157: Second Pride on Hallowe'en

Alex Thaub and I got dressed up for Hallowe'en last night ... one problem is, we didn't quite know what we were dressed as. Finally I thought the phrase "gay elven warrior strippers" would cover it.  I plugged that into the search engine, looking for a place to take some pictures -- and came up with some kind of elven grotto. Cool!
   Then we went off to Second Pride's Volcano venue to dance to the music

and hosting team of Lex Solari-Holland and Christian Holland Solari. Good music, good friends, lots of great costumes, and a good time was had by all.
   Happy Hallowe'en!

156: Handsome Alex

Alex Thaub and I went hair shopping last night at Tableau Vivant. I think this purchase was very successful, don't you agree? I like that bedhead look ...

   The lighter colour plays up his skin colour and also makes it possible to see the excellent work that went into the hair. The fact that he's a very handsome guy doesn't hurt either!

155: Logging in at a coffee shop

So I'm in a coffee shop logging in to Second Life on my laptop, so I decide to be in a coffee shop logging in to Second Life on my laptop. It doesn't get much more meta than that. If anyone walks behind me and tries to figure out what's going on, I think their head will explode.

154: Alex goes for a run

My husband Alex Thaub came home with a set of track pants and a sleeveless tank the other day that I liked a lot. He looks good in this colour of orange, don't you think? I decided to take him out for a photo shoot combined with a couple of kilometres of jogging in the country, partly because there's not much sexier than a guy who's worked up a good sweat and partly, well, it's a pretty time of year.
   The shirt and shorts are for the Aesthetic body, designed by Isadora Adagio for Pump Clothing Company.

153: Killing zombies in virtual reality

This is an interesting and brief piece I happened across this afternoon -- and, let's face it, who among us can resist a title like What it's like to kill zombies in virtual reality. (Click the title to read the article.) Why I thought my readers might be interested is that this seems to indicate that in gaming terms, VR games are actively in development. Just like Sansar is moving into the same arena as Second Life, other types of games are finding their big threat may be from virtual-reality-based games.
   The other thing I thought might be of interest is that the writer's experience is quite reassuring in a couple of ways. He is playing the kind of game that requires the user to learn how to perform activities like loading a gun, and to do this action accurately so as not to be killed out of the scene. Near the end of the piece, he says he "can't get enough". Although there is no similar activity in Second Life, I think many Residents would understand the need to manipulate the controls of the game in a sophisticated and rapid way so as not to demonstrate a noobish unfamiliarity. What I take from his pleasure is that it's easy to figure out how to do things in VR if the animations are there ... and that once you figure out how, it's a pleasant experience.  I think that should be reassuring to SL Residents that if you want to make the leap to Sansar in the near future, the learning curve is relatively easy.
   And finally -- if you think about it, the fact that a gamer-oriented site like Polygon is sufficiently interested to produce a little article like this, more like a gloss on an experience than anything else, means that they're interested in anything and everything to do with VR platforms. So as time goes on, I expect there to be more and more information about VR-based games in my feed.  Good; I'm curious.

152: Oculus Rift and Mark Zuckerberg in Vanity Fair

There's a very interesting article in the latest edition of Vanity Fair -- you can read it here -- about the relationship of Facebook to Oculus Rift, via Facebook's principal Mark Zuckerberg. It also goes into the possibilities for funding of both Oculus Rift and a major competitor, Magic Leap.
   Nothing much about Second Life, but you can bet if Facebook places a big stack of chips on Oculus Rift, things will happen. I don't think it's time yet to commit to one technology or the other, but this will be useful background information within a year, I think. Enjoy.

151: When the cat's away ...

... the dogs will play. Alex Thaub and I got a new house recently and we're also merging our respective dogs. As dog-lovers know, this can be a problem when two people each with pampered pets move in together.
   Alex's dog Tiger has never really warmed up to me, I'm not sure why. Alex was working late tonight, so I had the place to myself. I tried to spend a little time with Tiger ... he likes his ears

scratched but he's not anxious to spend too much time around me. I'm okay with that; we'll integrate into one pack in the near future.
   In the meantime, I curled up on the patio couch with my own two pests, Porky and Petunia. It's hard to tell what they're thinking at any given time, because bassets are not what you might call demonstrative dogs. They just like to be around you and snuggled up close all the time.  When visitors are around I usually tuck them away for a nap in the

greenhouse; sometimes they're too demonstrative around strangers. Tonight they were giving me that s t a r e that means (this time), "Feed me you bastard." Okay ... I fed the dogs.
   Finally I decided to go to bed early. I was hoping to make it a three-dog night but Tiger was still avoiding me, so I took Porky and Petunia to bed. Sorry Alex -- I know the dogs aren't allowed on the bed. But I was lonely ... that little stack of magazines turned out to not be very interesting. And the dogs kept giving me

that s t a r e. So I fell asleep. Hope my handsome husband wakes me up when he gets home.