UPDATE!

KIA-ORA!


Just for the few of you who have been wondering where and how I am...

Everything is ok with me, after a 38 hours long teleport I 've finally landed here in BananaLand and I am having a great time! Unfortunately I haven't been able to log into SL so far, so I guess Midd must be having the longest sleep he's ever had in ages.

So here's a quick report about my past days and weeks:

1. The love of my life is the best girl on Earth, and I am lucky to have found her.
2. Life on the southern hemisphere is cool, and I 'm thinking of having a swim in the pacific ocean and pretend it's summer anyway.
3. I 'm finding it very easy to cook italian food in a foreign land. Banana says I am good at it, but she is obviously biased.
4. Even if I am half the world away from home, it just feels like I 've always lived here. Nothing has changed since I left 8 months ago, and this is simply the best place in the world!
5. Born and raised in Soccer Land, I will try to learn something more about this painful recreational activity they call rugby and maybe even get to play it, once I am sure I am covered by health insurance.
6. Cricket, NO WAY!
7. I am happy.

To all of you dear friends, a warm ciao from Midd.
Hope to be able to talk to you soon
!

April 13th, 2007.

(2007 pic of Me and Banana in our very Noob days)

" Hey Banana. Do you know that if you dig a big hole in the ground where you are in NZ, and walk thru the core of the Earth, you 'll end up just here in my lounge in Italy?It's called antipodes."

If you consider this a good pickup line, then you will probably like me as a person. .

But to be my partner for 3 years? I dunno. Ask Banana.

I love you baby. Ti amo tanto. Happy 3rd Anniversary!


Speech by ReadSpeaker



Translator anyone?


Well this is funny. I dunno when and why I happened to get myself a "Ferd's google translator", but I checked and I have one in my inventory. I never used it. Oh maybe I have, since the name of my avatar is on their website,with roughly all the names of the people who have received one as well. It gives the date of purchase and the coords too. I wonder if the translator itself has some sort of tracker script in it, I am not enough a techie to investigate but that's what my first thought was about it.
Is this against the ToS? I think yes. If every store owner did the same, we would have our avatar's name scattered everywhere on google search, a very pleasant thing for those who are concerned about their privacy in SL.

SL mobile hunt.





Ok, ok, I know nothing about marketing. But this HAS GOT to mean something anyway..
According to my Google Analytics I 've received 243 visits in 5 months from people who googled 'Second Life Mobile' and they all found out that there isn't a mobile application yet. (erm, there is a SL-lite chat-based App for Iphoners but it's semi-official and doesn't work well).

So, dear Lindens, when am I going to give these guys some good news?

I am waiting...:)

I want FreeTube back!

So it isn't a joke. No april fools day. Second Life 2.0 is now the official viewer, and no one likes it. I liked the new user interface a lot, except for the few bugs which have been resolved with the following updates. But I agree with those who miss the old layout of profiles, I am a profile sneaker and it's kinda shocking to have them sliding from the right of the screen, and get to read them as if they were a newspaper article. GRR!

Anyway, we still got viewer 1.23.5 to use but...for how long? this morning I got a message on the startup screen saying that installing NOW the 2.0 will not overwrite the old one, and I believe this is the first time this happens. Freedom of choice, but again for how long?

For sure there's one thing we are all sad about.



Since the first release of SL 2.0, we 've lost FreeTube. Some say it's just a coincidence, some say it's not, fact is this wonderful machine is not working anymore. Thanks a lot Soy Nakamori, it's been good till it lasted. Now we can play Youtube videos on a prim, but there is no frigging way to hide the Youtube interface and it won't look like a normal TV set for sure.

On the other hand, Facebook runs just smooth on a SL prim. Lol isn't that just masochistic?

**HUGS** to all!

Twisted tribute!


Sad day today as the 1-month-long Twisted Hunt comes to an end at midnight.
To be honest, I haven't hunted at all, but it's been fun to wake up early (GMT+1) and log into SL for the usual daily dose of Twisted Hunt Group Chat. For those of you who have no idea what that means, just imagine yourself having your morning coffee with sleepy eyes and then get to read all sorts of swearing/bad words/yellings/F-words/P-words/A-words and so on including all possible twisted ideas that might come into the minds of the devoted Twisted Hunters while they incessantly ask for hints to the group moderators. It's an extreme experience (hmm, lol), but so funny you all should try it. You have a few hours left to complete the hunt, only 103 (or more I can't remember) boxes to find at 103 different stores, so good luck and be quick!

As a tribute to the Twisted Hunt, I thought I could go spend some of my hardly earnt L$ and buy samples of the average kind of kinky clothes/items for sale at most of the stores involved in the Hunt, just to make a funny book of photos of Midd in all his BDSM-RP-BONDAGE glory.

So I hope you like my Twisted avatar:).
(I don't, but the suffocating-venom-mask I bought is definitely blog-worthy, lol)



And yes I know the shoes aren't twisted at all. They just add to the fun!

Ciao:)

Challenge for your eyes.

Pay a little attention to the two cars in the picture. (you can enlarge it all by clicking on it) One of the two is the actual picture of the RL car, the other one is..a fake. Fake as in 'pixelled fake'!
So, can you tell me which is which?



mhhmmm....hard to pick the right one I know.
A little hint: the pixelled car lacks the steering wheel and has some weird red coloured interiors. Easier now? yeah, but still incredible, it looks a lot better than the real one.

It's been made by my friend Gianfranco Foxclaw using a pretty expensive 3D modeling software called 3D Studio Max. He HAD to give me the 'missing steering wheel' hint to help me realise it REALLY was fake. He said he got tired of working on it, and he didn't want to spend more time on building the wheel and finding good textures for the seats, lol. I reckon it looks perfect anyway.
So this is just to show you a glimpse of what the future holds for us SecondLifers. The future is...mesh imports! even if it is still not clear whether the official Second Life 2.0 release will include a full mesh import functionality or not, the legend says it will allow some basic transfer beetween actual RL 3D software and the SL viewer build functions. It really is an old legend, lol, as NWN mentioned it quite a long while ago. In short, you build objects offline, the way you want and HOW you want, then click on the import button and..there you go, you have the object rezzing on your land in SL. There's rumours saying only premium accounts will be allowed the privilege, and this badly affects my enthusiasm about it(i am never ever gonna go premium) . Plus, I am not sure how much of the accuracy given by the professional made 3D object will be effectively noticeable once the transfer to SL is complete, but for sure it 's gonna look a lot better than this:




only downside...LAG! I am not an expert but Gianfranco says that driving a high-def thing like that in SL will keep you stuck in first gear with the engine going full revs, lol.

In order to know more I sent Midd directly to 955 Battery Street, San Francisco CA, but Philip Rosedale wouldn't let him in 'cause he is age verified under a fake RL name and LL headquarters are rated as adult...very adult, lol.

Special credits go to Banana Vella for helping me with this pic. ILU baby. (GIMP is a biatch!!!)

oh, and feel free to IM Gianfranco Foxclaw for custom textures and/or custom builds. He speaks some english, but I 'll be happy to help with the translation(free of charge, lol) in case it's needed.

Ciao!

Random Spam!


Erm since it's my blog I think I am free to spam and advertise as much as I want on here.
But there's a reason behind this, this is just to say thanks to some people I am proud to call friends. It serves also as an apology to them, for all the times I haven't answered their IM's in the past weeks when they were just showing how much they cared. So i hope you STILL care, guys. (lol)

Spam number 1:

www.thenestoftheraven.webs.com

this is the cool (and very well designed) website of dear RohanaRaven. It's about animations. I blogged about her store recently, but she 's added some more cool stuff there and you need to go check it out again!

Spam number 2:

there's a lady who has just started making her own skyboxes. I am not sure she 'll appreciate me mentioning her 'hobby', but this is just to remind her that she should SRSLY start a business and sell loads of them. This is the skybox she made for me, and her name is Sammi Ninetails. Im her for info about prices!



Spam number 3:

Golden Water Med.
Pay a visit to this sim created by my friend Spilo. It has a disco, a bar, a beach, house rentals and a shopping mall with all kinds of clothes for you shopping addicts. And may I say, it's very gaylesbobisex friendly. Yay!
Plus, there's a place up in the sky there (very very UP) I call home.




Spam number 4:
Erm, nothing to spam about her. Jenni, where are you? (lol)

Ciao to all:)







Introducing my new friend, Mr Last!


I am trying to get used to viewer 2.0 ....
I kinda have to, as something tells me it's definitely going to be THE VIEWER in a couple of months or less. So I 'd better stick to it and...practise.

But one weird thing happened since I last used 1.23 (or whatever the previous one is).
I now have a new friend, I can't remember when we met, how I added him and where.
His first name is....First, and his last name is Last. Thats original, no doubt. Have a look:


Funny thing is..this guy (I suppose he is a HE) keeps logging in and off, and then off again and then relogs a dozen times each hour, so I guess he is probably sticking to the old viewer and its crashes..


poor guy.


who's the poor guy? ME!! I can't fix this bug, I don't know how. 2.0 doesn't recognize who's coming online among my friends list, and calls them all Mr. First Last. WTF??? are you serious? what am i gonna do now? is it just me or just the italian version?? HELP!

Anyway. There's one more thing I noticed on viewer 2.0 ... but this has nothing to do with the Lindens really.




For those of you who aren't familiar with the italian language, it's just I missed Banana's third rezday. Well she missed it too, lol.
So baby, have a wonderful day-after-ur-third-rezday and let's make all our dreams come true, if possible, lol.

bye:)

RezDay 3.0 and...WTF??

I believe one of the most unused features of the SL viewer must be the ‘notes’ page in an avatar’s profile. I have never had a reason to use it, at least for its intended purpose, and I know most of my friends don’t even know it’s there. They are so used to consider the first life page as the ‘last one’ to read, and why would we put notes in there when we have lots of other ways to remember things about someone? I ‘ve heard of people keeping their passwords there, or chatlogs, lol. But to be honest, quite some time ago I decided that my own avatar’s notes page would become the ideal place to just store my secret six numbers…02/24/07. Yeps that’s my rezday. Not Midd’s, but Kiavik’s, my first avi. 3 years old in SL, and I can’t really say my life hasn’t changed. What if I had never read that magazine article about the new virtual world. What if I had given up playing sl after the first (very) boring week?. Would I be a different person now? 3 years aren’t enough yet to make a final statement about it, but I think it’s just me not being able to judge. Considering the recent developments in my first life I can surely say I have been living in the first row seat of a superfast rollercoaster for 3 years with no interruption. How can someone judge if it’s good for your health? For sure the excitement makes people feel alive. Headaches too, but they’re painful, sometimes a lot painful. Anyway, as the years go by I am less and less inclined to care about the ‘timestamps’, as in weeks,months, years and even days if you ‘re using Emerald (argh I think I already forgot about my 1000th day! Lol). No timestamps, SL is just a little part of me, sometimes a major source for happiness, sometimes just a pastime. The goal is to make yourself capable of balancing the highs and lows. Get me? (I know most of you agree)

Talking about highs and lows. Linden labs has provided us all with a new viewer, just to give me a boost of optimism as I cross the line into the fourth year. I know everyone is talking about it, and there isn’t much I can add really. Probably there’s just one thing no one has noticed yet, and this is the capability of the SL 2.0 viewer to be run even on poorer machines (poor as in hardware-poor, lol). The viewer seems to be lighter in RAM usage, and 128 Graphics dedicated megas are still enough to be part of the game, I admit it’s a bit of trouble (/me adds ‘when the heck are you gonna buy yourself a new lappy?’ in the notes page) but still, it’s nice of Linden Labs to keep us all together, noobs and oldies regardless of the hardware specs we got. Considering how long it takes to load a Facebook page with all the plugins enabled on a Mozilla Firefox web browser, the new web-oriented layout of SL 2.0 makes things look even easier despite being a 3D world. So kudos to LL. I have been using it only for a half hour, and it was plenty of time to get used to the new features and to find my way in the different positioning of the pre-existing ones. It looks cool. Omg, have they kept the notes page in the profile’s popups? Lol. Haven’t checked that yet.

Moving to a more…personal tone. Here’s a picture I need to show..(shall I say UPON REQUEST?*winks*)



We stepped off the rollercoaster for a while, took some time to sit on a rocking chair and she kissed me on my nose. How sweet. (the RL equivalent of the above actions required a bit of a flying around the world and also a bit of driving along the Italian magnificent coastline, lol)


To all my friends who have been there for me in the past month…thanks a lot guys. I have been in silent mode lately, I will get back to normal soon, and I hope you understand. Please DO understand, lol.


Now, the WTF in the name of the post refers to this:

While in the midst of writing this post I got the news from Banana about her account being suspended. This IS NOT COOL, Lindens. You ‘re stepping on your own feet. Surely it won’t be a biggie, knowing the person you’re dealing with, she ‘ll be able to kick some ass and get things sorted easily.

But, hey. NOT COOL AT ALL.


CIAO to all.

Check this out!




My dear long time friend and wannabe sister Rohanaraven Zerbino has just started her new business in SL. After quite a few years of building anything that can be built she kinda wanted to try her skills at animations...and her new store is just fantastic!
just go and see for yourself.


Animations are very cheap, and they're transfer only or full mod. But you can also upgrade the transfer ones to full mod. Just IM Rohana for more info.
Here 's a nice one;)



And if you upgrade to full perm, you 'll get a builders' package with a help pose included, so that you can set up the assets easily (i dunno what this means, but i suppose any builder will know, lol)

Get your ass there now!

ciao.

Love and expectations

omg i so NOT wanted to do this, but here is my say about the latest events. I 'll try to keep it simple and easy, and I hope it can be of help for anyone who happens to read this.

Here in Second Life we get stuck in all the wonderful and unexpected things that come our way. It really is fun, joy and entertainment. Sometimes it can be tricky, because the boundaries between who you are and "who you want to be" can be easily lost, and it's sad to realise you've ended up out of bounds when it's too late. It can even get WORSE, when among the unexpected things SL has brought to you, there is that crazy little thing called LOVE (excuse the quote).

In case you fall in love with someone, feel free to enjoy it at the fullest. Hop on the poseballs, dance or just hug, find the places you love the most and hang out. Emotions will run fast, while everything around freezes and the pixelled world feels so real that you just want to fly to San Francisco and go shake hands with Philip Rosedale.
THEN, if after a while you feel like pixels aren't enough anymore and start consideridering an eventual RL development to your perfect, wonderful romance, you 'd better start unfreezing the atomic world around you and well ponder the concept that all you 're doing is..going back to the place where it all started.

Your REAL LIFE.

Most importantly, you need to consider how much of that pixel-boosted excitement and joy you are able to transpose into your flesh and bones, your everyday needs and your habits. Being in front of a computer screen is just a RL habit, but then, it's all we do when living our full Second Life.

And even MORE important at that stage is...to stop for a moment and be really, really honest with yourself. Inside the computer screen you 've found everything you need. Mainly love, which can lead to EXPECTATIONS. (In this case it did. )

Love can grow fast, expectations can grow just as fast as love. Look inside yourself and recognise the role that expectations played in your commitment to the person involved. If it's love playing the biggest part, then be ready to firmly believe in love, and keep the expectations on hold for a while. Short or long while, it shouldn't matter. In case it's the expectations playing the main role, then think twice about making the big move. Expectations can come true, they can change, they can fade. In any case, in the end you 're left with nothing more to look forward to, because that's exactly the moment when you realise that love wasn't the main reason that pushed you into such an adventure. All of sudden you would start to look differently at things, and find yourself committed to a person you hardly know for real, a person who hasn't given you any of those things you were expecting to receive, and maybe you even let some unjustified resentment grow and eventually influence your words and actions towards him.

And probably hurt him, too. Especially if that person had put love in First Place, and...his expectations weren't even close to First Place - to what he had been dreaming about all his life.

The Beta Grid and time travelling.




I know most of you know what the beta grid is, but since I only found out about it a short while ago, I thought it could be useful to post a short 'how to' get inside this kinda 'hidden grid' also known as preview grid. The reason for this alternative Second Life (I 'd call it third life) is...testing. Linden Lab tests almost everything there and so can you.

To log into the beta grid, just launch SL normally, and then press CTRL-SHIFT-G. You will get a different login menu, that will look like this:



Each of those names in the dropdown menu represent a different grid, but only 2 of them are actually public access. The Agni grid is... Second Life main grid. Aditi grid is the beta. Choose Aditi and login!
Oooops...having troubles loggin in?? Erm, there is something more that you should now. The beta grid status is not up to date. The servers aren't 'refreshed' often so all your present-time data may not be available, such as your...password for example. So if you change your password frequently, you may have to try to remember all of the past ones and try them one at a time until you finally get the one you were using at the time of the last beta grid update.

So...let's say you made it into Beta..

For sure the first thing you notice is...that you 're awesomely RICH!! (oh well, some of you may think of 14,384 L$ as being poor, lol)


The red upper tab is just there to remind you that you are using beta, and the money balance is just...for you to spend the way you want! Unfortunately, there aren't many ways to spend money because there is nothing you can buy...no shops, no malls, nothing. But yes, you can upload EVERYTHING you want for testing purposes and 14K L$ sound like heaven to me. Poses, animations, prims, sounds, textures, and whatever else.Considering that if you're working with sculpties they may require quite a number of sculpty maps uploads before reaching perfection, in the end you can save some good money by doing it on beta. You can work on them, then save them onto your hard drive (all except prims, obviously) so that once you 've finished, you only actually pay the amount necessary to bring your completed items inside the main grid. Isn't it just COOL??

But anyway, if you think it's worth to wander around Beta, just expect to find yourself...BACK IN THE PAST...lol. As I mentioned above, everything on Beta is frozen to some point in the past, so it can be kinda funny to have a look at what you were like back then. Here is me!


GAWD, that is so....tall and skinny! And my good old favorite tux too!!!
Unfortunately, your inventory will look old too, not as old as your avatar, but kinda, so don't you worry if you 're missing some of your recently purchased stuff, they 'll still be there once you log back into the main grid.
If you are a profile sneaker, then click on all of your friends list to remind yourself of the good old times...it may bring back good memories and probably give you an idea of how far back in time you are..Mine looked like this...



Ehm...what do you mean 30 years old?? argh now THAT is a long while ago, lol.
As for your friends list, you may find names of people you 've deleted/forgotten by now, but no worries, they won't show online unless they deliberately decide to log into Beta too..;)
Now let's have a look at the world map..some say Second Life is a small world, so what about Beta grid..is it smaller than small?

This is all you can see by completely zooming out. There's a welcome area and a few sandboxes...and can you count the green dots?? I only managed to count 20 of them, so...small world, a few guys in there and no LAG! So small that I randon TP'ed somewhere and bumped into a friend...



The pic is intentionally taken from a wide angle so that you won't notice her being bald and half naked while working on bed pose animations..lol. she didn't expect me to bug her there too and kinda freaked out at my sight, so I escaped quick before being badly told off.

Okay, what's next? I went to the other neighbouring sandbox and there were no signs of life, except this big sign of warning:

OK, no weapons, but please tell me, even if I carried one, what am I supposed to shoot at??



Maybe this guy knows more...he is a living weapon, or maybe just a transformer, I dunno..



so, no shootings, but WHERE IS THE SEXXXX? no sex at all, weird eh?

and where is the FUN?? I 'll tell you where the fun is..



TOTALLY UNCONTROLLED GRIEFING!!! Omg I couldn't remember the last time I saw the old sim-wide particle shower trick...it used to be a superMario jumping and bumping on you from all sides...now it's just some RL pics of an unlucky (and unaware, I suppose)nerdy looking lady who got caught while in a bad mood..lol


And in case you 're just as naive as someone I know, feel free to accept a random 'ANIMATE YOUR AVATAR' offer to just find out that...



you 're getting owned....omg funny...sad....CRAP. Thanks a lot Estella Starostin, I hope I made your day on the Beta grid, and yes, I most definitely think you're a male in RL, lol.

So to sum things up...Beta grid is useful for a lot of things, mostly for builders and developers.
But in case you haven't got the chance to experience zero lag in SL, its worth a try. It's a very pleasant feeling.
Or, if you 're somehow interested in the feeling of time travelling (lol) that's just what you might be looking for.
Or, if you just need to hang-out/party with a few close friends and no one else around in a huge and empty full sim, just get them all inside Beta grid and have fun!!

Ciao to all :)

Builders,textures and the dishwasher approach.



I haven't had much time to write on here lately, mostly because I am becoming very busy with building something in SL..plus I resumed teaching after the Christmas break and despite loving it, it just makes me want to jump in bed right after the bell rings. Oh well, my night owl days are over....kinda over, lol.

My passion for building is growing anyway, and I can't stop dreaming of building whatever comes in my mind when I wake up in the morning. This attitude doesn't match well with my renowned 'dishwasher approach' in anything I do. I am sure some of you know what I am talking about, that is....I hate instruction manuals. When it comes to learn how to make the new dishwasher work for the first time, I prefer just to press the 'ON' button and wait for something/anything to happen, rather than go sit in the lounge and read the 234 pages instruction manual, safety precautions included. So, same for building in Second Life. I have been given hint notecards, shortcuts manuals, starter's guides from my builder friends but never read any. It's crazy, I know. I just click on the build button and start learning by experience.
Plus, lately I have been focusing on just ONE project, and of course it's the hardest one to achieve.

So hard that I want to complete it as soon as possible, lol. I know I can make it all by myself, as one of the few things I don't lack is optimism. But after the initial boost of confidence, I have come to the conclusion that I need at least a little help in dealing with the textures I need. Building is fun, no matter what you do. You make things right, and you 're happy. You screw everything up, and you 're happy anyway, 'cause at least it gives you a smile and after all, you can't screw things up twice in a row (or can I? lol).
But textures, TEXTURES are BITCHES!! Textures don't forgive. No second chance, nothing left to do when you 've uploaded the wrong one than spend another half hour searching for the good one, hoping it will be THE good one. You have no time to look at how beautiful your linked prims are, when you're rushed to make them appear as something more than a few wooden cubes glued together in such an unpredictable shape.
So, I thought maybe I could get professional help..lol. Time to pay for your dreams, Midd. I contacted some famous builders/custom texture designers, helped by the endless patience of my dear friend Rohana, and it's not making things easier at all.
As Rohana said, being a talented builder herself, "In Second Life there is no worst bitch than a builder, me included". I didn't give it much credit at first, but now I think
I should, lol. What's wrong with you guys?? This is just simply wearing me out. All of them, and I say ALL of them, have put me through the same tiring process of a corporate job interview. And no, I didn't play the part of the interviewer.

So here's a short explanation of what I need to be done. I will put it here, so next time I can redirect you guys here, instead of spending another couple of hours in lagging IM windows. :

1) Yes, I DO need custom textures. Custom made, for me means, made appositely for me, from scratch. Custom made, for me, means that you have to launch you photoshoppy thingee and hit "Create New File". New file, blank sheet of paper, and start working on it.


2) Yes, I will provide you with RL pictures explaining precisely what I'd like the final result to be. But I don't want you to use those same pictures to actually create the texture. I can do that myself with Microsoft Paint, it wouldn't even need Photoshop. You look at the picture I give to you, and then start drawing the texture the best you can, to make it look as real as possible. You think you can do it? Then, do it. You can't do it? Then tell me.


3)Yes, I know such a thing requires a lot of work. Yes I know it's a hard work. Yes I know it's not quite like the simplest thing you 've ever made in your career. But please, tell me how much it will cost. I am not asking the precise amount, I just want to have an indication.

4)No, I won't place a big order at first. I want to know the average cost per 'unit'. As in, one texture costs....and then make the count myself. You don't need to know how big my Sim is, you don't need to know how many textures I need, you don't need to ask ME how much I would spend for it. I want you to make a first (paid)work sample so that I can judge and eventually consider if you are worth my trust for the remaining parts of the job.


5) Yes, I agree you may need some time to think about it. But If you call yourself a custom texture maker, I guess you know that people come to you when they have no other option left, and that they have already spent a while searching for "normal" textures. So please, think about it, but think quick.


6)Yes, I know you are obviously busy right at this moment. You are building half a dozen other sims, you deal with Im hell as well, but please make some sense of what you're saying. I am the one asking, I am the customer, so please reduce your 'diva' attitude to the first couple of minutes in the convo and then go straight to the point..."WILL YOU FRIGGIN DO THE JOB FOR ME OR WHAT?????"

7) Yes I know my profile shows 'No payment info on file". This is none of your business. It's mine. Just please tell me how much you cost, do a good job and you'll get the money.
The end, lol.

oh, please tell me guys, am I asking for too much?? ;)

Happy 2010 !!!!!


Happy new year to everyone, and may all your wishes and dreams come true.
I think 2010 will be a good one. I just love the way it sounds.

Ciao!