Saw this "find lookalikes" thinger on willow zander's blog and did it with my av. Got some interesting matches, like Gia. :-)

Picture Perfect Studio LIght Effects

If you asked me not that long ago if I would ever make content in SL that I'd actually sell I would have said, "No way, I'm no content creator."

But I've done it now, which surprises me.

It started when I saw Roslin Petion of Tete a Pied taking pictures for her new in store displays. She had a pretty standard background type thing and pose stand, and had a plywood box prim set up to provide extra light. Now I knew there were top of the line setups with lighting devices but I didn't reacall seeing something cheap and simple. But since I didn't creat content I put the idea in the back of my mind.

Maybe about a couple of weeks later I was in Willow Zanders skybox and noted her obviously top of the line studio, even I recognize a full N30 Modeling studio setup when I see it. So I was looking at it (and did a few quick shots on it) and noticed the light thingies seemed to be made of a lot of prims. So I checked and it was 33. Even landless moi knos that 33 prims is over 1/4 the prim alottment for a 512. So I started thinking, that it should be possible to come up with something simple and low prim for fashionistas that may not have 33 prims (or a lot of money) to spare, if they set it up permanently. So I started playing with the building tools, which I haven't used much and built myself a light source that looked liks a simple basic photographers studio lamp. And it was only 4 prims. At that time it output white light and I thought, hey, I bet it would be possible to use a color change script to change the light color.

So I bought a script (from Sol Columbia) and put it in it. And it worked, to change the color of the "bulb", but not he light itself. So I had to figure out how to do that with my nonexistant scripting skills. I then loaded up the LSL Wiki and began searching. Now, I may not know much about LSL, but I have played a little with Python and I'm able to edit 'nix source code configure scripts and Makefiles if I have to, using google, helpfiles and whatnot. So I could figure out the basic structure of how the color script worked and knew where to put the code I needed in. I just had to figure out which code. The fist bit I tried didn't work, and I messed with it a bit to see if I was doing it wrong and then went back to the wiki. I found a different function that seemed "right", put it in and it didn't work, but did compile. So I went back to the code and realized that I had done the "color vector variable" wrong, that I had put it in the light changing function improperly. A quick edit and it worked. 66 colors of light with a simple chat command Just turn on local lighting in preferences and rez in world.

/4 color goldenrod gets you goldenrod

/4 color white gets you white

/4 color black turns it off.

No tiny buttons to push, no cycling of colors with a touch, instant access to any color and the light bulb changes color to match the actual light.

So I told someone about it, and they said I should sell it. But I thought it was too simple, it only took me a few hours to make, total. It's only 4 prims, it's not beautifully textured, it's just simple shiny metal that looks like a light.

This person told me that not everyone could do what I did, that even making changes to pre-existing code to do something different was beyond a lot of people.

Since I designed it for use with portable modeling studios, like Sabrina Doolittle's Picture Perfect I gave a copy to her and asked what she thought of it. And she asked if I sold it, and I said, not yet. So she offered to sell it alongside the Picture Perfect. It's a good deal for both of us. I don't need own land to sell it or anything, and it gets sold alongside the device it's really good to be used with, (and increases the appeal of the Picture Perfect) and we both make money.

How much? only 150$L It's simple and it works. Gets rid of annoying shadows really well.

Here's a picture of it, it's not beautifully made, but again it does the job it's supposed to do.:






It's available at the Picture Perfect store in Calla. I don't have the Slurl at the moment but you can check my picks in my profile for the TP. And yes, a few have sold already. :-)

I hope it's buyers get good use out of it.

Another homage to Sabrina Doolittle, because she's back!

Yes, she's back, I even chatted with her while she was moving her store to a new location. In honor of her return to SL, I decided to post a few pictures of purchases she inspired.

The first is ETD Belted, yes Elika makes things other than hair. Anyway it's a very pretty red jacked and pants set. The jacket has a white undershirt to wear underneath it, but like Sabrina I prefer it without because it looks nicer and of course shows off the TaP Deux cleavage. And also like Sabrina I wish Elika would make a red (and black) skirt to go with this.

This picture was taken in a cute chair in Sabrina's low prim furniture store, Chez Petite:



:
And yes, a shot showing off the cleavage, because, like my redheaded fashionista inspiration I too am a shameless hussy in SL, at least when it comes to cleavage now and then.



ETD Maaliyah hair in Mahogany, Tete a Pied skin, Tete a Pied Heiress bag

The Dazzle Celine gown was recently purchased at the Holiday opening. Normally I'm not into colors like this, but I have a rule, if it looks good on Sabrina it will probably look good on me, which it does, and I've started playing with more greens. The image is a collage showing both the solid and sheer skirts..It really is a pretty gown.



Pixel Mode hair, Tete a Pied skin

I, for one, am glad Sabrina's back. I miss her (and Salome's) blog posts (especially skin reviews) very much.

Konstrukt #4 is out.

The Konstrukt is a SL magazine, that takes SL seriously and not just as a game.

I contributed an article to the newest issue, that I really enjoyed writing, which came out on Monday.

The copybot

Here's simple info on how the thing works, what it can and cannot do, from a post in the Linden blog. It's less capable than I had heard but still nasty. Folks like builders, hair designers, and furniture makers will have to be the most careful it seems. Though it could be used to copy scripted objects like DoMoCo cars, but they wouldn't have the original scripts, but could be misrepresented as having such

Thanks to Szentasha Salome for the post:

Heres some info I collected from a libsecondlife developer who was kind enough to answer my questions:

CopyBot Information

CopyBot is a program written by libsecondlife to debug an open-source Second Life client API. It intercepts and interprets communications from the Second Life server and the custom client. This information includes descriptive information about primitive shapes, body shapes, baked avatar textures, and primitive textures. Using this information, avatars and primitives can be duplicated and reconstructed by the client. The creator of the new object will be that of the account used to log in with the custom client.

The CopyBot client is a primitive SecondLife client. The avatar will first appear as the basic Ruth female avatar, until it copies the form of another avatar. The CopyBot avatar can not move. It can only teleport. It is not designed to speak in vicinity and only responds to IMs. The CopyBot operates through commands IM'd to it by another avatar, and can only duplicate items in the direct vicinity, so its operator is likely to be close by. The target of a copy operation can be another avatar, or a prim object. If the target is an avatar, it gets the avatars shape and all prim attachments, which appear in the inventory of the CopyBot. Note that it does not get any clothing items - it only gains the baked texturing of the target avatar. If the target is an unattached object, the object is created 3 meters above the CopyBot avatar's head. Note, this will not be successful in sims where object creation is disabled. The CopyBot client can not pick up the object. The thief must log out of CopyBot and log in with the standard SecondLife client to pick up the object. Avatar shapes are not maintained when the CopyBot logs off, so can not be saved.

In summary:

What can the CopyBot create a copy of?
- fully textured objects attached to avatars in proximity
- fully textured objects in proximity

What can the CopyBot not copy?
- any object contents, including scripts, animations, sounds and textures
- clothing
- shapes
- textures (objects are textured but the CopyBot does not get the original textures)

Implications:
- If CopyBot copies you, only your attachments can be transfered, not your shape, clothing, appearance.
- If CopyBot copies your attachments, the attachments will be simple objects without any special functionality since they will not contain scripts, animations, etc.
- If CopyBot copies your product vendor, it will only get an object that looks like your vendor. It will not contain your product or any of the vendor scripts.
- The same is true for unattached objects.
- You can turn off object creation in sims containing unattached objects you do not wish to be duplicated

I hope this helps to answer some of your questions.

~Szentasha


Also from reading the blog, it bot has to be close and in line of sight of the object to be copied, because it can't move or control camera. So I guess one might look out for two avatars in close proximity with one never talking.

Normally I'm a big supporter of the open source movement, I run Linux after all and have an SVN client installed to access Subversion repositories for those projects that don't do regular source tarball releases like they ought to. But I think the libSL project should probably have been a little more picky about who had access to their code.

Dream job

I often read the fashion magazines, usually just Allure, Marie Claire and Lucky but sometimes others. I like reading about new goodies, even when I can't afford them.

Sometimes I thought that my dream job would be writing for one of the fashion mags, doing blurbs about new foundations and lippies. Telling people where to get the cutest shoes, that sort of thing. But I figured that would never happen.

But when I started thinking about it, what am I doing on PXP? PXP is basically a kind of "casual" group collaboration fashion magazine. Is what I'm doing that different from what Didi Gluck does at Marie Claire? It may be virtual clothes and makeup but it's still clothes and makeup. So basically I'm kind of, sort of, doing my dream job. It's time consuming, but really fun.

They're baaaaack (kind of)

Praise the fashion gods, my favorite Patootie haired blogger Salome Strangelove has returned.

See Linden Lifestyles for details.

She hopes to be able to lasso the loveable red haired shameless hussy Sabrina Doolittle back into blogging again.

Which is also a good thing, because Sabrina inspired my own reddish haired shameless hussydom.

Yay! Does happy dance!

UPDATED: (zOMG, I'm) Famous.

I have a standard greeting for content creators, famous fashionistas, bloggers etc.

zOMG, you're famous.

The funny thing is, it surprises some, but it shouldn't. One doesn't have to be omnipresent to have a good reputation as a maker/supplier of "foo" Word gets around. :-)

But that also extends to me. I am always surprised that people read my blog. It isn't horrible but it's no PXP or Second Style or Linden Lifestyles. (Sabrina, Salome, where are you? Come back, come back!)

Yesterday I got a surprise from Rita Groshomme:

"don't you write for PXP or Second Style"?

I explained that I had my own blog but did comment now and again on PXP and Second Style.

paraphrasing: "I knew I had seen your name somewhere."

And today, Six Kennedy told me she liked my blog. Which really means a lot to me. In fact I want to thank anyone who reads this blog. Thank you for your time, I hope I make you laugh, and sometimes I even talk about fashion. :-)

UPDATE: I happened to run into former PXPer, Elka Lahane of Boing Fromage today and she hit me with you know what: "zOMG, you're famous." I laughed my head off. I was so glad to meet her and I finally got a picture of her kyoot avatar. There is no better word to describe Elka but kyoot.

She's wearing her own items from her store, which I do recommend a visit for everyone.

Gamine quad from TaP (added picture)

Roxlin and CJ of Tete a Pied have released another skin quad and is this one special. (Just saw the notice on the blog)

Yes, I knew about them, seeing a prototype ad in Roslin's sanctum sanctotum. She hadn't named them then.

Gamine was a good choice for a name. Basically they're glossy lips, like the Tete Une, only better with really nice cats eye eyeliner. Do you know how rare it is to see a skin where the gloss looks like a right and proper MAC lipglass does?

They are so adorable sweet looking. If there's a skin I ever wanted to hug, it's these. Like she says, Audrey Tatou, Audrey Hepburn and who doesn't love Audrey Tatou and Audrey Hepburn.

These are perfect makeups for sweet 16 parties and prom nights to wear with your cotton candy poofy dress. I said to Roslin, "too bad you can't sell these on the teen grid"

drools some more of the gloss. here's the bronzage medium with the pink gloss I was wearing the Paper Couture Junon Gown at the time.

UPDATED: PXP needs more writers. Bloggers overwhelmed with fashion.

UPDATE: I'm now a PXP contributor, be afraid, be very afraid. What does this mean for this blog? I'll probably reduce the fashion content here, most of that will go to PXP. More personal stuff and silly stuff will stay here, as well as interesting commentary that doesn't fit at PXP. I'll only be an ocassional poster to PXP due to limited time in-world. But I intend to have fun posting for PXP.

But.. they're still looking for more people.

PXP is looking for a few good fashionistas.

I think every fashionista with a desire to write should apply. Even if you don't become a PXPer why not start your own blog.

Why? Because there's so much stuff to cover that there's plenty to go around and it's nice to have a plethora of diverse viewpoints. You might be thinking, "I'm a nobody". That doesn't matter, I'm a nobody, a nobody who now knows people. Just write about what you like, what you see and have fun, that's what I do. And someday maybe someone will come up to you and say, "zOMG, you're the famous fashionista blogger. You inspired me" (No one's said that to me. sniff Oh I kid)

Personally I wish a couple of my fashionista blogger role models Sabrina Doolittle and Salome Strangelove of Linden Lifestyles, would return from hiatus. I miss their reviews.

Distracting distractions, oh the things I see.

As a fashionista, I see all sorts of pretty and shiny. Like say Callie Cline's pictures on her new store wall (pretty) or new clothes, or sunrise. I see a lot of sunrise because I'm constantly forcing it for pictures!

Sometimes I log into SL with a goal. There is only 1 SL capable machine in the house (thank goodness I have my PS2 Linux kit or I'd never get online) So I have to make the best of what time I can finagle on it.

Except sometimes, I get distracted. I remember something I saw, or I start chatting with someone or I take screenshots of one thing when I need to take them of another. Or I run out of time.

I'm like a cat that way: What's that, ooooh pretty shiny! oooh over there.

But one of the worst things is other fashionistas. hanging with others of my kind is just so much fun. Things tend to happen, fun things, kerazy things, things that would boggle the mind. Things I take pictures of, that I know I will never post on the blog. They would boggle the mind. I'm not just talking about cows, or talking sock puppets named after Vogue editor Anna Wintour. I don't think I've mentioned my sock puppet before.

Anyway I ummm don't have pictures of things I should and have pictures that would go into ~/second_life/schoolgirl_antics/ or ~/second_life/oops or ~/second_life/personal_embarassment/

I try to be a good, umm, avatar. Be nice and organized, take good shots of stuffs, but y'know things happen.

Fashionistas are kerazy but in a good way. We have the coolest and sometimes rather surprising and unique stuff. Which is what in part makes the Fashion Emergency group such a resource.

Here's to all the fashionistas, who bring fun and kerazyness to my Second Life.

Paper Couture opening

The luck of the fashion goddesses was with me, I was online when it opened up and got an invite. More later, after I edit the photos tomorrow, I mean today, I mean whenever I get them done. :-)

And I finally met Willow Zander! Who is both kyooter and shorter than I expected. (Yes she was wearing the very kyoot neko ears) And Elika, whom I've seen from a distance and Rita Groshomme.

the opening was a lot of fun.

More info on the house of lu website and blog

Paper couture website (requires flash)

House of Lu Paper Couture blog

The blog is hilarious and I play along with the joke by writing comments like a crazy over the top member of the fashionista press.

Support your local blogger.

Hello designers, you want PR? Not getting blog coverage? Here's how to help us find you.

1. Post in the SL classified forums. Personally I don't read them,(my favorite minimalistic browser can't log into them) but as far as I know almost every other blogger does. That's one way they find out about new designers and new stuff.

2 Get a blog! It's a necessity, it helps you keep in contact with customers, bloggers get feedback, announce new releases, rant about the evil bugs and how you want to stabbity.

3. when you have that blog, make certain it's listed on Fashion Planet (world of SL) It basically syndicates the SL fashion blogosphere, that's where I go to see the new stuff.
4. Use the groups system to your advantage. Create an update/ffans of group for your store/line and try to get as many fashionistas in it as you can. Use it for announcements of events, promos, sales, new stuffs and anything else you can think of. Personally I think Linden Labs needs to up the group limit...to 100.

5. Know your bloggers. Know who they are and what they like, which leads to.

6. Getting promo/review copies of your items in the hands of the right bloggers and people of influence. Fashion bloggers do not have unlimited $L. (yeah I wish) You probably should automatically hand off review copies to Second Style blog and whichever PXPer you think suits your items best. Although the Linden Lifestyles gang seems to be on hiatus you should probably toss them copies too. They also have this excellent post.
There are others, of course. :-)

7. Again don't forget to use events, sales, promo's, fashion shows, clearance sales, to get the attention of the bloggers. For example, I did not blog Dazzle's regular releases, that was Willow Zander's job. :-) but when she had her clearance sale, I darn well blogged it.

8. Using IM's and e-mail to directly contact those in the know and with influence can be a good idea too.


Comments? Questions? Want to stabbity me? :-)

OPIUM Addictive store design contest

Alaska Metropolitan designer and owner of OPIUM Addictive has a contest to design a new store for her. The prize? 20000$L droools, if only I could build.

This would be a great opportunity for a new builder to prove their mettle and to make some cash and fame.

The parcel appeared to be about 30x48 by my rough walkabout but in actuaity is 32x48. I was close. Alaska said it was basically three "First Land" plots side by side.

She's got the basic rules and guidelines on her site. The contest ends November 30th Good luck builders.

I'm not going to enter,I think, but I'll try playing in a sandbox to see what I can do on a 32x48 space with my limited skills just for fun.

Thank you, for your kindness.

I want to thank those who posted words of support and friendship in my "Doll" post, it means a lot to me. Alaska, Francesca, Zoe, Choice and Willow, you're the best.

Laura Leandros's Au Naturel

I had popped over to Casa del Shai, to pick up another animal print dress and I saw a gathering of people on the mini-map. I tend to be a curious person so I walked over and found a store that I had not heard of: Au Naturel at Deimos 199,91,47

They have, hair, skins, shoes, boots and clothes, and according to a sign more items..eventually. Right now they're having a sale due to owner Laura Leandros's RL pregnancy.

I saw an interesting hair called Parisienne in red (a rather muted natural red) which I picked up for 85$L for one shade. I took pictures but SL was acting up (stabbity) so they didn't save. (and I crashed. more stabbity)

After relogging in from the crash I looked through the skins and bought one for 550$L.that I thought looked interesting Tone3 makeup 7. The pictures I took in the skin did save, but the torso never rezzed properly. Maybe it's ETD Belted's fault, whenever I wear that things have problems rezzing, I've never got pictures of it.

Anyway once on, it reminded me some of the Nevermore Hybrid II skins, dramatic brow and shadows with winged eyeliner. Yay. I like the dramatic look of winged eyeliner (for the right outfit ocassion) but am not very good at pulling it off in RL. I did the pictures bald so one could get a better look at the dramatic defined brows, and eyeshadow. The lips play second fiddle to the yes on this skin. As far as I can tell the skins only come with this brow color. You know how us red and reddish hair wearing av's are picky about that.

Eyes open

Eyes shut, just look at that intense shadow, very dramatic.

The whole overall look of this skin reminded me of a certain blogger on hiatus so I pulled out some very red hair and voila! It's Faux Sabrina Doolittle again!

Seen in world: yes
Review copy: no
Friend list: no

Luminosity Celtic sweater and Irvington set.

More releases from Sol Columbia's Luminosity

A pretty, cozy and very warm looking heathery Celtic knitted sweater and the preppy chic Irvington sweater and plaid pants set. Oh so perfect for the season, Oh so nice looking on my av. Just look at the sweater close up when you buy it, and the plaid pants are faboo. And lke the other Luminosity releases, great mix n' match potential.

I can't say much more than that I really really like them. I'm a sucker for preppy fall chic and for things that I'd buy in RL. They're pefect for taking a fall/halloween sightseeing tour in Caledon with ones innamorata or your cow.

Looks like I'm wearing my usual hair, skin, and bag. I swear, ETD Maaliyah is to me what Patootie is to Salome Strangelove, Sophisticate 1 Rose Dark Tete a Pied skin I love it so, and the Tete a Pied Heiress bag that everyone must buy. Those are Shiny Things Lollies on my feet


Seen in world: Yes
Review copies: Yes
Friends list: No.

OPIUM Limited Edition Wytch

I really like the OPIUM "Wytch" costume, it's looks very nice on my avatar and it has a sort of retro-pinup feel to it. The hat and stockings have multi-colored sequined starts. It's sexy but not too over the top

The costume alsor reminded me a bit of the animated opening of the Bewitched televsion show so I found myself a flying broom.

I found the broom here:

Pyeonghwa 17,184,26


Seen in world: Yes
Review copy: No
Friend list: Yes

Ordinal wearing a SilentSparrow dress, oh so pretty

I was in Caledon, some days back to admire the fall foliage ( they change their trees and ground based on the season) and the decorations and to check out Ordinal Malaprop's. fine emporium of gadgetry. I finally got to meet Madame Ordinal Malaprop herself. She was wearing a lovely green dress from Hyasynth Tiramisu's SilentSparrow shop. Her clothes are popular in Caledon.

We discussed weaponry, gadgetry, bee firing weaponry, mice wearing hats, weaponized jewelry for fashionistas and the Slurlblogger, which as far as I know is the only free tool that can post directly from the Grid to a Blogger APi blog. It also puts a Slurl in the post. It's new logo image is, of course. a mouse weaing a hat.

Oh so pretty. :-)

If you're in Ordinal's shop be sure to try shooting at the windows and do watch her videos.

Luminosty suede jacket and peacoat

Yes! More great jackets from Sol Columbia of Luminosity. One in cropped suede, the other a traditional pea coat. Rich colors, great details, the usual from Sol. That woman sure knows how to make a jacket. Just look at them and drool. They mix and match well with cords, trousers, jeans, casual skirts. They're very versatile.

I have found that I've been wearing the suede one more than the peacoat. I think because there are no weather cues in SL that make me think it's cold enough for the peacoat. The only place in SL that feels like it has a fall chill is Caledon.

On left: Hair by ETD (Graceful), Earrings by OPIUM, Skin by Tete a Pied (Sophisticate 1 Rose Dark), cami by Luminosity, cords by Luminosity

on Right Hair by ETD (Maaliyah), Earrings by OPIUM, Skin by Tete a Pied (Sophisticate 1 Rose Dark), Cords by Luminosity

Seen in World: Yes
Review Copies: No
Friends list: No

Shine Hazel

One time, in Lalique Square....No, it's not another cow thing. I was walking around and saw SHINE which I had never visited, so I walked in and saw this utterly cute looking sweater and skirt set named "Hazel" that I just had to have. Just so cozy looking.

I heartily recommend everyone checking SHINE out, I also recommend the Lalique Square location. No, not because I might see you and brainwash you into joining the cult of the cow, but because Lalique Square has a really nice set of cows.....I mean stores

Seen in World: yes
Review copy: No
Friend List: No
Obligatory cow references: yes

Soda Jackie Dress.

I was in SL and Choice Sliter of the Second Style blog asked me I had seen the PXP post on Soda yet. I hadn't, because when I'm in SL I don't obsessively check PXP for new posts like I do when I am not playing SL.She then told me about the dress and tossed me a TP.

When I saw it, I knew it was my kind of dress, it has the late 50's early 60's thing going on and it looks great on my tall skinny system skirt wearing av. As choice and others say, your skinny butt lets you look great in system skirts.

The hair is from ETD (Graceful in Chestnut), the skin is Sophisticate 1 from Tete a Pied, the purse is the Heiress bag from TaP, the shoes are the Lady slingbacks from Shiny Things.(Choice said she liked the dress with the black ones better than the pink) The pearls are from Raven's creations but the bracelet is from the Torridwear Spring Flowers dress set.

Besides the dress, Soda has other cute things as well all with a sort of retro vibe or it seems that way to me.

Seen in world: Yes
Review copy: No
Friends list: No.

OPIUM Black Widow costume

I said it would look good on my avatar because my av has nice boobehs.

I luv the latexyness of it, nice shine and the cape looks great when you move. It's and the other Halloween outfits at OPIUM addictive are only available till november so if you want it, grab it. I hat the new Wytch one too, but no pictures of that one yet.

The hair is by Panache (Faith Mydnyte), Skin is Skin 2.0 in Smoke, the sexy boots are from Starleys store in Celstial City.

Seen in world: Yes
Review copy: No
Friend list: Yes.

Casa del Shai cow dress

No, I am not cow obsessed, really. I mean sure, I love the cow, but I can stop dancing at any time. Really. Please.....don't make me give up the cow.

Shai Delacoix of Casa del Shai has a set of animal print dresses out. The is the cow one but they're all gorgeous.

Yes, I had to get a shot of the cow dress while I was sitting on the dancing cow.

Shai's got some nice stuff, you should see the guys jacket with the suede patches on the elbows, looks good on gals too. And the tintable slip dress, love it. It sort of seems to have a push up effect on my avatar's boobehs.


Seen in world: Yes
Review copy: The cow dress was a freebie but I received it as a member of the Lalique cowgirls and a member of the Zero Drama Llamas, not as a reviewer
Friend list: No.

Callie Cline's new store...with cows!

Plush Lambda 175,168,22 - Funk's new location at Plush Lambda open next wednesday. It's listed in the search though and you can pop in and take a look, like I did. Which eventually involved cows again. I love the dancing cow.

That's Luth Brodie (of Reel Movement), Callie Cline, Gita (of Shine), Choice Sliter (of the Secondstyle blog, and moi.

She asked our opinion of the store build which we said looked nice. She then said we could tell her if it sucked. (paraphrased) We said it didn't And it doesn't. If I think a build sucks I'm probably not going to say anything at all, but if I like something I'm going to talk. It's a nice build, nice rugs (which can be purchased for 50$L) Almost bought a rug, but I have no place to put it being landless. :-(

Callie also has a free outfit for newbie program, any avatar 2 weeks and younger can have any outfit they want (under 500$L) Very thoughtful considering the huge influx of newbies.

The rush of new folk

Waterhead welcome area. Total madness 43 people and according to the linden blog SL has a million residents about a month before I thought it would. Amazing Tons of newbies confused and wanting to know where to go, waht to do and how to make money. I used live help to send a suggestion that they send some mentors and helpers down to the welcome areas fast because they were just overwhelmed.

Post updated with pictures of the map and the welcome area itself.

Freebie hair at ETD.

Elika's brought back two styles that she discontinued 10 months ago as freebie (1$L) hair. The styles are Sideswept and vixen: You can see them on Elika's blog The colors are limited to Auburn, Chestnut, Black, Dirty Blonde, and Silver. but I'm planning on picking them up because I wasn't in SL 10 months ago! Plus they're pretty. Now with pictures of me in the hair with distracting neko ears and prim eyelashes. Mwah ha ha.

Playing with dolls.

This post on Zoe Llewelyn's Designing Insanity blog for Boneflower, made me cry.

It just hit me all of a sudden.

You see, I'm transgendered, and I have always loved dolls. When I was young, I played with my sisters dolls. I knew I wasn't "supposed" too, but I did. I was always afraid of being caught and bad things happening. When I started wearing my sisters clothes, I felt pretty much the same.

A few years back maybe in 1999 I don't remember, I was given a doll. I had told this person that I had always wanted dolls of my own but never had any and she gifted me with one. I did then buy some dolls, but haven't done so for a couple of years.

It felt pathetic you see, for me a 39 year old "guy" buying dolls. I know there are adult doll collectors, but I just felt ashamed about it. It was bad enough that I'd never been on a date or had sex, but to own dolls. It just, well I just felt all rotten about it. and still do.

Which brings me to SL, which I guess is like dolls. So I'm still playing with dolls. I spend real money on virtual clothes for my doll. I feel ashamed about it, but I love playing my avatar just the same.

I think Zoey's post took me back to that time when I was a scared lonely boy, who wanted to be with the girls, play with the girls, dress like a girl and was very afraid, and played with his sisters dolls.

And now I'm a 39 year old man, who wants to be a woman, but can't, feels very lonely and afraid, and plays with virtual dolls.

I just had to stop writing there for a bit, right now I'm just sad.

Sometimes I get feeling so sad I just want to curl up in a corner and die. Anyway I'm just "stuck" as I call it. I don' t have enough resources and above all I don't want to hurt my family. I've caused them enough pain over "this" as it is.

So I will keep playing my pretty avatar and dream silly dreams and think impossible thoughts.

Mystical Cookie Designs

Mystical cookie designs , has scripted gadgets. I was looking for a replacement for my non working Siggy Romulus emote hud and a person on Fashion Emergency recommend the MystiTool. There's a freebie version (near the door) and a pay version with even more features.


posted by CronoCloud Creeggan on Blumfield using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Yet another bloghud test

testing bloghud again. lets see if it works this time
posted by CronoCloud Creeggan on Blumfield using a blogHUD : [permalink]

Caledon Haloween Maze in the sky.

Just one more post. :-)

I figured out I didn't need pictures with this one because that would spoil it.

The Caledonians seem to really go all out for events, and Halloween is no exception. There's a Halloween themed maze in the sky that you access via a skull that I belive is in Caledon 1 or 2.

It's rather impressive and easy to get turned around in and I intend to go back and see the bits I missed and take more pictures

It's not dangerous or anything though I did shoot some scripted creatures I thought might be dangerous (you never know they could start talking to me about blingtris or something) with my Ordinal Malaprop Pocket Revolver
The Halloween decorations in Caledon remind me of Halloweens in small town Illinois for some reason. Quaint, but fun.
.

Tired

Been a long day, having the bathroom fixed to make it more accesible, which continues tomorrow, I need to edit more pictures but I'm really to tired to do it so just a simple text post.

Ordinal Malaprops new Slurlblogger version is out, it's very useful and very much improved over the previous version which was pretty good. I met Ordinal too.

I'll be blogging Alaska Metropolitans Black Widow costume.

And the luminosity jackets

And adding a picture of the freebie ETD hair to the post I did earlier.

And posting about the newbie rush

Zzzzzsnore.

Caledon Tesla Society

Object-Name: Slurlblogger v0.4
Region: Caledon (231680, 261888)
Local-Position: (188, 161, 23)

Caledon Tesla Society? I wonder if they are friends with the mice with hats

SL economy.(zOMG stipends!) and other matters

Been reading a bit on the Official Linden Blog about the changes in the stipend for new premium accounts. It's dropping from 400$L to 300$L.
zOMG Stipends! (You can get a zOMG stipends t-shirt from Ordinal Malaprops shop in Caledon. Gotta have some fashion content)

I got to thinking that though SL has an entrepreneur and professional class, it doesn't really hwave a working class and I don't think that's a good thing for the SL economy in the long run. But I don't know what to do about it. In RL store owners hire clerks and workers and whatnot but in SL the don't need people to man the cash registers or sweep the floors or clean up the aisles.

Personally I've been trying to find work and it seems that there's not much besides being a stripper or a ho. And though I thought about it I don't want to be a ho. I could tolerate stripper or dancer but I don't really want to do those either. I think my avatar is pretty enough to model but in SL, everyone can be pretty enough to model and content creators just do the modeling themselves most of the time.

I've been trying to start a marketing consultancy in game, to try to help stores reach their customers better and sell more, but I've not had any luck at all with that.

I think it's time for content creators to start hiring, live models (Blaze Columbia does this), customer service representatives, a diverse modeling stable for ads, building assistants, (Here place these ads on that wall, space them pretty evenly, while I'm making more hair), security. Just something to integrate new content creators into the economy besides being consumers.

I also think it's past time the Lindens themselves hired people to serve as guides, police officers, and eyes besides the traditional "Lindens" I've been reading Slashdot threads on SL and so many people have a bad experience when the first join because they don't know where to go besides the places with lots of people in them on the map. They're so used to MMORPG's they need SL equivalents to newbie quest givers. Sure there's places like the Shelter and NCI but LL needs to do it themsevles on a massive scale. live people on the starter islands telling people that there's more than sex clubs and casinos.

Torrid Midnight is back in SL.

Torrid Midnight of TorridWear and iki fame, one of the famous "Midnight City Girls" is back in SL. See Torrid's blog

Basically she's not going to be designing, just shopping, hanging with friends, but she does say she'll probably be back at the Second Cast podcast. Yay! I'm one of those who is a "Torrid voice" junkie.

Have fun back in SL, Torrid.

Reuters SL presence

Reuters has a new HQ in SL and an SL focused website

The move's been discussed on various places including Slashdot

But the cool thing is the Reuters HUD. it's free and it puts SL related headlines on your screen and other news. You can see story summaries in your chat history, click on a button to go the web page for the story or click on another button to be taken to the "room" in Reuters SL HQ where you can discuss the story. Sort of turning their HQ into a kind of news/discussion IRC server, only with bling, furries and fashionistas.

Their HQ sure seems to have a LOT of visitors, rivaling ETD!

I think this is something to be watched closely, it sure is interesting no matter what.

Poppy Designs, kyoot!

I had seen posts about Poppy Designs on PXP quite a few times and the thoughs that ran through my head was "That looks "kyoot", I'l have to visit sometime"

So of course, I never got around to doing so.

Yesterday, I met Francesca Poppy during the "Lalique Square Cowgasm Incident" and I knew I would just have to visit to look at the "kyoot" that I knew was there.

Poppy Designs is a collection of stalls that contains "kyoot" lingerie, "kyoot" t-shirts and much much more.

I just had to pick up a few of the fashionista t-shirts (30$L apiece) this one is the "Must Shop" shirt. Yes, it's the Cow again, it makes me happy.

She also has a selection of "kyoot" Halloween shirts that are available for a limited time so go snap em up.

Hair and skin is the usual, I think.the jeans are from OPIUM Everday and the shoes are Hansen Primero's, I'm a bit fuzzy after the "incident" too much milk.

Seen in World: Yes
Review Copy: No
Friends List: No.

The Lalique Cowgirls

It all started so innocently, I just wanted some Luth Brodie poses from Reel Movement to put in my Picture Perfect pose stand and I was then going to head to a sandbox to take some pictures, But as I was about to TP out I saw a couple of dots on my mini-map in the middle of Lalique. I figured they were fashionistas and I always like meeting new fashionistas so I decided to say hi and maybe chat a little. Lo and behold the two dots were Luth Brodie and Francesca Poppy of Poppy Designs. I game them my usual, "OMG, You're famous." greeting I give whenever I meet a content creator, and we started talking.

You know fashionistas,we love showing off our cool new finds, and old favorites and our favoirte silly toys. At one point I put on my Jooky costume from Starley Therian, And then out came Jooky doll, which led to Luth pulling out.... The Cow! Blain Candour's dancing Cow. The cow of joy, All Hail the Cow! There were three of us, then four and then 5 and then I rezzed another cow (It's moddable and copiable!)and made it BIG so we could worship it's greatness in the manner of the Jooky statue at the Pixels in Pink Relay for Life camp.

The cows made us happy, the cow makes us smile, all must love the cow because there is magic in this cow. I am not kidding, this is some cow. Besides the dancing, it moos, and plays music and when you're wearing it you have a funny/cute walk. The content creators were down because the recent bugs caused LL to turn off the save clothing item feature in the Appearance menu. Which prevented them from actually creating content. But the cows made them laugh and forget their troubles for a while.

I of course, being a blogger took screenshots to the hard drive for furture blackmail, I mean informational purposes of course. :-).

Some of the Personages involved:

Luth Brodie
Francesca Poppy
Me, your friendly neighborhood blogger
Callie Cline
Joanna Cramer
Shai Delacroix
Roslin Petion

I invited in a DJ friend of mine, Vent Rust, who likes seeing what interesting outfits I'm wearing. We met while shopping at Panache back in our early days, After commenting on my outfit, a suit from 1-800-Bettie, she got herself a cow.

Someone had a an Octopus that we found we could wear over the cow to make it look like it was dancing

I believe we actually did scare people off, mwah ha ha
Fashionistas are kerazy, but in a good way.

Some build comments

I visited Lalique square a couple days ago and I really like the build. It's not an island or anything just a sort of shopping center. It's nicely laid out and organized. It's got Reel Movement, Casa del Shai, Shine, Callie Cline and others.

It reminded me of Six Kennedy's Gurlywood sim which is also a very nice sim build. You got a large, mostly empty central area and then stores around the perimeter. Just follow the walkway around and you'll see everything.

Guess what you see when you first pop into GurlywoodL Signs and information! Very smart.

You know what I like about Six? She is always improving things. She pays attention and she learns. She's also one of the better marketeers in Second Life.

Here's to Lalique Square and Gurlywood, hurrah.

Willow Zander is posting again on PXP. Yay!

Yes, it's that important to blog about. She knows where to find the "kyootest" stuff and I "lubs/luvs/lurves" (take your pick) her upbeat and funny PXP posting style. There's the neko ears and prim eyelashes too.

See, I'm a third string blogger, I go to all the cool new places after all the "really cool and knowledgeable" fashionistas have already been there.

I can barely keep track of some of my favorite places and there's so many ones I haven't been to. I still haven't visited Elka Lehune's Boing Fromage, I think. See, I can't keep track!

I hope to log into SL on Monday and take some pictures for the blog, I did attempt to log in this morning, but the grid was down. Meh! Makes me want to do the "stabbity" thing to the next Linden I see on the grid, and I have a rather large pink handled katana for the "stabbity". Just kidding, I lurves the Lindens, except when the grid is down, there's bugs in the client, and missing images, and slow texture loading and slow frame rate and griefers n' stuff.

More seriously they should reduce the frequency of releases to do more testing. They also ought to encourage more people to do the testing on the Beta grid, perhaps offering $L to those who do. They really need to optimize the client, they ought to hire some console developers or assembler programmers for that. :-)

Review policy

#1 I am not a formal reviewer like the Second Style folk, the PXP people, or the Linden Lifestyles gals

#2 I don't have a lot of readers.

#3 If designers want to drop review copies on me, that's okay but...

#4 I can't guarantee a review and I don't want this blog to feel like work. I only have so much free time. I will always mention if I receive a review copy.

#5 I'm a positive sort of fashionista so I blog if I like something.

#6 If I don't like something, I'm not going to write about it.

#7 No piece of clothing is 100% perfect, but I will try to focus on what I like about an outfit rather than any flaws.

#8 I tend to prefer classic "real life" looking clothing, but I am not a photo-realistic sort of gal. I could not fairly review some things, like silks or some of the more risque clubwear. I do like a bit of retro now and then.30's 40's 50's early 60's. To me Rosalind Russell, Katharine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Camelot era Jackie Kennedy are style icons for the ages.

#9 My Av's butt is set to look good in system skirts, not pants. My ass will not flatter your pants. My av is tall and skinny, like certain models, which is notable in certain clothing. My av is also pale skinned so if your colors are designed for the faux tanned skin shades they might not look so good on me.

#10 My RL tastes affect my SL tastes, which means I like clothes that I would wear in RL as mentioned above and I favor the same colors. .So I'm probably not going to mention any Japanese schoolgirl uniforms even if I think they're cute.(Though the St. Solaera uniform is tempting)

#11 I tend to favor certain designers for certain things, but that does not mean that I don't think other designers don't do good work, because they do. I think I've found something I liked at almost every store I've visited.

#12 I can be a bit silly at times so you might see a zOMG every now and then

#13 I'm not an expert photo manipulator or expert on SL in game photography but I'll do my best to show off things I like in a flattering (but simple) way.

Bloggy Lateness about the Luminosity cords.

Y'know, editing my pictures on my 32 MB Linux box. would be faster if I didn't try to have a dozen layers in the things. :-) Really, GIMP performance isn't that bad on this thing as long as I don't go too complex, and I doubt a recent Photoshop would run on a 32MB Windows box. (I'm running GIMP 2.2.11)

Sol Columbia released these fall cords and wrap tops last week.

The cords are the stars of the show, being utterly great looking. At first I thought they were a touch too shiny and then I realized that instead of being the rough ugly cords of my youth, (ugg Sears Tuffskins turned me off of cords forever in RL) they're the modern pretty velvety sheeny cords.They come in the usual rich fall colors and come in both belted and beltless versions As you can see they mix and match very well with other Luminosity releases, like the Sahara jacket and vest and the Wayfarer oxford. They should also look awesome with Sol's new jacket releases.

Yeah, it's a big image but I wanted to get as many of the wrap tops and cords in it as possible, and closeups of the butt on the cords which even look good on my skinny freakishly skinny butted Linden mesh skirt wearing avatar. Look at the detailing!

The wrap tops are nice too, I can always use more basic layering pieces. They're cut well too, not too low not too high. The colors are really good, I have RL twinsets in colors very similar to the cobalt blue and wine colors.

I would however like to see some not so fitted shirt/jacket meshes from Linden Labs. And fix that damnable system skirt for those of us who don't want to go prim mini's.


I'm wearing my usual hair, ETD Maaliyah in Mahogany, Tete a Pied Sophisticate 4 skin in Rose Dark, Shiny Things Lollies shoes, and the Tete a Pied Heiress bag which I don't think has left my avatars arm for more than a few minutes since I got it. I've also got on my Frameworks Chiq glasses which means no Lynnix Muse prim eyelashes. (Every fashionista should own prim eyelashes!)


Seen in World on my skinny non-influential butted avatar?: Yes.
Review copies: yes
Friends list: No

Waaah, I need more time. and rambling miscellany

I nate being busy. especially when I can't log into SL. Maybe tomorrow.

I'm also still behind on blogging. The box I do the photo editing on is sloooow (294 MHz!) an annoying when I have lots of layers. (32MB of RAM!) I'm probably going to have to start editing on the Winbox because it's some faster, though not 7x faster. However that box is often occupied. If I didn't have Midgar (this box) I'd never get online.

Apologies for lateness, I've got a post about the Luminosity cords that is way overdue and Sol's released new jackets. Oh that woman reads minds.

I should also mention Tete a Pied's new skins for guys. (No I'm not planning on trying them out, I'm a girl, tee hee) They look "nice" on Roslin's blog

I'm also betting that Alaska Metropolitan's new costume would look awesome on my avatar because my av has the best cleavage evah

"Evah" reminds me of Willow Zander Who is taking a break from PXP

I like Willow, her blog posts and PXP posts always brightened my day. I'm glad she's going to keep doing an occasional post on her blog, that way I can still get my "Willow in neko ears fix" She also has the best nicknames for "everybody" except for one, and that's my nickname for Barnesworth Anubis.... Barnesiepooh Anubikins. Cutest male av evah! He's like the Anderson Cooper of SL.

Hmm I stil haven't seen many SL fashionistas in person.

Ahh might as well bite the bullet and finish up the picture editing and other stuff.

Hair.

Let's get this right out of the way, though I do own hair by other designers, to put it in the PXP-ish vernacular: I'm Elika's *****. I love ETD hair. I think it's the best hair in SL. It's the textures, zOMG the textures. Elika's fricking amazing perfect textures.

ETD Maaliyah in Chestnut. The hair that almost wasn't released. But thank goodness it was. I wish I had hair with enough body in real life to have this style. I love this hair.

And in Mahogany. Personally I prefer red-browns and dark reds, which is why I so love Elika's Mahogany color, its "my " color This hair is to me, what Patootie is to Salome Strangelove

ETD Bonita, I think Roslin Petion of Tete a Pied suggested this. Sol Columbia has worn it as well in Luminosity ads.

Front

and back

But a couple of weeks ago I decided to branch out a little hair wise and try some hair by designers who are not Elika. So I did some blog searching and asked on the Fashion Emergency group and found some nice hair.

Sachi Vixen of Adam n Eve released this nice updo with subtle flexi recently. I didn't know she had a shade like this. When I think Sachi, I think skin. (Really, she does some fine skin work, especially with the eyes)

The style is called Marnie:

She also has one of the best signs in SL:

For great justice! Move Zig! (yep, the AYB meme isn't dead yet)

I've seen Sachi hair in action and it's good, realistic looking flexi, not bad flexi. Shes got som really nice looking "Rapunzel" style hair to wear with her gowns and costumes.

Rita Groshomme of Empyrean Emporium has this very lovely retro updo called Snood, recommended to me by Roslin , the sly woman. She just had to recommend this hair, so that I'd buy it and then just have to buy a suit from 1-800-Bettie,which she also recommended to me.

Snood comes with snoods and a color change hair bow. And it makes me want to star in a retro "Girl Friday" style machimima.

X'Clusive has this hair called classical in this great dark red. yes, it's rather Sabrina-ish hair. That's because I first saw it on there on Linden Lifestyles :-)

Six Kennedy is known for her sassy and sexy youthful styles but she recently did this very lovely Audrey Hepburnesque updo called Abundance:(She also has a VERY Audrey hair called Audrey inspired by Breakfast at Tiffany's)

I'm luvvin that hair ornament.

I have a few more styles in my inventory I need to do pictures of. Yeah, I'm a lazy blogger. :-)

And again, Though I love all the hair in my inventory, To put it in the PXP-ish vernacular: I'm Elika's *****, That girl makes the best hair evah! The BEST!

Meow! I've gone neko!

Ok, you know how it is. Everyone reads PXP Theres peple posting all the time, and well there sure seems to be a lot of neko ears. It seems like everyfashionista has got to have her a pair.

But I've been avoiding the cat-girl phenomenon, as much as I can. Sure they're cute in that neko way, but No Mithra character when I played Final Fantaxy XI, no cat-girl anime, and no neko ears. Until now. I couldn't resist. All the cute neko ears were brainwashing me. "Don't you want to have cute neko ears like everyone else? C'mon it's just a pair of ears, you know you want them. C'mon" So eventually: "zOMG I gotta have some neko ears like Willow's"

They're from Boneflower in Temenos, the striped ones, they come in a set of several colors with matching tails for 300L. And they're cute.

As you can see I've also changed my eyes. The Perfect Peepers #66 would often show through my eyelids and under eye area because they fit over the regular eyes and I couldn't figure out how to fix that. It was annoying to see. So I got me a pair of the transparent peepers that one can use over any eye color you already have. The current ones are from Little Rebel, not as intense of a green and they don't glow in the dark but they're close enough. I'm also wearing the Lynnix prim eyelashes in Thick and Long.

Skin: Tete a Pied Sophisticate 4, Shape: OPIUM, Hair: Maaliyah from ETD in Mahogany

Meow!

Seen in World: Yes
Review copy: No
Friend List: No