Robin’s Nest

In Hindu mythology, an “avatar” was a particular incarnation of a deity. Nowadays, at least in techspeak, it’s more of a general embodiment or representation, usually of a perso.

My homepage has two avatars on it. The first is from “Designhergals” (www.designhergals.com), which lets you assemble a cartoon character from pieces, and then use that image on cards, stationary, and so on. It’s very nicely done, and really cute. Quite girly, too, but that’s the point. This representation doesn’t really look a lot like me, but it’s not a bad idealization (considering the range of choices they offer).

The other is from Second Life, a 3D virtual-reality game. “Game” isn’t really the right term, as you don’t have to kill dragons or win wars. Second life is more about interpersonal interaction, building things, commerce, and so on. It’s very immersive, and you could spend a ton of time on it without really trying. My character in that world also isn’t terribly similar to how I look, but it’s difficult (possible, but difficult) to create a non-stereotypically-attractive avatar.

Interacting as a woman in SL is interesting. I’m not sure how many guys masquerade (for whatever purpose) in a female avatar, but as a girl you do tend to get a higher-than-average share of conversations, offers of help, and so on.

There are whole blogs just about SL, and my experience isn’t so deep (haven’t had a lot of time to sink into it, for fear of getting enveloped and suddenly losing large chunks of real life! . So won’t say a lot more about it unless there’s some reason to write more later. [Addition - you can download SL and create a character for free. If you want to say that I referred you, my in-world name is "Robin Raffke". I get some bonus, but am not sure exactly what.]

Wordpress is pretty cool.  But it almost suffers from the “too many knobs” problem.  And this geekette usually doesn’t complain about knobs!

It’s nice that there are so many options to tweak, but I wonder how much time gets spent playing around with the format, as opposed to actually making any blog content.  I know I spent too much time surfing for “just the right theme” and didn’t find one.  I like this one, mind you, but there are things about it I could change.

Of course, if I did, then I’d sink a bunch of time into the ephemera of the appearance rather than actual content.  So I’m going to stop Wordpress hacking for a while.

Shoes are perhaps the iconic women’s fashion accessory. For quite some time, I was completely unable to understand why a girl would need so many pairs of black shoes. Now, I’m starting to get it!

As my own collection has grown, the “pile on the floor” method was becoming unmanageable. So after some poking around, I found the following shoe organizer at the Container Store. It’s pretty good quality, and the openings are big enough to hold my size-{mumble} footwear — even my one pair of “f***-me pumps” with the tall spiky heel!

Robin’s closet space is always at a premium, so for this organizer, “It’s a Good Thing(tm)”.

OK, so now I have a blog.  Woo hoo.    Now I need to decide what all I want to write about, and how often to try to update it.

 If you come across this, let me know what you think.

Robin