Filed under: Entertainment, Odds and Ends, Exploration

The last few days of posts have been on the heavy side, so here's a little something to lighten the mood. I first learned of gorcaking when I was viewing Roberta Beauchamp's flickr page. She'd taken a freebie cupcake that you wear on your hand and modified it to fit on her entire body. After that, she ventured into the land of Gor and was promptly caged.

The sheer hilarity of a caged cupcake inspired me to go on my own adventures. As you can see in the picture gallery, my journey took me to the Welcome Area, Help Island, Eros, a strip club, and on a drive. I was even lit on fire at Burning Life! I ended up having quite a bit of fun with it, using phrases like "Back up off my cupcake!", and "Why you all up in my frosting?" To start gorcaking, you can pick up your freebie cupcake here.

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Filed under: Entertainment, Educational, Events, Stories, Odds and Ends, Teaching

It seems the love affair of the media, however 'interesting' the research, continues apace.

It also appears that, with the exception of those that hate SL we're moving past the attacks into more or less balanced pieces, and, in some of the mainstream media away from sex in SL as the core of the story at long last.

The NY Times is carrying another article. This one is making SL appear to be horribly bourgeois and all about keeping up with the Joneses, clothes, cars, sex beds and all. It's slightly misleading - in fact if I were a furry I might be downright insulted by "But the largest slice of the population follows the crowd, and the crowd is not dressing up as dragons." Even if I had to acknowledge the truth of it.

The Toronto based Globe and Mail carries an article about the law and behaviour in SL, looking in quite a lot of depth at griefing, but skimming over child porn, gambling, Bragg v Linden Lab and so on. It's not sensationalist though, it's looking at how laws are being formed and how tools are gradually coming into being to help control this.


Finally, Education World carries a potted but interesting and useful guide to some good education spots in Second Life - along with a good piece of general advice: "these sites admittedly stress the 'wow' factor of a 3-D virtual environment. As Sean suggests, once you are hooked, you can find the more practical, but less dramatic, places."

More like these please in the mainstream media - certainly steps in the right direction.

(Thanks to Carol Tucker for some of the links).

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Filed under: Entertainment, Interviews, Arts and Culture

John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Go, and Charlie's Chocolate Factory, spent 30 minutes in Second Life on August 20^th, answering questions about his upcoming film, The Nines. The movie plot explores the intersection between the real and the virtual, while the promotional methods are heavily using transmedia to engage fans into alternate reality games. August announced that he is hoping to release a version of the movie that would allow fans to re-edit it.

The premiere for the The Nines is set for August 31^st in New York and Los Angeles, and September 28^th in Austin, TX.

Our host, in the shape of avatar JohnAugust Tomorrow, greeted the handful of media guests in a replica of his real-life home, also used as movie set for The Nines. Regarding the autobiographical aspects of this film and his past creations, August offered, "Honestly, a lot of my work has big autobiographical elements. This is just a little more honest about the source". The atmosphere was informal and pleasant, although there was a lingering feeling of surreal coming through from the light outside. Looking around, apart from furniture and beautiful artwork on the walls, all objects seemed to hide a story or clue, waiting to be unveiled by a keen eye.

The conversation revolved around virtual mediums, how August would have integrated the Second Life medium had he known about it earlier, etc. He explained, "I was more of World of Warcraft addict, so I didn't do a lot of socializing online. But I definitely found myself getting lost in the world." He ventured that a good place for Second Life in the production of a movie would be in creating better storyboards and pre-visualizing scenes. August was also enticed by the possibilities of machinima, but he was swamped with questions before he could expand more on these thoughts.

For those interested in participating in the alternate reality game, Metaversatility, the company who brought The Nines to Second Life, offers some hints as to where you may wish to start. There are clues in the YouTube trailerof the movie, on the movie blog, inside the house on the Meteversatility sim, and in various forums and blogs around the web, tagged with "look for the nines". Exclusive clues have also been revealed on UGO.com and Comingsoon.net.

Info at a glance:

The Blog

The First Clue

About the Movie

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Filed under: Entertainment, Arts and Culture

With over 500 contacts on Flickr and some 3,000 photos, CodeBastard Redgrave has created her own following and social network on the 2D web. She meets most people based on common interests through flickr, twitter or her blog, and then uses SL as a means to share experiences/connect further with her on-line friends. This is an amazing new approach that has gained her more popularity than she ever imagined.

CodeBastard, or Codie to her friends, has a vibrant personality that is reflected in her redheaded avatars and her artsy SL photos. Looking up to other artists, such as Vint Falken, Hiro Eldeman, SalemNyx Lisle, and Stephen Venkman, Codie is now in a league of her own. She has also recently expanded her reach into SL with a virtual gallery and DJ music events. Her words of wisdom for newbie artists: use all the mediums at your disposal, in particular flickr and blogging, in order to make yourselves known in the community, and do NOT get discouraged! :)

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