Marina’s Bloggariffic

This was one of the first time that I’ve been with so many Singaporean Secondlife residents in the flesh. its interesting to see all those avatars and personalities coming to life.

I received an email from Eng Kiat from Ideafactory about a week ago, inviting me to participate in a real life meeet. Initially I was sceptical about the entire agenda, but I was keen to meet up and see other Secondlifers in real person.

One of the first few persons whom I met was Preetam and Jacky. Both of whom I’ve met previously in Ngee An Polytechnic during an interview, courtesy of Jason, a NUS student whom was doing a thesis.

I also met Alvin, the leader of Secondlife Singapore group. Coincidentally he’s a Jurong person too! We could meet up in a blink of an eye to eat at the famous Nasi Lemak stall nearby.

Later on, the rest of the attendees came in one by one.

Nicholas explained that the reason for the meet was that Cory Ondrejka, the Chief Technology Officer for Linden Labs will be coming over to Singapore in March. He was interested in setting up an office here in Singapore because of the locale and the diversity of people here - thus the sourcing of talents for developers. Chosen ones will spend about 6 months in San Francisco to learn the ropes.

We spent the evening discussing about the ideas for the next gathering. Preetam suggested a barcamp where we could lead an open discussion. while Ivan suggested having a Singapore Island in Secondlife. Andy cautioned however that should an island be made, it should not just be a 3D interpretation of an environment, but as an outlet for creative flow.

Ideas flowed. Admittedly, I was a little uncomfortable about the angle the discussion was going. Ideas like pushing Secondlife to schools, getting certification, and the entire focus on commercialism just wasnt appetizing to me. To me, the social and human element is the most important part in a community. However, it was understandable that to actually start gaining interest, there must be some sort of push factor.

Hmm …

I’m interested in the barcamp. It would be good to hear what people thought about Secondlife. I think Maybe I could host one :)

Coincidentally, SMU is organizing an event - I saw that there is a talk on Virtual Worlds and the Metaverse. Sounds promising :P

More on the event narrated by Vanessa, Benjamin and Ivan

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Yay! Playing with my new Logitech QuickCam Fusion Webcam and a trip down to Bugis. Click here to view at youtube

It was the day of the O level results. Graduated students returned back to their schools to see how they fared. One could see it in their faces on how they fared.

Some were estatic. This girl here made it to the polytechnics.

Some shed tears of joy. This young man seemed shocked that he was able to qualify for polytechnic too. I think he wasnt confident on the O level examinations.

Some were visibly upset. This girl didnt do so badly, but I think she’s being hard on herself as she didnt attained the marks she set for herself.

The A level results should be coming up soonafter. I wonder how that’ll turn out.

I think I’ll just push it at the back of my head :/

Updated : For those googling about the November 2007 O level results, it will be on this thursday, 24th January 2008.

This is a picture of Saravanan, Njer, Cart and me chilling out at our Secondlife house in Arcata. Prior to that, there was a Secondlife Singapore meet, where Vantan has wonderfully narrated.

It was really lovely - with us relaxed, chatting, getting to know each other. A pleasant surprise for me to actually hear conversations punctuated with our Singaporean colloquialisms after hearing virtually none for years.

Secondlife is such a facinating place.

Reflecting back, I think I’ve been facinated in 3D environments even before the days of Secondlife, There, Activeworlds, Cybertown, and other 3D communities that we have now.

Meet the original Lara Croft from Tomb Raider:

The first time I downloaded the demo from Gamecenter (a popular Cnet affiliate during its heydays) and played it, I was completely enthralled.

Although I had to fight against wild beasts in the caves of Qualopec, I had joy exploring every nook and crannies looking for hidden secrets and clues. Though the quality of the graphics arent comparable to what we have now, I completely enjoyed looking at the different sceneries. Mentally I pieced the route that I’ve been into a map.

Countless nights I’ve spent in the games. Looking at this clip below brings many memories

Its hard to imagine that Tomb Raider is having its 10th anniversary already. It seems not too long ago that it was 1997 and I was back in school, stayed up nights playing and being zombified in class the next day.

Time flies by too quickly.

Hmm … I wonder if someone would be crazy enough to make a Tomb Raider sim in Secondlife.

Must see - One of the best Tomb Raider fan vids I’ve seen in youtube

I usually wear pants when I ride on my scooter. But I’m more of a skirt person. I’ve always worn and feel comfortable wearing skirts since for a very long time. Skirts fit me better than pants.

Now the front of a Vespa has an open area for the rider to rest their legs together, which makes it suitable for lady riders in skirts.There are even some ladies who are comfortable extremely short skirts.

People around me would always comment, “Arent you scared of wearing skirts?” But so far, days passed by without anything out of the ordinary happening.

Till one day while I was riding on the path to the carpark when a sudden gust of wind went so fast. I could not slow down to pull it down. How embarassing! But I feel sorry more for the astonished uncle whom was unfortunately nearby. His face turned a shade darker and then looked straight down for the rest of his journey - I think he was more embarassed by it than I was!

But people learn from mistakes.

I told myself that the next time that I wear dresses or skirts, I’ll wear a pair of tights underneath.

I chanced upon this pair of tights while walking in Sim Lim Square the other day:

The lady manning the store said that wearing a pair would allow someone to burn more calories as opposed to not wearing it. Wow, I thought to myself. 2 in 1! I could have a pair of tights, *and* lose weight at the same time.

The next morning, it took me a good 5 minutes struggling to put it on. When I was done, the tights clung tenatiously. It wasnt painful, just a bit uncomfortable and I passed through the entire day with it on.

Hmm .. lets see. I had it on from 8am - 6pm. So thats 10 hours.

10 x 430 = 4300 calories

I burned 4300 calories! Hooray!!!

But wait a minute, I still feel the same. I still look the same. I’m not even tired. Most importantly, why am I’m not dead yet? A typical person would burn 2500 calories a day. Too many calories burnt would mean severe exhaustion.

Perhaps I need to wear it long term. But I cant. The pair of tights isnt as strong as I expected and it was ripped on the very first day I got it.

So I hunted for another pair of tights. A knee high one. After searching unsucessfully in the entire mall for a pair, I stopped by Minoshe, one of my favourite lingerie shops. I examined and flipped through the rows of black and browns.

“Ooh, this isnt exactly what I wanted but this will do fine, I think. What is it?”

“This is a girdle“, The shop assistant answered.

“Huh?”

“A girdle is a pair of underwear which you put on to lift your butt and tuck in your tummy”

“Oh”

“We have two types here. A hard one made of wire and plastic. And the soft one, made of elastic and rubber. The hard one tucks in more, but its uncomfortable. The soft one is more comfortable, but it doesnt tuck in as much”

“Oh”

“Why dont you get one and try out?”

“Ok”

Wearing them makes me more self confident while riding my scooter in skirts. I dont worry so much when the wind blows. It looks like I’m wearing a pair of knee high tights.

But one thing is, I dont think it really does tuck in all that much.

Looks pretty much the same to me.

Been sick these last few days. Spent the last few days cocooning on my bed that I thought I’d go into a state of metamorphosis and turn into Jeff Goldblum.

When mum found out that I was ill, she diagnosed me as having “love sickness” and decided to make this concoction of water mixed with chopped sirih leaves, rice and chopped onion(!)

I could smell it from across the room.

“Whats this? It smells horrible!” I croaked.

“This is traditional medicine. The sirih leaves will revitalise, the rice will cool your fever and the onion will stimulate your blood flow”

“At the same time, this is for me to spread on you to marinate before cooking you! HAHAHAHA!” She cackled.

I think I was so horrified by the entire olfactory experience that I passed out. But when I woke up shortly after, I felt significantly better.

I looked at myself. No, I did not turn into Jeff Goldblum. However, my entire bed and floor was covered with tiny green leaves as if a giant passed by, flaking green, leafy dandruff.

Sigh. What an eye sore.

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But on another note, I’m helping Geri to advertise for loving new owners for an adorable 5 month old Labrador/Retriever puppy.

Responsible people only please! :)

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Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go sleep the remainder of my fever away in my uh … secret garden.

With all the different expensive software out there, its still nice to know that there are alternatives, where most of them are free.

These are called open source - whereby software is made public to the general and allows users to create and improve on it. So far I’ve used quite a few of these software.

One of them is Openoffice, by Sun Microsystem . This is a free alternative to a popular office software. Like its peer, it includes the tools which were are familliar with.

Although there are some miniscule kinks around, it was still very good, user friendly and gets the job done. This is something hard to beat for gratis.

I’ve been using Audacity for my podcasts. This software is competent editor for voice recording, editing, and effects and it doesnt have such a steep learning curve as compared to many other voice editors.

To my amazement, there is even a free software to capture clips from 3D applications. As my secondlife video record function went bonkers, I needed to find alternative ways.

I stumbled upon the software Taksi quite by chance from the Secondlife forums, tried it and I find it a rather competent software. It isnt as well developed as fraps, which I find a very good 3D capture software. But I think Taksi be better in time. This is a short clip I recorded in Secondlife using Taksi

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And as you read this post, this blog is using the wordpress platform and written in blogdesk. And the gallery where I place my photos and digital art, uses coppermine.

In time perhaps, I might be brave enough to change my operating system altogether. From what I’ve seen in Ubuntu, Linux is very user friendly and is bundled with many useful and free software inside. I really didnt have much problems in manuevering.

Open source really isnt that difficult to use. Why not give it a try and see what treasures that you could find from out there. :)