I’m a night owl.  I did, however, expect to find someone on the UC island at the same time that I was.  The only time that I saw someone, was when a girl swooshed  by me… twice!  I was in the sandbox, trying to build something.  I didn’t expect her to openly talk to me, but I thought, since there was not any one around, that maybe she would utter a phrase.  She did not.  I would chat, if someone was there to chat with.  It’s hard to communicate in SL when you really don’t know what you are doing. 

That’s all that I really have right now.  Catch up with everyone on the flip side! 

If I had to describe Second Life in one word, it would be frustrating.  I’m sure it could be cool for someone who has time to play around with it all the time, but for a student who works and has kids…. it’s just not for me!  I would rather type in Space Invaders to Google any day of the week and BAM!… I’m playing a game.  I’ve blogged before about how I love sports video games, well, if it was too complicated, I left it alone.  There are many complicated games.  People don’t want that.  Not anybody that I know. 

My sister created an avatar after she heard that I was creating one.  She was frustrated.  Hey, go figure!  We haven’t even met up anywhere in SL.  My person has barely left the UC island.  Maybe that’s my problem!  I need to get out more!

I’m not saying I disliked SL.  All I’m saying is, people like simplistic games.  If I was 12 again and my buddy knew all about SL and we were hanging out, I’m sure I could probably get into it.  Sometimes it just takes someone to get you into things, such as music, games, movies, etc.  As far as using SL for networking and communication, I found myself not saying anything to people outside the UC island.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a jerk… I did talk to people who asked me questions.  I did, however, enjoy standing still, doing nothing and not speaking at the help site.  If any of you haven’t clicked the help site(and of course I don’t know everything, maybe there’s more than one) you’re teleported to a limbo, where crazy characters are hanging out waiting for you!  Once they see you they start ramming into you and typing 200 words a minute at you!  I just stood there…never moved and never said anything.   Was I stupid?  I don’t know.  I just figured I would see how long they would mess with me.  After I figured out how to teleport back home(15-20 minutes later) they were still messing with me.

Will I continue to live in SL after this class?  I doubt it, but like I said earlier, all it takes for some of us to get into something is a buddy or two.  Right now I just don’t have time for something like this.  I know I didn’t give it a whole lot of chance, but that’s the breaks!

Ollie and I decided to make some brachiopods. Hey, why not?! ….Right?
posted by Jagger Shostakovich on University of Cincinnati using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Last Monday we field tripped to the Museum Center.  Everyone wanted to see “Bodies”, but that is not what we went for.  The staff helping us, seemed to be in the same boat we are.  Thankfully, a couple of the girls in our group had a power point of our practice building sandbox area, so we could at least show them we are trying.  Looks like a couple of people are getting good at building!  I still suck! 

Brenda, from the museum, showed us lots of fossils and recreations of what they might look like alive.  We are going to concentrate building these.  Brenda refuses to create an avatar.  Josh created one, but most likely doesn’t do anything with it.  Jason told us how his avatar tried building things.  This helped us with our confidence.  It will take some time to accomplish everything that we want to.  I wish this project could continue, because we are only starting the footwork of what could be an awesome museum center site in second life.

Here I’m trying to make a trilobite, and not having much success.
posted by Jagger Shostakovich on University of Cincinnati using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Here I am at the Ivory Tower again. I had to come back, because my pictures were not loading into my blog before. I think I’ve got it figured out now, so let’s send this pic. I’ve been inside before and collected stuff for building. I will say, the outside looks completely different this time. Some wombat creature just asked me what I was doing here, pretty scary looking creature!
posted by Jagger Shostakovich on Natoma using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

trial pic
posted by Jagger Shostakovich on University of Cincinnati using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

When researching a timeline of video gaming, I learned that video gaming has come a long way since I was little.  I rememberd Pong, from around 1975 and certainly remembered Space Invaders from 1978.  I spent alot of money in that machine at the arcade.  Other than places like Dave and Buster’s, there really aren’t any arcades like there used to be.  My wife’s first memory of video games was Asteroids.  She wasn’t as much into games as I was.  After about Sega and Nintendo from the early 90’s, I lost touch with video games.  Now, while doing things in Second Life, the gaming world here seems confusing and impersonal.  I miss the days of Donkey Kong, Tetris, and my beloved sports games.  Just think how computers have taken over gaming.  Back in 1983 Home Computers were introduced to society.  Also in ‘83 (6/24/83) the Space Shuttle Challenger would return safetly from space and land at Edwards Airforce Base.

Well, I visited the Ivory Tower.  I was sent to conquer the 1st level.  I guess I did?!  There were some strange individuals there, laughing and acting weird.  I guess I would act weird too, if I knew how in SL.  All I did at the Tower was touch stuff and keep it.  I don’t know what I’ll do with it, exactly.  Hopefully I’m on the right track to learning more about SL.  Steady as she goes Mr. Scott!

I’m just typing in stuff to see if this works!