Day 171 - Oh So Social!

Omg, I'm getting tired. lol I promise I'll respond to my comments later. :)

Remember back in 2008, I used to do the "Oh look, she's tall?" posts? I stopped doing them mostly because I grew a little and the trend became these tiny little avatars. But, the glamazons seem to be returning. I TPed in to look at some jewelry and...well, as one of my friends put it, I could have motorboated her butt.




After that little scare, my new friend Runestar pulled me out of my house and we went to Rouge to listen to some house music and chat with Codie, Gabby, and others. :)




It was pretty fun! Afterwards, we went on home tours of each others' homes, and then we headed off to Patience Larkham's birthday party. My plurk friend Kelley was DJing!




I had a blast because some of the group came out to party! We don't get together enough at ALL. We really really don't.




Heidi, Blackhawk, and Eva came out to party. My new plurk friend Landon showed up, too, plus a few other plurkers that I know. It was awesome! Just so much fun to be together. :) Rune even ended up joining my group. Nikki mentioned the PDOD & I had to explain what it is. He didn't run off screaming, so I'm guessing he'll be sticking around.

After the party broke up, I went home to change and Landon took me to SLeek, which I have not been to in ... oh gosh, well well over a year. It was laggy as usual, and I had to mute most everyone there, but it's been pretty fun getting to chat with my new pal. :)




I'm pretty tired, so I think I'm going to wrap things up in world and head to bed. As an introvert, all this socializing is wearing me down. If I had a little battery over my head, like on my phone, it would be telling me I had only 20% battery life left. LOL But I had a very fun night, so it's all worth it. :)

Putting a Z on the end of something doesn't make it awesome.

The following is simply an opinion post based on about 45 minutes today. This does not reflect the opinions of anyone else but me. But should you have an opinion on the topic, feel free to comment.

Last night during the whole "OMG SL IS DOWN!" time, someone mentioned InWorldz. What is InWorldz? It's basically an SL knockoff. If you ever wondered what SL was back in the day - the day being about 2005-2006, well, give it a try.

I couldn't get in last night, so I thought I'd give it another try today. I finally got in and almost cried. I was SO UGLY. My friend Misty was there, so at least I wasn't greeted by nothing. But - UGLY!! Pat, one of the InWorldz mentors, ushered me over to the freebies area, where we promptly sunk into the megaprim floor because apparently no one knows that megaprims are usually phantom & maybe someone should just - I dunno - uncheck the phantom box.

EDIT: Having been back in tonight, which I will discuss tomorrow, it's not what I thought it was. The physics are completely messed up. Even something simple like sitting on a prim is ridiculous and broken.




Yeah, that's me, with the system hair, linebacker shoulders, and huge feet...well, if you could SEE my feet. Which, you know, you can't since we're sunk into the floor.

My first course of action was to get pretty again. Well, as pretty as I could without the help of my gorgeous Belleza skins and my amazing Truth hair and all my beautiful clothes and shoes from SL designers. I told Pat that I'm pretty in SL. He said they'd get me prettier in InWorldz.

Not likely.

At least, not with what was available on the walls. Of course, when I tried to buy something, I crashed. Misty told me to use Rainbow to log in again, and so I did, and it was a little better.

I had to hop up on a stand to try to fix myself, because trying to just fix up like I would do in SL had me floating across the floor. Insane.




Flipping back and forth from SL, where my alt was wearing my shape [and probably laughing at my misfortune], I plugged in the numbers for my shape. At the freebies store, there was a box full of Eloh and Sezmra modded skins. I already know none of Eloh's skins have ever ever looked good on me, but luckily the Sezmra skins are not TOO horrible on my shape.

Now I know what you're saying. I could have just fixed up an entirely new shape to fit a skin. But I LOVE my avatar in SL. It's me. I've worked on it for 2 and a half years. It's mine. If I was going to be in this new place, I wanted to be ME.

I picked the one semi-decent blonde hair off the wall [ugh] and tried to find some clothes that weren't going to make me cry. There were no decent shoes, so barefoot was going to have to do.

After I managed to get at least passable, I attempted to go outside to the "bar" where a few people were hanging out. It took a few minutes to get there. The lag was horrible. I heard that it's not normally that bad. But if it was THAT bad with only 20 or so people online? Umm, yeah. I did the rubber band walk [I was snapping back every few steps] and did manage to make it to where people were.

No one talked to me.




There was another mentor there, plus the "founder" of InWorldz, and a few others. But no one said anything to me. I saw a map and tried to make my way to it, but I started walking off into nothing, then crashed. I didn't go back in.

I might - MIGHT - try it again, if I get some of my buddies to go in with me, or if I'm super bored. But as I told Pat, SL is my home. You might visit other places in life, but nothing beats going home.

Day 170 - Ain't no party like a Linden rezday party!

I couldn't figure out what to do today.




Luckily, it's Thursday, and that means Thursday Night Dance Party at Rouge! And this TNDP was very fun because it was Teagan Linden's rezday! TONS of people showed up, including lots of my plurk friends!






I crashed 4 times during it, usually while trying to snap a picture. It was fun, though! Happy Rezday, Teagan!!

Tomorrow, I'll blog some pics from my time over at InWorldz. They ain't pretty, folks. They ain't pretty.

Day 169 - We didn't mess up too badly

So earlier tonight, Rylan asked on plurk if some of us would mind coming out to help her terraform and decorate her land. Well, sure!




But well, when she went to go buy trees, we took a break.




It was really a big plurk party. It was fun to meet up with plurkers that I haven't had a chance to meet in world before. We tried to start up the grill, because you know how it goes. But um...




Ok, so we can't cook.

Aww, Clementine and I are taking a break.




And she felt up my leg.




So all was going well...terraforming was going on, objects were being moved around, and then - it happened.

SL went down.

Some people got knocked off, some went for an innocent relog and never came back. It's scary! 5 of us are still hanging out here, not wanting to move.




You know what, though? We can't rez anything good, but we sure can rez dirty pictures. That's SL in a nutshell. :-p But for those, you'll have to go to plurk. This is a nice blog.

Day 168 - Beetlegoose!

It was Trivia Tuesday at my place tonight! We don't do this every week, but usually once or twice a month. We really should make it more. I love love love hanging out with everyone and learning things!




It's wonderful when I get to be with my friends. We don't often hang out in a group due to other obligations, but it's just great when we can. And even more fun when we get to meet plurk friends that we've never met in world. :) If you've never been to one of the trivia games, you should think about coming next time! Lots of fun, and we end up with lots of little inside jokes. [Nancy Lopez! Madonna!] I'm going to work on getting more more cards for the trivia ball for the next time. :)

I'm yawny, so I think it's time to start wrapping things up.

Day 167 - Just dance

So I was out at Earthstones earlier, having found a gift card in my overstuffed inventory, when I encountered their phonographs. Oh so cute! I started playing songs and there was an intan sitting in the corner. What's a girl to do? I pulled my alt Aidan on and we danced!




I really like the phonographs, I think they're well done [as to be expected from Earthstones], but they're not something I'd buy for myself. I'm sure there's a gifty type holiday coming up, so I'll just keep it in mind. LOL

My good friend Noel came over later to hang out. I haven't actually seen him in world in... oh gosh, well over a month, if not more. So it was great to catch up with him for a bit.




He's one of the few guys in SL who has been around me for an extended amount of time and still doesn't mind hanging out. :-p Kidding, kidding.

Kinda.

Anyway... I finally put out a post for the style blog, which I'm happy about. I was doing good there for a while and then I lost it. Hopefully I can get back into it.

And tomorrow - Trivia Tuesday!!!! 7pm at my place. If you're a plurk friend, you'll get the SLurl there. If not, just IM me if you want to drop by. I'll DJ and it's usually a pretty fun time. :)

I bought 5 new books tonight [hello, Half Price Books clearance section! I love you!] so I think I'm going to wrap this up and read.

Day 166 - Just freakin' close!

It was...one of those days. I can't say it was BAD, but it wasn't very GOOD. And it's days like this that make me so damn grateful for SL because I could run in here and just escape and shop and chat and break out into dance at a store.




That's the super adorable Thema dancing next to me. She started the dancing! And various plurk friends were also at the store, Pash, which is having a big closing sale and has $1L skyboxes and trees and stuff.

Speaking of closing sales - What the hell is up with stores having "OMG We're closing!!" sales, causing people to lose their everlovin' shit to get into the sim to buy these things that they should NEVER be able to get again, and then springing the "OMG We can't leave our FANS!" bullshit?

Honey, please. If you're having a closing SALE, people are going to trip all over themselves to get to your store. Do NOT mistake this for having FANS. People love a sale. They LOVE to get a great deal. Seriously. Some people love it more than they love cake. And baby, people love them some cake. What they do not love is when they waste their money on your junk just because it was on sale and they thought that they would never be able to get it again and then see that they could have saved their money and bought it later at your little cramped vendor stall boutique at some craptastic [bombastic?] mall.

If you're having a closing sale - THEN YOU SHOULD CLOSE. If you just wanted to have a sale to make some quick cash because you heard Maitreya was coming out with new shoes, then you should have just done that. People still would have come to the sale. Or you could have at least just boxed up all your stuff and sent to your group, if you were going to give it away for free anyway. If you're supposedly closing down, why would you care about traffic to your sim?

I'm kinda burned out of closing sales. But, the one at Pash I couldn't pass up, because hello, $1L skyboxes.

I may be burned out, but I'm still a skybox collector.

Day 165 - I might need to be grounded!

When I was younger, my mom always had to fight me to get me to clean my room.

I kinda need a mom in SL, I think.




In the middle of all the boxes is my rez spot. When I log in or go home, I rez in the bedroom. [When I first log in, it's like "waking up" to me. Shut up.] I stand there while I sort notices and answer IMs. I just start rezzing out boxes right there around me.

I sent in my entry for Two-Three-Six-Five earlier. Now I'm freaking out. Did I sound stupid? Should I have talked about something else? Will I offend anyone? Is it too late to take it back? But talking to my friends who have done it, they had the same thoughts. So it's good to know I'm not the only one that goes crazy for things like this. lol

So I'm kinda bummed out I missed the blogger party earlier. :( I love those parties, but Saturdays are just so so hard for me unless it's in the evening. Maybe the next one, I can make plans in advance to attend.

Blah. I have to do a load of laundry now. If only my real clothes could just always be clean like my SL clothes are!!

Day 164 - Anti-fashion

Behind this glowing ball of nothing is the most wonderful outfit, gorgeous accessories, totally great pose, and....

Yeah, I'm lying.

I'm having a big fashion blogger block. And from what I'm hearing, I'm not the only one. I suppose it happens - although it's kind of odd when it happens to several at once. It makes you wonder what's going on with SL fashion if several people can't put together some outfits that they're happy with. lol

I'm sunburned & feeling icky from it, so that's it for now.

Day 163 - I think it's fly when girls stop by for the summer

I'm a summer girl. Always have been, always will be. I love the sunshine, the heat, everything! As most of my friends can tell you, I'm different when it's cold, or gray, or rainy. So to say I'm excited for the summer is an understatement.

I'm DOUBLE excited for this summer because some great things are already being planned! Like... I'm going to meet up with Sophia in Austin this summer!! Squeeee! It's going to be SO FUN to finally hang out with her!! We were thinking too that if any of our SL friends are in the area, maybe we could all meet up for dinner or something. :-D

And tonight I was hanging out with my best friend of 15 years [pedicures & shopping, baby!] and we decided that we're going on a road trip this summer to celebrate our birthdays. Colorado, here we come! So if anyone is around the Denver area, or is somewhere along the way, and would like to meet up, we'd love it!

Also, I think I'm going on a trip to New Mexico with some family in June, but that's really tentative.

This summer just seems full of fun and excitement. I can't wait!!

Day 162 - Bookworm

I've been sitting here in SL tonight, mostly staying in the same place, while I read. I'm on the second book of The Morganville Vampires series. After wasting time actually getting through the groan-inducing Twilight series, I've stayed far away from anything vampire. At least, of the young adult variety. But this is really quite good. The main character, Claire, has more personality than Bella Swan could ever hope to have. Mix in a very evil skank bitch Mean Girl, a bunch of vampires, a handsome ghost, and some pretty awesome roommates - well, I've been hooked from page one.

But, of course, reading doesn't lend for a very interesting SL time. So I opened up the Showcase and found a garden type place to go called The Greenhouse. Of course, I got caught up in reading while I was out there and ended up staying in one pose for about an hour, but since no one was there, it was pretty much okay. :)

Day 161 - On singleness & viewers

I really wasn't into doing a post today. I thought I'd just cheat and grab a photo from a year ago. Does anyone else do that? Go back to your old posts and see what you were doing a year ago? Then it hit me. It's been a little over a year since a relationship that was really important to me ended.

At the time it ended, I'd basically been on my own in SL for half a year anyway. Oh, I don't blame him for that. Not...really. :-p It was my decision to wait around for him. I have to admit, the time alone was good for me, as much as I hated it at the time.

I didn't really think that I'd still be SL single after a year, to be honest. LOL Not that I haven't had guys in my life. I've had 2 SL boyfriends and a few dates. It's been over 6 months since the last actual date [meaning, it wasn't one of my guy friends taking pity on me and inviting me out]. But it's ok, you know?

I guess before someone makes the comment - Yes, I am still with someone in RL. But he's quite aware of my SL and my relationships there. :)

I don't know...I get lonely, as I guess everyone in SL does from time to time. I have great friends. I love them and would not trade them for anything in the world. But there's something about having that one person who looks for your name first when they log in, or who gets excited to see your name pop up when you log in. That one person that can just hold you on the couch while you both work on different things, or who is your last snuggle before one of you goes to bed.

But, I guess it'll happen when it's right.

Anyway, I decided to try out Boy Lane's Rainbow Viewer today. I want a viewer that smashes 2.0 and Emerald features together, in the old set up. The first time I tried Rainbow, the graphics were not good on my computer. Not good at all. But this time, they were good, loaded up well, and things were fairly fast. The first time. Now...I don't know. I'm getting weird stuff with pictures and anti-aliasing isn't working like it does with 2.0. And I'm getting that water glitch in both 2.0 and Rainbow, but not in Emerald. When I don't take pics, it's great. LOL So I don't know. And remember, this is all just on my computer. Your mileage may vary.

When I took this picture with Rainbow, I got strange lights all over my face. Some of them didn't come out well, but I thought this one was interesting. So, my pic of the day. :)

Day 160 - Some days...

...you just don't have the energy.

Day 159 - Just a little post

I'm not really into blogging today. I've been trying all day to get up the desire to do a post, any post, but ... I am just not feeling it. I spent some time today fixing up the fun skybox where we have trivia parties. I bought a Clue table last night. Not that I actually know how to play. I have played before in SL, but I don't think I actually understood what I was doing. LOL But it's up there now. And some extra cushions for the next trivia party.




This Wednesday is a Hump Day Park Party on Bluebonnet. And next Tuesday we'll do Trivia Tuesday. :) More info as it comes, of course.

Day 158 - That wall? It's great!

Earlier today there was a very nice group gift sent out by Tuli, her new "Sayuri" skin. Well, with a name like Sayuri, you know it's going to be more Asian based. :) I'm a huge fan of Memoirs of a Geisha [the book more than the movie, but the movie is very beautiful] so I, of course, just love the name of this skin. But when I tried it on, it didn't really look that awesome on my shape. Not because it's a bad skin. In fact, I think it's my favorite Tuli skin to date. But my shape just didn't quite work with it. So...I started playing.




Is she Chinese, is she Japanese, is she Korean? I have no idea. But I think the face came out very cute. :) I headed out to China Sichuan, which has a replica of The Great Wall Of China. It's pretty cool!




[Pay no attention to the ugly water. Damn you, 2.0!!!!]

I LOVE going to replicas of physical world cities or countries in SL. If I'm going to explore, those are usually the kinds of places that I enjoy exploring the most. In fact, feel free to tell me more places like that to go!

Of course, I had to snap another pic of myself out there. I like this face!




No, I won't be making the total switch to this avatar, but it's fun to play. :)

I also hit up a plurk party this afternoon. Tymmerie took pictures of me because when I tried to take a picture, I crashed out. Oops!




The party was fun, but I only knew 3 or 4 people really, and there were a lot - A LOT - of gestures being played. If I had to hear ::::::: I ❤ THIS T U N E ! ! ! ::::::: HOoOoOUlalalala :) one more time, I was going to go crazy. Gestures have their time and place, and 20 people doing them 5 times in a row... Well, you get the idea. :)

I think I want to have a park party this week. People can wear clothes that they'd wear to go play in the park and we'll just dance and have fun. I'll give more details later!

Day 157 - Happy Anniversary Night & Margo!

My friends Night Singh & Margo Sciarri celebrated their 2nd wedding anniversary in SL tonight. :) 2 years in SL...that's gotta be like 25 years in RL, right?? They had a lovely jazz party with live singer Shasta Soulstar. It was very very nice!




Don't look at Tymmerie's eyelashes. They didn't rez for me when I'd taken this pic. LOL

The happy couple. I didn't get Margo's face because she's really really petite, and I was trying to get an angle where she wasn't pretty much buried inside of Night. But trust me, she's totally cute. :)




Shasta, who sang some great jazz, swing, and romantic songs for 2 hours.




The fact that he showed up with a parrot really made me laugh.




Now, as fun as the party was, I have to admit - it's not awesome having to attend these kinds of things alone. I think I may need to find a guy who doesn't mind wearing a suit and escorting me to events like formal parties and weddings! So, what's a girl to do but take full advantage of the bar?

So I drank.




And drank some more.




But then a nice gentleman asked if I'd like to dance. Hell, even if he hadn't been nice, I probably would have said yes just to stop drinking by myself.




I'd say he swept me off my feet...but in this dress, I didn't even appear to HAVE feet.




I swear I'm wearing some great heels under the dress.

Congrats again, Night & Margo, for making it for 2 years! Despite Margo's love of the song "Happy Trails," I'm pretty sure we'll be dancing again at your 3rd wedding anniversary next year! ♥

Day 156 - It's where I landed

I usually spend every Thursday night dancing over at Rouge because my friend Nexeus DJs the Thursday Night Dance Party. I like it because if I just want to dance quietly, they don't mind. Or if I want to tell some crazy story, they listen. It's fun. :) Gabby made us get into lingerie tonight. She's bad. :)




I don't usually dance on the DJ booth, but that's where I landed when I TPed in, so that's where I stayed.

I'm thinking I need to have a party soon. I'm kinda thinking fashion disaster or ... something. lol But a party, yes. Need.

Day 155 - A little of this and that

Hahahaha! I always knew one day it would happen!




Don't get any ideas. :) We're just joking around.

Earlier today I went out to a mall to look for a shirt, and ran into Strawberry Singh. Isn't she gorgeous? I look really pale next to her. LOL




Is anyone else having issues taking pictures of water using Viewer 2.0? I had my settings up to ultra and it's just... not good.




With or without water reflections, it comes out all crazy. However, it only looks like that in photos, never in world. It looks gorgeous in world. The water is the only thing I hate about 2.0 photos, and it is kind of a big deal to me.

I just sneezed 3 times in a row. I think that means this post is finished.

Day 154 - I am a Gleek!

It's no secret. I'm a total Gleek. For those of you living under a rock [kidding, kidding], that means I'm a huge fan of the tv show GLEE. I am unabashedly in love with this show. Music, crazy plots, kind of campy in a way...it's amazing. Tonight was the first new episode in a while and I got to watch while plurking with some friends. It made it about 10x more fun! I think next week, instead of bugging people on plurk, we should just all meet in world if possible.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go rehash the episode with friends.

Someone's junk is someone else's history.

Earlier today on Plurk, Daniel Voyager showed us this notecard from YadNi Monde of YadNi's Junkyard fame.




I remember heading to YadNi's back in the day. YadNi's, Sarah Nerd's, The Free Dove...they were heaven to a newbie. But YadNi's was the first, and when you go, you can even check things out by date, starting from when the Junkyard began in April 2004.




Six years later, we face YadNi's closing down. And I know what a lot of people are saying. "So? There are better freebies. That stuff is old. There is free stuff everywhere from big designers."

The thing is? These items are our history. In some ways, it's like a museum of old SL artifacts. Yes, our legacy might be old rave sticks and system shoes, but if we don't have somewhere to look at the old items, how will we be able to see how far we've come? There's a reason that museums in the physical world are fun to go to - you get to see life before air conditioning and internet. At YadNi's, there are even big maps of SL on the walls, dating back to 2002!




I grabbed some items from the April 2004 shelves. I couldn't help it! You all know what a prefab addict I am and there was a box of free houses. The funny thing is that some of them were "kits." You couldn't just get a house, you had to build it yourself. I attempted the September 2003 House In A Box, Log Cabin edition.

Now here's something that a lot of people don't know these days: Back a long time ago, before 2006, SL residents had to pay to rez prims. And not only did they have to pay to rez them, they had to pay to keep them out. Can you even imagine?? So on my notecard for the Log Cabin, it said:

"This is a fairly large house, and it will cost you a pretty penny to build. Depending on some customization choices, the actual building can cost as much as L$3000, and your maintenance taxes will be considerable."

Wow. There really IS no such thing as a free lunch, huh?

Luckily, I'm living in 2010 where I can rez prims for free. [Um, relatively free.] So I pulled out the box and looked at the picture.




Well, that seems simple enough.

The folder contained several pieces for the house, and some extra textures for customizing. I was instructed to rez the base out first, and then lock it down so I wouldn't accidentally move it. Heck, I wish I'd remembered those instructions before taking the bedroom off of my house the other day and landing in the grass.




Ok, the base is down. Do you see the big red thing on the side? That's the positioning pin, which is very important. You have to line up the other pieces with their positioning prims to get it just right. In many ways, this is GREAT for newbies because it helps teach building and camming, including the ctrl-alt-left button hold to scroll around the screen. I always just see people do alt-click to zoom. The other one is so much easier to use. Oh, I'm getting off topic.




A few moves and pieces down, and boom! I had a free "vintage" house that would have cost me at least $3000L back in 2003. Geez. I wouldn't even pay that much for a house now!




And sure, I'm not going to use it. But the fact is, I got it for free and without YadNi's, I might not have ever found it. It's history. From the notecard to the build, it's history.

You know what else is hanging out at YadNi's that probably some designers would rather forget? Clothes.




Do you know who made those jeans? Nephilaine Protagonist of PixelDolls. And that top? Why, none other than Launa Fauna of L.Fauna/Chai. So many names in these boxes. And you can see their potential.

It's usually only in places like YadNi's Junkyard that we can find the old items. We can look at them, laugh, and say, "Wow, what an amazing trip it has been so far! I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!"