Happy Rez-Day!

Wednesday just gone saw the happy occasion of the anniversary of Sian Pearl's rez day. A rez day is basically a virtual birthday; the day you were born (or reborn?), if you will, into the virtual world of Second Life. My own rez-day passed me by without me noticing, mostly because it is pretty close to my birthday and I was at home celebrating sans laptop, but it is not uncommon, it would appear, for people to arrange parties and get-togethers to mark the occasion. 

I received the invitation via notecard the night before, and then spend much of the following morning wondering what to expect. What is the etiquette for this kind of occasion? Do we, for example, have to turn up with presents? Is there a dress code? If any of you have followed the link to Sian's blog, you will see that she is quite   an avant-garde-ist when it comes to fashion, and it seemed almost rude to suggest turning up to her party having not made an effort to dress up. I would not, after all, turn up at a birthday party in the real world without putting on something vaguely nice and throwing a bit of war paint at my face. 

I actually saw Sian on the morning before the party, putting her outfit together, and suddenly the worrying I was doing over the bareness of Kitti's legs seemed quite ridiculous. I also felt hideously under-dressed. The question of why I cared so much about virtual nudity is not one I will even begin to try and answer with in this blog post. (For some reason, I cannot embed Sian's screenie of the two of us together within my post, so, if you wish to see it, click here).

The party itself was a little late to start - but that's the nature of online get-togethers, I suppose. Computer problems, time zone differences, and children refusing to go to bed can put the kibosh on even the best laid of plans. It was also a little slow to begin with; I got the impression that I was not the only one present who had not been to a rez-day party before. We were gathered at Sian's house, and the only music available for the party was whatever the sim owner happened to be streaming which, I am sure I heard Laertes mention, was some kind of violin concerto. Not, perhaps, the kind of music one normally associates with a party.

Sian Pearl greeting Laertes Modan (now known as Jaegen Fenris)

The ever-charming Gibson Kamachi

Sian Pearl and the slightly elusive Columbine Lavender...and Jaegen on the sidelines there...

After a while, however, more people turned up, and the conversation began to flow, and we were having a good time. Everybody looked great, and pretty soon Sian had us all dancing - even without the music.

SL dancing is a bit of a peculiar phenomena. The best way to explain it is that it works by animation override, but, as was the case for us, the AO belonged to Sian, and she made an offer, as it were, to each of us to invite us to join in. By saying "yes", the AO took over our avatars and we began to dance in unison. The effect was quite hilarious, particularly since many of the dance AOs Sian owns would appear to be female orientated, contorting poor Jaegen into the kinds of shapes the YMCA would have been jealous of.

You strut your stuff, Captain Fenris!

Go Jaegen! Not sure what Kitti is doing here...lol

He was a great sport.

As Sian was having computer troubles and was, really, lucky to be in SL at all, I became the designated photographer. Unfortunately, my SL photography skills are not that great, though I did my best. I tend to find with most party photos - in real life -, the images you think you are capturing are always much, much better than images you seem to find on your camera the day after. This...was pretty much the case for my SL  party photos, too, as you may have noticed. 

What can I say? I tried. 

We had a good laugh, and I got to meet a couple of new people who seem lovely, and I think, all-in-all, we did a pretty good job of celebrating the virtual birth of a person without whom our second lives would be rather dull. 

Maybe I should try and throw a rez-day party for myself next year. But who would turn up?!

More photos can be found on my flickr stream.