This took forever. LOL

I think today I've written about 7 blog posts in here. None of them made it. lol There's just so much in my head these days, and for the first time in a while, it's hard for me to write. Not that anything is necessarily bad, don't think that at all. I'm exceptionally lucky and blessed in my SLife. But there are things I would change. There are things I could change.

I've pretty much given up on chickens. I sank WAY too much money into them when I could have been buying shoes. :-p Most of my chickens are dead up in my sky coop, but if anyone is interested in buying, I will gladly revive them. I have a male scarce, a 1st generation male ancient, a couple of new waves [male & female, I believe], and a female original. If you want them, let me know. I know some people are totally into them and that's cool, but for me...well, I'd rather buy new hair.

Oh, and if anyone is looking for land, I have a parcel available on my island. 4416sqm/1010 prims. Best neighbors in the world. If you're interested, IM me.

I'm really excited this week because I get to DJ the one year wedding anniversary for Tymmerie and Jerremy! It should be a really fun time and I already have ideas for some music I want to play. I can't believe it's been a year! I can still remember what I wore to their wedding. :)

No one has gotten married in SL lately. What's up with that? There have been partnerings, but no weddings. :( I love weddings, I always wanted one. I guess we'll just have to wait until October for Sai's wedding. :)

I guess I should get in bed. I have a ton of things to do tomorrow and I'm supposed to go out tomorrow night with some high school friends [although I don't really want to] so I need my beauty sleep.

And again, so this isn't just a text post, here's a picture of the day I made toast.

Just updating

I know, I haven't been updating in here much lately. It's not that I don't have things to say, it's just I've had no time to say them. :)

The funniest thing today is that I found out I've been banned from a certain sim because I made a comment in a blog after this "designer" [and I use the term loosely] had her partner attack a friend of mine. Boo hoo. Where will I get my $1L 2005 style dresses now? *inserting eye roll here* Just because someone voices an opinion doesn't mean you have to get your little fans to viciously attack them and tell them to die. That is SO unclassy. I guess I underestimated the power of ugly cheap quality dresses and 5 group notices a day. I'm really sad I ever spent...let's see....$13L in her sad little store. Hey, that's a texture upload and 3 dollarbies from a GOOD store.

In better news, I've been chosen to model at SySy's. I'm really excited about this because 2 of my close friends were chosen as well. I'm not sure when we'll be out there, but soon. :)

Speaking of modeling, if you're interested in signing on with a new agency, go over here and read about Sacred Look, a new project Sophia & Skyhawke are putting together. I'm really really excited about it! And so happy for my friends that they're branching out and doing this. :)

I've actually been really happy for all my friends lately. Some of them are finding love, some are finding their niche in the SL world, whether it's in blogging, designing, building, etc. It's just all really beautiful to watch. I'm so lucky I get to share in their lives and I'm so proud of their accomplishments.

I guess I should get back to work on pics for my review blog. I'm having a lot of fun working on it, even if I am backed up now on things because my past weekend was so terribly busy. At first I kept thinking, "How can I possibly compete with the experienced fashion bloggers? How can I manage to keep up when there are some who immediately IM designers on release day?" But the truth is, it doesn't matter. I have nothing to prove. People who read me do so because they like what I have to say and enjoy my style. I love doing a separate blog and I'm unbelievably appreciative of the designers who have been so encouraging and who have offered me items to review for them. It's really wonderful. I have been kicking around the idea of perhaps asking a few of the members of the Ch'Know group to write for the review blog as well, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to not be in full control of the blog. lol I know that sounds terribly selfish, but it's the way I feel at the moment.

Just so this isn't completely empty...here's a pic!

Yeah, it's free, but....

I have spent most of my SLife helping out new residents in one way or another. I usually enjoy it, depending on the person, and it's just something that is very natural for me to do. To be honest, the majority of my friends are the same way. We get a kick out of it.

So the other night in our group chat, we were discussing some free places for new residents to go to pick up some starter items. The Gnubie Store was really top of our list, and most of us head out there once a month or so to see if anything new has been added. Gnubie's has nice free/$1L items from great designers like Four Yip, Truth Hawks, Emma Gilmour, and many others. And most of the items are decently current, or at least pretty good quality. Naturally there is some junk, but not much. And the store itself is fairly easy to navigate, which is a huge plus.

But we started talking about The Free Dove, which should be considered an SL Historical Site at this point. The main thing we said, however, was that most of the freebies at The Free Dove are...well...OLD.

I got up and headed out there, looked around and inspected some boxes, and came home with this outfit.




Isn't it awesome? Doesn't it make you want to learn more about SL fashion? Those seams! Those hems!

The truth? It's from 2005. At least, that's what the box that it was in said. 2005!!!!

Surprisingly, the store that this came from is still open in SL. I went out there and although I wouldn't say the clothes are great quality, it's obvious the designer has improved since 2005. And as I looked around Free Dove, it was the same. Some respected names, but the gifts they have out are their very first works. And honestly, if I were new and The Free Dove was the first place I went, I don't know that I'd ever seek out the designers' stores later to shop because I would assume that the items were the same.

So the question is... Do designers just "set it and forget it?" Did they forget that they had a gift out there? I know they have to pay to have a gift there, which makes me think that they'd want to put something that is more representative of their work out on display. If they go to switch out the gift, do they have to pay again or something?

I am happy that there are places like The Free Dove and The Gnubie Store, I really am. They are much better places than some freebie island with all the stolen and Business In A Box mess items. But c'mon...if you have a gift out at The Free Dove, make sure it's something that represents you well. Don't leave some 2005 mess out there. That doesn't do you, or the residents who use freebies to learn about fashion in SL, any good at all.

Phone Hunt

I'm up so late. Or really early, depending on how you look at it. LOL

So Monday night, Sophia and I were IMing and we decided we wanted cell phones. In SL. Yes, shut up. We really wanted ones that would have us texting. Ages ago at a store, I saw a girl with a Blackberry style one and she was just texting away. It was unbelievably cute and had the store not been lagged out like crazy, I would have inspected it to see where she got it. But since I didn't, we were out of luck, so we had to start on our hunt for a phone.

But then she IMed me and said "There's hair." Usually when she says that, it's new hair to buy. Not this time.




It was just hair. We were quite distressed that some poor girl would be walking around bald. But then we were more distressed when we realized it was a guy's wig and that he was a big liar because it said he owned a furniture store and he so didn't. We really did try to be nice and tell him he lost his wig. But we're just 2 girls. There's not much we could do.

Eventually, after a couple of stops and being joined by Soph's husband Skyhawke, we ended up at RC Cluster. That is seriously one of my FAVORITE stores in SL, even if I don't usually buy anything. It's just so much fun!

We ended up buying a couple of phones, but you have to switch out phones when you want to talk or text, and there's a HUD if you want to take a picture. I took one of Soph, but looking at it in Photoshop, her lips are unrezzed, so sorry, you don't get to see it. But the phone is cute enough.




Um, Sky's hat never really rezzed all the way for me, I guess. Because he's not part bald. I promise.

Anyway, if anyone can help us find an awesome phone that will text while we type, not disappear on our hand, and is super cute, we'd be much appreciative.

The party for Wednesday is 80s Night, so I have to finish setting up the skating rink and put together a playlist. But...later. Right now, I really think I'm ready to sleep.

Sometimes

Sometimes you encounter people who have nothing better to do than to try to make your life miserable because it makes them feel better.

Sometimes rabid fans of designers that aren't even that good tell you to go to hell because God forbid you express an opinion and they might not get their $1L 2006-style dress.

Sometimes you find out that someone you trusted, even when people told you that you shouldn't, really is as backstabbing as you were told they were, and now you have to try to figure out how to cut them from your life without upsetting people you care about.

Sometimes someone you love is going through something in the physical world and you can't do more than offer an ear because it's not something you've gone through before and you simply have no real advice.

Sometimes your entire body hurts and you can't understand why, but you keep hoping if you move or stretch, eventually something will pop and you'll feel better.

Sometimes you think that trying to stay up all night because you have to take someone to the airport at 5am wasn't really the best of ideas.

Sometimes...just sometimes...life is just hard.

But there is still beauty, and there is still fun, and there are still people who have your back no matter what happens. People grow up and change, if you're lucky. If you forgive, they no longer have power over you. That's one thing I've learned in the past couple of years. :)

And sometimes, you just have to dance on a blinging taco and remember that if things weren't BAD sometimes, you'd never realize just how damn GOOD they can be.

It was a good week. :)

It was a pretty decent week in my little corner of SL. At least for me. If you didn't have a good week, I'm sorry your life isn't as awesome as mine. :-p Kidding, kidding.

But I did have a nice week, with a few exceptions [like missed cuddle times :( ], but the highlight of my week was most definitely Wednesday night's party. It was a trailer park theme, with lots of country and southern rock music. Of course, my electricity went out briefly [I swear we paid the bill!] but it wasn't a party downer. I took pics for my Snapzilla, but I'll share a few here.










Yeah, I gave myself a huge rear end for the party. Too much beer and corn nuts in the park. LOL

We've been having a little more lag than usual on the island in the past couple of days. I keep checking the top scripts and the top colliders, and honestly, nothing seems out of the ordinary. I even restarted the island on Wednesday night [although not for lag issues] and that didn't seem to help. I'm really not sure what's going on. I'd blame the chickens, however we've had way more chickens on the island before and never had this issue. I'll blame Linden Lab. That seems to be the in thing to do.

In a rare spurt of being social last night, I had too many super strong jello shots at my friend's house last night because it was her birthday. I really do not drink. I don't like the taste of alcohol these days [these days being about the past 2 years] and I don't really care for the way it makes me feel. So I'm running at about half speed today. But it was very fun, and the part that made me laugh later thinking about it is how very easily I talk about my Second Life friends. And the thing is, I don't preface it anymore with saying "Oh, my SL friend XXXX said..." It's simply just "My friend." I think that's a good thing.

Anyway, since I'm slightly hungover, I'm also starving to death, so I think it's lunchtime. But this song has been in my head since a phone call last night, so since I haven't done it in a while....wtf is in Ali's head today? Here you go.

Soopamoddle!!!

So guess who got to be a model for Truth again?

GUESS!!!!

Oh yeah, it's ME!

And some others. :-p

Ok, so a few months ago Truth Hawks had hired Skyhawke Sodwind of Sacred Studio to do some photos for the store. Because well, if you're going to ask for awesome pictures, Sky is pretty much the only person you should ask. Just sayin'. But of course, that was a long time ago, and he's been just getting better and better at hair, so it was time for new pictures! Five models were chosen, and if I hadn't been asked to model again, I think I would have cried and burned all my Truth hair in protest. Well. Maybe I would have burned one or two. The old ones. You know. The ones I never wear.

As usual, we were under strict rules not to blog the pics until they were given to Truth and placed in the store. Since they are there now, I get to share! I already shared once on my review blog, so you've probably already seen mine. If you're not reading my review blog...why not? But I got all the pictures today so you can see all of them the right way, not just on the wall. :)

Krystanna Wycliffe




Rylan Carling




Meara Deschanel




Sophia Harlow




And ME!




I'm not allowed to say how one of the models went Diva and demanded a new photo after feeling like she was the ugly cousin of the group, but if you go to the store and you see another photo up with someone in a green jacket...

It was really a lot of fun, and big thanks to Truth for allowing me to be up on his wall, and to Skyhawke for doing an absolutely gorgeous job as usual!

Well...I got a tote bag.

There's been a big ol' drama lately about photostudios. Look, you can go out and spend THOUSANDS of $L on the "best" photostudio in world if that's what you want to do. But quite honestly, it's probably not going to make your photos look that great if you don't know what you're doing. If you want the super professional looking photos, you're either going to have to go to a professional, or you're going to have to learn Photoshop/GIMP/Paint Shop Pro or whatever the editing software du jour is. And you're going to have to know proper angles, get the lighting right, etc.

This is where I take my photos for most of my review pictures.




I have one "studio" ball thing that I can just sit on and use arrows to flip through. I got it for free or for very very very cheap at some point. It's nice, but I did disable the light. I use the other sphere, which I made all by myself, for almost 80% of my photos. I can color it any color I want! :-O LOL And the 2 prims over on the side I use for photos on occasion for some reason that I can't remember right now. I use my freebie posestands [IM me, I'll totally give you one if you need one] and that's it. I use good Windlight settings, and then do any clean up in Photoshop, and then if I REALLY need to, I use Photoscape to add borders or lighting effects. That's all. :) My photos aren't the super fantastic, but they're clean. Of course, when I need a great photo done, I beg Skyhawke to do one of me. He could throw me in front of any ol' prim and the photo would still come out looking like a million $L. But that's because he's got skillz.

And that's my opinion on the photostudio debate. LOL

Anyway, so, not having much to do today, I decided I'd actually do a bit of exploring. After all, how much can I blog about clothes and chickens before people get bored? :) So I opened up the Showcase thing in search and decided today I would look at the Education & Nonprofit tab and maybe get some learnin' in my brain.

Yeah, not so much.

The first stop on my little tour was the Virtual Stomach Museum, because I've always been interested in medical type stuff.




The "museum" was...well, it was dull. There were some pictures, some writing, and that's about it. It was also pretty small. So I'm not QUITE sure how it got to be in the Showcase.

The only thing I saw to do was open the stomach.





Not fun, so I left.

Next up, I decided to check out Dive World. Hey, I like the ocean.

However, Dive World dumps you immediately in the ocean when you teleport in. That's not exactly the most welcoming of entrances. I flew up and around and landed in front of a store with some dive equipment. I was looking around when a very brand new resident came running up.




[13:06] Alicia Chenaux: Not to be mean or anything...but you realize you have boobs, right?

Turns out, he knew. But he switched back to a male shape. We talked briefly, but after he asked me "Do you cum here often," I knew it was probably time to get out of there. Dive World...not so much fun.

Hoping for the best, I went out to Virtual Native Lands, which is advertised as "Authentic Native American culture celebrated on three beautiful islands of immersive educational exhibits." It can't get much worse at this point, right?

I teleport in and hey, I get a tote bag for coming! What a tote bag has to do with anything, I have no idea, but hey, it's a tote bag!




The islands are cute, but seem like they're in need of an update. But there were things to read and sit on and do. I even got to read the story of the strawberries. Strawberries are my favorite fruit, btw. You know. In case you were wondering. LOL

I did get to do some stuff. Like weave a blanket...




Roll some corn...




And sit on a boat that went nowhere.





So... Yeah, so, exploring today was a bit of a bust. But, at least I got a tote bag out of it.

Independence Day

Happy 4th of July to my fellow Americans! :) I love my country, I really do. I'm proud each and every day that I wake up and I live where I do. Maybe we're not perfect, but what the hell in life is? :)

The Skin Quest

I got a new skin tonight. If that doesn't seem like a huge deal, well, you're right. For most people it's not a huge deal at all. Most of my friends buy skins like there's nothing to it. My best friend is an admitted Skinaholic. They change skins and shapes easily and without thinking about it.

Me? Not so much.

In my physical world, it's hard for me to get my hair cut. I will agonize about it for weeks, months, beforehand. I will let it get too long. I will scour magazines for hairstyles that I think are cute. I will drive past salons and think about going in. And then one day I will bite the bullet, RUN in somewhere, and let someone take hold of my hair. And then I will cry.

The same is kind of true for me and skins in Second Life. I will think about it. I will look at blogs, at my friends. I will grab hundreds of demos. [Once I boxed up all my demos that I'd collected in a 2 month period. It was over 3000. I wish I was lying.] I will try them on over and over and over. I will beat myself up because my avatar simply doesn't handle most skins very well in the face. And then, if I'm feeling brave, I will run out, grab a skin, and race home. And then I will feel buyers remorse because suddenly, my look has changed.

I don't know why I have a problem changing. It's not like I am any different. It's still just me, in a new skin.

I've been wearing my Kimberly skins from Free Speerit since they came out. I love them. They've been me since I started wearing them. But in the past few months, the trend in skins has been changing to these younger looking, super full pucker mouth skins. [Yes, Gala Phoenix, I'm looking at you.] And that's cool and all, but with my shape, the skins simply haven't been working. And believe me, I've demoed them a LOT. It started to get to the point of me hating when my friends would start dancing about a new skin release. I wanted to look younger, like them, but it just wasn't happening.

I was becoming more and more upset with my look, but I couldn't change. The most important thing for me is to still LOOK like me. Just...a better me.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been grabbing demos from pretty much any store I come across. Tonight I stood on my posestand and started going through them. And Noel, bless him, he sat right there with me and gave opinions and watched as I put on probably eleventy-billion skins. As we narrowed it down, I kept asking him questions. Did I still look like me? Did I look like a model? Did I look like someone who you would believe when I suggest fashion to you? Do I look like an emptyheaded stripper or do I look smart? Finally we got it down to one skin. And I wore the demo for about an hour, trying on different clothes with it. [Are you as exhausted as I am at this point?]

While he took a brief break, I ran out to the store, gagged a little at the price [$1490L for one skin?! Are you freaking kidding me???], bit the bullet, and bought it.

Blondie, makeup 2, from Laqroki.




That photo is completely untouched, btw, besides cropping it.

I don't know. Is it still me? As soon as I got back home, I had buyers remorse. I started thinking about how I should be saving money for tier, or how many other things I could buy. I started thinking that I didn't look like me anymore. I started thinking that I looked silly, airheaded, like I should be twirling my hair and talking about how I love unicorns and kittens.

But I do kind of like it. It's not perfect. There are a couple of things I'd change, if I could. But it does make me look a little younger, a little more fresh. And I guess that's really what I was going for.

Maybe one day I'll be as carefree with skins as my friends are. Maybe I won't cringe and beat myself up everytime I put on a different skin. Maybe I'll learn to just buy skins because they really are pretty and I won't be so hypercritical.

Maybe.

It's finally a home

I'm pretty spoiled in SL. Not bratty spoiled [I think] but spoiled in that when I need something, someone is usually right there to do it for me.

As I've mentioned before, my good friend Noelyci built me a fabulous house back in April because I was in dire need of one and I'm exceptionally picky about most things. So he took my vague descriptions and built me a wonderful house that I simply adore. [You can buy it at his store too, along with lots of other nice prefabs. /end shameless plug]

But the problem was...I'm not good at decorating. I'm honestly not. My physical world house is just kind of there. I find something pretty, I set it down, and that's about it. No mesh to it. But no one really comes over so as long as it's clean, I don't care.

It was really bothering me that I was leaving this gorgeous house empty. Or semi-empty, as I've had bits and pieces of furniture and photos scattered about. But it just wasn't very well decorated, and it wasn't very me. Only I didn't know what I really wanted, and any shopping trips for furniture usually left me frustrated.

Enter my best friend Sophia. Yesterday she said she wanted to decorate a house or something. I told her that she could decorate my home if she wanted. I was casual about it, but inside I was actually jumping for joy because I so badly wanted this place done up.

I think she did an excellent job. :)

The view from upstairs.




The living room area.




The kitchen.




The dining area.




The full bath, including my dressing area.



Closer view of the bathroom.




She knows my tastes and likes well. Nothing overly modern, and she picked up on my butterflies love. :) She also decorated my office, but I'm waiting to show that until I finish up in there, since I moved all my photos off the walls and put them in the dining area. Noel also built me a desk and some shelves because I couldn't find an office desk that I liked, so he put his skills to work for me again. See? Spoiled. lol

Oh, and the bedroom is my own to decorate. It's kind of like Graceland. No one goes upstairs unless I allow. :-p

I'm just so overly happy with how my house is now. I was spending most of my time in the house sitting on a counter. But most of the time I was just standing around outside. Now I'm perfectly happy sitting in my charming new living room or in my office. I'm so lucky to have friends like I do. <3

Lag

So I've been thinking about something a lot lately and since I'm in kind of a foul mood today, I figured it was the best time to be a total bitch about it. :)

Lag. Ok, I understand lag. I understand that if you put too many avatars in a place, there will be lag. I understand that too much of anything in Second Life can cause lag. We practically brought down Bluebonnet yesterday by throwing down a billion physical Legos. And I also understand that a person's computer can be the source of their own lag. I understand all that.

However, it stands to reason that if someone around you is scripted all to hell and primmed out beyond belief, that you will be lagged out too, right? I know what they keep saying. "ARC is a myth! It's all a myth!" Well, I've been in SL too long to not know that when an avatar with tails, ears, weapons, bling, and frizzy ugly flexi hair walks by, I'm going to lag. I'm sorry, it's true. If it's never happened to you, you must be on one super powerful computer. Please do not give me all the blog posts on how it's not true. I've read them. They make sense...right until one of those avatars walks past me with particles shooting out of their butt makes me slow to a crawl - and I DO have a powerful computer.

I've been wanting to go to Hair Fair since it opened. I managed to make it in once, but it was so horrible, I ended up crashing out. And the rules are there. Don't wear too much stuff. Don't wear too many prims. Not that I saw many people complying with the rules, but they are there.

People started telling me things to do to reduce my lag while I was there. Put the settings to the very very lowest. Ok, that did help some, but now everything looks crappy. Turn off the sky. Great, now it's like I'm shopping under a black sky. Turn off the surface patch, the water, turn off anything I can. Oh...ok...So now I'm basically just looking at busy sculpties and busy textures. Well...that's cool?

The final straw was when a friend of mine said I could turn off how many avatars I saw. I did it, although it didn't help all that much since the flexied, frizzy, blinging avatar that I was standing near was still there. But it really got me thinking.

If I have to go somewhere, take away EVERYTHING, even the people standing around me, what kind of fun is that?!

I think better sim designs and people following rules set by sim owners would be better. I know that no matter what, fairs and expos are going to be laggy. I expect them to be laggy and I plan my outfit and how I go there accordingly, as do most people who attend these events regularly. But something really should be done, because having to walk around at a 64m draw distance with a flat black sky and no ground and nothing's shiny and 5 avatars are flickering in and out...that does not make me feel like shopping. And a world where I don't feel like shopping is really a bad bad world.