Nicky Ree's Faery Dae

Been meaning to post about this wonderfully pretty set for ages. Wings! Wand! Happy Fairy Pretty Prim Goodness. Love Love Love. Lots of options. I love this with the Tap Deux Naturelle skins.

Quick and dirty images.

I've got a backlog of stuffage that I want to post about so I decided to keep the image editing to a minimum and just convert my bmps with ImageMagick convert to save time and not crop/scale em.

Adam n Eve Grand Reopening

Adam n Eve has been celebrating it's grand reopening with the new build yesterday and today. The dance/scavenger hunt starts in a bit over 20 minutes at Adam n Eve in Genesis.

I am fond of Sachi Vixen (and Damen Gorilla) and consider them to be kind of like the solid quiet types who deserve more hoopla over their stuffs than they get. They're nice! If I ever was to get married in SL, Sachi would probably be the first person I would ask to do my "Fairy tale princess poofy wedding gown". Also, amazingly enough, Sabrina, Salome and I, all like her stuff. And we don't agree on much, fashion-wise.

Nerd Test (everyone else is doing it)

I am mighty in Nerd puissance. I took it last week for message board.




Take the Nerd test

Tete a Pied Vivant Review.

The new Tete a Pied Vivant line has been released and here is a review from Tete a Pied's #1 groupie, Roslin and CJ's *****, me!

Here's the ad:



The new skins use different shades from the Tap Deux line. In fact if you want lots of variations of Tan, Faux Tan, Dark Tan, Dark, etc. TaP is not for you. The new shades are from lightest to darkest: Cream, Blush, Almond, Buff, Bronze and Chestnut. Cream is very light, Jackal Ennui style goth light I would say.

These are the makeup types: Basic red, Basic pink, Basic nude, Just Lips, Pinup, Biba, Bebelle, Kyoko, Candy, Sultry, Natural, Feline, Freckle, Horus, Glam, Cercle. I got the same preview pack others got, ie one skin in Pinup, basic nude, and Candy. I also purchased a three pack in Buff in both Just Lips and Red Lips.

The Vivant skins, unlike the previous TaP skins are hybrids. They have some photosourcing, but not too much photosourcing in my opinion. That makes them look a bit more modern than TaP Deux, which might appeal to more skin buyers, as well for those looking for more realism. But since they are not heavily photosourced, they won't turn-off TaP's loyal markets of certain fashionistas, redheads, and Caledonian ladies.

Here I am in the Buff Pinup 1, which was the first of the Vivants I put on. It was love at first sight. This skin reminds me a bit of some of the old TaP Une series in a way, which I like.



Here I am wearing the Bronze basic nude 1. This one said to me that TaP is trying to reach outside the traditional TaP market. This one is very modern and more like a traditional SL skin than older TaP's were.



And in the Blush Candy 3. You'll notice that the lips are slightly different on all the makeups. If one makeups lips don't look good on you then try another.



That's ETD Roslin hair worn in the photos above, I just had to wear it.

In the vendors in the store you'll find demos of every makeup in every skin shade. That surprised me because that's a lot of work doing that, and Roslin said that they weren't likely to do it again after doing it for TaP Deux. But they did, and I appreciate it greatly. I do have one complaint about the build, because of the way the stairs are set up the walkway in front of the skins is a bit narrow, but there's space at each end of the store for hobnobbing and kibbitzing, not including the roof.

Also, the pricing is different than the TaP Deux skins. Singles are L$500, three packs are 1200. That's right, they're a steal! Roslin and CJ want people to think of skin as an acessory that one changes with clothing and the new prices reflect that. Here's another important thing, brows and kitty's are mod.

That's right redheads, with TaP Vivant you can have every skin match your gorgeous red tresses. Just pick up the mod brow bases, and put it on. That goes for blondes too. That makes me ecstatic in joy and tribulation. See the results in this collage using the Just Lips 1 skin.



ETD Maaliyah hair

Pubic hair works similarly, just put on what kitty hair options you want, they're on the underwear layer. For those interested, the traditional TaP heart shaped kitty hair is included.

Here's some comparisons of Tap Vivant Red Lips 2 skin with the TaP Deux Sophisticate 1 skin (custom redhead version) I compared these two because of the similar lipcolors:


Full body front, notice the changes in the torso shading.:



Full body back, notice the new butt! I love the new butt!:



Torso. You can see the torso shading changes better. The cleavage enhancement is still evident, but my boobehs look a bit more realistic in the Vivant:



And the face. There's subtle changes in the facial highlighting, a sort of glow. There's some changes in the lip texture too.:



Again, ETD Roslin hair

If you're wondering how the skins might look on everybody's favourite missing Redheaded Shameless Hussy (Sabrina Doolittle) and Patootie Head (Salome Strangelove), here is yet another homage to my bosses at Linden Lifestyles If any skin has a chance to steal Sabrina's Whoring Heart(tm) from her Gala's it's TaP Vivant. This is the Just Lips 1 skin.



Armidi Bombshell hair in Ginger III on my faux Sabrina self, and ETD Patootie in Chestnut on my faux Salome self.

And here I am crying and pouting because I want them ALL! Yep, I LOVE them, but of course, I AM Roslin and CJ's ***** (Inspired a bit by Ida Keen's New World Notes Uncanny Valley contest entry last year.)



ETD Patootie in Crimson, facial emote from my Mystitool.

Tete a Pied is located in the Nouveau sim.

15000! and other trifles

I hit 15000 items in my inventory today, thanks to all the Tete a Pied Vivant skin demos. Thanks Roslin and CJ! There will be a TaP Vivant review in the near future once I take some more pics.

I'll be showcasing some of the newer OPIUM skins eventually, as well.

I still haven't decided on what to do with the RealSKINS.

I was playing with my AO today inspired by this post by Alaska Metropolitan

There's another MODA fashion show coming up, it's a PM show so I can't attend. Will post details later.

There's a change in the Caledon Covenant to allow subleasing, and the new Caledon Stormhold skin opens up soon. There also may be some more watery duchies for sale, a la Primverness, Lionsgate, etc. I haven't mentioned it on the blog but congrats to Lapin Paris for her Knighthood, received in honor of her efforts with the SL Relay for Life. Huzzah to Cap'n Paris.

And finally I have found that my IM's cap on ocassion so send notecards with IM's if you really want to make certain you've contacted me. Email is also good (it's here on the blog for a reason)

A response to Anonymous

A few weeks ago I commented on another SL fashion blog, and eventually my comment got this response that I've decided to respond to.



LMAO @ cronocloud. I can only imagine that Starley takes your rejection as a ringing endorsement.

This was in regards to my comments on disliking Starley's VOGUE line. It's the brows and the body shading, the makeup is fine. I have said many times that SL redheads are among the pickyest skin customers in SL and that is so hard to please us that skin makers probably shudder every time they see a redhead. If people think their avatars look good in the VOGUES they should buy them and there are plenty of avatars that do even if I still can't stand the way the brows look on others. I have also recommended a visit to Celestial for persons skin shopping. Also I can't recall having met Starley but I don't dislike Starley, or have an anti-Starley agenda I like some of her other products, (Her Annie May piggie buns are my second favorite piggie buns ever)



You're famous only for having bad taste and a big mouth and your nose so far up the ass of fashion bloggers that you can smell their tonsils.

I thought I was not famous at all, or famous for telling others that, "zOMG you're famous." I don't recall having brown nosing fashion bloggers, except perhaps Swirly Cyclone, but that's because she's the most important fashionista on the grid. Though in all seriousness I see the other fashion bloggers as colleagues, though I'm more of a assistant to the editor type. IE, Lackey/Minion. But I thought it was the designers I was sucking up to. Apparently I'm not doing a good enough job of that.


If you say something is bad, I'll be sure to try it on. If she (he? it?) says it's good, I'll be sure to stay as far away from it as possible.

I can't recall saying anything is "Bad", in writing anyway. But if serving as a "Reverse guideline' for you helps you find things you like then that's great. As for pronouns my avatar is female so "she" is polite. In RL one usually uses the pronoun assigned to gender one is presenting as. But the word "it" is one of the most insulting words one can use for a transgendered (or intersexed) person, which I believe the anonymous poster knew very well. Using "it" is a way to to subtly deny a person's personhood and humanity, to portray them as a thing, not a human being.


Keep in mind this "expert" with "discerning" tastes wears Tete a Pied. Which is french for "Cadaver".

Why yes I do wear TaP, most of the time. As I have said more times than I can count, I am Roslin and CJ's ***** I do wear other skins now and again as whim takes me, often OPIUM Skin 2.0 or one of Sachi's skins. More recently it's been Gala and Minnu Model skins. But Tete a Pied are my favourites and it's actually French for "Head to toe". I like TaP, I like them a lot. They're quality had drawn skins with a following among certain fashionistas and certain skin market segments.y go well with the fashions my avatar tends to wear. I freely admit that TaP skins aren't for those who like the heavily photosourced skins. I don't, I can't stand heavily photosourced skins which puts me in a dilemma when I get handed a sample pack. I don't call myself an expert, I have an interest in SL and RL fashion yes, but it's not like I work for Hearst or Conde Nast. As for discerning tastes, I tend to prefer retro and classic styles, if a reader doesn't like that sort of thing, then I'm not the fashion blogger they should be reading.


I'm so sick of you spewing your self pandering bullshit all over linden lifestyles.

Say what? I haven't had that many posts on linden Lifestyles except for the interviews. Only two actually. Now if you're counting comments that's a different story. But my job on LL is to put up the interviews and leave reviewing for the bosses. Of course my job is much easier when designers respond to interview requests.


It's hilarious that you actually mistook this blog as a serious forum and thought anyone cared what you had to say. You need to shut the fuck up. Isn't there a hostage you need to attend to? I think it needs to put the lotion in

Ah a Silence of the Lambs reference, Buffalo Bill to Catherine Martin: It puts the lotion on it's skin or it gets the hose again." It's a good thriller. But you must have forgotten or not have been paying close attention (as many people obviously didn't), the character of Buffalo Bill aka Jame Gumb as played by Ted Levine was stated to NOT be transgendered in both the film and the book the film was based on.

So Anonymous, I really don't mind that you don't like my style/opinions, that's okay. If you have issues with my identity....well some people just don't "get" people like me. It makes me sad that it happens but it does. Though I would have more respect for you if you had used a name rather than posted anonymously. You couldn't have attacked me for being transgendered without me being honest on this blog and in my SL profile.

More Sales!

Simply put: ETD! Adam n Eve! Tete a Pied! Shop, Buy, Consume!

Aspire Miss SL Tropics contest

UPDATE: see below

There's another Aspire modeling contest, details in a post on the Aspire blog

Here are my entries (Skin by Minnu Model Skins, Hair from Analog Dog, swimsuit from OPIUM Everyday, and slipdress from Simone!):






There's another Aspire modeling contest, details in a post on the Aspire blog

Why yes, that is not my usual appearance. By looking at past contests I'm making a guess at the sort of appearance that the judges of the contest will want. I went for the tanned, slightly exotic looking but not too exotic, traditional SL model look. Unlike RL, where if designers or modeling agencies might be looking for Brazilians of primarily European ancestry or 6 ft tall girls from eastern Europe with high cheekbones and if you don't fit what they want you're out of luck, in SL you can be whatever they want. I guess I'm "gaming" the contest in a way.

UPDATE:

The contestants have been determined and are listed on Isabella Sampaio's blog

Sale at Reel Movement

Normally I'm not one to cover sales, but Luth Brodie (IMHO one of the best posemakers in SL), as part of her relaunch of her business as Reel Expression is having a sale at her Lalique Square Reel Movement location starting at 5PM SL time today (the 10th) and lasting through the 18th. Verbatim press release follows:


Hello!

Just dropping you a note that I'm having a sale, changing the name, opening the new store and releasing around 80-100 new poses in the next week and 1/2.

New stuff will include:
Female modeling poses
AOs
Mens modeling poses
Couple's poses
Furniture

Schedule of events:
Friday 10th Aug 5pm SLT - Sale starts with everything at least 25% off.

Friday 17th Aug 5pm SLT - Sale ends and sim closes. A few hours later I will reopen the sim to only my new update group - Reel Expression Udpate.

Saturday 18th Aug 8pm SLT - Opening to the public.

Cheers
Luth



and I just have to have a picture of my favourite Luth pose, Expressions #4 aka the finger horns pose. That's ETD Luth hair, Tete a Pied skin, the new Aout release from Tete a Pied, and the Tete a Pied mary janes.

Second Life Relay for Life 2007

As of this moment the Second Life Relay for Life 2007 event is still going on. This year they are suing 32 sims compared with last years 12. Thats 2097152 square meters! The vent concludes at 2pm SL time today, so there's still time to participate in the actual walk. Though I am not a formal member of any of the RFL teams, I did make some small donations here and there and purchase some RFL items at various vendors throughout the grid. And I did serve in the Caledon RFL Militia, serving as a warm body in machinima. Since the performance of SL on my lappy is not so good I decided to visit the track location late friday night, and Saturday morning so I wouldn't be slowed down by a large number of avatars. I took a lot of screenshots, over 120 in fact.

With that many screenshots I wasn't going to post them here, that would be unwieldy, Thanks to Linux I have relatively easy ways of mass renaming images, mass converting images, and mass uploading them to flickr.

For the conversion I used convert from the ImageMagick tools set:

for x in *.bmp; do convert -quality 95 $x $x.jpg; done

For the renaming I found a perl script that did the job:


#!/usr/bin/perl

my $dir = '/path/to/images/directory';
my $names = '/path/to/file/with/the/wanted/names';
my $files = '/path/to/file/with/the/real/name';

chdir $dir or
die "Could not change dir to $dir: $!\n";

open NAMES, $names or die "Could not open $names: $!\n";

open FILES, $files or die "Could not open $files: $!\n";

my $name = ;
chomp $name;

my $file = ;
chomp $file;

while($name && $file) {
print "renaming $file to $name...\n";
rename $file, $name;
$name = ;
chomp $name;
$file = ;
chomp $file;
}

close NAMES;
close FILES;


Just create a text file with the old names, another with the new ones and point the script at them and the image directory. To create those files I just did an:

ls -1 > current_names.txt
cp current_names.txt wanted_names.txt

and then used the search/replace functions in vim to get the names I wanted fast.

For uploading to Flickr, I used the flickr_upload Perl script. like so:

flickr_upload --tag='"SL RFL"' --description "Screenshot taken at the Second Life Relay for Life 2007" *.jpg


The phots are at CronoCloud Creeggan's flickr photos and have the "SL RFL" tag

Skin Review: Minnu Model Skins

There's a been a plethora of new skin designers showing up in SL, and established designers that I have not heard of releasing new skins. I was dropped a Sample pack of Minnu Model Skins a few days ago. I had not heard of their creator, Minnu Palen before, and gave them a try. Originally I was not planning on doing any kind of a review, because when it comes to skin reviews, my boss Sabrina Doolittle is the best skin reviewer around, in my humble opinion. But she's away from SL, and I thought these skins deserved a review, at least on my own blog.

Lets get the basics out of the way. Minnu Model Skins (which I will abbreviate to MM) are mostly hand drawn with some photosourcing on the body, but not too much photosourcing, because Minnu believes too much can ruin a skin. There are 5 skin shades, Pale, Light, Mid, Tan, Dark. I, of course, am a pale face. Pale is the new tan! This is the Pale skin shade with the Dominate makeup.



First thing I thought when I put them on was: zOMG, I've got the "Aspire" look a la Colleen Desmoulins or Isabella Sampaio. I have to admit that I think the overall look is "generic SL glamour". There are a lot of skins that can give a look like this. However, most of those have much more photosourcing, which in most cases makes them look like crap on my avatar. MM skins keeps it more subtle. The abs are defined but not too over shaded, the knees are nicely done, and it's a very pleasant and easy to look at skin. It does everything reasonably well, even if it's not a "stand out from the crowd" skin.


There's a been a plethora of new skin designers showing up in SL, a

I even like the brows! They only currently come in this brown shade, though Minnu has said that different brow colors have already been requested. The faces themselves have that generic "slightly exotic SL glamour" look on me with the high contoured cheekbones. The lippies seem to be all frosts, which is a downside in my opinion. (I prefer matte, creamy and glossy lippies in RL) The faces worked well with full lips and thin lips as can be seen. I tried them on a bunch of different shapes and the face flattered them all, even the famous Spin Spin Sugar shape. That may be the reason for the "generic SL glamour" look, that look may work on more shapes and faces than other basic looks.

Here's the Light shade in the 40's makeup:



Now the standard MM skins may not be "stand out" skins but the Mia's are. The Mia's are "Asian" skins. Very pretty skins. In fact the Mia's are IMHO the best "Asian" skin in SL that I have seen:



On the left is the Mia Deep on the right is Mia Ice Queen. You can also see the boobehs, which are the standard boobehs on all the MM skins. Yes the nipples are blurry but that could just be my shape, which seems to make ALL nipples blurry. They could also use a bit of highlighting/shading to enhance the cleavage, IMHO.

Now, I am no Sabrina Doolittle but here's a kitty shot:



The kitty is important to some. Now I'm not that familiar with kitty's in SL, but I think this kitty's pubic hair is a bit sparse. As for the bits themselves they aren't scary looking. You can also see the hands, which are very nice with knuckles and prettily manicured nails that don't look like someone dipped them in white paint.

So overall do I recommend these skins? Yes, for those who want the look this kind of skin gives, and for those who want a bit of photosourcing but not too much, and for those who want a reasonably good skin that's very pleasant to look at. Single skins are $L 1100, fatpacks of four are $L 4000, older skins are $L 900, and eyes are $L50.

Minnu Model Skins is located at: JT World VI 211,208,22 The build does NOT suck, and you know how I am about builds. There are also other locations. In addition to skins, MM also sells shapes and eyes.

One other note, the location above has a small fashion runway with seating suitable for a small fashion show. Minnu has said that she wants to support new designers and give them a place to show off their stuff, which I applaud. Contact Minnu Palen for more details.

Sorry for the image problem folks, I had a duplicate of this post saved thanks to a glitch and when I deleted the duplicate it deleted the images too, and I didn't realize it was doing that fast enough.

A new micro-nation, Avendale

I just found out about a new micro-nation in SL, Avendale, founded by Mystical Cookie of Mysti-Tool fame. It sounds very interesting from the Notecard:


Hello, and thank you for your interest in Avendale!

We currently have land available in the following beautiful sims:

Avendale Town Square, Avendale (204, 201, 21)
Nevi Community Public Park, Nevi (142, 192, 22)
Adeo Community Tavern, Adeo (153, 106, 22)
Cila Community Park, Cila (123, 123, 21)


Anyone is welcome to visit and enjoy our wonderful community! We are a real community of friends living in beautifully landscaped island estates. Please do not be afraid to say hello to us, we love to meet new friends!

Are you looking for land? Tired of moving and discovering one week later laggy casinos, shopping malls, strip clubs, etc have come to your mainland sim? We have no such things here. Come and see for yourself. :) Each sim has a different setting and feel, from town settings to countryside forests!

Even if you do not own land in our sims, we would still love to meet new and friendly people to assimil.. um.. integrate into our community! Please be fun, friendly, and pardon our sometimes twisted sense of humor. :)

If you have any questions, please feel free to drop a notecard to Mystical Cookie!

-Mysti


And the Covenant is somewhat similar to Caledon's.

So I think it's worth a look for those looking for a nice place to settle down, build a shop, hang out.

Contest entry and skin comparison

Yeah, I entered the Ginny/Starley Are you the face of style contest, but I had to get a Starley skin first. I only had a Passport and I don't flatter it and it makes me look like Salome. So I tried demos.......lots of demos and figured out right off that I don't like the Vogue/Deviant Nation brows. Can't stand them. Course, that's me being picky on brows. After doing some searching I found the Carrot and Auburn Charmed series and got a Carrot:




My shape flatters it much better than the other Starley skins, I actually look like me and the I can tolerate the brows. I know, I harp on brows, but they're very important, especially to redheads. The shape and color just has to "work". Give me a groomed, shaped, "classic" brow with a nice arch, but not too much arch any day.


For comparison a shot in TaP Sophisticate 1, one of my favorite skins ever:




Yeah, I'm Roslin and CJ's ***** all right.

I'm lip picky too, but that is another story.

Rezday!

Yay, it's my SL rezday! Has it been a year already? Seems like only yesterday that I was a starry eyed newbie Ruth.

Here's an image from my early days, from about July 24th, OPIUM suit and Ruth skin/hair.



And look at me now, well June 25th anyway, suit from Marzipan's Closet:




If I go back and look at my older posts, I start looking like "myself" around the 31st of July, and look pretty much like I do now starting in mid August when TaP Deux came out.

I've really enjoyed SL over the past year. If I'd have been told that in the future:

1. My avatar would sometimes get recognized by avatars I have never met.

2. That I would have contributed to PXP.

3. That I would be a Linden Lifestyles Lackey.

4. That I would be known for dancing on cows.

5. And have over 10000 items in the inventory


I would have not believed it. Among the highlights:

Schoolgirl Antics in Luminosity
Cow Dancing
Meeting Sabrina and Sachi Vixen during the building of Dickens Fair
Meeting Roslin and CJ in the old TaP store.
Meeting Swirly Cyclone in Paper Couture.
Making the Picture Perfect Studio Light Effects
Discovering Caledon
Becoming a Caledon Gun Bunny (We wuv you Guvnah Shang!)
Meeting Salome.
Meeting tons of other Fashionistas.
Voting for Kit, at the Big Brother Habitrail.
And many many more.

I just want to thank everyone who's friended me. It's the people that make SL great, not just the shopping and playing dress up with my avatar.

I've just went back to the first sim I entered. I joined SL through an SLURL for a Geekbrief SL meetup, so it was the old CC. Chapman headquarters in Shatgogae I appeared at, not newbie island, so I was totally and completely lost. My first landmark was:

C.C. Chapman's Podcast & Digital, Shatgogae (243, 196, 50)

My first fashion related LM was:

OPIUM Everyday + SKIN, Alpha Centauri (215, 8) created on July 23rd. Which is still a valid LM for OPIUM. Yay Alaska Metropolitan

I have LM's from Caledon dated July 28th.

Missing my bosses, oh no it's faux Sabrina and Salome again.

Yes, I'm missing Sabrina and Salome's post on Linden Lifestyles very much. No, I don't know when they'll be back. Summer is a very busy time for them, something similar happened last year. But not only am I their Friday Interview Lacky, I am their #1 fan or should be. So when I really mis the "Red Headed Shameless Hussy" or "The Patootie Haired One." I'll dress like them, and then sit in my skybox and say "Pants" and "Squee"

You see, Sabrina and Salome are among my favorite people to hang out with, though I haven't done that a lot, they're very busy ladiee. Theyr'e even funnier and wittier in virtual person than they are in their blog posts.

Sabrina, or as I like to cal her, "The Red Headed Shameless Hussy" is in part the inspiration for my own "Red Headed strangeness".And it is because of her, that I can't spell jewellery and favourite in the US way anymore. This is one of my favorite Sabrina outfits, i'ts a mixture of different pieces Armidi Bombshell hair and a Gala skin. This is my only Gala skin. I've always wanted to know what Gala looked like on me so I finally broke down and got one. I reallylike it...mostly, except for a minor quibble with the brow color, but I'm extremely picky about brow color. I think Gala skin looks better with thinner lips so I tweked them down a bit just for this skin. The outfit itself is a little bit punk, a little bit girly, and a lot sexy. Details are in her original blog post, and of course she looks better in the total ensemble than I do.

the eo/last call/wrong/oi/heart headband outfit post:





Ah Salome, everyone's favorite Patootie wearer and Mistress of Squee. She's my shoe inspiration. These outfits are from Reasonable desires, the purple bodiced gown and the nun set. That's the only Passport skin I own and frankly my shape does not flatter it. I'm also not fond of Starley's default brows but that is just me and my brow pickyness. I've said it once and I'll say it again redheads are hard to please, especially when that redhead is me. Salome is not a redhead though and like her I'm a fan of ETD's browns, especially Chestnut. Salome looks much cuter in the nun's habit than I do.

nun habit and purple bodice dress from reasonable desires review





I have sometimes thought of myself as Sabrina and Salome's strange "love child" because I'm like a combination of them in some ways stylewise. And has been said on Linden Lifestyles, they show their love by telling each other (and me) why they hate what they're wearing. Sabrina is one of the reasons I switched to less intense greens in my eyes. And I am their #1 fan, but not a stalker! Really. I'm not that crazy, Sabrina has sticks! I just like to do "faux Sabrina and Salome" when they go missing, like I said, yeah that's the ticket. But I am too much Roslin and CJ's ***** to look like them all the time. I love my Tete a Pied skins.And I have my whole "CC looks like a 50's housewife / sophisticated businesswoman / ocassional hussy / penguin" thing going on.

But wherever they are and whatever they are doing I wish them a speedy return to blogging, so that we all may read "Pants!" and "Squee!" again.

Voice

I've been using the First Look Voice Beta's since they became available, and I have a few things to say about voice:

Yes, it surprises people when they hear my voice. I think people understand that SL is different than most online "games" and realize that most of the female avatars are actually female, unlike the old joke applied to IRC, World of Warcraft and the like. So that when I speak, there's a disconnect. There are such things as voice morphing software, like MorphVox but since I am honest in the profile, I don't think I'll use them, though I have played with them a bit.

Voice works best in small groups, in large groups it's just too chaotic, and unlike text chat, you can't scroll back to see what you've missed. Also in large groups there always seems to be some disruptive person, either being a misogynist, homophobe, asshole or just simply cursing every other word.

There is also the problem of language, there are tools that can translate text like the Babbler mentioned in the previous post, but translating speech isn't as polished. Even turning speech to text is not all that easy.

Voice actually works well, it' amazingly clear, as good or better than a landline phone voice quality. However I think the voice clients are more resource intensive. They do not seem to play well with other applications running. That could be an issue for those with low-end "SL is a slideshow" machines like mine. (Integrated graphics, 852GM/855GME chipset)

Now I'm not going to say that I will never use voice, but I don't think I will use it too often. I can imagine it might prove very useful to others, so unlike some, I've not been opposed to implementing it. I am surprised that more people don't use the voice enabled first looks. LL needs as many people testing it as they can get. I've not tested the direct voice conversation parts of it, I don't think I have anyone in my friends list who's voice enabled.

Babbler, a translation tool

With the increasing number of international users of SL, there is an increasing need to be able to understand each other. While I took a year os Spanish in High School, it was many years ago and I have forgotten most of it and I don't understand German, French, Italian or Portuguese at all other than recognizing some root words and the like. That's where Babbler comes in, its a HUD by Max Case that uses Yahoo Pipes to translate what you say, or what others say to you. I was gifted with one bya German speaker and it has proved it's worth already. But here's the best part....it's free. Not only that but you can gift it to others by pressing a button on it.

The Linden's ought to add this thing to the Library, it's that useful. You can get more info on it at Max Case's website

You can also find it in world by using Search.

In Search of tutu.

I was hanging with Swirly Cyclone and the discussion got around to ballerinas and tutus. I thought I had seen some somewhere in my journeys and said so, and also checked my inventory. Nothing. So I decided to try the Beta of the Electric Sheep's search.


Try it yourself and see what you get for tutu

One of the results puzzled me. The one for a PixelDolls outfit at neither the Chartreuse or Port Seraphine locations. Now I'm a fan of PixelDolls so I decided to check to see if said item was at Port Seraphine but just not listed. As far as I could tell it wasn't.

the Port Seraphine store is one of those "too large for their own good stores." Meaning that it's larger than it ought to be with too much open space, which slows down the client too much. Not fun to shop in, for me. At least it's somewhat organized, though I'd put the flexi dresses on the same side of the store as the other dresses. As of now they're on opposite sides. The store could also seriously use a directory/map. Yes, I'm extremely picky about store design.

So I decided to check out the location that supposedly had the item: tropics 33, 176, 26. It turns out that sim is some kind of resort sim, and it has a mall. That location is that of a small PixelDolls store, that neither I or Swirly had ever heard about before. (It's not listed in SL search if you search for PixelDolls) Swirly also said to me that none of the PixelDolls locations had everything.

Frankly, in a direct TP enabled SL, having multiple stores is probably not as useful as it was. In fact, IMHO, designers should just stick with one. Unless, the designer uses different stores/branding for different purposes. like having a fetish line at one store and the avatar-next-door clothes at another.


Here's the "Ballerina Practice oufit L$350, it has plenty of outfit options



Skin: Tete a Pied Sophisticate 1, Hair: ETD Graceful in the old Mahogany(from 2006).

Sold right next to it is an awesome Ballerina AO (for L$1000). It's just so pretty. I'm thinking about transferring the fly anims to my standard AO. I'm thinking about buying a second copy so I can keep on as is after I take the anims out of one.

Without the sheep search I'd have not found this on my own. (though somebody on fashion emergency might have known about it. It's not on SLEX/SLB either)

Happy RL Rezday to moi!

Today, or yesterday rather, the 9th was my RL 40th birthday. Yay for moi.