I actually managed to get a bit bored today. Too much Olympic overload had me retreating to HiPiHi which was almost deserted (as it has been most of this Olympic week).

I wandered into SL and finished a new how- to piece in the Building section here on building Spiral stairs (fancier ones than the low-prim build I described in the Quick Builds section a while back).

Then I retreated to Bach's Italian Concerto on harpsichord and finished reading Simon Winchester's excellent biography of the amazing Joseph Needham, The Man Who Loved China. In the 80's and 90's I had read large swathes of various volumes in Needham's amazing work, Science and Civilisation in China. Winchester's book helped me get a better understanding of Needham the person (and some surprising insights into a friend from my days in Asia, Murray Maclehose).

Finishing the book and the music caused me to wander back into SL. Initially I was tempted to rant about the time and energy the Lindens seem to be devoting to fiddling with traffic ratings when they need to be more concerned with system stability.

Personally, I think the Lindens don't want to admit the system is being gamed by vendors parking armies of hidden bots above their retail locations, creating the impression of traffic which doesn't exist and improving their popularity numbers while generating stunning amounts of lag, so they keep fiddling. Taking away the bots and bot-like campers would make SL user numbers look pretty awful, so the Lindens keep fiddling.
Ageism
After deciding against an all-out rant, I did the sensible thing and went shopping. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to find an avatar skin that does not look like it belongs to a buffed 20-something? Sure, you can mess with your settings and add a few bags under your eyes, but the typical SL skin still looks like it fell out of the pages of Glam magazine.

I'm old enough to remember things like meeting Princess Elizabeth before her dad died and she became HRH Elizabeth. I don't have any great desire to be younger or to look younger. So wandering around SL in a skin that made me look about the age of my son has always bothered me a bit.

It took a while--a long while, actually--but I finally tracked down a skin that made my avatar look a bit closer to my age. Some of the Photoshop detailing is a bit iffy, but I ended the afternoon happier, and I guess that is what counts. Seems the skin makers are missing a marketing opportunity, to those of us who are older.