Wednesday, December 31, 2008

What a year ...

So, there's Eschatos, up in his Broadway Live apartment, sitting around contemplating the meaning of life as a loose collection of data points and pixels ...



... Eschatos is never much for partying, so he may just see if there are fireworks and otherwise commune with that bottle of Wild Turkey he has out on the bar.

Sure, there were good things this year, the Avatrait book, the trips to Florence, Tampa, and New York, the new Avatrait island, and stuff like that ... but over-all it's been an emotional buzz-saw with precious little to recommend it. As such, all concerned are pretty happy to see 2008 get the bum's rush out the door.

Here's hoping that 2009 will be all bright and shiny and full of fresh possibilities.

More later (next year!) ...

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Ho, ho, ho ...

Eschatos was running around in-world today looking for just the right Xmas tree to serve as a background for a "festive" shot. Yes, that is Eschatos trying to look "festive".



Somebody should have suggested to him that he take off the SL-BaSE convention badge before posing!

Eschatos may or may not be much in circulation the next few days, as his typist is off on a road trip ... which always leaves open the question of internet access. So, if Eschatos doesn't have the chance before the end of the year, he wanted to make sure to wish everybody "Happy Holidays" and remind folks to get in those presentation proposals for SL-BaSE!

As there are a few hours left of shopping frenzy, Eschatos also wanted to suggest that the bestest gift ever for your favorite Second Life avatar would be a copy of AVATRAIT: From Second Life To Florence, and for their RL associates the very cool swag available here and here!

As always, lots of Big Secret Projects in the works ... hopefully Eschatos will have exciting news to report as soon as he resurfaces.

More later ...

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Eschatos Speaks!

Well, not in here, of course ... but last night Eschatos was on a panel about "Business in SL" along with Aimee Weber and MadamG Zagato, on a program hosted by Shiger Seattle over at the "Bright Idea Lab" on Canada Post's "Maple Grove" sim (LINK).



As I understand it, there was a "podcast" being recorded, but I can't seem to track down the URL for that, just in case you really wanted to hear Eschatos speak!

Eschatos got to cover Avatrait, SL-BaSE, and a number of things that we have in development (you know, the Big Secret Projects), plus a bit of the history of Simuality. Eschatos was, however, mortified that he neglected to plug the Avatrait book during the panel (although he did bring it up right afterwards), but this was a relatively new experience for him, and he was working without notes!

More later ...

Friday, December 12, 2008

Busy, busy, busy ...

Eschatos has been bad about keeping up with posts here ... and he's very sorry about that. Unfortunately, part of the side effect of "big news" (like the new Avatrait Gallery opening, as noted in his previous post), is lots of work which even keeps his typist out of SL for days at a time!

However, Eschatos came into a few Lindens this afternoon (thanks, Track!) and ran around in-world paying his rent. After finally getting the rental box to rez over by his Maxwell Street pad, Eschatos took a bit of a walk-around, and had this snap taken in the lobby of the theater that had recently appeared on the ground floor of his tenement.



The past few days, Eschatos has been very busy creating real-world "swag" for various Avatrait projects ...



Right now there are just two stores up, one with Avatrait Logo stuff (as pictured) HERE, and one with Avatrait Books stuff HERE. Avatrait chief Track Hax has started a contest among the Gallery Artists to have a design for a promo for the gallery, and that will likely be the next of these "swag shops" going up. We are also planning a rather extensive series of "wearable art", possibly in connection with each month's Gallery shows, and are looking at how closely we can parallel the same items in-world!

Anyway, Eschatos didn't want to let this week slip completely by without checking in ... he was very miffed that he didn't end up with any pictures of his presentation to the Non-Profit Commons folks (about the SL-BaSE program) last Friday, but he really wasn't in much of a position to do any snapshots.

More later ...

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

No more teasing ...

The brand new Avatrait Gallery (LINK) opened up over the weekend! Eschatos missed the party (RL AFK ... it happens) but understands the place was rocking. Here's a view of the various floating islands with the parts (main gallery, classroom, machinima theater, and alternative exhibit space) of the new build ...



Here's a shot looking up from the "classroom" pavilion up to the main gallery building ...



And here's a look inside the gallery ...



Do go over and have a visit! There's a "special" show on, featuring images from most of the Avatrait Gallery Artists, to celebrate the AVATRAIT: From Second Life® to Florence book.

Eschatos also wanted to pass along a big "THANK YOU!" to the folks at ROLE Magazine who featured a 2-page spread in their first issue on both the Avatrait Gallery and avatraitbooks.com ...



There's Eschatos visiting their rather snazzy build (LINK) in-world!

Anyway ... more later ...

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Waiting for "Black Friday" ...

Ah, there's Eschatos, always the eager one ... sitting in the Avatrait Book Store over in "Book Island Publishing Village" (LINK), waiting for the turkey-besotted crowds to surge over the parapets with lust for literature (or at least picture books) gleaming in their eyes!



Obviously, he's a bit ahead of things, as the traffic by the store has been less than dramatic (and yes, he does look bored). However, he wanted me to specifically mention that if you're looking for that special gift for the Avatar in your life (first or Second), a copy of AVATRAIT: From Second Life® to Florence could hardly be beat!

This full-color hardcover "coffee table" book features the works of 47 of the Avatrait Gallery artists, and has a Foreword by S.L. creator Philip Linden ... and is available for direct order from http://avatraitbooks.com now!

Speaking of the Avatrait Gallery artists ... here's a cloud-occluded sneak peek at the new Avatrait Island:



The Grand Opening of the the new sim will be on Saturday, 11/29, at 1pm SLT ... featuring a gallery show of all the artists from the book, and a party featuring music, fun, and fireworks. The new place (while still "under construction" to a certain extent) is quite impressive, so do drop by on Saturday!

More later ...

Friday, November 21, 2008

Another day, another in-world meeting ...

Eschatos has been very active in-world this week, and feels like he's done little else than sit in meetings, classes, and get-togethers! As wonderful as Second Life is for being able to do this sort of thing, some days there is SO MUCH going on that Eschatos wishes he could split his pixels and be two places (or more) at once!

This morning at the Non-Profit Commons meeting Eschatos had a last-minute chance to give a bit of a shout-out about the SL-BaSE conference that Simuality is doing (through the Metaverse Conference Management division) next June out in Portland, OR. Initially there'd been discussion of having a full 15 minute slot, but it turned out that there was just time today for Eschatos to rez and arrange his boards (seen here after I'd been up) and make a bit of a pitch. The "full presentation" has been re-scheduled, however for two weeks hence, and he will then hopefully have some more Track Chairs with him (Coughran Mayo, our Non-Profit track chair, had a conflict today and couldn't make it).




One fascinating thing at today's meeting was a demonstration of Virtual Guidedogs, a sculpted, scripted, assistant for blind users of Second Life! Needless to say, in a largely visual and text-based environment, there are huge challenges for the sight-impaired. These guidedogs provide info about things in the virtual environment in tandem with text readers that turn typed conversation into audio. I guess there are some significant problems still (like logging on ... the form is not audio-friendly) but this was a pretty amazing bit of virtualization!

Just in case you might have had some trouble picking Eschatos and the Virtual Guidedog out of the NPC overhead shot (had to get those SL-BaSE boards in frame, y'know), we've added handy arrows from insets of other pics taken at the meeting ... although I suspect that it might have just been a ploy by Eschatos to get a bigger image of him in the blog!

More later ...

Monday, November 17, 2008

A very proper gander ...

Yes, there is a long joke involved with the title, deal with it. Eschatos and I are very confused, however, as we thought we'd updated with the below picture on Friday, but here it is Monday and it's not there! We even remember somewhat how the title of that went, something like "A peek for all you lookie-loos!" ... how odd that it didn't "take".



Anyway, here's a picture of Eschatos, over by the soon-to-be-unveiled new Avatrait Gallery, eyeballing the "propaganda" that he set out right by the main entrance. That's a stack of in-world postcards that parallel the real-world postcards (promoting AVATRAIT: From Second Life To Florence, natch) that we're having printed pretty much as I type.

As you can sort of see, there has been some substantial progress in the Gallery sim, with three and a half new buildings (one building really feels more like being inside a sculpture) in arcane juxtapositions requiring nearly non-Euclidean geometries to explain them (we have Avatrait Board members designing the new sim, and I'm convinced that one or more of them are graduates of Miskatonic U.!). We're due for a Grand Opening a week from Saturday (yes, you will be hearing more about it in this space ... what, are ya new?) and Eschatos figured it was better to be early with the propaganda than late!

We're still scratching our heads about this not going up on Friday, but here it is ... a peek at the gallery, and yet another reminder to wander over to http://avatraitbooks.com to take a peek at (and order) the book!

More later ...

Thursday, November 13, 2008

No, it's not déjà vu ...

Yes, the last three pics in here have looked remarkably similar! However, most of the recent "news" has dealt with stuff on the web ... so Eschatos has been doing nice shots with computer monitors in various locations.

Eschatos has looked approvingly on images of the http://avatrait.com site (which keeps getting better and better ... with a new update just today!), and the new http://avatraitbooks.com, which now features ordering directly through us (which should speed things up as opposed to everybody ordering the book having to wait 2-4 weeks!). Well, now he's sitting having some quality time with the Second Life web site! The book, AVATRAIT: From Second Life To Florence, just made it onto the "Recommendations" page, in (naturally enough) the "books" section.



So, it's not that Eschatos has done nothing but surf the web over the past few weeks, but most of the "news" has been coming from that front ... and, don't be fooled by Eschatos' dour expression here, he's understandably thrilled that Linden Lab has put us up on the site ... and he's fervently hoping that all and sundry will head on over to order a copy!

Oh, yeah ... hopefully Eschatos will have some Big News (with more interesting pictures) to report about the new Avatrait Gallery in just a few days!

More later ...

Monday, November 10, 2008

Oops ...

My, how time flies ... I can't believe that it's been TWO WEEKS since we last checked in on Eschatos! Frankly, in the wake of all the news around the Florence trip, there's been very little to report. Somehow something like "Eschatos went here, here, here, and here to pay his in-world rent" doesn't have the post-worthy ring to it that we're looking for in this space!

There has been one reasonably significant change to update y'all on ... we got blind-sided by Lulu (the print-on-demand place that we're using to do the Avatrait book), first with a fairly substantial price increase on the printing (after we got locked in to the $49.95 cover price), and then discovering that they only print the hard-cover books in the USA, which has been resulting in insane shipping charges being quoted to our European artists and friends ("insane" as in €71 ... well over $100! ... to ship book that weighs under two pounds).



Obviously, "that would NOT do!" ... and may have seriously cut into the potential orders that we would have had from the Festival della Creativita. So, we have opted to pull all orders in-house, and are hopefully setting up a system where we order the number of books that we guess we'll need over the next month, and have them on hand to send out, and then re-order (due to this being a print-on-demand, large-format, hard-cover, full-color book, the printing costs are very high, and we have a razor-thin margin) as the money comes in.

So, please go to http://avatraitbooks.com, and take a look ... there is now a little green "ORDER" button which takes you to a page with twenty payment options (19 via PayPal, and one via Lindens) in everything from Euros to Zlotys to Yen! Also, once "the system" gets rolling, it will be MUCH faster, as we'll be doing the 2-3 weeks of waiting up front, and will be able to just shoot the books out as you order them!

Everybody with an interest in Second Life, and Virtual World art should get a copy! It really IS a "landmark" in the field of "Digital Impressionism". You can also visit our in-world storefront (LINK) for previews of the art.

Oh, yeah ... one more thing. The Avatrait Gallery is temporarily closed at the moment allowing us to make a "clean move" between the long-running site on Simuality Island to its new home on Avatrait Island ... look for the Grand Opening announcement soon!

More later ...

Monday, October 27, 2008

Back from Florence!

So, you were wondering what had happened to Eschatos? Not paying attention, are we? Eschatos (or at least his typist) has been off in Florence, Italy for the opening of the Rinascimento Viruale exhibit, part of the Festival della Creativita art festival.



Aside from the big news of the launch of the new book AVATRAIT: From Second Life to Florence at the show, we also announced the exciting new Avatrait.com web site. Eschatos is checking out the front page there, but if you click through on the center logo it will take you to the fabulous new "gallery" site where S.L. artists (and art fans) can upload their works, share them, form groups, and even sell their art to the general public. The site's only been "live" less than a week at this point, so there are new features and design elements being added daily, but go have a click and sign up for a free account!



One thing that we'd hoped to have good-to-go by the Florence event was the new Avatrait Island, but that is progressing at a bit more reserved pace than we'd anticipated. However, when Eschatos went over to check that out today, he found that there is at least a pretty snazzy sign waiting for the finished Gallery. When completed, Avatrait Island is going to have a big new gallery, classroom and workshop spaces, offices, a gift shop, event spaces, and a swank European café! Needless to say, you'll hear about it here just as soon as that's ready for visitors.

More later ... ciào!

Friday, October 17, 2008

Here it is!




Frankly, Eschatos is exhausted ... the new book, AVATRAIT: From Second Life® to Florence is finally available, and he's been beating the Internet with press releases and other propaganda ... all while still trying to get everything together for that trip to Florence!

He still needs to update everything with the new links ... but is relieved that one big thing is crossed off the to-do list!

More later ...

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Uhhhh ... wow!

Well, Eschatos had to run over to the Firenze (Florence) sim today to take a look around because he (and his typist) discovered just this morning that we're off to Italy on Sunday!



Simuality's Avatrait division has been invited to participate in the Festival della Creatività next week with some of our artists' creations being featured in the Rinascimento Virtuale show through the end of the year. Track Hax, fearless leader of the Avatrait Gallery (LINK), is going to be giving a presentation, and Eschatos has been tapped to keep everything moving with optimal propaganda goodness!

Another key feature of the event is the "official" launch of AVATRAIT: From Second Life to Florence, a full-color hard-cover book featuring the work of 47 of the Avatrait Gallery artists, that's been mentioned previously in this space. You can check out the Avatrait Book Store (LINK) for previews. We're hoping that we'll have some other exciting Avatrait stuff to premier ... but are still seeing how much can get done before we have to jump on a plane!

More later ...

Friday, October 10, 2008

We're getting press!

Here's Eschatos working late again at his desk ... he's not really feeling as grumpy as he looks, but he's tired and sure seems like he could use some virtual eyedrops! He's actually pretty excited, as the Metaverse Messenger he's reading there has a story about the SL-BaSE conference (LINK) on the front cover of its latest edition!

This was somewhat unexpected, as (aside from these missives) there's been no official promotion of the conference as yet, as there are still bits and pieces of the "registration backbone" of the web site yet to go live ... so he's been holding off on a lot of press releases and stuff waiting to have all that worked out.



Eschatos has been busy setting up in-world resources too ... aside from the Portland Connection sim "info desk" previously noted, there's now the beginnings of an SL-BaSE communications nexus right on Simuality Island (LINK).

All sorts of interesting and exciting stuff is just on the verge of being "announceable", and we should have at least some of it good-to-go by next week, so don't forget to check in!

More later ...

Monday, October 6, 2008

Still waiting ...

Well, Eschatos got some decorating done in the Avatrait Book Store (LINK) over in the Publishing Village on Book Island. Those framed pictures on the back wall are new, and give a low-res preview of all the images that are going to be in the Avatrait: From Second Life to Florence book.



We really had hoped that this would have been available by now ... we were taking pre-orders for it at the SLCC, where the Linden folks suggested that we could get an "official" Foreword for the book ... but they've had the materials for that since 9/10 and we're still waiting for approved copy to come back ... bummer!

Anyway, the big sign in the shop allows folks to still pre-order at this point, which will be shifting around to a link to the order page as soon as we get that last bit of the book. In the meanwhile, though, folks can come by and sort of "flip through it" (albeit without the accompanying text) via the new pics!

More later ...

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Finally ...

Yes, there is finally some news that can be let out of the bag! Here is Eschatos checking out the "Portland Connection" sim (LINK). Why, you might ask, would Eschatos be checking out that? Is he off sight-seeing around SL again? Well, no, not really ... he's actually working as Portland is the location of the first edition of the new SL-BaSE conference, the "Second Life Business and Social Expo", to be held June 4-7, 2009! This is a 3-part extravaganza, with a 2-day Business conference, a 2-day Social conference, and a concurrent 4-day Expo of products, innovations, and SL services.



As may have been mentioned previously, Simuality is not just a virtual world developer, but an "incubator" for other projects (such as Avatrait and SlippCat). This is our latest, with a new company called Metaverse Conference Management, and its initial product, SL-BaSE!



And, not only did Eschatos check out the environs there, he actually rented some space in their "downtown" area, and set up the beginnings of an info center for SL-BaSE. Feel free to "ooh!" and "aah!" over the spiffy desk he whipped up after having spent way too much time looking around in-world for one to buy ... if Eschatos keeps getting projects like this, they may make a builder of him yet!

In case you were wondering, this is just one of the many "news" items that we've not been able to tell you about before now ... hopefully we'll have others shaking loose over the next several days.

More later ...

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Oh, hi ...

Eschatos feels so bad about not keeping up with posts in here that he's insisting that we go ahead and put stuff up even if it's pretty much "content free". And, yes, this is another one of those posts.



Being the vain accumulation of pixels that he is, Eschatos thought that just focusing on some pics of him would be enough reason to make a post. Not having anything better (other than the usual litany of "big news coming soon") to suggest, I went along with his plan.

Of course, were things not so insane around casa Simuality, there would have been lots of time for meandering around in S.L. finding cool stuff to chit-chat about, but it's been a grind, and there have been numerous days when Eschatos hasn't even been powered up! Needless to say, we're hoping that we'll have all sorts of exciting news coming soon ... there's been a heck of a lot of work done on a whole bunch of projects, so eventually something has got to reach a "we can talk about it now" phase!

In the meanwhile, there's a charming portrait of Eschatos ...

More later ...

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Opened a store ...

I'd mentioned a week or so back that we'd "premiered" the new Avatrait book at the SLCC, and were very encouraged that there were lots of pre-order sales. Well, things are moving along with that (we're just waiting on a Foreword by a Very Famous Person) and the idea hit me that Eschatos should go check out the "Publishing Village" over on Book Island.

Back in the day when Eschatos wasn't working in Second Life, he used to hang out over on Book Island, Info Island, and some of the other "bookish" places (having followed the LibraryThing.com crowd into SL for the weekly get-togethers). The Publishing Village has typically been hard to get into, and Eschatos wanted to see if there were any storefronts open ... he was so excited to find one right on one of the squares!



The Avatrait Store (LINK) isn't much to look at yet, but we've got the basic stuff set up. Aside from the real-life hard-cover "coffee table" book that we're working on, we're also going to be producing an in-world version. Needless to say, things will be more interesting in the store when folks can come in and flip through a virtual copy, and then buy one to keep!

By the way ... if you're wondering about the "Eschaton" on the signs ... that's actually where Eschatos got his name ... much like how Iggy Pop was named for his earlier band the Iguanas, Eschatos' typist used to be publisher of Eschaton Books (which has been resurrected, with its over 900 unused ISBNs, to be the "publishing arm" of Simuality/Avatrait), and when thinking of an SL identity, chose "Eschatos" as a name!

See ... not only do you get content today, but a nice story too!

More later ...

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Just had to share ...

Hat tip to the guys over at KZERO for pointing out the "Wordle" site (http://wordle.net/) which lets you do really cool "word clouds" ... Eschatos wanted to see what his blog here looked like ...



Of course, when he saw his name all big like that he wanted to get in on the action, so we went and took a nice snap of him and slipped him in back behind the text!

Yes, this is yet another pretty much "content free" post, but, hey, it's two posts in two days, which, given the recent traffic in here, is remarkable!

We have a Big Important Meeting tomorrow, and I'm hoping that it's going to lead to my being able to make Big Announcements (of good stuff) soon afterwards ... really, so much stuff is happening behind the scenes, and it should be soon that we can start spewing the details!

Anyway ... more later ...

Monday, September 15, 2008

No snapshot too risky ...

Yes, Eschatos got out-and-about today, and decided to risk life, limb, and sanity for your viewing pleasure! He first dropped by Broadway Live to check in on his apartment (Eschatos has been sleeping in the office a lot lately, rather than heading home to crash), and decided to have a bit of a wander by Toxic Avenger land ...



Remarkably, a whole new toxic sludge spew has opened up at the end of the street! Undaunted, Eschatos went right up to it to get a good shot ... never mind his pixels blistering in the high-radiation glow.

And, if you think that was brave/noble and/or reckless/stupid, observe the following ... Eschatos even went to virtual St. Louis ... that's where those insufferable Cardinals fans come from! Eschatos might have gotten a cut and the locals would have seen him bleeding Cubbie blue ... and that wouldn't have worked out well for anybody (by the way, the virtualization of the St. Louis Arch is pretty cool, with a subterranean welcome center and teleports to the observation area at the top of the arch).



As you may have surmised by this point, this post is rather slim on "content" ... Eschatos is dying to talk about all sorts of new projects, but the only one that's at a "revealable" point is the upcoming Avatrait book (see previous post), and we don't even have a web site for that yet.

I am hoping that come the later parts of this week we're going to have a lot of good news to report ... but right now you're just going to have to be satisfied with Eschatos' in-world meanderings.

More later ...

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Back ...

Yes, I feel very, very bad about not updating this as much as I both want to and have assured my intrepid readers that I would be. However, sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day, and sometimes the days just go away.

An example of the latter was recent, when I found, the morning of the day that I ended up flying out, that I was unexpectedly going to be attending SLCC08 in Tampa! Not only had nothing been shipped but I had stuff that needed to be finished before it could go ... and there was the matter of running back downtown to get my bags packed before heading out to the airport.

No matter. The thing that needed to be "finished" (although we're still waiting on a couple of things for it) was the book that Eschatos is holding here. It's a big hardcover "coffee table" art book featuring 46 or so of the Avatrait artists.



This was quite a hit (in its pre-publication ring binder form) at the convention, and there was such interest in it that we whipped up some pre-order forms and sold quite a few. Amusingly, the most popular way for folks to pay for it was with Lindens.

We also sold several large Avatrait images ... which was great (as we didn't have to ship them back). Despite all our better efforts, a lot of folks didn't seem to previously "get" the fact that one can order very nice 13x19" real-world prints (in 21x27" matted frames) from the in-world gallery. Having an array of these on display behind our tables at the conference certainly brought home the reality that one could "bring home" the work of the Avatrait artists!

Speaking of which, noted Second Life blogger and artist Looker Lumet is currently having a show at the Avatrait Gallery (LINK) ... why don't you drop by and check out his stuff?

More later ...

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Uhhhh ... still waiting ...

Eschatos has been very busy working on things that he'd just love to tell you about, but it's all still "big super secret" stuff, so until he gets greenlighted for communications, you just have to wait. Sorry! This has also been limited the fascinating blog posts that he could be making ... sort of hard doing 12-hour days on hush-hush projects and then trying to create some side deal that he can talk about.

Now, Eschatos is not much of a "builder" ... sure, he does excellent signs and reasonably serviceable promo coffee mugs, but his building efforts in-world have largely been along the lines of slapping textures onto boxes (hey, he's got some great bookcases, sidetables, books and magazines!), but we were in need of some promotional items to fill up a "gift shop" for a machinima we were putting together to give a potential client a walk-through of a concept that's in the pitch. Not having time (or budget) to bring in a real "virtual designer", Eschatos jumped in and whipped up a very nice Teddy Bear ...



Needless to say, Eschatos has been very pleased with himself, and has been wanting to show everybody, so, lacking any other "interesting" thing that he could entertain y'all with, we opted to go with the bear!

We're having a meeting today with an Ad agency (which is bringing in a bunch of new clients), so maybe we'll get something signed and Eschatos can start doing "show and tell" on some of these new projects!

More later ...

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

A whole new world?

OK, so Eschatos had to check out the new "photo-realistic" LivePlace virtual world demo, supposedly run via "cloud computing" (or is that simply "vaporware"?), given there's been such a buzz about it!



Eschatos would be more impressed if a lot of their demo reel didn't look a whole lot like using a SWAT-team "snake cam" in and around miniature models, intercut with suitably grainy outdoor shots and tight close-ups into G.I. Joe's highrise pad (just watch the video), in an extended homage to Art Clokey.

Sure, Eschatos would love to live in a photo-realistic world ... but he likes to point out that the New York Times says that us "meatworlders" might well be living virtual lives controlled from some guy’s couch (a must-read article), so "photo-realistic" isn't necessarily all it's cracked up to be!

Eschatos is busting his britches to talk about Simuality's own Big Secret Projects, but he can't quite yet ... but let's just say he spent a chunk of time this afternoon looking at web sites for people who wrap ads on buses. Needless to say, he'll be spilling the beans in a TMI-frenzy just as soon as he can.

More later ...

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

The best laid plans ...

Yes, Eschatos had every intent to have at least two posts up in here per week ... really ... unfortunately, his typist ended up in the hospital (for real) last week ... talk about 1st Life imitating 2nd Life. The Powers That Be around here suggested that I figure out some way for Eschatos to win the lottery, and wait around for that to swing around into reality!



Since we're still breathing (or whatever Avatars do), Eschatos decided that we needed to go off for some in-world culture, since there was nothing concrete to report other than TMI-like details of the real-world hospital stay.

Here is Eschatos hanging out outside the "Second Louvre" which is quite an impressive building. We'd hoped for more "real" art in there, but it seemed to be pretty much all virtual. Heck, if we wanted to see virtual art (and, as you know, Eschatos has built up quite a collection in his Maxwell Street pad), we'd go hang out at the Avatrait Gallery (LINK)! Actually, Eschatos was over there today to get some details down for a press release going out this evening. Oh, well, we seem to be blithering at this point.

More later ....

Friday, July 25, 2008

Guitars ...

In doing research for the recently mentioned super-secret project that's coming up in a scant few weeks, Eschatos journeyed over to the new Gibson Guitars sim (LINK), which is very well done. They have a lot of activities there to keep you amused, including a very cool hang glider (great job of coding on that!), a train, lots of movies, and this "rope climbing" thing up a giant Gibson mandolin ...



Up top there's an "observation deck" with a viewer thing, which Eschatos is checking out in this picture! What's very cool about their grand opening is that there are free guitars ... Eschatos got about twenty ranging from an insane cut-out "Flying V" to an Angus Young (of AC/DC) model Gibson SG, plus guitar bags, t-shirts, etc. They even have guitar-body shaped tables if you want to start up (or re-equip) a club. One caveat, however: the guitars are small for the "average avatar" and the attached animation is sort of lame, so actually playing them looks pretty goofy.



Their main island seems pretty much complete at this point, but they are developing connected sims, one "French Quarter" themed, one "bayou" themed, and one that seems to be some affiliated media group. You really should check out the top of the mountain on that island as they have this totally freaky "time tunnel" thing in which Eschatos is sitting above. There is probably some HUD which goes along with that, as it had some info hovering inside, but Eschatos just wandered in and took a seat on the rough-rezzed cube that was floating in the middle of it ... it may be still "under construction", but it's way trippy!

More later ...

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The Theatre!

Yesterday, Eschatos got snagged by his Second Life friend Gwenette Writer to teleport off to a floating theater for a performance art piece called "THE RING" by some associates of hers. Despite Eschatos missing a bunch of it due to crashing and having to log back in, what he saw was quite impressive. The group doing this was CARP - Cybernetic Art Research Project (LINK), which has previously produced a recurring "cyber version" of Pink Floyd's "The Wall", which I understand plays every weekend in-world. They also have an on-line magazine, the latest edition of which can be found HERE.



Eschatos was very happy to be immersed in "cyber psychedelica" as he's working on a VERY EXCITING (and, as always) super secret project that has an aspect of that. We're planning on doing a big intro for this at the Virtual Worlds Conference in six weeks in Los Angeles, as well as piggy-backing on Avatrait's exhibition at the Festival della Creatività this fall in Florence ... but if you're good (and he gets permission) you may see some teasers leaked here!

More later ...

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Life's a beach ...

Eschatos was sure that his readers were just burning to find out more info on the new Avatrait Island ... only, there's not much to really report as yet. As always, when transferring islands around between people and groups, there have been some snags (the first Avatrait Board members who showed up at the island couldn't "terraform", for instance), but we should have that taken care of today.



Eschatos, however, couldn't resist having 65,536 square meters of sand to play with, so he set up a beach chair and some decor right in the middle of the island, so it didn't look so desolate. Then, using his rudimentary SL building skills, he put together a big honking sign and smacked that right there as well, so when the Avatrait Board do start showing up, they'll know they're in the right place!

Yeah, it's not a big update ... but that's what he's got at this point!

More later ...

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Yeah, it doesn't look like much now ...

Don't you just love "big secret projects"? Eschatos can't get enough of 'em (which is why you keep hearing hints of upcoming stuff in here), and now he's getting to "pull the tarp off" of another one!

Ta-daaaaa ...



Huh? You're not impressed? Just a brown parallelogram floating on a dusky sea? Oh, you of little vision ... THAT is the brand new Avatrait Island in Second Life!

As those who were paying attention (and the might yet be a quiz) will no doubt recall, our Avatrait division is growing remarkably, and our current (very popular) Avatrait Gallery (LINK) was just starting to feel a little cramped. So, we decided "why not do a whole island for Avatrait?".

Not only will Avatrait have its own island, but the celebrated Avatrait Artists will have pretty much free reign for designing it! There will be a big new gallery, a "classroom" building for the Art seminars, an office for the gallery managers and advisory board, a theater for outdoor events, an Avatrait store, and lots, lots more.

We don't know yet what the Artists will come up with, but we're sure it will be very exciting ... no doubt Eschatos will take you all on a number of tours as the work progresses ... which will certainly be more interesting that the view of the current sand patch he's hovering over!

Anyway, more later ...

Friday, July 11, 2008

Two weeks!

Every day Eschatos thinks about his blog readers ... well, the days when he gets a chance to, that is ... some days his typist doesn't even get into S.L., so he isn't rezzed, and well, what do unrezzed avatars dream of? I'm sure the unrezzed Eschatos is dreaming of coming up with exciting things to write about, though!

Things have been alternately frantic and insane (well, with interludes of being both frantic and insane) around the office, and taking the time for Eschatos to even go do something interesting has been hard to come by. But Eschatos was mortified to realize that his last entry here was two weeks ago ... quelle horreur!

Since it would be simply too stressful to relate the actual blow-by-blow of the past half month, Eschatos decided that he was going to come up with a cover story ... and he's sticking to it! If anybody asks, the reason he hasn't posted anything to his blog here is that he had to have his virtual gall bladder out over at Cisco's Palomar West Hospital in Second Life (LINK)...



Poor Eschatos! There he is being medevac'ed to the hospital, in his room chatting with the doctor via video phone, being scanned, then being operated on (through his suit no less), while remote teams looked on, and, finally recuperating post-surgery. The hospital was so thoughtful, allowing him to keep his steaming hot mug of coffee with him, even during the operation!

You see, it wasn't sloth or lack of a deep, abiding, concern for his readers ... it was a medical emergency which caused this two-week silence! In the words of the petite flower, Judy Tenuta: "Hey, it could happen!"

Anyway, Eschatos is feeling chastened by this whole experience and says he will try way harder to make your visits to his blog far more frequently rewarded with new stuff, and the stuff that you'll be being rewarded with being all sorts of cool and fun and newsworthy and all of that.

Or, as most of the other posts end ... more later!

Friday, June 27, 2008

Hello again ...

Well, how time flies when ... well ... all sorts of stuff is competing for a limited slice of time! It looks like I'm going to be falling well short of my "8 posts a month" target this time ... sorry about that.

Anyway, Eschatos was poking around in some of the SL "5th Birthday" activities yesterday, and stumbled over this rendition of King Kong on the Empire State Building ... I have no clue who did it or why, but it seemed interesting enough to share with y'all! That little fly-like spot hovering over the big ape is Eschatos ... doing his typical alt-zoom wandering.



Eschatos had been over that way to check out part of the program being run by Gwenette Writer and Trip Potvin of Broadway Live (LINK) Trip's a long-time real-life Broadway performer and producer, and they've put together some real top-notch entertainment as part of the SL celebrations.

I know these folks because Eschatos' first "permanent home" in SL (once he quit "sleeping" in library lounges over on the old Info Island!) was up in the Broadway Live Tower ... here he is on his balcony overlooking the ocean. If you're interested in finding a very reasonable place to rent that is fun, classy, and well-ordered, you should check out the various options there. They have two high-rise buildings with apartments as little as L$250/week (that's just a real-life buck), and various other "vacation housing" down by the beach.



I'm hoping to have some very exciting news to report next week ... this is big, and it's going to make things very busy around Simuality (although the work itself is going to be outside of SL) ... but that's pretty much all I can say about that right now!

More later ...

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Oh, look ... a NAME!

Well, we finally have the domain lined up, so I can start using the name of the "fashion district" that I've been mentioning ... it's going to be called Pattern9 and, as you can see from these snaps, it's a lot more than just clothes!

Here's Eschatos perched on one of the cupolas of the "white palace" which is going to be the major "mall" of designer showrooms. The dock area just went in yesterday, with big yachts that are available for rental. Our client is big into "fun and games", and there will be cars, boats, hang gliders, surfboards, jet-skis, etc., etc., etc., available across the current six sims of Pattern9!



Most of the planning and work over there is in the hands of our in-world build team, so it's always amusing for Eschatos to take a bit of a fly-around over in Pattern9 to see what's new. This is all centered around Club Mannequin (LINK), which was the start of the "fashion & fun" concept, but it grew so much bigger than that ... and speaking of bigger, the waterway in the above pic (going under the bridge) connects with the Mannequin lagoon, and out into the open ocean which will be navigable out a full sim's worth on each side, making the water activities much more satisfying than just playing in a land-locked lake.



Last time Eschatos posted here, he was checking out the new buildings on the other side of the complex ... well, here's a little peak at the "southwest" corner (although I'm pretty sure that it's actually on the south-east sim), with a railroad, a giant "chopper shop", a Native American village, and circling buzzards (which may even be ridable), looking back towards those apartment towers.

There's lots of stuff still to come over there, with even more expansion plans, so Eschatos is probably going to be foisting more about it to y'all in here ... hope you don't mind. I'll probably be grinding out some P.R. releases too when we start getting the sign-ups for the designer showrooms set. Anyway, Eschatos is excited about all the new stuff, so wanted to share.

More later ...

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Geez ... ya go away for a few days ...

So, Eschatos was MIA from SL for quite a few days. As noted previously, we've been moving the Simuality offices and that went OK, but my computer was feeling poorly from the ride, and it took until today to get back in-world.



In the meanwhile, the build team seems to have been busy working on the upcoming fashion district, so Eschatos had to head over to check out what had been whipped up whilst he was in virtual limbo. Here he's standing over in the "residential" area, on top of some of the boutique buildings.



Just in case you couldn't see him in the wide shot, here he is up close (you know how he gets when he feels like he's appearing in an off-brand "where's Waldo"!). Maybe later this week we'll be able to show you the bridge that's appeared on the other side of the lagoon ... it's in, but the road sort of doesn't go anywhere yet and there are some strange "placeholding" brightly colored blocks where "stuff" (the nature of which, I've not been informed) will eventually appear.

Anyway, we're back ...

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Land, lots of land ...

Not too much to report ... we're still waiting for the City inspectors to tell us we can move to our new offices ... and I'm sure we're going to be insanely busy once we get in there (we just heard some news from a client-in-waiting than makes us think that's about to start rolling!).



Eschatos decided to take a walk and check out the new islands that got delivered last weekend south of the Simuality (LINK) sim. These are going to be part of the "fashion district" that's being built around Club Mannequin (LINK), which is very "unfinished" at the moment, but will be very cool when done!

Anyway, it was a dramatic sunset when Eschatos got up on top of the as-delivered island, so a snapshot seemed to be in order ... he even put away his coffee cup for the occasion!

More later ...

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Uh, oh ...

Oh, dear ... I guess showing Eschatos where we're moving the RL office was a mistake ... he seems to think that we're moving the in-world offices as well, and has boxed stuff up and appears to be waiting for the moving van!



Around Simuality, we're sort of in the same place ... obviously, we've not boxed the computers as yet, but we've got all the files, kits, promo stuff, etc., etc., etc., packed up and ready to go ... we're just waiting for the various City of Evanston inspectors to tell us it's OK to get into the new space. As soon as they say "go" we'll be into moving mode.

Oh, by the way ... the two other islands that we've been waiting for (to complete the "fashion district" being developed around Club Mannequin, out the window behind Eschatos there) arose from the virtual depths over the weekend, so things should be picking up on that project!

More later ...

Friday, May 30, 2008

Moving ...

Doesn't Eschatos look stressed?

I suspect that it's because he doesn't get out into the Real World much ... but there he is, standing in the intersection (thanks to Google Maps' "street view", which is also providing the white lines impaling his neck) in front of Simuality's new corporate HQ ...



If Eschatos seems to be M.I.A. in the early parts of next week, it's because we're in the process of schlepping the desks, computers, printers, routers, and all those Avatrait framing supplies from one side of Evanston to the other. After all, Eschatos is a bit "manifestation challenged" when the computers are all packed up and not connected!

This is going to be a Good Thing, because it puts me only a two-block walk from my subway stop, effectively freeing me from the schedule tyranny of the suburban bus system ... however, it will be a huge hassle while it's happening.

More when we get set up ...

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Something to check out ...

Usually in this space we look at stuff that Eschatos has been doing in S.L. ... but today I'm writing to pimp the Grand Opening of the new Non-Profit Commons sim, "NPC2 Aloft" (LINK). The festivities kick off at 12:30pm SLT and run till 9pm SLT, tomorrow, Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 ... do try to get over there to check it out!



Aside from the expected "speechifying" and open-houses at the various Non-Profits whose groups now have offices there, a full program of live musical performances is scheduled through the day, plus lots of "fun stuff" to enjoy. Eschatos is seen here previewing the "magic carpet tour" of the island ... there's also a horse-and-carriage tour, and bicycles that you can rez and ride around the island! In addition, there's a pool, with diving boards, canoes that can be paddled around the outside of the island, hidden waterfalls, and a bunch of other amusing touches.

Of course, a lot of these are going to be on-going attractions of the NPC2 Aloft, but if you want to check out the music, and get a chance to meet a lot of the folks involved, you'll want to try to make it over there during the Grand Opening tomorrow.

More later ...

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

It's not ALL fun and games ...

It's amazing how cool and refreshing a steaming hot cup of coffee can be when you're standing on the business end of a volcano! Here's Eschatos checking out one of the new features installed by the lovely folks at Linden Labs ... luckily for him, they haven't "enabled damage" there yet, as he even wandered deep into the mountain and sat on big chunks of semi-molten lava that were rezzing there waiting to become fiery ejecta.



That was yesterday, today Eschatos attended a birthday party for one of the Paradise Builders crew who are working on the "fashion district" centered around Club Mannequin (LINK). Virtual ribs were on the grill, and virtual sushi on the table ... and much virtual beer was being consumed.

Eschatos had to beg off early (missing the virtual cake), to head over to the "Large Scale Immersive Events Seminar" that was happening over at chez Clever Zebra ... which was very informative in a general "measure twice, cut once" mode (OK, I'm a former Certified Meeting Professional, so a lot of the stuff was aimed to folks with somewhat less-specific skill sets), plus held out some fascinating hints about stuff that is being developed "out there" for integrating virtual worlds like Second Life into the web!

More later ...

Monday, May 19, 2008

More fundraising ...

Well, we followed up on our Myanmar kiosks with another fund-raising effort, this for helping out the Red Cross with their relief program for the Chinese earthquake ... on Saturday we turned over Club Mannequin (LINK) for a 24-hour event, featuring a large kiosk in the middle of the dancefloor ...



... as well as others around the club and in various locations over on Simuality Island (LINK). While the dollar amount raised was modest, we did get a lot of attention, getting an SL traffic figure of 10487 (which I guess is quite good), as well as having good pick-up for the press releases that went out thanks to the generosity of the folks at PR NewsWire.

If you feel like making a "virtual" donation, both the Myanmar Cyclone and Chinese Earthquake kiosks are still up over in our little corner of Second Life (and may possibly be in various other locations, as we structured these so that folks could take copies to rez in their own areas), so it's not too late. We'll probably leave them up through May, and then cut a check to the Red Cross.

More later ...