Tuesday 16 December 2008

This will only sound like it's about hockey...

Let's rewind a few weeks...

Honeybee and I were working on a set design for a flu game for her fantastic Oshkosh/Wi-TECNe sim. The hockey season was finishing and our team The Cobras were in 4th place with no chance of getting into the playoffs...

I was beginning to work on the All Star stuff, Honeybee was beginning to work out the Awards stuff...the Euro league was struggling with a one sided lack of players and a lack of ideas...An argument started out of a bad joke...

Most arguments couples have tend to take something that isn't the real focus of the argument and twist it...this wasn't one of those...we are both very stubborn commited people, we are both intensely passionate about what we do and strive for perfection. This is great when we work together. Not so good when we're working on side projects and working on one main project and trying to get things sorted in our own way.

There were other issues, we were bounced around a bit and I'd deliberately taken us out of the NA draft process as we didn't need to add to confusion...This was a great idea or so you would think. The truth is that caused us some misgivings it's hard for either of us to take that kind of step back we're all or nothing types and that caused more heat to the fire.

In the midst of this I said "maybe we should take a season off" because if the SLHA could make us argue like this it could destroy us. We talked about that and when things calmed down we decided we didn't want to...then mid week it happened again...then the next week...etc...

Love is something you will give up anything to keep. And after many heated debates and a lot of tears/tantrums/if prim plates could break...We decided to step back...totally...leave the league for atleast a season...concentrate on other projects.

This was made harder because a lot of our friends are SLHA players, I think I can name 3 non SLHA players in my friends list. And one of our closest friends, Jack Belvedere is League Commisioner so telling him was one of the hardest things that Honoria and I have ever done...will ever do.

The projects we have coming up will be announced here but for now...it feels like we've had a great weight lifted off our shoulders and tomorrow is a new day...

Love means making sacrifices, I would sacrifice anything for Honeybee.

Saturday 6 December 2008

The Actual All Star Game...

So it went without much of a hitch...in fact it went swimmingly. Some might say that there were no problems with the SLHA All Star Game (and you can judge for yourself on http://slcn.tv/media/slhockey_032_30nov08.mp4 ).
Sure the Zamboni race was delayed till after the game (and not covered by SLCN as they were pushed for time). Sure some of the MAJOR goal scorers were missing, The leagues best goaltender was missing.
And yes sure there was a few bits and bobs I would have liked to have made better...for instance I made the Shorts and socks at the very last minute...same with the captains armbands...(actually the captains armbands were made really last minute). But play went well...the teams evenly matched and thanks to a wonderful new feature in the SLHA script (thanks to Dyz Warburton our resident scripter GENIUS that he is) we covered our actual first gloves off fight!
But having watched the replay on SLCN it's the best game we've done (for both Kert and I it's our most even commentating...for the league it was a fast paced game...and for some of the players (honeybee I'm looking at you) it was their best played game on SLCN.
So where do we go from here?
Well on the SLHA side of things...we're coming to the end of Season 6...which means...well it means stress for the upper management...there have been major decisions taken with regards to Season 7's draft process...there are awards ceremony's there are the final playoffs between the Ice Lords and the Moose (Game 3 live on SLCN Sunday 2pm SLT)...there's a charity event...and ofcourse there's christmas and new year...
There's also the ever popular rumour mill...I don't know if it's every group in the world that does this when they're not playing or bored...but the SLHA rumour mill has geared up 5 steps for the holiday season. Accusations of "alts", banned people, script tampering, etc. These things are ugly and just keep flying round...a small break from SLHA is coming and that's a good thing I think cause otherwise I might become actually involved in some of this stuff and to be honest I don't want to be.
But finally on a more positive note...wedding plans are underway...as are Luschious plans...so next year promises to start with a bang, a boom and some fun.

Monday 1 December 2008

The All Stars Week

Ah yes...The All Stars week....
SLHA has an All Stars game every season and of course Season 6 was no exception. With these kinds of things months of planning can all boil down to one week of hell and this was the week that was...
Are you sitting comfortably?
Good I shall begin, The All Stars roster was posted on the Forum by the luscious Honoria Paine (hereby probably referred to as Hon, Honeybee, SexKitten...etc) after a league wide internet vote...and ofcourse the usual names were up there...Beavis Beckham, Marjan Tomba, Billybob Street, Liesa Ember, August Lusch...wait-a-goddamn-minute August Lusch isn't an All Star!
After confirming with Honeybee and conflabbing with Merrik Caproni (who usually makes the All Star kits) I found out that a) I was an All Star and b) Merrik was ill/sick/bedridden and wouldn't be making kits for this years All Star games.
Lets rewind here a little...SLHA has a couple of clothing designers...through it's history these have changed as seasons have progressed and of course have changed and grown better looking as peoples technical skills have improved. Back in the olden times Weis Hickman created the jerseys...they were fairly simple designs but very well done...this lasted S1, 2, 3 ... then Weis wasn't really around much for Season 4 and Jack Belvedere made the Cobras jerseys his own...then Merrik Caproni decided to join in and Season 5 saw a distinct change into classier hockey jersey designs. Season 5 also saw me enter the uniform fray with my Euro League Ravens and Foxes designs these were simple, some would place them somewhere between Weis's uniforms and Merrik's.
Season 6 Merrik perfected his style and did most of the NA uniforms (apart from the Icelords who used the Season 5 uniform originally made by Harley Wachman) and I honed my Foxes and Ravens jerseys to be much more professional looking.
So...people who can make jerseys in SLHA...Weis Hickman (Absent) Merrik Caproni (Ill) Jack Belvedere (Working on Charity Jerseys) Harley Wachman (Absent) August Lusch (dammit!)
So here's what I did first...
I worked on a logo..a kick ass logo a logo that would sum up the differences between light and dark..between power and chaos, between blue and red.
That logo took 30 minutes...and I still love it...!
Ok so logo down...what else did I need?
Ahh yes teams...now having talked with Jack he was thinking along the lines of Slapshot and I was thinking along the lines of Copyright infringement. So I took his idea and said...heck...lets give this things some good old fashioned SLHA league history. The first two teams in the league were the Whales (blue) and the Wolves (red)and the place where the games are held is Jericho Hill so I took those colours and that name and created two teams...using my powers of english and stating the obvious I created the Jericho Reds...

and the Hill Blues
Jericho Reds Hill Blues (see what I did there?)
With that out of the way I worked and worked and worked on the red jersey...
Tuesday arrived and so did my enery levels...I went in world to show Jack the rough version of the red jersey and to talk about how best to split the names of All Stars into two fairly even teams. I was given the go ahead to use a spreadsheet and my imagination.
Finalising the two teams...both looking fairly balanced and my imagination intacked I worked on the Blue jersey to get that to rough form before going out with Honeybee for a well earned non hockey related night to celebrate our anniversary.
PWP cruises...what a night! Seven month anniversary (though anniversary means year but lets not get technical) we dined on a boat with a live artiste (who played sax...and er 'sang' songs) a waitress who hovered around our table and called me Mr August all night but Honeybee and I had tonnes of fun, laughing and a joking in private voice IM...(the sim was set to no voice which I can understand in roleplaying areas like Toxia but at a dinner seemed to be a little more flummaxing!) it was a good night...honestly it was good to get away from the SLHA for a night (though I was being IM'd by members of the league on all sorts of issues).
As the night drew to a close and we were disembarking...we paid our compliments to the hostess and she implored us to look around the sim, the shops, the ice rink...where we could skate or play hockey..."Hockey?" both Honeybee and I asked and our hostess nodded and handed us 2 SLHA Whales sticks...
No matter where you go...there you are...
This raised questions for us...and I turned into Columbo "just one more thing, where did you get these from lady?"...getting nowhere and finding out that the rest of the setup wasn't as decently scripted as ours was (our scoreboard/stats/goal system really is something) we left and returned home giggling at how we just couldn't shake the league.

Wednesday 26 November 2008

Let's begin at the beginning...

Goooooooooooooood Morning, Afternoon, Day, Night?
I have absolutely no idea what timezone you're in or when you're reading this so I think I've covered all the bases?

Good...let me introduce myself...I am August Lusch from Second Life (actually from a small part of Second Life near Glastonbury...lovely sim). So what's this blog about? Well this is an introduction to my thoughts, my world, my...y'know...y'know?

I'm a clothing designer, a sportscaster, a SL Hockey player, a lover not a fighter and ofcourse I enjoy the occasional evenings with friends too.

I'm not a shopper...well not by any stretch of the imagination...I'm more what you'd consider a...er...follower of designs rather than someone who goes to find the latest fashions (I leave that pretty much up to my darling fiance Honoria Paine http://honoriapaine.blogspot.com)

During the upcoming weeks we will delve into the psyche of me...also we'll delve into the problems and complications of setting up a wedding in Second Life...

And maybe if you're lucky we might even get to the bottom of why,where,how,what and when...

But until next time, I've been August Lusch and you've been patient..