My Third Rezday!

It was the 19th, RFL day so that's why I didn't do anything special like throw a party or something. I'll do something eventually, I think. Just have to organize it.

Happy Rezday to ME!

SL sure has changed since my early days, and it always surprises me when newbies say I've been in SL a long time. Not that many non-designer fashion bloggers left from 2006 either. It's been a lot of fun over these years, thanks in no small part to my SL friends.

RL influences on my Avatar

There has been a bit of a meme for SL bloggers to discuss their RL influences on their avatar. My turn now.

My biggest influence is probably the iconic Audrey Hepburn especially in her incarnation as Holly Golightly in the famed "Breakfast at Tiffany's", which should come as no surprise to my readers:








And perhaps just a touch of redhead Ann Margret from her ingenue days:





And also a bit of red headed Rita Hayworth, especially when I'm doing a Hollywood style gown.




And modern burlesque pin-up, Miss Dita Von Teese. That might surprise some, but you haven't seen all my SL lingerie. :-) The lady also really knows how to work her makeup. That dress even looks like it could be from ICING in SL.




Not long after visiting Caledon, and hanging around there I realized I had subconsciously made my avatar look like Kate Winslet as Rose in Titanic. Look, another redhead!




I was once described by SL fashionista Celebrity Trollop as the Bree Hodge (of Desperate Housewives as portrayed by Marcia Cross) of SL. Little did she know as she said it that Bree is easily my favourite character on that show, in part because of her look. Very very prim, very very tasteful, very very classic and elegant, but still very very sexy, and very much a redhead.







Although her appearances on Project Runway took place after I had joined SL, there's quite a bit of the third season's Laura Bennett in my avatar. Which goes to reason since Laura is still my favourite Project Runway designer, and is the one whos designs I just loved loved loved. Very very classic, elegant and sophisticated and redheaded.








Laura has a comic book style column on iVillage called Case Clothed, where she has been avatarized by fellow Project Runway alumni and Barbie clothing designer, Robert Best. Avatar Laura and avatar CC could be sisters!









Since I've added some poundage to my shape, it seems there's a bit of plus-size model Kate Dillon too, but that's to be expected since she was one of my fashion role models during the days when the late lamented plus-size fashion magazine MODE was still around.

CC and Zen, dancing on the beach.

Zen, or more formally, Sir Zenmondo Wormser of Caledon have been friends for quite some time. It might have been late 2006 but more likely sometime in 2007. I am fond of him, we are of similar mindsets about things, and both "nerds" of a sort, though he is much more skilled in what he calls Code Poetry than I am. And yes, writing computer code, even LSL is an art, so Code Poetry is an apt name. Zen is one of the few gentleman (or ladies) who I'd ask to escort me to a formal ball in Caledon if I needed such an escort if he was available. There are a few others, but most of them are either taken (Hi Alistair Whybrow), or would most likely be escorting a peer (Hi JJ Drinkwater) or busy. I won't even go into how most of the eligible bachelorettes in Caledon don't stay eligible for very long.

Anyway, I like Zen, and for some reason, he likes me. I warned him I'm a not entirely tame or sane fashionista, but that doesn't seem to bother him. I have promised him a dance or two in the past if my memory serves me well, but I think I reneged, but I did manage to get one in after the RFL ended. I was dead tired, but I promised him and this time I wasn't going to default.

Here's a picture with my default SL settings including the CalWL windlight lighting setting:



Here, I have turned on some features and whatnot:



And here it is up to max, windlight clouds, pretty water, and everything:



Looks amazing, but took my framerate way down. That setting would only really be useful for static shots.

A very enjoyable dance, and then he took me underwater to show me his artificial life based fish. They are quite an amazing feat. While I know of AL projects over an entire sim I don't know of any small enough to keep in ones manor or somesuch.

Caledonians might see Zen and I together at events, since he is good company, and it would be nice to have a regular dancing partner whose company I enjoy. He's invited me to visit a Disney inspired sim, that he's aware of, that I hadn't heard about.

Don't look at me like that. Heaven knows what's come over me, but the real truth is, I am fond of Zen. I had a habit of calling him Sir Zen, even before he was knighted.

RFL experience, not so good.

I posted this in a comment on New World Notes in response to a question on how the RFL could try to raise US $500000 next year.


Having a big event over a long period of time is a standard tactic for SL, but that goes against the "a RFL event is 24 hours" tradition that comes from RL. Well they'll have to get over that, because SL is not RL.

Which leads me to the fact that in RL you can have people along side the track cheering on survivors and caregivers and walkers, but that doesn't work very well in SL. Those Avilion folks in Tree of Life meant well, but they were making things worse! Somebody should have ejected most of them.

Having the track double back or overpass itself through sims was a bad bad bad idea because it increased the number of avatars in a region. That's what killed Overcome, because you had a bunch of spectators at the track that passed through the Northern edge of Overcome. Besides those walking through the southern part. I never did complete the Survivor-Caregiver lap because Overcome took down SL three times. Support, Remember and Stride were also bad. it took me 10 hours to do 4.46 laps!

They should have kept the camp and build sims away from the track. I remember in 2006 how you had to walk quite a bit to get to camps to visit RFL vendors, while this year you could spot vendors right from the track. Bad idea, which also made it harder for those who didn't want to walk but just wanted to get some of those RFL specific releases.

In past relays the relay regions stayed up for days or weeks after so that people could go in and explore all the neat builds and shop at the vendors and donate yet more L$ to the kiosks. This year, no dice. They're taking them down today!

If you go here: http://slrfl.maintree.com/

You can compare the # of avatars participating and the laps/distance traveled. 2008 was king, participation wise. The track was shorter, meaning that it's easier to do for those who don't want to spend over 2 hours trudging their way through, and it was better designed. I bet the 2009 might have had better participation without the major lag. I'm talking worse than an old Dazzle LE event. I figure some people popped in, found out they couldn't move well or see, and popped right back out. It was so bad in some places that you couldn't TP out, you had to quit SL and then come in at your home point.

If you take a look at the top 15 walkers you'll notice that 7 of them are from Team Caledon, and even they/us were crashing. I know a few of us got stuck in regions that were were moving as slow as treacle in while they were rebooting. It's only people who were that dedicated to the cause who were willing to put up with the overall experience.

The RFL sent Survivors and Caregivers a survey link.


I came back to the RFL to start my laps at 2am my time on SLunday. Being less busy, it was at least tolerable then but got worse later on in my stint as others started showing back up. I also figured that if His Grace Viderian Vollmar of Cymru in Caledon could do it, I could too.

The camaraderie was great though in the Team Caledon chat and in the ISC chat too. I even got a picture of Guvnah Shang at the end of the Relay. The man doesn't stay still often enough for me
to get one!

I NEED more group slots.

I keep harping on this, but I really do. 25 isn't enough, 50 would help, 100 would be better, 500 would be great.

I know there's a JIRA for it, but I NEED them. I'd be willing to do "almost" anything for more group slots.

ICING Puma Jie.

I've been wearing ICING's Puma Jie a lot lately, in the fat pack version. The original version came with the red blouse, but later Miko Omegamu released a pack of blouses to mix with the original outfit.

I know it's an older outfit, but I still love the retro classicness of a nice blouse and high waisted pencil skirt. I could probably buy something similar in RL pretty easily. I know I've seen puff sleeved blouses around lately.

I'm wearing the white blouse in these pictures but I like all of them, Peacock, Purple, and Pink too.







And here's a closeup that shows the prim sleeve and the necklace part of the ICING Princess pearls set. I really really love these puffy sleeves, and other people have admired them too. The Princess Pearls set includes, a necklace, earrings and the bracelet. It's also available in black pearls too.



Fleur Allure Kitten skin, ETD Roslin hair, glasses from First Impressions, Shiny Things Classic Stacks pumps.

SLURL to ICING

ICING on XstreetSL

A familiar looking guy.

Amazon hosted a virtual job fair a few days ago in SL, and I was there. Not because I'm qualified for any of the jobs, but for another reason. This guy looks familiar, doesn't he:



His name is just on the tip of my tongue....



Got him! Yes, that's Philip Linden, founder of Linden Labs, creator of the vision that is SL. It was mentioned in the ISC group chat that he was at the Amazon job fair and I wasn't going to miss an opportunity to see his avatar and get a picture even if he has no reason whatsoever to say a word to me. After all, I'm not FIC . Mwah ha ha ha ha.

By the way, I don't entirely agree with Prokofy Neva's concept of FIC (Feted Inner Core), I consider it a bit limited, especially these days. I Prefer Gwyneth Llewelyn's concept of the 100000. But Mr. Neva did post the newest version of his FIC list on his blog

Personally I think Mr. Neva underestimates the influence of the SL press, IMHO Hamlet Au is probably one of the most powerful and influential Avatars in SL. He may not be a land baron, he may not be a famous scripter or builder, but a heck of a lot of powerful and influential avatars in SL do.

I also don't care very much how Mr. Neva uses the perjorative term "mangina" but that's a personal thing. I also pronounce FIC like "Bic", or "pick" because "Inner" has a short "I" sound not the long "I" sound of Bike.

Second Life Relay for Life 2009 starts tomorrow.

The SL RFL (anti-cancer charity event) is one of the first big events I heard about in SL, though I only heard about the 2006 one after it was over since it took place the weekend after I first rezzed in. Back then I didn't know much about the blogs and whatnot so I didn't hear about it.

But each one since I've participated in, though not formally as a team member of Team Caledon till this year.

Why do I take part? Because my Dad, is a cancer survivor (and me and my sister were caregivers for a bit when he came back home from his surgery and we still take him to appointments and whatnot because he stopped driving himself), and cancer took two of my late Mother's sisters. We as a family also take part in the local RL RFL, and have done so for years. It's something I feel good about participating in, in both RL and SL.

The event begins tomorrow at 12pm SLT, with the Survivor and Caregiver lap starting at 1pm SLT. More info at the SL RFL website

Here is the SlURL to the event

And finally a couple of pictures of my luminarias:





I'll be at the relay probably from about 11am till 3:30pm or so SLT on Saturday. Then perhaps. about 7 till noon on Sunday.

Even if you decide not to attend, please consider dropping a few L$ into one of the many donation kiosks set up around the grid. Every little bit adds up.

Anna Darwinian's Steampunk Adventures

Anna Darwinian's Steampunk Adventures is an interesting emporium featuring choice Steampunky merchandise from assorted Steampunky content makers. There is clothing, accessories, jewellery, gadgets, furnishings (check out the victorian furniture set that you can see to the left far rear) and this clock by Uni Ninetails, that I NEED even though I really don't have a place to show it off.



The build is attractive as well, quite worth visiting on those merits alone.

Slurl to Steampunk Adventures

Miriel Enfield is shutting down her store

In the next few weeks she says. It makes me sad, Miriel was among the first jewellery stores I visited in SL, along with Lassitude & Ennui and I found the kind of jewellery I wanted to wear and liked there. Pretty!

And then she did eyes, which are my favorite eyes in SL, and are among the "fashionista favourite eyes" in SL. She did hair, prim lashes, and clothing too. And the trees she worked so hard on. Her vendor scripts were so good I wanted to have their prim babies. You see with Miriel, you could choose your metal and favourite gem color using the scripted vendor in either copy or transfer. Anyway I've decided to showcase some of Miriel's stuff.



That's the Flora gown and Eleanora hair in Chocolate.



Here you can see her Glamour prim lashes, the Beatrice jewellery set and my favorite eyes in SL, Miriel's Vivid Natural's in Strong Green. You see me on the grid, I'll be wearing those eyes 99% of the time, and if I'm not wearing those, they'll be one of Miriel's other pairs. I prefer the smaller irises, you see. Miriel often wore Tete a Pied/Fleur skins and I'm wearing a Fleur Allure Kitten 3 skin in Truffle.

A few other things of note, one of the reasons I loved Miriel was because of her ads, the models were just simply pretty and some of them looked like me, which made me double-take once with a ETD Maaliyah wearing redhead. Since they were so classic looking it was easy to tell what I wanted and what would look good on me.

And finally, I never did get around to begging Miriel for her "sim-killer" jewellery set. :-)

Miriel is also nice. I'd have her prim babies in an instant and I will miss her stuffage in SL. Though I'm hoping she decides to hand off her inventory to someone else to sell for her, it would be a shame for all of the beautiful things she has made to be unavailable in SL.

Namarie, Tar-Miriel. Rim hennaid Findesselya vanya Ná Elbereth veria le, ná elenath dín síla erin rád o chuil lín.

Shape comparison, a Gracie-ified CC post.

Recently designer Grace Winnfield did a kind of a model search and posted her requirements for the model's shapes:


4. You must be willing and able to mod your body shape (not face) to within the params outlined below. The note here is a guideline of ranges into which you should fall to give the right feel to my clothing in the photos. The clothing is designed to fit any av size, however to look the most true to my original design i prefer this range of sizes.

SIZE PREFERENCES FOR GRACIE MODEL:

Go into edit appearance and click body
follow the measures down.. I will highlight and give a range for the important ones:

Height: At least 75 but preferrable is 80-85 or so.

Body thickness: less than 7
Body fat 0 preferred but no more than 7
Torso Muscles should be less than 40
Shoulders should be proportionate but usually less than 50.
Breast size: LESS THAN 40 PLEASE (mine are around 33)
Arms length… you are taller so your arms should be longer… probably between 60 and 69 and finger tips reach just around or above your mid thigh. Mine are at 67
torso length… we dont need long torsos so less than 55 but not too short so shorter than 44
Love handles…. between 15 and 20
not too muscular please … less than 47 but we need some tone so more than 40
leg length.. LONG!! somewhere between 80 and 95 is usually good… mine are 89.
HIP WIDTH: NO more than 48!!!!!!!!!!! ( remember i use a lot of system skirts)
Hip length shouldnt be very long.. keep it less than 37 please.
Butt size less than 30 (ALOT OF SYSTEM SKIRTS SO SMALL IS GOOD)
Saddle bags less than 25
foot size 0 so that all shoes will work.


Since lots of other fashionistas were doing it, I did it too, making collages comparing the shapes I've used since I started looking like how I wanted (since about late July of 2006)

Here's a front view of four CC's:



From left to right, theres Plus Size CC, Catalog Model CC, Supermodel CC and Grace-ified CC. I based the Gracie version of me on my Supermodel shape, which in itself is a modded freebie and I knew would be closest to what she wanted. Supermodel CC was my default shape from late July of 2006 till sometime in late 2007. Then I began using Catalog Model CC. I made Catalog Model CC after hanging out with Boss Sabrina and Tanya book, who had more realistic shapes than I did. She's a mod of the Supermodel shape that's about 8 inches shorter, with a touch more muscle and a bit more body fat. As I say sometimes Catalog CC is the woman who does her yoga and pilates every day so she can still fit into a size 6, but she wouldn't turn down a muffin now and then.

I've discussed the origins of Plus Size CC before, though I do admit she's pretty small for a plus size avatar. If she had a bit more of a waistline and was a few inches taller she could do plus size modelling in RL.


Here's a side view of all the CC's:



You really can't tell how much taller Grace-ified CC and Supermodel CC are in the pictures but they are, considerably. Couldn't figure out how to get the camera to really show the differences.

Yes, Grace Winnfield is the designer and can choose any shape she wants to model for her, but frankly of all the CC's, Catalog Model CC is the most aesthetically pleasing to me, and if I was a designer, that's the one I'd have model for me.

That's a Fleur Allure Bare 1 skin in Truffle in the pics.

My Mother passed away.

She'd long had health issues, ever since I was young (over 30 years now), and I was her primary caregiver. She is best described as spunky or feisty, even as she got older and less well.

She knew about SL, and I had mentioned my avatar and shown her a few pictures but had no interest in it herself. She did think my avatar was pretty. I put a few pictures of her in a set on my flickr:

Pictures of my mother

She was something of a fashionista herself in her younger days and even until recently she still did what she could, she was very proud of her fingernails, which she did herself. I never did learn her secrets on that.

It's kind of hard, her dying just before my RL birthday (the 9th) and mother's day.

I miss her so.