The gown I wore to the handfasting: Evening Star from Adam n Eve

Here's the gown I wore to the Royal Handfasting of Gabi and Azul, Evening Star from Adam n Eve in the Genesis sim:



It's called a "red" but it's more of a lovely fall burgundy. I has nice contrasting black and gold trimmings on the bodice and skirt, but also comes with a plain unadorned skirt. The skirts also come in a slim version, for those who don't want to wear the poofy ball gown skirt. I just think the gown in this color is very flatting on my avatar, and it was well worth buying.

ETD Anisa hair and a Fleur skin.

The Royal Handfasting of Gabrielle Riel and Azul Draken

I attended the handfasting of Her Grace Gabrielle Riel of Caledon Carntaigh and Lady Azul Draken. Here's one of the pictures I took.



Her Grace Gabrielle Riel was wearing the Flora gown in white from Nicky Ree, and the Gibson Girl hair from Miriel Enfield. Lady Azul Draken was wearing the Lady Edwina ensemble also from Nicky Ree.

I am in the first pew on the far left in the burgundyish Evening Star gown from Adam n Eve, ETD Grand hair, and Fleur Vivant Laura skin.

I took more pictures and put them in a set on flickr:

Gabi and Azul's handfasting set taken by CronoCloud Creeggan on flickr

The handfasting was probably the "grandest" event I've attended in Caledon and I am glad I was able to attend. My happyest wishes for the future to the happy couple, the Nightingale (Gabi) and the Dragon (Azul) Huzzah!

Here's some links to other Caledon blogs with posts and pictures on the handfasting:

blog post by rhianon jameson

blog post by Otenth Paderborn

blog post by Eva Bellambi

Baron Outlander says he'll have some up

Ball gown shopping for Her Grace's handfasting.

Her Grace Gabrielle Riel of Caledon Carntaigh (and of Radio Riel fame too) is being handfasted on Sunday to Lady Azul Draken and I, along with many others have been invited. You know what that means, choosing a gown to wear. Her Grace is a noted Caledonian fashionista as seen in this picture with both of us wearing Simone Gatsby:



We have noted our similar tastes in wardrobe, makeup styles and hair styles so it's part of the "Caledon Mythology" that I'm a distant cousin whose clan of fashionista-warriors sold their lands and titles....to buy more shoes.

I happend to mention I was gown shopping and she showed up herself looking for another gown. Caledonian ladies, duchesses or no, can never have too many gowns. I almost didn't recognize her at first.



Where's the ETD Anisa and Tiara? Where's the ball gown? zOMG she's wearing....jean capris and....sneakers. Nooooooo. Ah I so kid the Duchess, she does look great casual too.

Goes to show you that most avatars have different looks for different occasions.

The important thing was not clashing with the Attendants which prevented me from wearing the gown I had been planning on wearing. "Cousin" Gabi's will be in red, and Lady Azul's will be in blue. So I went through my mess of an inventory. Yes.... it's really a mess. a BIG mess.

I had nothing that was really telling me that I wanted to wear it to the handfasting. I eventually picked up four gowns, only one of which I have pictures of at the moment, Carrie from Adam n Eve. It's a simple corseted ballgown with a sheer skirt overlay, I got it in black, of course. Yes, I know one is not supposed to wear black, though it's more accepted these days, but I can, because I'm a Victorian Trollop.



Simple! Pretty! Love! Good price too and it comes with options so you can wear the corset and stockings lingerie style.

I also Looooooove the newest Adam n Eve build in Genesis sim. It is VERY well designed, signs, teleports, it rezzes quickly, it's not laggy, and it's attractive.

Now I may not actually wear that gown to the handfasting, I may choose one of the others (though one I will probably save for the Bardhaven Halloween Ball), or just go in Uniform of one of the Caledon Military groups. ( I can do that too.) I did need to supplement my collection, though I have gowns that are more "Old Hollywood" in style. I don't have many that said, "Caledon handfasting and reception ball"

Ack ack, bad CCC blog hiatus.

Yes, I'm still alive and in SL. It' really is hard to get back in the swing of things, I swear. I login with the intent of doing bloggy stuff but then I get distracted, and NOT with shopping.

I have put a few newer pictures on my flickr that I've finally gone pro on. Alaska Metropolitan told me I would go pro eventually. :-) You can see that I "finally" got the ICING Miss Hathaway gown that everyone else has.

CronoCloud Creeggan's flickr

Also, one of my friends in SL has left SL, fellow blogger and redheaded hussy, Kit Meredith. I respect her reasons but I'm going to miss her very much. Which, with the ending of Linden Lifestyles, means I am the ranking redheaded shameless hussy on the grid. And these days now that I think of it, I am one of the "older" fashionistas on the grid, which is really strange.

I really should work harder on doing stuff for Metro Models, writing fashion show scripts (blurbs for outfits) is fun most of the time, unless I'm having writer's block. And on the new machine I could turn down the settings and sit for hours at a fashion show.

I've finally figured out how to solve the 11MB high res SL .bmp dump issue, just go ahead and let SL compress them, it'll save em as .png which is not lossy and a lot smaller.

I've also been flirting with Miss Hypatia Callisto of Caledon, every chance I get, simply because she says she doesn't get flirted with. There may be a Caledon singles ball scheduled sometime so that we singletons can celebrate our singleness and be cheered on by all and sundry.

I also need to take a picture of the bear ears of immeasurable cuteness. Nothing is cuter than me in bear ears, except Rosie Bartholomess in bear ears.

Miriel Enfield has finished her build.

She's done. :-) That's really all I need to say. Don't know if it's actually open yet, but it's done, so soon very soon.

Blog Death

Yes, I'm sad about Linden Lifestyles, but I'm also sad about Mean Girls Guide to SL and Shopping Cart Disco. Heck I still miss PXP and Style Disorder.

But SL fashion blogs do die, not that we want it to happen. I know that there's some who wish the lackeys would just take over Linden Lifestyles and keep on going, but Linden Lifestyles would not be the same without Sabrina and Salome. It's their baby, they created it, they put their whoring hearts into it and I am happy that I was a small part of it.

As for the Mean Girls, I love em. I aint got the attitude to be a Mean Girl, but I did admire them and what they did.

As for what I'll do post LL, not that I did much during my tenure, I'll blog here as I have always done on occasion. And post pictures to my flickr page I'll probably do infrequent posts for the Metro Models blog

As for preventing blog death, I think the solution is people, lots of people, as many as you can get. Give em beat assignments if you want "you get the fashion shows, you get skins, yadda yadda yadda" but also say: "if you see a hole, plug it, fill in the gaps." I guess that's what Second Style is doing these days with syndicating content, it's essentially getting lots of people working for Second Style.

Six degrees of separation.

I've been seeing a LOT of familiar faces and names in Hamlet Au's New World Notes lately as subjects of posts, contributors and commenters, and it got me thinking

Here are some of the names I've seen recently:

Crap Mariner
Vidal Tripsa
Phineas Messmer
Zoe Connolly
Eladrienne Laval
Charlanna Beresford
Iris Ophelia
Kit Meredith

I know them all. Lanna and Iris contribute to NWN and they're in my friends list. Phineas, Zoe and Eladrienne are Caledonians and I see Miss Laval and Miss Connolly frequently. Miss Tripsa I met in Extropia, before she got mentioned on NWN. Turns out she hangs in Caledon too. I can't remember where I met Crap, sorry Crap. Kit I met at a Metro Models show, and she and I both worked for Linden Lifestyles as did Iris.

Some might be thinking "Hey, they're really is an insular clique of the famous people" A "FIC" (Feted Inner Core) if you will. Not that I agree with the concept of the FIC, created by Prokofy Neva (Yes, there are people from various parts of the FIClist in my Friends list)

I think the FIC concept is too limiting. IMHO there's a more generalized "avatars of influence" group that's much larger. It would include the formal and informal SL press (bloggers and the like), those who post/comment a lot on blogs/forums, a lot of content creators, etc. It's too large of a group for any individual to have major influence. In fact, SL is so big these days that there's not much Fete-ing of anyone by Linden Labs Everyone is becoming a smaller fish in a bigger pond. Ask new folk who Anshe or Aimee are. They'll say Anshe who? Aimee who?

Places like NCI, the Shelter or BareRose, or Caledon as a whole, are far far more influential than individuals these days.

Even in the SL fashion world, individuals are becoming less influential. Are the folks at Second Style as influential as they were back in 2006 when I joined? I don't know. Or consider the skin glut, seems like everybody has a skin line these days.

And by the way, I'm D-List at best. :-)

"Chick Like Me"

Caledonian Phineas Messmer is doing an experiment in Avatars. He, a freely acknowledged straight male, is trying out a female form.

She's already found out it's a money sink, and learned the powers of a pretty skin and is discovering how important shoes are. Mwah ha ha ha ha.

I know that Mr./Miss Messmer will have some interesting experiences and interesting things to say about them.

And yes, the title of this post is a reference to the Boy Meets World episode: Chick Like Me, which in itself was inspired by Black Like Me

Rezday.

My second rezday was last Saturday, same day as the RFL so I didn't plan anything, not that I'm a good planner of parties. I'm still not planning anything, though I do want to throw some kind of party of some kind. If I had parcel control in my skybox area I'd just invite everyone over and set up the parcel stream to Radio Riel or something.

I'm glad I kept a blog on my avatar. It's interesting to see how little my avatar has changed over the past few years. I've been reddish haired and TaP/Fleur skinned since late August of 2006. I'm still very classic in style, though I do like to play around with appearance, after all I've been a penguin dressed as Wonder Woman.

It's been a fun two years, thanks to the people I've met. SL wouldn't be the same without the people. Alaska, Sabrina, Salome, Daisy, Dot, Kit Maitland, Kit Meredith, Sachi, Rosie, Celebrity, Willow, Luth, Sophrosyne, Vidal, a bajillion Caledonians, and so so many more.

Getting back in the swing of things.

As Kit Meredith says on her blog, it's hard to get back in the swing of things. There's never enough time to do what I want in SL and do other things in RL. I've also been trying to figure out a way to streamline photo stuff. On the new laptop SL pics are 11MB, which are teh devil if I want to send a bunch to anyone. Either I can compress them and lose quality or send em as is. Though one good thing is the new lappie must have the gods own integrated graphics. When I can go to a charity fashion show, have everything rez and take 600MB of pics, and only have SL crash after turning up the graphics after at least 6 hours of SL, that's something.

I swear, I should just set up a cron job to auto convert and scale pics I put in a specific directory.

Oh yeah I also have another new toy, that I've been wanting for over a year, a mighty Playstation 3. I needed one in addition to wanting one because Midgar (my Playstation 2 with Linux installed) was having hard drive issues. I knew it was going to fail soon, and it did. fscking superblock errors, it refuses to boot at all now, and I never did get all my files off of it. I installed Yellow Dog Linux on the PS3 late night the evening I got it. It runs soooo much better than on the PS2, the GIMP is actually speedy, though it's an older version than what I had on the PS2.

I've also discovered that the laptop's LCD screen is crap compared to the cheapo Wal-Mart LCD TV I have the PS3 hooked up to. It's contrast and color is not so good and it's even lower resolution. The TV is 1440x900 and the lappie is 1280x800. I'm using 1280x768 under Linux because going higher res causes the TV to try to scale things funny, the PS3's graphics chip is funny about output resolutions too, it only uses specific ones, so I can't force it to go 1440x900.

I've been playing Oblivion on the PS3 too, been collecting pretty dresses for my character, a female Imperial with reddish hair. :-) Oblivion's character graphics are "uncanny valley weird", even more so than SL. In some ways I think the game would have been better had the avatars been more "SL" in appearance, less realistic. They eyes on Oblivion characters are spooky.

I've been a member of Sony's Gamer Advisory Panel for over 5 years, so I'm hoping I'll get an invite to the "Home" beta. "Home" is sony's SL style virtual environment, that looks suspiciously a LOT like SL. I really want to compare the two. I'm also hoping they allow for user content so Elika can make hair and Roslin and CJ can make makeup for Home. Because I don't want to wander around Home without my ETD Hair in Mahogany or Fleur skin.

Absence

I've been absent from SL and the blog, I know. I apologize to any readers and fans for that. I had been not feeling up to par, in part due to a bit of the shingles. But I feel more myself these days, thank goodness. Also, the household has a new lappie, still with integrated graphics, but Sl does play better at the settings I normally use, and if I turn the shaders on I can see the pretty clouds and water, and watch my framerate drop to 2fps again. But that would be good for photos I think.

The old lappie still works, and it's now my "tinkering with" machine so that means I might actually be in SL more than before, just sometimes on the new lappie (which is for general household use) and sometimes on the old. If I can find a replacement DVD/CD drive, once I'm certain we won't need any files on the old lappie, I'll clean it up as much as I can, repartition and install Linux alongside XP (if I can fit them both)

The new lappie has Vista...-[continue/cancel], it is annoying, [continue/cancel], I'll probably turn off UAC [continue/cancel].

As for the lappie itself it's a HP DV6809wm AMD 64 bit Turion dual core TL-60, 3GB of RAM, 120 GB of HD (of which about 65 is actually available), NVIDIA 7150M integrated graphics (with hardware T&L, woot!). Aero runs fine, this thing runs Vista better than the old lappie runs XP, so far, mwah ha ha ha.

Femme Couple poses from Aphrodite Creations UPDATED

While there is some dreck promoted through the Fashion Consolidated group, sometimes FashCon comes through with something you were thinking about or looking for.

A few weeks ago, just before I posted about my openness to an SL relationship, I was wondering what couples animations were out there intended specifically for femme couples, ie couples comprising two female avatars. So I did a little bit of looking, but didn't find much, though if memory serves me correctly Luth Brodie has some at Reel Expression. UPDATE: Luth has 9, and is working on more, they are availabe at Reel Expressions in Lalique Square.

So, a notice earlier on Sunday from Aphrodite Creations caught my eye, and i took the notecard. When I opened it and looked at the pictures of the animations, I thought: Bingo! I was busy at the moment but a short time later I TP'd over to the Aphrodite Creations store and bought the three femme couples poses for 100L$ each. Soon after, I got an IM from Aphrodite Outlander saying, "How dare I shop in her store when she wasn't there." :-) Turns out she's a big fan of Linden Lifestyles I told her the above story and told her I was pleased to see and buy the poses. I didn't take the time to fully explore her store, being L$ broke after buying the poses, but she does have some nice shoes and dresses. Later on I wanted to take some pictures of the poses, but since I am without an SL girlfriend I was trying to decide who among my friends list to ask to help. Then I thought about asking Aphrodite herself, who ws nice enough to take the time to help me out.

Pose 1: in this one it looks like I am being shy while being pulled over for a smooch.



Pose 2: Back to back with our heads slightly touching, very pretty.



Pose 3: Looks like I'm about to lead her to the dance floor for a twirl.



I liked the poses, and I hope Aphrodite does more. Also the individual poses in the pose hearts are copy so you can use them individually in your pose stand. Very cool. Thank you again, Aphrodite for taking the time to pose with me.

My outfit details: Wrap dress from Karamia by Kara Eagle, Fleur Vivant Red lips 1 skin, ETD Jollen hair in Mahogany, Tesla Natasha stilettos, Miriel eys

Cheating on Fleur with Rosemary Galbraith.

I wear Fleur skins pretty much exclusively, everyone knows this. Last night Rosemary Galbraith of OH! What a neat boutique asked for my input on some skins she had made. One of them was this skin:



Uh huh, it's pretty. She customized it according to my input, with slightly different torso and belly button. And red brows of course. I like, oh okay, I LOOOOVE. Pretty! I might actually wear these along side my Fleur's. They're a touch more "traditional SL skin" than the Fleurs, but more classic than say Minnu's.

And look at the face! I still look like me! And like Kit Meredith, who also looks like me in certain respects. :-)



And now I feel guilty for skin-cheating on Roslin and CJ. waaaaaah.

Blogger strike against LL's trademark policies

There will be no posts from me for the next couple of days (until the 19th) because of the blogger strike started by Gwyneth Llewelyn. Of course, since I don't post a lot that's easier for me than others, but I thought I should at least say something.

The issue is real to me When I started this blog, Linden Labs guidelines for bloggers were pretty liberal. Essentially, "Hey take these images here and use them as appropriate, and put a disclaimer on your site and it's all good."

So I folled the guidelines, and now I have an SL blog with SL in the URL that I've been wondering what the heck I'm supposed to do with. Should I just change the URL? How should I refer to SL and LL in my blog? LL's new rules aren't entirely clear and they are also far reaching in ways I think they shouldn't be. That's why I'm joining the strike along with other SL bloggers.

Peeking out of my shell.

I've decided to become more comfortable with certain things, and to try to experiment and be more open to new things in regarding SL relationships and love. To let myself be more outgoing, and less shy, and that it's okay if I flirt or do other things in SL, or to, as the vernacualar puts it, be shmexy avatar:





ETD Vivian hair in Mahogany, Fleur Pink lips 3 skin, Victorian Riding Kip corset, panties and hose from Skye Qi, Tesla Ziggy boots

The pose is a new one from Grazia Horwitz who makes some great poses at her shop, Grapevine Shapes & Poses, Rue D'Antibes (111, 133, 28)

This doesn't mean I'm going to be stripping at the current equivalent to the old "Barbie Club" though. :-) What inspired the "New Improved Somewhat Shmexy, But Still Classy CC"? Windlight in part, it sure does make me pretty, and reading the thoughts of Kit Meredith on Love and Relationships in SL. And talking to people, and having someone flirt with me, with me of all people! I want to thank those who talked to me and listened to me, and inspired me, I really can't thank you enough.

The Modest Mommy: Nan Bamaisin

Nan Bamaisin is the owner of the Modest Mommy SL fashion blog. she focuses on more modest clothing, and is a "girl with glasses". I really like her blog, because she's a fine and humourous writer. Saw her today and helped her a bit with some info on lighting settings. Got a pretty nice picture of her Modest Cuteness too:



I love chatting with other fashionistas

Sexy Librarian glasses from Mokoptical!

There's a lot of notices in the FashCon group, but some catch ones notice. There was a notice about an eyewear store I hadn't heard of called Mokoptical In the notice there was a picture of some awesome women's glasses called "Mary". But perhaps "Sexay Librarian Mary" would be more appropriate.



ETD Tyra hair, Fleur Boudoir 3 skin, 80's power dress from Marni Grut, Miriel eyes

These glasses are, to put it in the vernacular, hawt! I want these glasses in RL! Everyone loves them and their, again to put it in the vernacular, shmexyness! I've told other "girls with glasses" about them too, I had to, especially Dot Lane and Nan Bamaisin

RL move.

We've moved into the new place, finally. !#@$#@$ flood! Which is why I haven't been in SL (neener neener I'm not using the TM)much move preparation and after-move work. Don't know when things'll return to normal. I don't have much time for SL, but I DO read my email.

Layniewear Audrey

Layne Link of Layniewear loves CC! She saw my wish list and came up with a simple and pretty square necked sheath named Audrey. it's what I wanted, and I actually prefer the more fitted silhouette than the shift silhouette of dress I showed. It's something I can dress down for business



or dress up for evening. All it takes is a change of makeup, hairstyle, jewellery and shoes.



I love. And yes it comes in more colors, Thank you Laynie.
SLURL to Layniewear Pamran location

Channeling Alexis Carrington in a Business suit from Cattiva

Lissa Maertens of Cattiva saw my post about the G.L.A.M. Bossy suit which mentinoed the 80's and dropped a photo on me. Now I knew Lissa was, like me, a bit fond of the 80's which might be a bit of an understatement on both our parts, but I wasn't expecting this lovely:



I put it on and spent practically the next hour humming the theme song from the nighttime soap, Dynasty I really needed to find a Linda Evans as Krystle Carrington avatar to have a catfight with. It is exactly the sort of thing Joan Collins as Alexis would wear to the Carrington offices. BIG shoulder padds, 80's style cropped jacket, slim skirt. You must understand, we 80's folk have a love/hate relationship with BIG shoulder pads I, of course paired it with BIG hair from Armidi (Envy) and glam makeup from Fleur because I just had to have the Alexis style cheekbone contouring. This is the ivory but it comes in other colors too. but the ivory is so Alexis.

Now all I need is an SL Blake Carrington to buy me my own sim, and lots of shoes.