So yes… i’m back. It’s not i was out for a really long time, but my lifes (both, first and second) were pretty busy in so many ways. In first life, well, basically summer holidays, traveling and being out of town and far away from computers for almost a month. I’m sure you all will understand this, sometimes this is something we all need, at least i so need it sometimes.

About Second Life, well, in the last months i was enjoying being part of the Soup Radio project with a really wonderful team of people, sadly this project is finished now, but i’m proud and happy about the work on it. Well, the project is not exactly finished, but we are planning the last show of Soup Radio for October 1st. From here i would like to give a huge hug to all the Soup Radio team, specially Arahan Cleveau, for all the help, support and ideas.

So, since i’m back i would like to say a couple more of things. First, right now i’m building an installation for Burn2 so i will inform more in this blog, about my project and about Burn2 itself. And second… thanks for keep reading my blog! *Raul sings “Welcome back” to himself*

So, as i told you some posts away i had to move in Second Life. After having some problems in the old Estate i moved with some friends-neighbours (because they are-were both ) to a new Estate, and after trying a couple of plots we got THE one we needed!

Instead of buying different plots we decided to get a big one (some like 1/5 of a sim), subdivided in different plots and deeded them to a group, this way we share rights and… prims!

In the picture you can see my house and part of the central park we have, this park was built by my friend Gahum and looks great! We are going for a 50′s – 60′s brutalist style, you know, flat lines and lots of concrete. Once we are totally done i will post some more pictures and maybe even a video.

Really hope you like it!

Related Articles

• A house built on quicksand (raulcrimson.com)

The sweet Strawberry Singh posted few days ago in her blog about “What’s your digits?”, or about proportions and measures on avatars in Second Life.

Sooo… this are some of my measures… some others are kinda private. Nah, joking… Proportion is something difficult to find in avatar shapes, it is pretty easy to transform your avatar into a caricature, and that’s ok… only if that’s what you pretend, of course. But the most important is to feel comfortable with your shape… and to have a shape with “Modify” permissions, of course!

First of all, i would like to thank my friend Khamudy Mannonen for his help with my shape, it was a gift he made specially for me, and would like to thank him also for making it “modifiable” so i could make a lot of adaptations to the different skins i had.

If you follow me in Twitter or Facebook you probably read about that change of home in Second Life i’m into now. I will resume the story: One of the estate managers told one of us the estate owners have not be around for some time and none of the managers had any news about or from the owners, also they were not sure someone was actually paying Linden Lab the monthly region fees.

We were a nice group of friends living in that sim, so we just didn’t renew our rentals and removed all our prims before they would be removed and deleted. We decided also to look for a new place all together… and we are now in that process. We found a couple of nice sims we would move to, so you will have soon-ish some pics of a new place.

Well, all together is not actually a big drama, just an inconvenient, but anyway this makes you think about the nature of Second Life. This (virtual) world is made of people and full of what that people makes, it is dramatically dynamic and time has a special relativity in it (the SL cycle of day/night is 4 hours and it seems like the REAL time cycle of SL, 6 days in one, 6 years in one).

It seems one should not feel attached to “something” in Second Life, or even to “someone”! Places and objects change, they get destroyed, deleted, rebuilt continuously. People come and goes, you meet new great people and suddenly that one you really liked doesn’t come “inworld” so often. About people, the good thing is you can link with them in other ways (email, other social networks, etc.) but what happen with the places or the objects in a virtual world like ours? I presume that’s why a lot of people, including myself, love SLphotography, it’s the way to “keep” those places or objects, to keep the memory of a virtual world.

Will rebuild my home soon, will be maybe better than the old one, and i will enjoy doing it. That’s part of the charm of Second Life, the ability to change everything again and again… only to change it again. Some way is fascinating how we expend time and energies in houses built on quicksand, but maybe it’s only the illusion of permanence we need, the illusion of living in a world that never changes.

my Facebook Fan page

Facebook is a “strange” place for an avatar. First, because Facebook in their TOS only accepts real information (names, etc) of real people. Actually they deleted the account, or at least blocked the account, of some people who was identifying themselves as avatars, from Second Life or other virtual worlds like IMVU, etc… I had an account for my avatar totally independent of my “real persona” one, but finally decided to delete it for those TOS things i just mentioned.

Since then i was wondering how it would be possible to use the power of Facebook as social network for my avatar… and the option was a “Fan page”. This way i can control my avatar page from my “real persona” account and have access to all the information and to the ways to share it easily. Actually i’m showing there some “pre-releases” of my pics, comments, videos and other things, always Second Life related.

Since, after some comments of Rodvik Linden, it seems Facebook is a place where Linden Lab plans to develop some plans for Second Life i thought “let’s try it!”. So if you feel like when you see in my Facebook page please click the “Like” button.

Recently i moved to a new sim, it was kinda hard since i was living in Ursa Major for some years but maybe i should be all zen and think life flows and one just needs to follow it.

So, as i said, i moved. Got a new house and was decorating this last week, and that’s the result (slideshow above)! Wanted something let’s say “classy hobo vintage” *chuckles*, something personal, warm, welcoming… A lot of the details around are made by good friends.

Still need to add some more details, specially in the garden, but that’s basically as it will be. Hope you like it!

Second Life is, indeed, a world in constant evolution, that’s its nature probably. In the four years i’ve been in Second Life my life changed a lot, i mean my life as avatar (my Flesh Life changed too anyway), and in the last times i’m living one of those weird periods where mostly everything seems to change… or maybe it is i’m changing the way i face some things in life.

After living for three years in the same sim, Ursa Major, i’m moving. That’s actually a pity for lot of reasons, first because Thaumata, the actual sim owner, is a lovely woman and a really good friend, second because i love the sim and how it’s looking and third because some good friends (including Thaumata) are still living there. I’m right now living in a tiny Linden Home… so one can wonder why i was living in a really cool place and moved to a Linden Home? Well, because things change, friendships change too and the “life together” with some other people was not so easy anymore. Yeah… shit happens. I think this is a good moment to say thanks to Thaumata, because she is just too cool.

Also i’m working on some mid-term projects… but well, i won’t speak about them, don’t want to jinx them.  And meanwhile i’m writing this i’m laying in my sofa, in my old mountain retreat, thinking about all those projects and all the changes.

Dear reader…

Since today is Christmas Eve i wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas, for you and for the ones you love…

Thanks for being part of my life…

Thanks to a video in Flickr by Lowe Runo knew about a service called PUMMELVISION that compresses your Flickr photos in a bitesized video.

Since i’m in Flickr for… about 3 years imagine! Mostly my Second Life is there, myself, the things i created, my friends… It was a nice experience to see it this way, and hope you enjoy it too.

It’s so cold! Was walking in my garden, watching how the snow covered it all. There is no bird sounds, only a soft wind feeling in my face…

The lake is frozen, i presume some fishes are hidden there, under the ice, happy because there not so many dangers even it’s probably too cold. The sun is bright and the snow reflection makes everything to white, so full of light that results confusing the cold feeling.

I walk around, trying to find the paths now hidden under the snow, then i go back to the house to get a hot chocolate ready.

Note: This is someway a fantasy, only my imagination running in our virtual world.