2 posts tagged “second life”

Phew. I feel like I'm lurching towards the end of the year, having worked my arse off since going freelance in July. I've only got two more one-off assignments to finish, plus my daily blogging commitments for Shiny Media and Pocket Gamer/Pocket Picks.

Next year will see a change of emphasis, I think. I've learned that a lot of the one-off commissions tend to be last-minute - "Can you do this 2000-word piece for, er, Friday?" - and that doesn't always fit in with 6 hours a day of paid blogging commitments. Hence all the evenings and weekends I've been furiously typing away recently.

Hopefully I'll be able to focus more on the regular stuff in 2007, with a few choice one-off commissions if they fit in. The baby arriving in April (hopefully) will be a huge change anyhow, so I want to get the work under control by then. Of course, it may mean I have MORE time to work (just at 3am).

What else is new? I sidled into my old work's Christmas drinks yesterday, drank lots of wine, and ended up eating a plate full of random seafood in a backstreet Chinese restaurant. I've not been feeling great today, unsurprisingly, but at least I can pretend it was the food.

I met Mena from Vox creators Six Apart yesterday too, to interview her for Tech Digest (the piece is appearing next week). I better not give too much away, other than to say she had loads of interesting stuff to say, and was thoroughly nice to boot. *readopts cloak of journalistic cynicism* Well, it was okay, y'know.

I've also unwittingly sparked a racism row online, after doing a report on a Second Life debate where a music marketing guy said a certain event was the first time he'd seen black avatars in Second Life. After another blog reported on my story and criticised him for his naivety - apparently there've been loads of black avatars in Second Life for ages - he popped up on that blog's comments claiming I'd misquoted him.

Grr. I checked my notes, and they were bang on. I asked the journo who'd been sitting next to me, and his notes backed me up. I met the people who ran the debate yesterday, and they remembered him saying it too. I'm all for people picking up journalists on errors / misquotes, but when they cry wolf falsely just to save face when they've said something silly, it's annoying (and borderline libellous). Grr again.

Oh, I'm rambling now, that's what comes from Voxing during a train journey with nothing else to do. Final things: Wii is amazing, Rayman Raving Rabbids is the dark horse hit of the launch titles. Christmas shopping makes me weep hot, salty tears of self-pity. The cats have started bringing home dead starlings. And I could do with a week off... Especially if it involves lots of playing Wii, no Christmas shopping, and as few bird corpses as possible...

Am hot-footing it about town this afternoon, first a meeting with Ashley from Shiny Media, then onto a Second Life music biz debate tonight.

I'm looking forward to that actually, as I'm still not convinced that the only thing record labels get out of a Second Life isn't just column inches. Also, someone whose job title is 'metaverse evangelist' is speaking, which is intriguing.

I'm picturing a virtual version of the sinner/winner guy at Oxford Circus, although the reality will be a chap saying 'Second Life is great, please invest in it so my job remains relevant...' Sorry, this is cynical, I know...