As wonderful as SL is, there's not enough craziness for me. I've literally travelled from one end of the gridverse to the other, and there are entire clusters of great things I hope come our way in the future. Some near, some far, but wherever you are in SL, hopefully you can find something here you've been looking for.

I like to observe. Ever notice the mass amount of builds with Shiny on, which lends a certain tone of its own, but can appear flat compared to usage of a subtle texture AND shiny? Sometimes I see it as an less time-consuming way out?you just color with opaque sections and then set it all to shiny (or varying degrees) with a broad stroke or two. Like the art of actually aligning textures, there could be more builds that include both. I find too "busy" a texture may overwhelm shiny unless you are going for special fx. It currently stands that there's not enough ex(perimentation+ploration) in this area.

Here's another one for you: narrow edges of prims with textures inelegantly aligned. Go up to many buildings, look at long narrow edges, observe the texturing carefully. Ask yourself, does it look warped and horribly jarring? As in, woodgrain that seems to have been subjected to botched plastic surgery? Then, you can test for youself by rezzing a plywood cube, make sure Stretch Textures is checked, and then stretch the actual prim and make it very tall. I am mindful there are times when this is desirable or part of an "artistic style", but I also recognize the scads I've seen that did not have quality attention paid to them. Something that fell into the couch. As there are no effective tools for texture autoaligning, this must be done by hand until machines help. Like origami.

Ah, art. There's a team of Residents with the last name Culcomp. Rhysa Pennyfeather beamed me over and Ari Culcomp was all too happy to demonstrate what he terms "SOCIAL ART" (caps my own emphasis). A cool sculpture that plays ambient loops of sounds. That sounds very basic and it does work very simply: when an avatar steps close to admire the art, an orb glows and one track of loopage starts playing. Next avatar that approaches, same thing happens. It's a cumulative effect, so the more come, the art feeds back and responds. I suggested several things: one is using barnyard animals (could have a pig on one track, a cow on the other?"MOO!") and another is leaving this sort of thing in a sandbox to discover. Ari also told me about gift economy. Intriguing! You'll find the art temporarily set up at Palomarian.

It's nice to relive the 80s in SL. Infact, Sharn Musashi recently gave me a watermelon-colored Bumblebee (that's a Transformer). In the sandbox, I came across all four members of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, one of whom (Jeht Pacer as Leonardo) was building the sewers in front of my eyes. The toxic ooze drew my attention; textures are MINT!

Mmmm crumbs. Besides more sewers, SL also needs more nice office buildings. Which is ironic in a way?maybe people don't want to be reminded of work? But then again, people can play in a friendly corporate environment, it is just not done as much as it could be. If you have a nice office building, please let me know! Interiors do matter… but I did come across some a replica (understatement) of a New Hampshire town. It's not just a build, it has a purpose. The island is called Response. Satchmo Prototype writes:

It reminds me of how anguished things can get when there is a call for help yet no response. Sort of like a sad kitten that got lost and needs guidance finding her way.

Chance Abattoir, who is a frequent commentator on my blog, again met up with me inworld! He is a fox now, the sort of rare fox who'll fully appreciate snow land. He's been building at his home in Jernberg, onwards and upwards. His careful icecrystal geometries have a great amount of religious thought behind them, altho he is not. We entered a frustum, in which there was presented a beautiful sculpture of an iceman who would prolly make a pretty cool avatar. Chance clued me in that etymologically, "frustum" comes from the same root as "frustate", and that these sorts of solids do tend to frustrate?or at least agitate. I wonder if the missing cap will ever return?