Uh ... hello?

OK, so Eschatos had been so hopeful that he was going to be appearing on these pages with substantial frequency after his back-to-back posts last month, but it's been over a month and he's not been back until now ... for which he apologizes (as he glares at his typist). Things have been chaotic, though, and showing up in SL has not been fitting easily into the schedule!

Today, however, Eschatos attended the Job Fair that Amazon was hosting in-world:



That's the aerial view of the event with a couple of insets of Eschatos ... who, despite this being supposedly a business event, was seriously over-dressed! He even got a shot with Jeff Bezos (well, with a magazine cover). If Eschatos had been running the event (which he would dearly like to be in a position to do in the future!) he'd have had a virtual "cut-out" of Mr. Bezos so that Avatars could get their snapshots with the boss!

Speaking of things that Eschatos would have done ... there were a LOT of things that were just "not right" at this ...



... as you can see there, the concept was that there were going to be "virtual first-round interviews" happening ... and they had "booths" (the little "huts" in the top pic) set up for various functions and divisions. But, nobody was manning these, there were a lot of "Amazon Employee" avatars around, but there were only a handful that were communicating with the visitors. Now, you have to remember that Eschatos' typist is a former Certified Meeting Professional, so this was driving the whole "team Eschatos" nuts ... and I guarantee that we would done a far better job of running this if WE were in charge! As you can see from the other pics here, there were no bodies in any of the desks, or (with the sole exception of the IMDB "booth") in the specific job areas.

It wouldn't have taken very much to have assigned two of the various Amazon folks to each of the "huts", had somebody AT the "reception desk" to specifically answer the "what/how?" questions, and provided more details about the whole process. Essentially, an Avatar visiting this today could drop their resume (on a SL notecard) in a mailbox, and try to ask questions of the folks milling about. Aside from picking up some free swag, that was the extent of it.

Needless to say, Amazon COULD USE SOME IN-WORLD MANAGEMENT/PROMOTION STAFF (hint, hint, nudge, nudge), and Eschatos hopes that is OCD-enhanced typist will be relentless on following up the few leads he was able to extract from this!

More later ...

Well ...

Bet you didn't think you'd be hearing from Eschatos this soon, did you? To be perfectly honest with you, Eschatos is a bit surprised too, but happy to be back into the word spinning biz. Aside from all the Zen stuff about what happens to an un-rezzed avatar, Eschatos would rather be out and about, given the choice.

Now, he's a bit sensitive about this, since just about the only things of interest he'd come up with over the past many months were announcements of the books for Avatrait Gallery showings, and here is his again shilling for another book, but that's just the hand that fate's dealt him, and he'll simply have to get over his fear that his readers (if there are any left!) will consider him a "one trick pony".




This is a little peek into the WSI SL HQ ... Eschatos is very proud of how this is turning out. The shelf in the background there is made up books that link to alphabetical listings of downloadable .pdf books from the WitchSchool Library, but the focus here is on the new .pdf-only release of Ed Hubbard's "Witch Wars Defense Manual" ... a notorious volume that had been out of print/circulation for the better part of a decade. Drop by the SL build or the WSI Ning Site if you want to pick up a free copy!




Of course, Eschatos is never happy until he gets his picture into these blog posts, so here he is ... out on the deck outside of the classroom space on the upper level of the WSI SL HQ. He's very excited to get a program of classes/talks/workshops going up there, but we're just now getting the inSL volunteer force (we're hoping to have the center staffed 24/7) organized, so it might be a few more weeks until that can happen.

Needless to say, if having back-to-back missives here is any sign, you'll likely be hearing every little detail in what's happening in-world!

More later ...

Soooo ...

I'm guessing that if Eschatos had "regular readers" in the past, they have all given up on him by now. It's been nearly 3 months since there were predictable updates here. And it's not been pretty on the other end, let me tell you!

In his last missive, Eschatos was talking about a big new project that was taking up nearly all of his typist's time (which was why he hadn't been showing up much back then). Well, that FELL THROUGH. Yes, all these contracts were executed, a press event was held in NYC, lots of grip-and-grin ... then KABLOOEY! Total, unmitigated, picture-in-the-dictionary SNAFU. Two weeks into the deal, both sides were looking across the table and wondering where the money was.

Eschatos, being made of pixels, is fortunate to not usually have to deal with these sorts of things (although that reminds him that he owes rent on his apartment over in Broadway Live), but he can't understand how this whole thing progressed as far as it did without those involved in the negotiations getting around to the dollars (Linden or otherwise). It's CPU-boggling!

Anyway, this pretty much proved to be the coup de grâce for the company, which had been crawling towards a "promised payday" in April. Instead of a payday, there was having to give up the offices, sell the furniture, and skulk off to other zones to reel at the unrelenting string of bad luck that had manifested over the past six or so months. And Eschatos was very unhappy to discover his office (and massive colonnade) evaporated, along with our other SL stuff. Sucks to be us.





Anyway, Eschatos' typist had brought in a piece of business back when there still was a company to handle it ... it was a multi-platform project for WitchSchool International, which has web, video, social networking, classes, and Virtual Worlds aspects involved. Over the past couple of months, Eschatos has gone weeks of not being rezzed when his typist has been cranking code to get the WitchSchool.com site up and running. Eschatos has, however, played a significant role in getting the WSI SL HQ (the pic is of him sitting at the "welcome" desk) up and functioning.

The build features a downloadable library, a video collection, a classroom, extensive literature racks, and an outdoor multi-function space. While it's not "finished" finished, it's quite well along, and we're anticipating starting to do classes there in the next week or so ... so do go and check it out!

Eschatos' typist is integrating this blog in a site he's developing, so the odds are pretty good that you'll be seeing more frequent updates ... even though Eschatos (and his typist) are spending the majority of their hours looking for work. If you know of any opportunities out there for communication and/or management gigs that require a solid Virtual World background, please give us a shout, either here or on LinkedIn!

More later ...

I know, a LONG time ...

So, it's been over three weeks since you've had an update from Eschatos ... that's very bad, since he really would prefer to have something in here a couple of times a week. Unfortunately, Eschatos has a problem. It's one of those "made of pixels" issues ... when his typist can't make it into Second Life, poor old Eschatos stays "unrezzed", and if Eschatos doesn't rez, he can't go do stuff to report to y'all. It's frustrating for everybody involved, and is always in danger of floating off into metaphysical navel-gazing about the nature of the un-rezzed Avatar!



So, Eschatos begged and pleaded and got onto the schedule. Having nothing "topical" to illustrate, he opted for "tropical" and headed over the Visit Mexico sim, one of his faves. He discovered something over there that he hadn't been aware of previously, now at the "ballcourt" (where he's pictured), they now have animations so that you can bring a bunch of people over and actually play the Mesoamerican "ball game" ... although Eschatos wonders if they have the sacrificial parts of that scripted in!

Eschatos supposes that you're asking what's so important that his typist can't even run him off to the NPC meetings that he'd attended week in and week out for months? Well, it's still a bit of a Big Secret Project ... but one where the tarp's getting pulled off of it about this time next week. Here's a bit of a hint, as he went off to our "DJ club" build to check on what needed to be done there ...



Needless to say, with only a week to go, Eschatos is itching (looks like he's scratching something in that shot) to spew out all the details, but he's controlling himself. He did want me to tell everybody that they could get the general story by checking out Joey Seiler's Virtual World News article which covers the main points. Plus, you can go to the site, http://PlanetsBestDJ.com and sign up (please do!) and be around for all the excitement.

Anyway, Eschatos is sorry that he's been invisible for so long, but he wants me to remind you that he doesn't have a whole lot of say in the matter. Once we get the Virtual World part of this project rolling, he'll have LOTS of news, with celebrities, foreign locales, and all sorts of unusually exciting stuff to report. He's also looking forward to the start of another project that is just waiting the go-ahead, which will be developing a new thing in SL, and has been hinted at in this space previously. Oh, and Eschatos wanted to mention that since he last did an update, there's been yet another Avatrait Gallery Show book published ... to check that out, either go to the Avatrait.com site (do go and sign up!) or to the books site.

Anyway, more later ...

Another new book!

Yes, Eschatos has been busy ... we're finally getting a schedule together for the upcoming shows at the Avatrait Gallery (LINK) and he's responsible for a whole bunch of stuff, including getting things ready for the real-world print storefront for each show on the Avatrait site, and a book of the images, and even a CafePress store just in case you can't live without a coffee cup, t-shirt or thong with the current show's graphic on it!



Here's Eschatos admiring his handywork on the in-world version of the real-world book of the show that's opening this weekend. As Avatrait is going to two featured shows a month, he's going to be filling up that rack in our shop over in Publisher's Village (LINK) real soon!

The best way to check out all this is to head on over to http://avatrait.com, heck, go there to sign up for a free account if you haven't already!

Aside from all this stuff, Eschatos has been deeply involved in some Big Secret Projects that are very near the point where he can talk about them ... so, stay tuned!

More later ...

Eschatos has a nightmare?

Eschatos has been existing in that un-rezzed limbo (where trees falling unobserved in the forest reside) for much of the past week. Things around the RL office have been way too hectic to allow much in-world activity. However, his rent over at Broadway Live was late, so we made the time for him to take care of thst!

When he got back to the in-world office, he went to sit on his desk chair, and suddenly found himself in darkness, at coordinates 0,0,0, and, further inexplicably, in the middle of a frame from an old Avatrait gallery show!



OOOOOH, spooky, eh? The spell was broken by taking this snapshot (I guess the silly "say cheese" animation over-rode whatever sent him down there), but at least the moment was memorialized!

It seemed like quite a bit of random flotsam and jetsam was lost down under the Island, and Eschatos (ever the dutiful manager) got as close to it as he could and sent the various chunks of primstructure back to their "owners" before turning the clock back over to his typist.

As always, there are Big Secret Plans in the works, but much of the time crunch is trying to get the Avatrait site up to full functioning before some major media hits next month ... and right now Eschatos' typist is the only pixel-pusher and HTML monkey available, so has been working 10-14 hours days for weeks.

Anyway ... more later ...

TaaaDaaa ...

So, if there are long stretches of time when Eschatos seems MIA to our loyal readers ... well, you know, there are other things than Second Life out there, right? Right? OK, so you won't get very far trying to sell that to Eschatos, since if he's not being rezzed, well, that's when the metaphysics kicks in.

Anyway, Eschatos is very excited that there's a new book out as of this weekend ...



... actually, this is the first in a whole series of books that will be recording the various shows at the Avatrait Gallery (LINK)!

This also comes with a new "storefront" for each in-world gallery opening, where Real World versions of the featured artist's works are available for order ... I know, it makes Eschatos' head swim as well.

All he can say is that you need to surf over to http://avatrait.com, and poke around in all those tabs and sub-tabs ... sign up for a free account while you're there and "tell 'em Eschatos sent ya!" (not that he's actually participating in the current "membership promotion" contest).

More later ...