Hmmm. I’d forgotten how much trying to get a band together was like trying to herd cats. Especially when you’re trying to put one together from scratch. Finding 5 people that can get along together and have specific skills is trickier than you might think. and then they’re artists so they tend to be high strung. And they have to be into the kind of music you want to play. And be dedicated enough to make it work.
It’s all very discouraging.
So here’s a picture I threw together of me and Ziggy in Central Park. I honestly don’t recall where we were in SL (I could look it up if I was a little less lazy). I’ve been in world a few times lately and talked to Zig. Lately I’ve been kicking around the idea of starting up the podcast again as a video thing. I’ll need to have a co-host. I’m still just kicking around the idea though.
So the band’s starting to come together. Lead vocals, electronica, lead guitar and drums are taken care of. Logistics are an issue now. Rehearsal space is hard to come by in Raleigh. Whatever.
Lead guitarist is formerly from a band called Meliora. He wrote the only song that’s still on their myspace, that’s him playing the guitar and the deeper of the throats. We’re planning on going a little lighter than this.
Ok. Here’s the deal. I’ve been trying to put together a band in RL and that, coupled with my already tight schedule, has prevented me from doing much in SL. I’ve got some show ideas for BnE. We’ll see where that goes
Look, I know it’s been a long time but I’ve been really busy. OK that’s not true. I went through some personal stuff in SL and had to decide what I was going to do about my on-line life. I’m still not sure. I sold off most of my land and haven’t logged on a significant number of times since October. I still believe that virtual worlds are the web interface of the future which is what makes it so had for me to just walk away.
Today’s LotD is Lynam’s Save My Soul. Since I couldn’t find it anywhere on the net and I’m too lazy to transcribe it myself you’ll just have to watch it.
The lyric of the day for today is from a song called Save Yourself from Stabbing Westward
I know your life is empty
And you hate to face this world alone
So you’re searching for an angel
Someone who can make you whole
I can not save you
I can’t even save myself
So just save yourself
I know that you’ve been damaged
Your soul has suffered such abuse
But I am not your savior
I am just as fucked as you
I am just as fucked as you
I can not save you
I can’t even save myself
So just save yourself
Please don’t take pity on me
Please don’t take pity on me
Please don’t take pity on me
Please don’t take pity on me
My life has been a nightmare
My soul is fractured to the bone
And if I must be lonely, I think I’d rather be alone
I think I’d rather be alone
You can not save me
You can’t even save yourself
I can not save you
I can’t even save myself
Save yourself
So just save yourself
In a sad bit of news, Radar Masukami has decided to suspend production of SL Under the Radar, which IMHO is the best SL-related podcast available. I’m sad to see it go but I understand and appreciate his reasoning. Better to quit while it’s still good than drag it out for another 2 seasons (are you listening TV execs?). If your heart’s not in it anymore, you have to let it go. Thanks for the memories, Radar!
He says he’s going to take the site down in a couple of months so you should go grab all the episodes now.
According to an article in PC Authority, Sony and Microsoft both announced Second Life style VWs at the Tokyo Games Show on October 10th. Sony’s “Home” is supposed to be released for PS3 on November 19th but doesn’t appear to include user created content.
The Microsoft entry into the field is on the Xbox360 and titled, cleverly, New Xbox Experience. Microsoft’s John Schappert said, “Our goal is to make the Xbox experience more visual, easier to use, more fun to use and more social…We focused a lot on friends and other experiences outside just playing games.” Which is Microsoft-speak for we don’t know what the fuck this is all about but we’re going to throw money at it until it’s obvious we can’t do it right and then we’ll buy Linden Labs and pretend we invented VWs.
What neither of them appear to understand is that the failure of all the VWs before SL IMO was the result of a lack of user created content. What makes SL unique and special is that anybody– free users or premium users– can come into SL and start building as soon as they find a sandbox. And they can keep it up forever that way if they want to. I’m sure that there is a segment of the populace that doesn’t want to do that…. they play WoW and it’s not a dynamic VW. My guess is that neither Sony nor MS really want to get into the VW arena anyway because that’s not how they normally roll.
There’s a post on TechCrunch about IBM and the China’s Palace Museum collaborating on a VW that duplicates all 178 acres of the Forbidden City. It’s built on the gaming engine, Torque from Garage Games instead of OpenSim. Seems counterproductive to me to base a VW on a proprietary gaming platform when there’s a perfectly good Open Source VW platform available. As near as I can tell from the article though, this isn’t really a VW with user created content but a FPS without any shooting.
