THIS BLOG HAS MOVED!!!

Indeed, I have migrated over to Wordpress so please update your links and stuff (including new feed if you subscribe) by going here.

Wiikitties

The fantabulosa Sharonspotbottom has pointed me in the direction of My Next Favourite Website.
it is Wiikitty and features cats with Wiis and peripherals.

Reason No. 1001 to get a cat.*

*And indeed a Wii!!!

Second Life toolbar

I stumbled upon this. I have probably been underground while everyone else has been happily using this extensively, mind you.

It is a Second Life toolbar which even has an embedded media player in there so you can listen to SL podcasts etc.*

Cool. Now podcast.com needs to get in there to supply it with its SL channel, and BlogHud needs a spot there with the RSS feeds from other sites...

What a cool little metaverse tool.

Keep the cross over tools coming!

*Actually, on further investigation I think it is just a radio player - I am not sure if you can load it up with podcast feeds yourself. That would be perfect for me.

Geek valentines

So if you are a geek and you have forgotton about Valentine's Day because you have been too buried in code/games/SL/whatever, check out these geek-specific Valentine's e-cards by Mitch on 4 color rebellion.

Cute.

Introducing the book

Tech support woes are nothing new, it seems. Via Nick on the SL educators' list, via What is the (next) message.

Gamers get more sex

Ha. This is an interesting bit of gratuitous PR. Gametart, apparently the UK's biggest online games rental company, did a little survey - little it was: only 200 women in the sample - which suggests that women who play digital games have sex more often.

Of our sample of 200 women, those who played video games on average had sex 4.3 times a week while those who didn’t play games only had sex just 3.2 times a week. Perhaps even more promising for gamers is the fact that many of the women that we interviewed who have only recently started playing games said that they now have sex more often than before.

Gosh - a whole 1.1 more times!! The 0.1 being... hmmm....

heheh.

YouTube star goes mainstream

So YouTube funny gal LisaNova has been spotted for her unique take on situations and comedy (very good looking too) has landed herself a spot on the cast of MadTV, a US sketch show. Well done on her. There is much more of this to come, naturally, but good on this particular character. I find her hilarious.

She says she will continue with YouTube, but I wonder if she will a) have the inclination to or b) be allowed too.

YouTube furries

I think I have found some real life furries* amongst some anime "chicks" on YouTube. Check out rabbitinthem00n's friends too**.If you are unfamiliar with furrie culture online, check out Wikipedia. I want "her" anime mask (not shown in this picture, obviously). Her profile says she is 80. Well, no one really pays attention to that - I am 105 on YouTube after all. But, in this case, she could well be. Who knows?***

*Check out this piece for some Second Life furry background.
**Some of whom border on the slightly dodgy.
***Although her hands don't look like they belong to an 80 year old.

Masturbating cat

OK - so I am disappointed that after the Big Brother furore, Channel 4 has decided to axe their planned Wank Week.

Shame, I was rather hoping they would feature this video.

*weird*

Time for some Tube Gossip

Time for some more Tube Gossip from the manwhofellasleep. I shall be having to do the tube again soon. Oh how fun.

Taken from 28 December 2006
1. She bought it in New Look for a fiver.
2. Yeah, but how can they justify charging so much for soft drinks?
3. Fuck Christmas. Fuck New Year. Fuck London Underground. No. I'm not drunk. Fuck off.
4. You can call me Mr T-Bone Shabazz.
5. Is anyone going to believe that Ewan McGregor grew that 'tache?
6. Good King Wenceslas came to town...fa la la la la.
7. We could get naked children and cover them in bubble wrap.
8. She's a typical student, hates Tony Blair, hates the government, loves Che Guevera... doesn't really have a brain.
9. CSI's got a plot. It's gimmicky graphics and dead people.
10. Meet Pedro, the racist raisin!

Women of Warcraft

An excellent gallery of the women of World of Warcraft - or should that be Phoarcraft - and who would most likely play them in a film. Via Wonderland.

I especially like Troll (played by, er, Pink) and Tauren played by Big Momma.

Second lives in the picture

Spike & Clarissa,
originally uploaded by Knights Alive.

I had forgotten how great the Second Life photo pool is on Flickr. A fantastic insight into people's lives there...*

*There is a lovely sofa in one of these pictures - I want it in meatspace.

Meta meta

So I have been checking in every now and again with LonelyGirl15 and co. I sort of binge on the videos all at once.

Anyway, given that the news came out today that the ARG Perplex City (or Perspex City, as I have been calling it for a long time, ahem) has been solved (a UK man found a red cube in a Nothamptonshire woods and bagged 100k), I was intrigued to see this set of videos from tigerlilylynn.

Now I have never participated in an ARG - too short an attention span and little patience - so I am not sure about all the language and arg norms.

Whether she/he is part of the action and planted as a guide, or whether she/he is a true ARG nut just being helpful, I am not sure. But this has all sparked my interest again and I will now have to go watch all these other characters' videos. I need to clone my eyes and brain!

Anna Nicole Smith dead

Well bloody hell. Anna Nicole Smith* has only been found dead. Saw the news in a fleeting instant having just logged into my yahoo mail account. Effective eh?

Post mortem is due to be carried out. Tragic story, it really is. Wonder when the film will be made and who will play her? Pammy?

*Image: Fad Toys.

Second Life London Tube station

Going Underground reports via Andy Green that there is a London Tube station in Second Life now. She* muses about a SL underground system. Joke not. This would be great. I advise anyone who tries out Second Life to go to bloghud and do a serach for trains etc. There you will find links to SL places where you can sit on a train and get taken on tours of places - the IBM island has a good one.

This, as in meatspace, is one of the best ways to be a tourist in my opinion. Sure, it's great to walk around and discover bits of cities that no guide book can tell you about. But I like going on organised transport to get a feel for where's where and what's what in the city. I am also, ultimately, quite lazy.

Anyway, off to check out the station and see if it leads anywhere.**

* Great links here too to videos of lego and dancing on tube platforms.
** Just had an initial search for it - can't find the bloomin thing (please can someone sort out Second Life's search functions??!!) and Andy's blog is damn hard to navigate imho!!

Samorost 2

This is the most amazing thing I have seen all year. Via Lev Grossman.

Samorost 2 is in beautiful Flash - and I am not usually someone who has the patience to work out game puzzles. But here, it is so compellingly stunning, it just hooks you in and you want to click on everything. Magical.

Adventures in the World of Warcraft w/ Sarah B

WoW fans will love this - probably. Sarah B tells of her passion for WoW, her social life, and the pain of choosing to let your Warlock die. From minouye.

Big Media still in the dark

Why don't Big Media get it yet?

The New York Times reports that Viacom has demanded that YouTube removes 100,000 of its clips from the site, uploaded mainly by the very people it is desperate to keep as the "audience". If you listen to what YouTubers say about such clips, their take is characteristic of the culture of media that is growing. By letting the "audience" sort out and share the clips it likes most, which "it" thinks other people might like too, there is a great attention generating thing that happens. Some who stumble across such clips while on places like YouTube may never have bothered to watch the Daily Show before. Hard to believe, I know. But by stumbling on it there, who knows - they might be drawn to watch it properly on the tv (cos that screen is still useful to many you know).

Same goes with music clips and film snippits. Anyone who has spent enough time on the web knows this happens.

Boing Boing makes some more serious points about the "shockingly bad behaviour" displayed by all the corporates involved:

YouTube can't afford to just let any lunatic -- including the savage pricks at Viacom -- indiscriminately censor the content it hosts. That's not fair to its customers.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Comments please. Via Somewhat Frank.

All the brains gone

Strange and truly disturbing things seem to be happening. It emerged yesterday that computer science icon Jim Gray has disappeared after a solo sailing trip outside San Francisco Bay.

Late last year, the Cnet editor, James Kim died of exposure with hypothermia after his car and family got stuck.

Is there some sort of conspiracy going on here?

Kitten and his box

I love the determination of this kitten.

DS Cat

DS Cat,
originally uploaded by bizargol.

Saw this on Wonderland and had to post too. Do you think it is playing Catz? I just got that.

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Me

So in December, my friend Bre Pettis from Imakethings.com tagged me in this blog tag thingy thing. Now I have to tell you 5 things you did not know about me, which is utterly against my online nature - at least not in such a direct way.

1. I was born in what is now part of China.
2. I once had to parade around Victoria train station in a giant Koala costume to advertise a student travel agents' Australia Day promotion.
3. My paddington bear is 27 years old.
4. I am pretty sure I still hold my school 100m record which I set in 1988.
5. I once refused to let Prince Andrew have a go on my bagpipes.

And finally, I have to tag five other people - so here goes. Alice, Aleks, Lisa, Bill, and Kosso.

Meowarchy: Demon Cats

While we are here, check out this fantastic montage of Demon Cats. Look out for the ginger one who screams like a banshi and the smokey grey one who.. well... talk about being one pissed off kitty. *

*Although nothing in here is cruel in any way, the sounds are quite fiendish.

Zebro on Boston's Aqua Teen Blinking Bomb Scare

Somebody has been watching a little bit too much of the new 24 series methinks.

The things that shut down Boston today, because everyone assumed these blinking things must be bombs, were in fact part of a marketing campaign by a Turner Broadcasting company,

... in 10 cities in support of Adult Swim's animated television show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. They have been in place for two to three weeks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, and Philadelphia...

... says NBC11.com.

See Zebro's account above.

Turner said "oops".

Circles

The Wizard of the Wood,

originally uploaded by jpoyner48.

I also forgot how much I love this group on Flickr.

Cats in odd places

Mouseloaf,
originally uploaded by SuziJane.

Was checking out one of my much-neglected Flickr groups, Cats in Odd Places, and realised there 2,795 photos inthere! Well done people. How many calendars does that makle hmmm?

Protest is alive and well

Protest is alive and well
Originally uploaded by The Kitten's Toe.

Except it seemed to me that there was one woman doing most of the hard work and the men kind of just mumbled their protest. Hmm. Outside India House in London.

Born yesterday

So I have been popping in and out of Second Life when I have time, but it is lonely and a bit boring when my mates aren't there to play with. Yes, I could go and be sociable and meet new people, but they are all BORN YESTERDAY.

I have nothing against new residents - nothing at all. But you don't have the same sort of shared cultural understanding developed over time, without a bit of hard work. Sometimes I just can't be arsed to do the hard work. I want to have fun.

I picked up a new hud gadget, the Bijo Age Scanner, which tells me the names and SL ages of the first 16 avatars within 100m, together with their verification status. A * next to their name indicates that they are within 20m and within that range, they will hear what I am saying, obviously.

The oldest avatar I have "seen" so far has been a month old. Hmmm...

Would be an interesting little experiment to track...

I actually have readers

So my absence has been inexcusable, but you all know what life gets like sometimes.

However, what IS inexcusable is that I failed to notice that somehow 55 comments have been waiting for my moderation - I used to get emails telling me when someone had commented, and I DID select no moderation!!

Jeez! Sorry people! Wow though... there I was thinking I was in an echo chamber (which, OK, I know I kind of am), but all you lovely people have actually been commenting!

So, apologies for that.

Normal services resumed - especially now that I have upgraded to the new blogger system which - finally - lets one use "labels"... sheesh - can someone standardised the language already?*

*Why am I suddenly speaking like an American teenager?