My New Assignment.

I love this picture. It was taken at one of my fave places in Second Life. I was researching in RL, and decided to log in and sit for a while while I chatted to friends. The place is DePaul University and I just love the land. There are hideaways I use when I want to escape, and the whole place is beautiful. They even change the look of the place to change with the seasons.

We got told about a new assignment for our 'Biomolecules & Cells' module a while ago, just as forewarning. As soon as the tutor mentioned the word 'Poster' I thought it wouldn't be so bad. I've done academic posters in the past and got good marks for them. Generally I really enjoy doing the research for it and designing the layout.
This one is going to be different though.

I have just logged into our online area for updtes, and found out the rest of the assignment. The project is to create an academic poster about the specific structure and roles of the protein they have assigned us. I was expecting a protein I have heard of before, and as I looked down the list of choices I saw a few I recognised and would have chosen. Then I saw that they had assigned the protein, and we had to check ourselves.
I went to the relevant message, and checked back to see my assignment. "Quinone oxidoreductase"

I now know this is going to be a struggle. I have no idea what this is, and its going to take a lot to research it. A quick google search tells me it is 'the largest and least understood enzyme in the respiratory chain' which is so far outside my usual focus, I have no idea where to even begin.

*sigh* I guess this is what I get for thinking things so far had been relatively easy...

Movie night.

I've always been fussy about my taste in movies. Especially when it comes to horror/thriller films. I can watch bloody films all day long, I can sit through the Saw films or watch funny horror movies like Brain Dead or Dead Snow with no trouble. But as soon as any supernatural element (aka: ghost) is added I become the biggest wuss you ever met. I even got seriously scared at The Ring, which is usually considered pretty tame. I do not enjoy being scared at all!
Tonight me and my flatmate and his girlfriend decided to order pizza and watch movies. They went to the library to pick out a couple of DVDs while I decided to stay behind. They came back with two films. Battle Royale and Jo-on: The Grudge (the original Japanese version of The Grudge).
I knew I should have gone with them to choose.

Blankit Fort!

Howdy!

Those of you who spend time either at the Forum Catel Hangout, or have read the Undead Thread for a while may remember the blanket fort I had fun with a while ago.

Those who dont, here are a couple of pics.

Normal Eyelashes!

Hey folks!


I derserve an award for being a dunce. In the previous post I complained about ending up with white eyelashes and blamed it all on SL. In fact, this is my mistake.
I had downloaded a set of Eloh Eliot's freebie skins, but stupidly I had saved them as jpegs, and had just uploaded them straight into SL as is.
Which is fine, until I realise that there is a space in the skin mesh which has to be transparent (alpha) for the eyelashes to be ok. When you save as a jpeg of course, all the alpha textures turn white - or whatever the background colour is.

So, after fixing this by adding an alpha channel, deleting the white bits, and uploading them as tga files, It is sorted now. See? Normal Eyelashes:
 

I still managed to rock the white lashes for a while though, courtesy of Amaranthim Talon, creator of Talon Faire and the Eyelash Bar. (see the picture at the top of the post). She has some awesome stuff there. Go check it out!

xxClairexx

White Eyelashes

White Eyelashes, originally uploaded by Claire Silverspar.

Don't you just love it? I look fabulous. Right.

Basically, I uploaded a new skin today, and SL being its usual self, decided it would give me white eyelashes of all things. What you see is all the sliders for the eyelashes at the absolute minimum. I've tried going back to older display drivers, clearing the cache, relogging and restarting, rebake, everything I can think of, but this one skin just wont quit it.
And the worst thing is, I love the skin! I don't want to take it off! Just look at the freckles! Aren't they gorgey?
So since I don't want to part with the skin, I've decided I'm going to make the most of white eyelashes and pretend its white mascara or something. I'm going to try and make a new trend for this look lol.

What do you think?

xxClairexx

I found a new ear worm!!

So the other evening (actually it was so late it was now morning) I was reading The Undead Thread over at the SL Forums, as is normal for me, and a round of who can post the most/best youtube links started (always a lot of fun). I usually discover, or rediscover a couple of great new music loves from these rounds, and this time was no different. Not only have I found that I love BB King, but I've shared my latest earworms (Billy Rae Cyrus - Achy Breaky Heart and Elton John - Bennie & The Jets) with others :-p
Joshooah posted a couple of really cool songs, one of them being a cover of that great MJ hit "Beat It"...

I'm hard at work procrastinating, so here are some recipes.

Aren't you all lucky? I'm trying to put off doing some actual work, so I thought I'd share some more recipes with you.

These are for Banana Muffins, Toffee Sauce, and Cherry Chocolate Brownies.

Random Quirks

I have this friend....and she has this website...and I want you all to go look at it because it is full of such awesomeness!

Random Quirks

She makes the most amazing stuff, If I could, I'd buy the lot.
Everything is handmade, and unique. Its fun, and creative, and quirky. They're great for gifts. I bought my sister some earrings, and now they are her favourite pair. The barbie shoe earrings are a stroke of genious! Here's a couple of pictures, just to show how funky this stuff is.

Strappy Purple Sandal Earrings

Inworld At Last!

So I didn't realy get inworld for very long tonight afterall, since my computer threw a paddy at me. It's lost the trick of SL, having not been online in so long, so I think it dislikes being told to do such hard work.

I'll retrain it soon enough.

I'm glad I got online though, however short a time it was. I sat at the hangout for a little bit and Maureen popped in to say hi! I snapped this quick pic, before either of us had to go again.
 

University has made me a slob.

Happy New Year everyone!

 So, its a new year, and a new decade too! Its also my first post in a very long time. I want to apologize for the irregularity of my posts. I will try to get better with this.

After a rather hectic festive season, I now find myself back at University, with twice as much work to do and I still find myself wishing I could get on SL more often.

I'll log in tonight, to explore, and perhaps hang around the Forum Cartel Hangout, hoping people will turn up who I can chat with.

But first, I wanted to give you a quick catch up on my RL.