Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Back to SL!

So, another Tuesday morning post. If this is my rhythm, I can dig that. I tried writing a post at another time in the week, but haven't posted it. It's all about my adventures in facebookland. It got kinda wordy.

The last several posts I've put up have been dealing with me, in my real life. About my struggling and dealing with my new life, which isn't that new any more. I don't talk too much about my goings on in Second Life, and I felt maybe it's high time I do.

My real life dictates when I log on to SL, as it does for many people. I dont go online when I need to take care of the kids. It had been my schedule to wait until they were in bed. I don't really want to deal with the interruptions, and when they're up, there are constant interruptions. Such is a parent's life. Not complaining at all. I love my kids, They need whatever attention they can get from me. I also do not log on when my wife is at home. Once upon a time it upset her greatly, then it became an annoyance to her. Nowadays, I don't think she cares, but I still don't play when she's at home, whether it's for respect for her wishes, or the easy road for me to avoid confrontation. So I usually played late at night, after 10 pm, and stayed up til pretty late. When I was unemployed, I made my own schedule, and soon 2 am became 3 am, and often became 4 am. I didn't have any reason to get up early, so why not? I'd log on just about every night, 7 days a week, and I've had many great adventures on SL.
Now I've got a job, and guess what? I'm on overnight shift, Meaning I go to work at 6:30 pm and come home at 5:30 in the morning. I'm there to send the kids off to school, and then I go to bed. I wake up around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, in time for the kids to come home from school. It works out pretty slick, for the most part. Theresa works from 7 am to 7 pm, so she is unable to see the kids off or come home. It works for us. I work 4 days a week, Monday through Thurday (meaning Friday morning) and I have 3 days off. On those days off, I keep to the same schedule, staying awake all night. It's easier that way, doesn't throw me out of whack. And so it's perfect opportunity to play my SL.

Ok, I digressed into my Real Life again, when I was going to talk about my Second Life. Back to it...

I live in Chiaroscuro, in a windmill. I also ave a 512 parcel, because I've got a premium membership. but I can't figure out what I'm doing with that little parcel. I live next door to a good friend there, her name is Tiffy. I met her when she was a satyr and we were in the same group, Fauns and Satyrs. I used t be a satyr, you see. She came to a mini bacchanal, and we hit it off right then. Since then she has developed her own line of jewelry, which is quite exquisite, and because of this she doesn't have too much time to play, but we still chat, and share fun LMs and so forth.
So I don't know what I'm doing with my parcel. First I had a little tipi thing going on, and then later I put in a mountain shack. Both of these were not built by me, tI had either paid for them or won them in a treasure hunt, and they were fine for a while, but I wanted it to be mine, made by me, not by someone else. For a while, I had an idea of doing an enormous peach, like in the Roald Dahl book, and you enter it through a teleportation device to the interior pit, which would actually be high in the sky. but I was having troubles figuring out the tp device. I still kinda like the idea, and I might go back to it sometime. Right now, I'm building this structure, which I don't know what it is. it's an open room, almost a dais, but I haven't figured out why I'm doing it. That's the problem, I don't know why I'm doing it, so it's formless. See previous post about lack of creativity. But I keep chiseling away at it. maybe it'll come to me. I't's almost an exhibit hall. but what's it exhibiting?

So what have I been doing on Sl lately? well, I've got two main passions. One is treasure hunts. Treasure hunts are fun, but you wind up with all this stuff, and that means inventory clean up. I'm like mental stimulation, and treasure hunts are good for that.. look around the shop for a t-shirt, or a magnifying glass, or whatever the hunt is about. I actually don't mind doing inventory. i kinda like putting things away where they belong, but omg, it does get to be a big job. Going through all that stuff, though, you do get some nice finds, and I'll have to say my avatar has evolved quite gracefully.

The other passion I have is archery. And here's this about that. I have pretty much two avatars in SL, I have my centaur, and I have my human-ish avie. I use the human one when I'm out and about, either on the treasure hunts or the rare times I go to clubs. I feel more comfortable around other people when I'm human. When I'm at home or at a few select RP sims that I go as centaur. And usually when I'm practicing archery, I'm in centaur form. I've found some good archery ranges, and I have quite a few targets in my inventory. the latest one I really really love. It's called Vulo Hunt. What it is is a small nest that you place on the ground and when you click on it a flock of doves goes flying around, and you have to try to hit them. If you do, it explodes into a poof of feathers. It's pretty hard, actually. I was doing well with stationary targets, and having moving targets is a challenge. I absolutely love it.

Lately, my avatar has been sort of an equine neko, and on the last few treasure hunts, that's how I went. I feel comfortable in that. I've also been hanging out more often in the Primal Nature sim called Maledivs. I am not certain what I'm looking for, but I think that's a stone in the path. It's been kinda lonely last weekend, many of my friends have not been on at the same time I am, so I do my inventory, (currently going through old landmarks, so I'm travelling some) , and I practice my archery, and if someone's online I'll send them a shout out, usually.
I'm not good about starting conversations, I always feel like I'm interrupting whatever important thing they're doing, even though most of the time they aren't doing anything important, and actually welcome a chat. But still I feel like I'm imposing on their lifestyle. Some people I'm very comfortable starting up a chat with, but others I imagine are thinking "who is this guy who is chatting me up, and why won't he leave me alone?" So to avoid that I just don't start conversations. That's stupid, I know, but that's my comfort zone.


So, I'm going to log in and take some pics of my avatars, I'll take one of me as a centaur, and then one of me as a human-ish) Most of the pics I post are stuff I've found on the internet, sometimes related to what I'm saying, sometime not. These pics will actually have something to do with me, this time. And I hope you all have a good week.

2 comments:

GreggerMan said...

Hi Leigh,

I tried to get into Second Life, but found the learning curve was higher than the amount of time I wanted to invest in it. I also couldn't figure out how to get a centaur form. If I was going to play Second Life it was as a centaur or not at all. Eventually, I lost interest in what little I was able to do and never went back.
I think I needed a centaur mentor but couldn't find one. I have never really been adept at computer games at all. The only one I play is Age of Mythology and the centaurs aren't really anything more than disposable fighters in that game. I might have enjoyed Second Life had I really worked at it because it isn't a war game. Most of the stuff online is way too belligerent and violent for my taste. I think of it as propaganda used to recruit gullible young people into our country's deadly overseas adventures.

I'd like to post your centaur picture on Centaurica if you don't mind. I won't identify you at all.

Keep writing your blog. It's interesting hearing about someone who shares some of my predilections but has a totally different home life than I do.

Cheers,
Greg

Leigh Eel said...

I think that's true about a lot of people who enter SL--that the learning curve is high. And when you start out, you get the most average, boring avatar, and you fill it out from there. I went to a vendor called Hoofit for my avatar when I got it it was $1200 inworld Dollars (equal to less than $5 USD) now the price is about $1000 (little over $4). I thought it was well worth it ask I have gotten a lot of mileage from the avatar. And then of course you personalize it as you go along, like any other avatar. The only other games I got into was Heroes of Might and Magic, but the CD got destroyed (thanks kids) and the Sid Meier Civilization series. I've tried a few others, but most of the time they don't stick with me.
You can go ahead and use the pic, I don't mind. I don't even mind if you identify me. I think you did post one of my avatar pics a long while back actually, I got a tickle out of that.