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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...