Patrick Coleman's Blog

The End

patrickcoleman — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:21:16 +0000

It’s alsmot sad to say but this will be my last blog post. The class is over next Thursday and to be honest I am a little sad. It was definitely my favorite class of the semester. I have such a different opinion of SL now than I did when I registered for the class and deep down inside I think I wanted that to happen. I met so many nice people in SL like Sitearm, Sims even Joe technically because I did not meet him until about a month into class because I was added to the class late. Here is my individual movie assignment: https://webspace.utexas.edu/pcc372/SL/Second Life.avi it might be able to sum up the semester a little better than this post can because I have never been a very good writer. On another note, I’m looking forward to going to make the video for Joe next week in the green room. I think it will be really cool for my avatar to speak with my voice. I never used voice chat until our final project but it was so much of a different experience than when you were only know by what you typed and what you looked like. Finally, there was a voice connected to Stix Titanium and I wonder if it was what others expected or completely shocking. I think since my avatar is such a macho guy, some might have expected me to have a pretty high voice because a lot of people have avatars of what they hoped to be in real life or at least I think so. So when my deep voice came out of Stix’s mouth it would have been cool to hear what others had to think about it. Some final notes about our project. I thougth it went really well but unforunately we forgot to mention to donate lindens for relay for life; however, we ended up still receiving about 10,000 so not too bad for forgetting to say something. Also, Sim’s IMed at the end of our project and gave me the offer to come back and do a little bit more prospecting and become a real patched member of SoH. I’m not too sure any of my other group members received that offer but it made flattered me a bit that she wanted me to be a SoH when all I had come to do was learn.

Rescheduled

patrickcoleman — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:53:24 +0000

This Sunday was pretty frustrating. We were suppose to have our project at 2 slt starting with a family motorcycle ride. We were told by the President that this was when the ride was going to be but the location was still unknown. So we took her word for it and posted it on our notecard about the event. Once all our group gathered and were in the computer lab, we start talking to her and we realize it was moved to 1 slt. So now the beginning of our project has already been screwed up without even starting yet. Once our official start time roles around all the SoH are already gone from the ride location and at a concert. Luckily, Joe being the cool guy he is let us reschedule. For our next go around however we have scratched the riding portion and are going to just stick with a panel and dance party. Here is a SLURL to our panel location: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Educators%20Coop%201/87/232/27. This is actually nice for us though because we did not seem to have much publicity around our last event and it was questionable if people besides the saints would even show up. I went around handing out notecards about our event at all the locations I had landmarked. I went to Dublin first thinking it would be the best place because there would be a big crowd of people but I got yelled at and in trouble. They told me there was no advertising for places other than Dublin at Dublin. It made sense but it wasn’t like I was trying to steal there visitors permanently, I just wanted them to come check out our discussion and thought some people might be interested there. Joe gave us a place to post information about our event on a teacher’s blog site which he think will get a lot of people to come. I just hope there are more than five people there because we have put a lot of work into it and it would be a shame for a low turn out and not very many donations to the Saint’s of Hell foundation.

Prospecting

patrickcoleman — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:21:24 +0000

This week was full of events while prospecting for the Saints of Hell. We had to wash their motorcycles why they made fun of us then scrub the floors of the club. We washed and scrubbed for about an hour then they let us party with them. Here are some pictures of us putting in work to be a Saint:

Did I mention they made us get naked and eventually do all our work in black thongs? They are pretty intense at times. It’s fun to step back and laugh about it afterwards but I won’t lie some of them are really intemidating and I don’t even know them. This week I also went to the training cage for shooting for the first time. It was a ton of fun actually, it was like a video game inside a game even though I know SL isn’t a game. I was really good at it supposedly. They called me a natural and before I knew it had the high score in two out of the three categories. Not sure that went over well with some of the members so they challenged me to a shoot out. I ended up beating both of the people that went up against me by 100 points of more. That made them extra mad so I was not treated to well that night at Club Body Shots, the place where all the Saints of Hell party at night. I finally bought my motorcyle this week too. It’s really sweet. My mentor hooked me up with a dealer that gave me a really good price. It has some pretty sweet features too. The color of the bike changes as you ride between grey and black (it’s a zombie motorcycle). Also I just found out there is a feature which allows you to have sex while riding. I thought that was pretty funny but the rest of the Saints said that most of their bikes have that feature too. I can even stand up on it while riding. I think it will help me fit right in with the Saints. We are going on a ride this weekend for our final project and I’m glad I’ll get to show it off.

Saints of Hell

patrickcoleman — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:50:39 +0000

This week was very interesting in SL. I am now officially a prospect of Saint of Hell. Therfore, I’ve been spending most of my time lately at Club Body Shots, here’s the Slurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Saints%20of%20Hell/136/162/25 . It’s really pretty funny to hang out there sometimes. It seems that every night they have a themed party but I’m not a 100% positive if that’s right or not. Since I started hanging around, they have had Nurses and Doctors, Masters and Mistresses, and a few other kind of out of the ordinary parties. I feel like it is a really kinky fraternity party at times. They have four stripper poles, and there are always girls on them. I guess they put attachments on their avatars because they have actual body parts if you catch my drift. They are very forward their too. Anyways, prospecting is not too bad so far. All they have really asked for are drinks which are pretty easy to give since the President of SoH gave me an inventory of like a hundred different drinks. She really nice. I had my prospect meeting on Tuesday, but last night the rest of my group had their prospect meeting and it was funny watching it after I had already had mine. They were having a SoH group chat making fun of everyone during their meeting which I assume they were doing the same thing while I was having my meeting but had no idea it was going on because I was not a member of the SoH group yet. While being a prospect, I have a sponsor who pretty much shows me the ropes and looks after me. His name is McCarty. He’s really nice, and is always on so we chat a lot. He’s probably become my SL “best friend” if you will. Part of my prospect period is to commit a felony to prove that I am really serious about joining the SoH so that’s what we have been talking about lately. Trying to plan the perfect crime. I’m not sure what is and what isn’t considered a crime in SL but I think it will be pretty fun. Looking forward for this weekend because we are going on a “family” motorcycle ride which will be an experience.

4/14/09

patrickcoleman — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:28:45 +0000

My first day as an offical prospect of the Saints of Hell. Here’s my prospect meeting:

A Day in the Life of Saints of Hell

patrickcoleman — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:42:29 +0000

This week we finally got in touch with Sims Rang, President of SoH. So I thought I fit in pretty well when I gave my avatar a makeover, but when she saw me she laughed. All the ranking officers laughed as well. We were “noob” bikers I guess. So once we became prospects of SoH they gave a complete make over. Here is my avatar now:

I actually like him a lot more now. He’s got a lot of tattoos and I’m sure you can’t tell from the picture but he has a huge scar across his entire face. It’s pretty sweet. They gave me all these clothes too. She even gave me the gloves I’m wearing which are only suppose to be for members of SoH who have “patched” or finished the prospective period. I that that was really nice of her considering I just started. Anyways it’s been really interesting hang around at their club. Here’s the slurl to their place: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Saints%20of%20Hell/136/162/25 . It’s pretty mature content though which I think is funny. If I go there are night there are always strippers dancing on poles while everyone else is grinding in the middle of the dance floor. I also learned from Sims that they don’t consider themselves a group or a gang, but an actual family. Almost every member has a partner and if they don’t they are usually a couples sl kids. Sims says she has five SL kids which I thought was interesting because potentially her kid could be older than she is. She introduced me to Brutus, her partner, who she said was one of the top three bike builders in SL. She said she would talk to him for me but thought there was a good chance I could spend some time with him to try and build my own chopper. That’s what I wanted to do from the very beginning of the project so I’m really excited that it might actually happen. Also, they gave me a sponsor who is suppose to look after me and show me the ropes of SoH. Her name is Jenna Coppola. We only talked once but she seemed really nice at the time. I’m starting to see that there is a lot more to SL than just our island and its pretty cool. More to come next week.

My New Avatar

patrickcoleman — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 01:56:21 +0000

As I mentioned in an earlier post I was really interested in making my avatar more unique because I thought I was too “normal”. I switched T-shirts for some time that Sitearm gave everyone which I liked. I also carried around a beer she gave us too for quite sometime until during our tours of our builds I switched it for a Gatorade I bought at a vending machine. Well I have finally become quite different. For our final project we will be working with a biker group (I think Hells Angels, I always forget). Part of our final project is role play so I had to dress the part. Here is my newest look:

North helped me out in the beginning by giving me some leather pants and a vest then suggested a website where I bought some other accessories to put on. I personally think the studded belt and wrist bands make the outfit. Currently I am working on learning how to buy or put tattoos on Stix Titanium which I think will complete my “role play character” for the final project. Anyways, its amazing how much the clothes you were and the way you appear to other people in SL because they first day I went to visit the gangs island and tried to talk to them and ask questions they were really mean. I think its cause they could tell I was an outsider because I wasn’t wearing biker garb. But when I went back today and was just walking around, people would come up to me and try to start a conversation. I thought it was really funny and almost a little too much like a real life situation. My goal for over the weekend is to get in touch with Sims Rang. North said that he is the leader of the biker gang and that students last year worked with him and he was very welcoming to North’s students class. Also, I feel like he’d be a great person to contact because if he tells someone to take care of me or any other member of my group I would think the person would listen considering he is the head guy. I’m starting to get really excited about this project and I’m sure there will be much more to talk about next week.

Green Dot Effect

patrickcoleman — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:32:21 +0000

Our test was today and after reading Au’s book, I tried to explore some things he talks about in the book. I searched Nexus Prime but it didn’t show up on the map. I don’t know if that means that it is gone or I am just unable to access it but I was pretty bummed. I really wanted to see what he had described so beautifully. The next thing I did was explore the green dot effect. So I pulled up my map and there was a dot overload. I tried to find a place with the most dots. However, the first place I went that had so many dots they were stacked on top of each other like a tower. It was called winter wonderland. When I got there though I couldn’t find anyone. I was kinda disappointed because I thought I was going to be at a place where there were going to be more than just the class and Joe which is a total of 13. I thought I would have for the first time in SL be in a crowd. Since my first try was unsuccessful I tried the theory out for a second time. Once I teleported this was the image that I came to see first:

I’m not sure if you can exactly see what it is at first glance but it’s like thirty names of people or the little bubble things that are above peoples’ heads when they are walking around. For instance mine says Stix Titanium University of Texas. Anyways all of those bubbles were arranged around this white ball of light. I have no idea what it is but I thought it was really interesting. I could not find many people on the island I was on but according to the map there seemed to be hundreds. This might be an example of people being paid to just be online at a certain location so that people who use the green dot effect frequently when searching for a place to go will chose their sight? I have no clue. This was just a first I had stumbled upon in SL and thought it was pretty interesting and weird at the same time.

Bevo Ranch

patrickcoleman — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:26:30 +0000

So for our project over last week my group decided to build a ranch. Since I like to build so much and I like to think I’m getting pretty good at it, my group put me in charge of building the actually building. Here’s the SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Educators%20Coop%201/17/222/22 . One thing that was really hindering us though was the fact we had a limit on prims. We didn’t know this in the beginning and found out luckily a day before the project was due. Joe gave us more land but we still used them all up that’s why there is a lack of animals on our ranch. I guess we will call it a ranch in progress since there are a few cows and a calf. I thought I really good job on it because I laid out a floor plan instead of trying to make up the layout of the house on my own. Also, I found doors with scripts already assigned to them so we have working doors on our ranch too. Today in class we were assigned our groups for the final project. I am happy with my group because they are guys that I know from my fraternity. We had trouble brainstorming a topic and were really uncertain on what it should be. Some ideas were a poker tournament with all buy ins going to a non-profit. Another was an a battle to the death as a gladiator in the Colosseum. Some others were scavenger hunts through SL, sumo wrestling and a few other absurd ideas. I’m looking forward to the project because I think it will be fun to experience SL outside of only working with classmates and having to interact with other people’s avatars. Although I already have a feeling that if we will be building something that prims will be an issue. Also, this was the first time I have met Joe in first life. It was a little creepy about how well his avatar represents him minus the fact that his avatar is really small and hes a big guy. It was a little funny meeting him because I always had this conception of what he was like from SL in my head but had never met him before in real life.

My week in SL

patrickcoleman — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:17:09 +0000

This week in SL was really cool. I got to experience new places that I had never seen before and some that I had and didn’t even realize it. On Tuesday Sitearm gave us a tour of Dublin which was awesome. She took us around on a cool moving deck would be the best way to describe I think. The funny thing was, the bar she took me and North to afterwards when everyone else had left was the first place I went in SL. So I thought that was pretty funny. Then on Thursday we went around and toured different places: an amusement park, a mansion, and a zoo. My group did the zoo and it was really fun. Here’s the SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Luana%20Cove/131/129/25 . I’m excited about our new project Joe gave us because its all about building again. My group hasn’t decided about what we are going to do yet but we are all in the same fraternity so I thought it might be cool to make our fraternity house in SL. It’d be pretty difficult but I think it’d be a fun and cool idea. I still have to talk to my group about it though. Back to Sitearm though, I thought it was really interesting how she had spent three years building Dublin. I can’t imagine spending that much time on a project on SL. I think I would get bored and give up but she seems to truely have a passion for it. She said she visits and takes pictures then her and her team recreate it in SL from the pictures they took. They must have gotten really good at it over the years because Dublin looks great. She always showed me a billboard with other cool places to go like London. There are about 30 places on the billboard and I’m going to check a few out to see if they are anything like her city.