Prospero Linden’s Rez Day
If you look at Prospero Linden’s profile, you will see that his rez date is 2007 August 6. What this means is that today is the first day of my second year of employement at Linden Lab.
I’ve already done the navel-gazing introspective about the life-changing decision I’ve made. A such, I won’t blather on that any more here. Instead, I’ll just pop up a few images to celebrate and mark the day.
My primary non-Linden Second Life account is Prospero Frobozz. His appearance has not changed much since he was first created in November of December 2006 (eight or nine months before I would start as a Linden). His rez day is actually February 2006, but because of issues I was having at the time with the 3d drivers in my Linux box (which I didn’t bother to fix until much later), I didn’t actually log into Second Life until the end of the year. I deliberately designed Prospero Frobozz to look something like me (although a lot sleeker). It wasn’t long before I found a skin that had a beard that looked right, and I’ve been using that skin ever since (together with mesh hair that has a bald spot):
Although, despite advice to the contrary, I did not intend to hide my alt’s or real-life identity associated with Prospero Linden, I decided not to make him look like me. Indeed, vaguely motivated by the appearance of Julian Lopez-Morillas as Prospero in the 1980 Berkeley Shakespeare Festival production of The Tempest, which I saw may times (getting in for free by volunteering as an usher). That was long enough ago that I didn’t remember details, so I settled for “tall with curly black hair”. The very initial Prospero Linden on his rez day looked like this:
However, by now I was more clued in to Second Life than I was on Prospero Frobozz’s rez day, and fairly quickly I found an appropriate freebie skin (at, if memory serves, Men In Action), and purchased an outfit to fit the “Prospero the Wizard” theme:
Prospero Linden retained this appearance for many months (although acquiring a number of different outfits), although occasionally I would appear as something else. In particular, I established a tradition (sometimes violated) of going to the “Moonlab” meetings in a triceratops avatar created by Flea Bussy. (The “Moonlab” is what Linden calls the laboratory where all the not-an-an-office Lindens work… we’re on the Moon.)
Prospero Linden obtained his current appearance at the March, 2008 Conceirge party. As part of the festivites, Dee Linden had random drawings for residents who “won” a half-hour of a Linden’s time, to do with them as they pleased. (Well, within reason.) I was won by Barbie Starr, and she said that she’d always wanted to do a Linden makeover. This was actually all win for me, for I came out with a much more attractive avatar than I’d had previously. It actually took closer to 90 minutes than 30 minutes, but it was good. One thing about the current Prospero Linden is that he is huge… extremely tall. People comment on that when they see me next to somebody else in-world. This is Prospero Linden’s current apperance (standing in front of the land where he holds his office hours in Teen Second Life):
August 6th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Happy Rezz Day, Prospero Linden! It is interesting, the thing about keeping one’s RL identity quiet (or not) … I realised very early that anyone who could be bothered could very easily find out who I am (by what I say in text and voice chat), so decided not to particularly bother about whether people know who I am or not.
Thank goodness some avatars (like you) take more care over their appearance than I do, though, or else SL would be very hard on the eye!
August 11th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
He needs hair on his chest!