How to shoot yourself out of a cannon
Ever wondered what it would be like to be shot out of a cannon?
Did this fascination lead SL Resident Abramelin Wolfe to build the Avatar Cannon (L$350)? I wouldn’t know because Abramelin doesn’t answer business-related IMs in world:
I am sorry that I am unable to respond to business related messages via IM in-world at this time, as I am simply getting too many of them.
The Avatar Cannon is setup on the second floor of our VTOReality virtual office. You can shoot your SL avatar out of the cannon without charge if you’d like.
You might notice from the pictures my avatar is a familiar assimilating fellow from The Next Generation of Star Trek (also available via SL Boutique for L$500). Resistance of the cannon is futile. Stop by and give it a try, fun for the whole family.
Update 4:20pm PST: As fate would have it, seconds after I hit publish, Abramelin Wolfe responded in IM with the following (perhaps his message is a ruse?) and gave me permission to quote the following:
[16:19] Abramelin Wolfe: nothing really, just playing around
[16:20] Abramelin Wolfe: i liked the idea of being shot out of a cannon lol
5:03pm PST: Mildly disruptive turn of events. Abramelin really must be a busy guy. He seemed annoyed — although when I challenged him he said it was “no problem” — that I linked to his support form page in the original post. He was really worried that he’d be “spammed” to death by me linking to his support form above. He asked me to remove the link which I’ve just done that accompanies the blockquote above and is also linked in his SL profile. Since he threatened to just “change the link” so the original form would go linkdead, I decided it would be pointless to leave the link live and removed the link. Here’s a screenshot of the form, in case the wording changes when/if the link is moved.
For other developer readers curious, Abramelin indicated he was “too busy” to implement a CAPTCHA script, which is an effective, although not always accessbility-friendly way to challenge spambots.
In retrospect I wish he’d have done what he originally said above and simply not responded. He probably feels the same about me. Guess I’ll chalk this up to a bad IM experience or avatar personality conflict maybe (?). We all have bad days, maybe that explains it.
March 27th, 2007 • 
TD Goodliffe • 
comment | March 27, 2007 at 15:43 | individual comment-link
Those who receive many IMs in world know that IMs are capped and not received, therefore the web form exists to facilitate customer service requests. The message is not a ruse because as you can see it worked! He received your message via web form to email therefore your comments reflect more on your intent to thwart customer service despite your bitching about it.
When you spend more time in SL and if you ever actually create content rather than sit in judgment you will understand this better. If your concern really relates to good customer service then you should remove the link to the form created for customer service requests in order to reduce the risk of spam.
However if your intent is to be an asshole then…res ipsa loquitor!
comment | March 27, 2007 at 16:41 | individual comment-link
katykiwi - I understand IMs are capped, that’s not the issue here. I’ve written and deployed scripts and run my own business in SL. I didn’t use the form to contact Abramelin — doh! — I sent him an IM in world and he responded, which was opposite of what his form said he did.
And if you paid any attention and actually read my update you’d see I REMOVED the link right away — within minutes!
As for assholes, well, look in the mirror maybe.
comment | March 27, 2007 at 17:19 | individual comment-link
LOL katykiwi upon further research now I see by looking at Abramelin’s profile that you are his partner in SL. That puts your quick to defense/nastiness comments above (#1) in much clearer perspective
The ironic thing is I like the Avatar Cannon and never intended this post to be “bitching” about anything. All I was trying to do was contact him and ask him what inspired the Avatar Cannon and to give some free promotion to something I thought was cool (and still think is cool, despite our weird IM exchange). It’s still up at our VTOReality area and will remain so for awhile, feel free to stop by
Lastly, Abramelin told me several times this “wasn’t a problem” and then “to forget about it” but then you show up and act like it’s quite the opposite? Maybe that doesn’t seem odd to you, but it sure does to me.
comment | August 14, 2007 at 07:03 | individual comment-link
Sounds like they don’t like free promotion. Maybe the point of the cannon wasn’t to sell it, but to launch “nastys” at people that tried to help promote it. Haha.