per item on display.)

Lately, teleporting has been a tedious, battleship gray experience as textures and objects take a VERY long time to rez. With Snowglobe and the new setting, though, things are considerably improved. Objects still take some time--though perhaps the faster texture load means more bandwidth can be devoted to object loading--but textures load much faster. It's not the instant thing one would like, but where before, textures and objects slowly drooled into view, with Snowglobe the drool is a lot runnier. (Ick... I can't believe I typed that. Maybe I'll give breakfast a pass...)

Good job, Snowglobe people--I hope the method can be readily applied to loading objects as well as textures. (Shame on me. That's the standard user attitude. "That's nice, but can you just change this and this and this and...")

Digging into the clos--er, inventory

I looked through my inventory the other day, and I was reminded of just how much stuff is in there, how many outfits sit waiting for me to wear again.

It's often pointed out that SL lacks one major incentive to buy more stuff: things don't wear out; you can't spill your virtual beverage on your virtual blouse and stain it irreparably. Walking in SL doesn't wear down the heels of your virtual shoes. (And it's not aerobic, either, darn it.) Your avatar doesn't gain weight unless you go out of your way to make it happen, and even if it does, SL's paint-on clothing will still paint your shape.

All I can say is, if I'm any example, clothiers don't have anything to worry about... but I will be pulling old outfits out of the virtual closet. They're still just as pretty as they were when I bought them.

Drew Carey on Curio Obscura

Thinking back, I am amazed that I never watched The Drew Carey Show; I'll have to fix that. I loved the Americanized Whose Line is It, Anyway? that he hosted (and still do; it's on cable on the ABC Family channel). I loved his book Dirty Jokes and Beer: Stories of the Unrefined. It was a joy to discover that he's a libertarian, and if you haven't seen The Drew Carey Project, a series of videos on reason.tv, by all means, follow the link and check them out (you'll have to do a little searching, alas, even though the page deceptively has a "Drew Carey Project archive" image with link). They're wonderful, and one of them is about Second Life and gets it. None of the sensationalist BS that is all the rest of the media seems to be able to talk about.

So, I am delighted to find out that Drew Carey has a blog, and that he still gets it, and is active in Second Life. There's a wonderful entry there about Curio Obscura, Pandora Wigglesworth's store of ingenious steampunk inventions.

Welcome, Mr. Carey; I'm delighted you're here. (And thanks to Hamlet Au for his post on New World Notes about the blog and the entry.)

Flexible scuplted prims

They exist, at least in testing versions; you'll recall that there's a test version of Imprudence that supports them.

I'll be happy when they're official. Cheyenne has already described the strangeness of current hair using sculpted prims; they won't look right until they can be flexible like the rest of prim hair.

They have other applications as well--I wonder if you could make a realistic looking springboard with them?--but I will admit to wanting them for realistic jiggle. I am grateful for the efforts of people like Raven Ivanova of Smashing Prims, but doing it up right will require flexible sculpted prims...

...but that by itself may not be enough, I fear. Prim breast makers, and a growing number of stores that specialize in clothing that works with prim breasts (yay!), make actual tops that are tops, rather than just painted-on textures. Given the way prim breasts work, they're really one attachment, with the top attached to the prim breasts. So, question: how's that going to work with flexible sculpted prims? I hope that clothiers and prim breast makers are experimenting with this against the day that flexible sculpted prims become official.

P.S. Bless all of you out there who specialize in clothing for prim breasts, but I hope you will consider the following... pretty please?

1. Some of us wish to be modest varying amounts of the time. (Some more than others.)
2. Please consider expanding the set of prim breast makers you support to include Foxbean Laboratories products.
   

Wandering in Greater Caledon

I went wandering through the Greater Caledon area (apologies, guvna, if that is not the correct term, but if I just say "Caledon" it sounds like I'm confining myself to one sim). I had the good fortune to come upon Caliber, where I found some wonderful hair. Isn't it lovely?


I also had the bittersweet experience of coming upon glorious, beautifully detailed gowns that I adore but cannot yet wear, as I have managed to procrastinate in acquiring the needed skill for their adaptation. I urge you to visit Akina Fashion Emporium to look, ooh, and aah over their work.