RenderFarClip and BBBC6 - How has it been?

Ener gave a nice tip on her blog a while ago: If you set Debug->RenderFarClip to a high value, you can see farther than the 512 meters that is max in Graphics Options.

I discovered today that in OpenSim sometimes you can see through non-existing regions too! If you look closely between the two windmills on the right, you can see some other mills near the horizon far behind: That's actually Ener's builds in Enclave Passage, 3 empty sims away:-)

BBBC, final topic:
Did you find this year to be harder or easier than previous years? Did you have fun? What did you get out of it this time around? Do you think you'd do it again?

I found some of the themes not harder perhaps, but a bit more thought-provoking. It's been fun, as it was last year, and I'd definitely do it again! Blogging a post each and every day is not something that I will manage (I just know that my enthusiasm for all things goes in waves, virtual worlds and blogs no exception). But it was nice to have a sort of "pressure" on me this week - even though it kind of broke apart at the end. It's also fun to read what other bloggers write about the same theme - I guess Zippora's post regarding crossing the SL-RL relationship border is the one I will remember best.

BBBC4: Forever Young?

Today's challenge: Is your avatar more or less your current biological age? Do you portray a younger avatar, or older? Why is this?

Who is he trying to impress?

When I shaped my av, I wanted to avoid looking too much like a testosterone-filled body-builder. That said, I guess my avatar do work out a bit more than I do :-) But I don't consciously try to appear a certain age. I'm clearly an adult, and I think I look like one in SL as well. I guess it feels more comfortable, not having to play a part of some sort. Cristopher is in most ways quite like me IRL.

And yes, I do have more formal wear, both in SL and RL:-)

While getting rid of the noob look inWorldz however, I clearly ended up looking much younger than I really am. And that actually felt good:-) I do think I will keep that look there, to find out if visual avatar age do make a difference.

The inWorldz me

Somehow I wonder if looking young is more important for the female avatars. Joonie summed it up quite nice: "Is this what you want to see?"

Does it matter as much for a male? Well, look at the guy to the left. Michael Douglas is 66, and he kind of look like it. Even so, Catherine Zeta-Jones, 40 but not looking quite like that, had a rather nice comment about her husband the other night: At the Tony Awards, she said:

"See that man there? He's a movie star and I get to sleep with him every night."

(Do take a look at the video clip, it certainly made me smile:-)

It's kind of sad that she felt the need to apologize for that in the aftermath. Undignified, she said. I think it must be the nicest compliment a man could get, LOL.

It seems to me that being old has been less of a turn-off for a man than for a woman. But that is changing, luckily; Sex and the City 2 is just one sign of it. The fact is, people of both gender is getting more and more conscious about keeping their bodies fit and looking attractive, even at 60+. So, the old rock-and-roll saying "Die Yong, stay pretty" is maybe about to die.

Pretty is also so much dependent on your attitude and expectations; and virtual worlds teaches us to love a soul rather than the physical expressions of it. Our avatars are the virtual expressions of our souls, so if any of us are looking younger than our physical age it does not matter I think, as long as we match the age of our mind. Because in SL, its the mind that counts, really!

BBBC1: The Why and the How

Today's Topic: Why did you become a blogger? How has it enriched your life?

I started with an RL blog several years ago, mostly because of the tech involved in setting up a blog server in the basement LOL. To find something worthwhile to fill it with, I started writing reviews of every novel I read (and since that was pre-SL time for me, I actually had time to read a few...).

After a while in SL i discovered the SL blogsphere, and that inspired me to start a blog about the art gallery I was running at the time. Cris' Gallery is now history, but the blogging habit survived.

Blogging my SL adds another dimension to it. It's also a kind of ice-breaker when I meet artists and gallery owners I like. It seems like a lot of my posts are about art; I have a strategy of only writing about the exhibits and works that touches me. It happens ever so often that I walk around galleries that just don't give me any good wibes - instead of writing a post basically saying "this sucks" I rather just pass it. So my blog is not a journal, it's biased towards the stuff I find I love in SL (and lately also in the virtual world beyond SL).

I find writing so fulfilling that sometimes it seems much more fun to blog about my SL that to actually live it. Sigh. But the knowledge that people all around the world reads what I write adds an excitement to the writing. So basically blogging enriches me because it is a natural form of getting out my creative (?) writing, just as SL sometimes releases my creative building skills.

I'm looking forward to this week, hope I can manage a post every day!