Charlemagne and I

Charlemagne Allen and I made a visit to Caledon's Harvest Festival, she got to dunk me in a dunk tank.  After a while we relaxed and chatted on a nearby bench.

Who is Charlemagne Allen?  My Gothy Fashionista Steamlander Corgi-lovin Innamorata, that's who. She who makes me buy stuff.  Black and red gowns in particular..and lingerie.  Yes  yes, everyone makes me buy stuff, but Charl is special.

I probably chat with her more often than anyone else in SL these days. Yes, even more than Gabi, and that's saying something.  I am very very fond of Charl.

Strawberry Singh Friends List Meme

Yep, another Strawberry Singh meme, this one pertains to the Friends list:

1. What is the number of contacts on your Second Life Friends List? (visible in firestorm viewer or your web profile) :  304
2. Are you picky about who you add to your list or do you usually add most people?   With new folks I always accept out of sheer politeness and wanting them to have at least "someone" to IM if they have a problem.  I'm often shy about offering it, not because I'm snooty or anything, I just don't want to bother others.  There are people I probably should friend, but haven't yet.
3. Who is your oldest contact? (check your calling cards) Cleon Goff.  I think I met him at the SL event I attended upon first login.  (I joined SL to take part in a "GeekBrief" vodcast meetup in SL.) 
4. Who is your newest contact? (check your calling cards) Robie Shan
5. Do you know every single person on your list? No.
6. How many do you speak to on a daily (weekly) basis? Daily I would say about 2 to 3 and weekly maybe about 6 - 8.  Mostly because I don't want to bother others.  Now that doesn't count group chats, because there's plenty of  people in my friends list whom I see in various group chats very often.
7. How many do you see/get together with in-world on a daily (weekly) basis? Not many.  Maybe a half dozen or so weekly.  I could be underestimating, I see a LOT of people.
8. Who on your list do you have the closest relationship with?  Gabi, every steamlander knows who that is.  It's a part of our "Caledon Legendarium" that we're cousins.
9. Who do you wish you knew better?  Salome.
10. Who on your list is the funniest/most entertaining?  Easily, Salome. Who is made of pure awesome.  We have similar interests.
11. How did you meet most of the people on your list? (work, parties, etc…) I haven’t actually “met” MOST of the people on my list.   Group Chats, other fashionistas, random encounters shopping, socialization.
12. Do you ever clean out your list? No.
13. Do you have a crush on someone in your list? Yes.  There are a few, and one very special one.
14. Is there anyone on your list that you would trust with your password? Yes, if need be, there are a couple. 

And now for a couple of entries of my own:

1. Do you have any FIC in the friends list?  Yes.
2. Are there any friends that have left SL that you wish would return?  Yes. Sabrina Doolittle is one of them, of course.  As is Kit Meredith.   And Swirly Cyclone.  The CC misses the Swirly and her humor very very much. There are some others that haven't exactly left SL but don't log in often.
3. Has anyone in your friends list passed away in RL:   Yes.
4. Okay CC, how many in your friends list are designers?  Actually not many designers are in the friends list.  I've met many as acquaintances, but friended/been friended by relatively few.
5. Who were you tickled pink to have accepted your friendship?  Several people, including most of the fashionistas and Caledon notables in my list.

As for what I'm  wearing, basically only the hair is new and it's the Truth Lunara.

Location:  Cody & Billy's Stompin Ground

Post 7th Rezday Musings

7 years in SL.  I think I figured out why I'm still in SL, and it's not just the shopping:

It's the people.  The friends, the acquaintances, the interesting people I've only talked to once.   The virtual fashion is fun, but it's MORE fun with people to talk to and hang out with or do things with.  So I want to thank all the people I've met over the years, oh so many people.  The friends I have made.  The People of Caledon, the Fashionistas, everyone. To the Friends that are gone from SL as well, you are missed.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.  I wouldn't be here without you.

And a shout out to Loken (on the left) and Gabi, who organized my rezday party.  Thank you ever so much, it was fun.  You also get to see the front of my awesome foofy gown from Vitabela Dubrovna's store, Boudoir!

Insolence Lauren Lingerie set, with Friend Clarice

Clarice is yet another member of what my friends and I call our "family", kind of like sisters of fashion. One of the things we do is make each other buy stuff. Well, not exactly make, it goes something like this, only with more words and not as succinctly and without LOLCAT speech:

"zOMG, that's adorable, I NEED it NAO, where did you get it? There? I am so there, NAO. You make me spend so many L$."

Some time ago, Clarice showed up at one of my favorite hangouts wearing a lingerie set I didn't recognize underneath a flannel shirt and jeans. Now even though I didn't recognize the set, and thusly didn't have it already, I did recognize the work, I know Camilla Yosuke's of Insolence's work on sight. Since Clarice was the one that "made" me buy it, she and I modeled it together. She also made me buy the flannel shirt.

It is named Lauren, it has the usual Insolence options, with corset, without corset, on various layers, garters no garters, 4 different pairs of stockings. Etc etc. But the important thing is that it was pretty, and CC NEEDED it.



Clarice is in the Red, and I am in the silver.





And a standing shot of the Red, it comes in more colors, and I don't have them all....yet. I know I will eventually. Included stocking colors are white, tan, off-black and black.





Clarice also made me buy that hair...it's Truth: Jean. How I adore Clarice...who makes me buy stuff. And yes, I asked her for permission to post these.

SLURL to Truth Hair

I forgot to ask about Clarice's skin and hair, I know, bad CC. But my skin is of course a 5th & Oxford, Fair Subtle 6. No prim lashes today, but I've been favoring the Beetlebones mesh ones lately.

SLURL to 5th & Oxford

Lauren Lingerie by Insolence:

SLURL to Insolence Lingerie

The shoooooooes, are oldies but goodies on both Clarice and myself, Shiny Thing's Kelsey T-Straps. She only has them in that color...I haven't "made" her get the Willow Pack (what other people might call a fatpack) yet. It's all part of CC Rule #1, of which one states (there are multiple rules #1): Which colors do you need? All of them.

SLURL to Shiny Things

Friend Clare!

Clare Sorbet is one of my best friends in SL...redhead, fashionista, and quite honestly nice. Herself and a few other retro-fashionistas (and redheads) of my acquaintance are a sort of a family. We share shopping finds, hang out with each other, etc.


Today Clare was wearing an adorable floral print dress from Toki Doki, very cute and sort of housedress-y looking.



Her hair today is Truth Evelyn, which I also have, in the Cherry color (I wear Truth hair in Blood). She says her skin is from Pink Fuel, "Ember" The Pink Fuel skins that I've seen tend towards the girly cute youtfulness side of the spectrum, and this one is quite adorable on Clare.




The shoes are Mary Jane Courts from GOS. A simple mary jane pump with a moderately high, but sturdy heel, and rounded point toe, that resembles a "Character shoe" that dancers use but with a higher heel.

CC and Zen, dancing on the beach.

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

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

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



Here, I have turned on some features and whatnot:



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



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

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

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

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

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. :-)