@kqthomson, AKA KeithThomson SecretSpy, is all set for his upcoming Second Life appearance on Monday, 22nd of March at Lacamas Reading Hall (6pm SLT/PDT). Through the miracle of multiple streaming conversations via a variety of aetheric tele-communication devices, KT was able to call me.

Right, so that’s sorted. It’s a rugged Steampunk spy look, and the author approved his avatar’s appearance when I spoke with him last night in a dry-run appearance at Lacamas Reading Room with BookemJackson Streeter and Dano Bookmite. Thank GOD we got Skype running, I had to install it on the fly and figure out how to set up a conference so that I didn’t have KT in my aetherphone headpiece and Mr and Mrs Bookses on my Second Life headset.

It was a very confusing and frustrating conversation until we got that figured out. Thanks to my invaluable spouse and partner Rock Fall, SUCCEEDED.

However, it was a bit dicey at first, when I noticed that KT had come inworld, but he didn’t know how to answer my IMs and hadn’t called via aetheric handset yet. I had to TP over to his rezz point and search – fortunately, the mini-map shows nearby friends as gold dots, so I soon tracked him to his secret lair… which consisted of being stuck in a wall somewhere in the dorms area of Caledon Oxbridge. Then the aetheric ‘set went off in my ear and we were golden: walking, talking, learning how to cope with the information overload that is Second Life.

Author extricated from the Oxbridgean architecture and welcomed, we moved to the Pini region, where the Lacamas Reading Hall is located. Bookem had teleported us to the middle of the Cafe Wellstone dance floor, right into the middle of the “No More War” costume event.

At least they’re a well-read, well-dressed bunch:

Here’s Stranger Nightfire in his contest-winning costume, with the title “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More.” Stranger always has the best costumes – you should see his saurian ones.

Information overload! After a few minutes, I suggested we move back to the Lacamas hall and practice the essentials: sitting down, and talking. We discovered that the attractive wingback chairs that will be used have a kind of girly loungy sit animation, so I found something else KT could sit in and be manly and spy-ish. Once that was accomplished, all went Better. It was actually Even Better after Rock helped me figure out Skype, because I had two separate conversations in my ears, via the two sets of headsets.

Dancing and snarking and winning Lindens in contests can come later, I’m thinking. For right now, sitting and talking is the goal, and it happens tomorrow night!

So now KT is feeling a little less confuzzled about how to do this appearance in Second Life, and I think Monday will “go” with a bang. We all started chatting about his book, and the bizarre things that happen when trying to make a phone call (children go ballistic, bikes fall over in horrific disarray).

We think KT won’t need a Kevlar body armor vest when he appears, and he’s looking forward to not having to deal with the TSA, too. Teleportation has its charms.

While waiting for KT to hail me, I was taking a class at Happy Hippo inworld on how to put a “dancing” texture on a prim. It was advertised as being for GIMP, which I’ve been struggling to learn on my own via GIMPTricks’ helpful videos.

Interesting, but I didn’t have much use for that particular thing: however, I did learn how to make a grid in Gimp, divide it into a 4X4 square, and then make 16 images “snap to” that grid. The class would have had us snap them one at at a time, but ended up moving all 16 and re-arranging them. I suppose this might come in handy for animating a texture in general hey? And I have an idea for using an animated texture later in the process of getting stuff ready for the shop.

Managed to finish the class just as I noticed KeithThomson Superspy had appeared, so it was a pretty productive evening all around.