~Character Attributes~
Character’s Full Name: Ina Centaur
Ajah: Brown
Age: Unknown
Home Country: Cairhien

~Character Details~
Personality:
She’s the type of girl who can lock herself up in a cloister for half a lifetime, reading and cross-referencing, and writing.

Likes:
She likes books.

Dislikes:
She extremely dislikes unwanted visitors, and is said to have come close to using the One Power as a weapon to ward off solicitors.

~Character History~
Family:
They say that there’s a Waygate hidden in the basement of her ancestral home, and that she spends much of her sabbatical time studying it and venturing to worlds beyond.

History:
Little is known of the Aes Sedai named Ina Centaur. Nothing is known for certain other than that she’s from a wealthy family in Cairhien.

There are tales, however…

It is said that her parents, wealthy nobles, had been appaled that their only daughter was “cursed” with the One Power, and would think nothing of having her sent off to Tar Valon. The Aes Sedai who found her had had to use the One Power to protect herself from her family’s mercenaries, and to steal Ina away.

It is also said that she became very drawn into herself, would often fast just to spend long hours reading uninterrupted, when she saw a girl who looked just like her chained to an a’dam and forced to kill another, when she ran away a novice.

It is believed that she has returned to her ancestral home to study a Waygate.

Other Alts:
Her twin sister, who was separated at birth (stolen by the goodwife, who was a darkfriend), Ina Minotaur is rumored to be a darkfriend and disciple of Lanfear.

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Less than six months ago, I would have readily offered to help people (non-blood-family members; the other people get everything for free) I know in financial need with small grants (not loans - they can pay me back if they wish; of course, if they made a fuss that they will absolutely pay me back, and end up not, then I’d take that as a judgment of their character). The largest grant I’ve given out is about $500 US dollars, and I typically spend a few thousand dollars a year on these merit-with-need grants.

So, the other day, a good friend was having a sale on SL, where some of her highest priced items wouldn’t be more than $3 US dollars, and yet I was cringing at attending it — and actually I didn’t attend it (but partly also because of other events taking up my time)! And it wasn’t just any sale, it was the sale that would prevent her from losing the roof over her head. Literally. In real life.

I was basically thinking of micro-micro-economics and how much every single $L mattered - I mean, if I were to just give out just a few thousand each time, enough, and then I’d be out. And I can’t afford to do that currently. I have heavy obligations in SL. Heavy financial obligations that I all-too-naively threw myself into. And these obligations are total dependents! They’d literally die without me.

And then, as I was counting my $L, trying to project possible models of break even, I suddenly understood the necessity of greed. I’ve never actually counted my money in RL, but I’m finding myself doing this in SL since my goal is really to return to my old philosophy — and I have to, or else I really would go crazy! — which is that I can’t put anything but my time into a game. And right now I’m putting in both my time and money — an inordinate amount of my time. It’s fun — in the sort of unnerving hair-tearing way that building a magnum opus out of caramel glass and twizzler might be — but it’s a temporary psychosis that I will one day have to leave behind. Greed is necessary to reach a very basic goal - that of breaking even, that of becoming self-sufficient, and no longer a parasite.

And, I’m almost back in Randianese again… I haven’t even read Atlas Shrugged this year!

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9/22/2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Skin City, Second Life: The merchants of Skin City have hidden
Sones soda cans with skins, shapes, eyes, and more av accessory
booty prizes in the one and only 1-stop city for…
skins, shapes, eyes, and other avatar accessories:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Skin%20City/124/94/563

Drop by to grab the booty — finders keepers for both small
things and pricy things — including the following skins from IC-Skins:

and also NEW RELEASE skins are hidden in cans too:

And also several versions of all eyes are hidden in cans in Skin City:

And also… booty from these Skin City merchants:

_AR Another Realism
Arrogant Lioness
BB31 Baskin Bobbins
Body Project
Chambre du Chocolat
Falln Angel
IC-Skins
Kitheres Industries
Mei Asian Skins
Rio
Sin Skins
SL Shakespeare Company Style Shop
Soda
Soft Touch Skins
Starfuker Skins
VIP - Sculpted Talking Faces
Wunderlich’s
XTreme Reality

More soda cans added daily… as new merchants arrive and get set up!

Come for a sneak peek and the chance to find high quality skins and more
hidden in buy-for-0/1 Sones soda cans…

and…

Come see designers incognito as they try to find the hidden caps.
(I can only tell you what I’ve hidden - don’t ask any of us for where
other booty’s hid… cuz we dunno and are out there searching
with you! o.O)

Ina Centaur
Skin City Mayor

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SLSC Pillar #1 Reloaded

We didn’t quite make our first pillar in our 14-Pillars fundraiser. Nope, though at the time we started it there were 14 million registered accounts on SL, we haven’t yet seen every single one of them drop by and donate just L$1 to fill these 14 pillars, a million per pillar. We only raised about 0.25 of our first pillar. Now that we’ve had our fun with art in our last production, we must return to the nitty gritty fundraising again. So, here’s Pillar #1 Reloaded.

To kick off this fundraiser, Aberdon Enigma and Fauve Aeon of (Ardentia)Ars has donated 38,976 square meters of double-prim contiguous land in an Azure Island private residential estate. The land can be taken as a whole, or as parcels, with starting bids:

Seth 1 4208m2, 963 prims, L$1510/week tier @ STARTING BID L$6000
http://SLurl.com/secondlife/Seth/123/68/61
Seth 2 4416m2, 1010 prims, L$1575/week tier @ STARTING BID L$6000
http://SLurl.com/secondlife/Seth/69/59/57
Seth 5 4592m2, 1051 prims, L$1630/week tier @ STARTING BID L$6000
http://SLurl.com/secondlife/Seth/31/69/56
Seth 7* 8992m2, 2058 prims, L$2953/week tier @ STARTING BID L$12,500
http://SLurl.com/secondlife/Seth/197/214/63
Seth 3 16,768m2, 3837 prims, L$5193/week tier @ STARTING BID L$20,000
http://SLurl.com/secondlife/Seth/82/115/57

Or, if you want all of the above parcels,
ALL: 38,976m2, 8919 prims, L$12,871/week tier @ STARTING BID L$42,000
Note, if the ending bid of the smaller parcels is more than the ending bid of this large parcel,
the large parcel will not be auctioned off as a whole.

)))))))))))))))))) The auction will be LIVE Tuesday 9/23 at high noon SLT. (((((((((((((((((((((((((
at a special location on the land to be auctioned:
http://SLurl.com/secondlife/Seth/97/76/59

But, for those who cannot make it, a silent auction will be in session. Visit the parcel you’re interested in and find the pillar owned by your favorite SLSC-spectator avatar “Ticket Stand.” All donations are accepted and noted, but bid your highest bid to win!

In addition to owning great land for a great cause, winning bidder of each auction will receive a choice of three skins from the SL Shakespeare Company’s SL Globe Theatre Gift Shop. (The runner up will also receive their choice of two skins.)

*Seth 7 also comes with two free Adobe houses created by Azure Island builders!

Please contact Ina Centaur if you’ve any questions. ina.centaur@gmail.com

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I’m continuing the IC-Skins tradition of unique and distinctive faces — but pretty faces with near-perfect foundation shading. The first in this .:RIO:. line is Gia, available in several different makeup variations, as well as in the L.M. “light makeup” version:

Does she look familiar? She’s Winia reloaded with Rio’s base foundation.
“No, not in a previous skin context, you say?” Yup, she’s also the girl you saw onstage in the recent SL Shakespeare Company performance. For a while, she was code-named “Lucille,” which was the name I came up with in the fake movie poster I made ages ago of a first draft. (Whatever could the movie be about? It’s about an American girl in Paris who somehow ends up being a showgirl in the middle of an ice-skating rink. Crazy, huh!)

There’s also an “Avant Garde” variation with showgirl makeup (fake movie poster next):

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The other day someone tipped me off about the Governator’s role as “Hamlet” (even if briefly and satirized through a child’s mind) in the understated movie Last Action Hero. While I initially got the movie to watch (mindlessly, mind you) while massively multitasking, I ended up getting rather into it. The movie has the usual features of an action movie, although its point is to satirize action movies. But, what’s really interesting is the relation between the movie “world” and the real “world” that makes up its metaphysics.

The ontology of the two “parallel” worlds (quotations used, as there is actually a stronger relation between the two, such that it appears one world can be seen as the “image/range of the domain” of the other world) is interesting in that one world exists based on the other. In traditional parallel worlds theory, when one version of “you” dies, it doesn’t have a direct effect on the parallel “you”. In the case where you have a world based on movie fiction, and a world existing only through actors from the real world… if some villain were to drop into the real world and to kill the corresponding actor who plays the hero in the movie world, then that movie hero (even if impossible to kill in the movie) would die. Talk about an “out of the box (screen)” scheme!

SO, in that respect, the two worlds are related by a functional of sorts. The vector function of the real world can be mapped to the scalar function of this dependent movie world - in a way (beyond the pun) a “projection” of the real.  Consider the vector function varying, unexpectedly, similar to the course of a real life. Were you to kill it, its scalar “image” would not exist anymore, and thus the dependence. While, theoretically, parallel worlds are supposed to be infinite in number, a gazillion ones branching out before I finish typing this sentence, as every single thing anyone or anything does creates a parallel world that archives all possibilities, I guess it’s interesting to note that some can be classified as terminally dependent on another. Multiversal projection?

Anyway though, Hollywood metaphysics is very interesting.

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Cross Posting the PR here… (Once again, I never update my blog… If you find me writing here, it’s because I actually have an instant of free time! There is no best way to stalk me… other than to be me - an organized me that actually writes down things she does!)

Date: 09 September 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Maedin Tureaud

Beginning this Friday, September 12, the Second Life Shakespeare Company (SLSC) presents a modern play to open their Autumn 2008 season. The play, One’s a Pawn of Time, is a fast-paced and clever one-act play about relationship drama that may arise through hasty time travel. Written by Mike Dederian, the play is directed by Rob Knop (Prospero Frobozz in SL) and will feature the voice actors of Second Life residents Jeremy Jester, Lorne Harlequin, Kinji Lockjaw, and Maedin Tureaud.

Performed in Second Life, most of the shows will be free to attend, and audience members will be required to turn on the voice feature in order to hear the dialogue, though microphones must be strictly turned off. Two of the shows, promoted as “very low-lag”, will require a ticket fee to limit the audience size. Set in the confluence of 4 island simulators, the SL Globe theatre is ideally situated to accommodate large audiences and stage performances that are as low-lag as possible. In keeping with SLSC convention, the set, costumes, and avatars are custom-made for the play. Ina Centaur, artistic director at SLSC, confirms the tailoring of details: “The set for the production continues the RL tradition of preserving the structure of the Globe stage in set design and also our SL tradition of extravagance in visuals.”

The custom features of the set continues with innovative on-stage advertising. As this is the first non-Shakespearean play produced by the SLSC, it has provided them a unique opportunity to experiment with interactive and dynamic advertising. Centaur also says, “The set is filled with details and interactive ‘incognito’ advertisements blended into the stage in the form of fake movie and rock band posters, newspapers, books, photos, and magazines, to amuse and inform those who zoom around and explore as only a virtual audience might.” To arrange in-set advertising, contact Ina Centaur directly.

Director Rob Knop has directed in RL, but this will be his directorial debut in Second Life. He has been active in the Hamlet and Twelfth Night productions and got a taste for the possibilites available. He’s also very keen on his choice of play, too: “This play bears some philosophical similarities to Second Life. Second Life combines game-like elements with social interaction and potential for serious creative discourse of real life. The play is light entertainment, with humorous dialog and a somewhat absurd situation, but being about time travel it challenges our assumptions about the linearity of reality… just as having our lives partly in Second Life challenges traditional assumptions about the single-threaded nature of our real-life identities.”

Knop has more than just the actors to prepare; he will also be responsible for immersing the audience in the play. For audience members who choose to participate, he will be able to dynamically direct and move their cameras, real time, following the action as it unfolds. This allows the audience a “hands-free” experience, their view zooming around the stage and focusing on actors and events as necessary. Knop is encouraged by all of the innovative ways in which theatre in SL is expanding and becoming viable entertainment.

Maedin Tureaud, who will play Lucy for several performances, is excited by the prospect of seeing theatre in SL become prominent and well-attended events, and is enthusiastic about the possibilities available. “Theatre in SL is a unique and exciting opportunity to simultaneously reach audiences all over the world, specifically those people who are unwilling or unable to attend real life productions. The virtual stage presents engaging challenges, and this new platform for cultural and artistic events is bound to capture imagination and harness talent in the future as the virtual universe becomes ubiquitous.”

Kinji Lockjaw, who also plays Lucy, is happy to admit that the biggest challenge for her is the fact that it’s her first SL play. She remains positive though, and states, “I’m very excited about […] getting to work under the direction of Prospero and working with such great actors,” a sentiment expressed by the other three actors, as well. The fast-paced dialogue in the play ensures that the actors have achieved a good rapport with each other and will be able to generate energy on the SL stage, a crucial aspect of the real world stage, too.

Opening night performance of One’s a Pawn of Time begins at 7pm SLT on Friday, September 12. Subsequent performances are:

* Saturday, Sept 13 at 11am
* Sunday, Sept 14 at 3pm
* Tuesday, Sept 16, at 1pm
* Fri, Sept 19, at 7pm #
* Sat, Sept 20 at 11am #
* Sun, Sept 21 at 3pm
#Ticket fee assessed

For more information on this and future productions, join the SL Shakespeare Company group in-world.

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