Aye aye Captain!

Yep, as predicted I’ve returned from RL holiday with fascination with all things BOAT. Just popped into SL and visited Greece, then on to another Greece, where to my delight I found a perfect sailboat slap bang underneath a Big Wheel! All kinds of virtual motion fun trickery going on there – such a shame I got booted off the Sim…

Anyway, have renewed faith in the FUN factor in SL after meeting a new crowd and going to a new club last night where we mud-wrestled (clothed – it was all good clean fun), sat on dancing cows and played Bronco on the BIGGEST BULL I HAVE EVER SEEN and basically swapped inventory items (drinks, dance moves, animations, objects) and listened/danced the night away to a stream of 80s classics. Ace bunch of people – it’s the Harley Davidson area, well worth a visit.

Came across this lovely lot as during my absence somebody had installed a wall of clouds into my apartment, and I can’t seem to move it. IM’d the creator, we got chatting and immediately clicked and she ended up TPing me over… interestingly, she thought I was a man when we were just talking through IM, apparently due to my ‘direct and no bullshit’ manner. Wonder if she would have thought I was picking a fight if she knew that I was female when we first started chatting…?

Anyway, she’s fantastic – definitely one of the funniest SLifers I’ve met…

But back to the sailing. Well I haven’t actually done any yet but hopefully will find time this week, and am more than encouraged by the amount of in-world yachting clubs and articles such as Sailors take skills learned in Second Life to Real Life

Ships Ahoy!

Procrastination and Escapism

Sometimes I wonder whether one of the attractions of SL (for me) is the fact that the banal and mundane becomes increasingly surreal and ridiculous. Since getting our hands on 2 swanky apartments in Manchester-UK, we’re now faced with two realms of domesticity; our homes in RL and our homes in SL.

Last weekend I had mortgage issues and general upkeep to contend with in RL. It was all rather dull, and time-consuming, so after a while I decided to go in-world and channel my energies into furnishing my newly-acquired virtual apartment instead. One bubble chair, a 60s dining set, a chaise longue and a Picasso later, I realised that this was utter procrastination, logged out and dealt with the matters at hand in RL. (Having set out to buy a cow, a huge coffee machine and a pizza oven, my new acquisitions were not what I had set out to purchase - obviously Ikea syndrome strikes in-world too…)

Anyway, it’s been a hellishly busy week so I haven’t had a chance to go back into SL until tonight, when I had to go in to make sure our apartments would be safe in our absence as we’re going on a RL holiday tomorrow and won’t have any internet access (gasp!). I checked on Misty’s coots and flamingos (yes, we ARE allowed pets we’ve already checked) and made sure my ‘beware of the dog’ sign looked suitably threatening, oh, and had a slice of pizza (1L$) from the machine in the corner (oops, another purchase – forgot to mention that one) and came back into RL to pack my case and escape to a remote Greek island.

Of course I know that when I get home, after throwing down the bags I’ll immediately check emails, Flickr, facebook before entering SL and going to my apartment - and then no doubt go and buy a virtual boat and go and relax on a virtual island in the virtual Mediterranean…