Nobody will notice...right?

I was thinking on the way home tonight, I really need to get smart about Arcade.

I have been reading about the yard sales...and it dawned on me.  MY SOLUTION!



I figure if I stake out the yard sale, I won't have to fight the crowd!




It blends...right?

Nobody will even notice.

Wish me luck!

-Al

I love it when a plan comes together!

Have you ever had one of those moments, where someone says something off the cuff, and you realize something big is actually about to happen?  I recently had one of those moments.

Alicia and I were having a normal conversation, just chatting about our day, when she said "Oh, that is cute!".  Of course I asked what was.  Then it happened.  She said "this (whatever it was) that is coming out at Arcade".

My world stopped.  It was coming back!  The Arcade!

I have experienced The Arcade once before.  She was all excited about it.  I was breaking out in a sweat as I was thinking "OMG!  Not again!”  Maybe I should explain.

From what I can gather, The Arcade is an event where creators make stuff, and then put them in these arcade type game vendor, where you pay lindens for a random selection of what that creator created.  The contents are actually quite amazing.  It is interesting in how it is all set up.  I give cudo's to whoever thought it all up.  But that is not the point here.  The point is that the "stuff" is so damn cute, that people go nuts over it.  And when I say people, I mean my wife.

Now, I get that ladies love cute stuff.  It's a girl thing, and I get it.  What is a guy to do, right?  Last time around, Alicia fell in love with this set of pigs in teacups.  I cannot even tell you how many were in the set, but there were regular ones, then the "rares", or royal ones.  THOSE were hard to come by.  You either had to keep playing the game (and paying for each turn), or find someone that had extras, and buy them that way (more on that in a minute).

Now, Alicia has been having some computer issues of late, so going to the actual event really was not an option for her.  So as the dutiful husband, I went in her place.  The setup is actually very well done.  I am always impressed with the creativity shown at events like these in Second Life.  I worked the game for a while, even got 1 rare I believe.  But she had mentioned that she would love the whole set.  So I set out to get her just that.

So, how do you find these rares?  One way, is to scour the "yard sales".  People set up these places where you can sell your "Arcade items" that you have duplicates of, or decide you don't want to try and get a complete set of something.  There were quite a few yard sales last time around, although only a few of them really seemed to get a good supply of things.  I even had a list of landmarks, and I would pop through them on a regular basis looking.  In the end, I was able to get a full set, which made Alicia squeal with joy.  That made it all worth it!

BUT IT WAS COMING BACK!  The blood was draining out of my body as that thought washed over me.  What was I going to do?

Things are a little different this time around however.  Alicia and I have recently been become part of a family in Second Life.  That has been coming for a long time I think, but that is also not the point.  In our family, there are other "wives" that are getting all gaga over the coming event.  And what do these SL wives all have?  SL HUSBANDS!  Then it hit me...time to get organized!

So I sent off the man signal (otherwise knows as a private plurk), and gathered my new brothers.  We needed a plan to deal with this.  We all gathered at the local watering hole that is not too crowded and has a nice pool table.

Once we all arrived, we played a quick game, then settled down at a table to go over our strategy.  We are men. We needed a plan.  We always have a plan.

Takeo started taking the chess pieces from the game on the table, and layed them out in the pattern of the vendors.  I really liked that idea. I always work best with visual aids.  I almost felt like Takeo needed one of those long wooden pointers that generals always have when moving models around on those miniature battlefields you see in the movies.  Between me, Rune and Takeo, we finally settled on a strategy.  It only took a few beers, and some nice cigars, but I think this plan will work.

Once we had the plan in place, preparations needed to be made.  This was not going to be a sprint; it was going to be a marathon.  We needed to get in shape for this.  We needed to prepare as a team!

All in all, I think we are ready.  Arcade?  Prepare yourself.  The A-team has arrived.

- Al

Day 260 - I Can Be A Taxi Driver

I'm in the middle of doing some mad inventory cleaning before The Arcade starts, but I always have time for my sister and brother in law to come hang out! They haven't been by the house in a while, and so I showed them around the house and then we went on a drive around Bluebonnet. You all might remember, but they used to live here a long time ago!

Only... Well, see, it would be SUPER easy to blame my driving skills on what happened next, but I'm just going to blame it on Takeo eating too many Twinkies and chocolate chip brownie cookies. I'm pretty sure that's why we fell over.

Day 259 - She made me work for it.

When I was getting ready to do a post for the style blog earlier, I thought it was more suited for an autumn sim but Bluebonnet is still summery. Luckily, my sister's home hit fall early, so I asked her if I could do my photo there. She said yes...

BUT SHE MADE ME WORK FOR IT!!




She's soooo mean! *snickers* ♥

In other news... we have a goddaughter!! We asked Abby a couple of days ago if she would officially be our goddaughter and she said yes! We're pretty excited about it and hope to spend more time with her soon. :)

Tymmerie is putting together the SL Home Tour weekend for next month, so I better hurry and get our house and land finished!

Day 258 - Epically Easy

Tonight was movie night with the family!




This coming week marks 3 weeks since I've been sibling adopted and I have to say, it's nothing like I thought it would be. It's really much better! Oh, not that I thought it would be horrible or anything like that. I've known these people for ages and I've liked them for ages. But I guess it's just that the whole family thing is easier than I ever thought it would be.

I don't know what I really expected. [And it's 1am, so I'm rambling here.] I spent a lot of months being alone 90% of the time. Any problems I thought I'd have, they were totally on me, not on these wonderful people who were nice enough to take me in as family.

But it's not weird, or uncomfortable, or anything. It's just really easy and I feel really natural around everyone. As we hang out and chat, we laugh a lot and we're starting to have our family jokes and I really enjoy being around them. Learning to do some family roleplay and even being around kid avatars has been easy, too! I just didn't know I would like it this much. Heck, if I had, I would have tried it years ago! LOL!

Have I mentioned we're trial godparents right now? Yep! My friend Abby on plurk mentioned that she was looking for godparents and I said if she put a panel up, I'd jump on it. Godparents in SL are different than RL ones in that there's not really a religious thing behind it. In SL, it's usually just an adult [or 2] that a child av can go to when they want hugs, or to talk, or to hang out with someone. Abby's been coming to a few family things and we all really like her. Plus it helps that she's not a big babytalker or anything. Tonight she was able to hang out with Aldwyn and me and they seemed to get along great. We have one more day left on our trial with her, but I'm pretty sure we know what we're gonna do. :)

Anyway, it's late and I have much to do tomorrow. Goodnight everyone!

Day 257 - It Started With A Pie

It started with a pie.

Yesterday, Rylan stopped over because where she lives was being restarted. Of course, being Rylan, she didn't wear pants as she burst into the house. But we're used to her, so whatever. She decided for my birthday, she'd make me a pie. And for, you know, breaking and entering into our house. Pantsless.

Lexi decided to send me a birthday cake. It was a nice cake, all pretty and colorful. I set it out on the kitchen counter so we could have cake later.

But Rylan didn't like that the cake Lexi sent me was bigger than the pie she made. So while we slept, she broke into the house again [I really should just give her a key] and she made me ANOTHER cake. It's a big cake, with lots of flowers trailing down the sides. It's quite lovely! And it's bigger than the cake Lexi sent, which was her intention.

However, Lexi wasn't about to be one upped by this cake. Ohhh no! She baked YET ANOTHER cake for me. It's huge and has stars and she got kind of messy making it. I wasn't even sure if it would fit on the counter without touching the ceiling!

If you're keeping track, I now have one pie and three ENORMOUS cakes in my kitchen.

Then Willow broke my house with her gigantic cake that is so huge, it burst through the ceiling into the 2nd floor of the house.




So now I have a hole in the ceiling, one pie, four cakes, and probably diabetes if I attempt to eat all of these baked goods.

I love my friends.

Day 256 - Another Trip Around The Sun

So today is my birthday. :) If it feels like it's been my birthday for a week, well...it almost has been. My adorable SL family has thrown me a couple of parties and since people are a little iffy on when exactly I celebrate my birthday [you can read an old post of mine about why I have celebrated 2 birthdays in the past if you'd like.], it's been my birthday pretty much all month.

But, today is actually my biological birthday and I'm pretty happy about it. :)

Day 255 - 42 Groups and a gumball

Last night I spent time setting up a kid's room. I don't know why. LOL It's just fun to do.

Btw, Flickr STILL hasn't re-reviewed my photostream so I'm still on my new one. If you could add me, and add me to any groups you think I'd be interested in, I'd appreciate it. I miss all of my Flickr groups so much. :(




It's Monday, so you know it's time for a meme from Berry! Today she's asking us about groups.


Have you reached the 42 group limit?

Right now I'm only in 36 groups, which surprises me. I'm usually hovering around 40, but I've left a few event groups lately because the events are over.

Do you do a lot of group hopping to keep up with all the groups you want to stay a part of?

Not really, but mostly because the majority of my groups are blogger groups and they're invite only. I am in a few store groups, but the ones I stay in are the ones that are mostly pay groups now and I don't want to leave. [More on that in a minute.] The other groups are land groups that I need to stay in.

What makes you want to join a group?

Well, with the blogger groups, that's easy. I stay in them for review copies and event information, and sometimes to chat with other bloggers. If a store group wants me, they need to pony up with some incentives. Unfortunately, a lot of them don't any more and that's kind of sad. I used to join a lot of store groups when I was new, even if I didn't really know the store, because of a gift they were giving. Some of the stores I still frequent today are because of that initial gift. I am in one social group [my own] but we're not as social as we used to be because some of my friends are no longer in SL often, and group chat for a while was so spotty, it was impossible for us to chat any way so people moved on. I'm still friends with most of them on plurk, so I guess it doesn't matter really.

A lot of store VIP groups have a group fee which you have to pay to join. How do you feel about paying group fees?

I hate - HATE - group fees. Not because I'm cheap. Trust me, if you have a wonderful group with lots of incentives to join, I will happily pay the fee. But most of them do not. Yes, a discount on your items is nice, but it needs to be instant if I'm in your group, not one of those store credit things. Those are awesome and I like them, but not if it's group based. Plus, what's with the $1k and up group fees??? They say "Oh, our gifts are worth it." But seriously? I don't find that's the case 99% of the time. One recolor of an item every 3 or 4 months is not worth someone ponying up $1000L or more. I also tend to feel kind of trapped in a pay group. Like, okay, I paid the fee - now I can't leave because I don't want to pay again. Especially if it's a group that rarely does any kind of gifts or discounts. A designer might think they are worth the price, but we have limited group space. Make it worth our while to be in your group. Also, if you don't have a current group gift out, consider having free open enrollment once in a while just to get more people in your group. The more people in it, the more people remember to come shop you when you do a new release notice, you know?

Name a few groups that you are a part of that you feel everyone should look into joining and share your reasons behind that.

The Gos Boutique group is a good one, if a little chatty, because of the 10% discount on items and sometimes Gos has an awesome group gift. The price is also only $50L to join regularly, and $500L if there's a group gift out. You get 10% back on your purchases if you're in the group, so you do make the fee back quickly if you shop often. The Stellar group is also great because Lexi does at least one monthly gift, sometimes more. It's a $250L joining fee but you do make that up in gifts. The SLink group is chatty and helpful, even about things that are not SLink related. If you don't like a lot of group chat, it's probably not for you, but you also receive a discount on items in the store, and it's only a $10L joining fee.

The rest of my groups are land and blogger and event based, so I can't really recommend them because you can't join them. LOL

Man. I need to be in more social groups.

Day 254 - Twinkie Thief

My sister and brother-in-law have a secret [not so secret] stash of Twinkies! Don't tell anyone, but while they were away...




They'll never notice it's gone! Shhh... it'll be our little secret. ;)

By the way, if you had me on Flickr, I'm using a new Flickr now while I fight to get the Safe rating back on my old account. It sucks to not have all my contacts and my groups. :( But well, I guess that just happens sometimes. I'll still be fighting it until I get my other account back to where it should be!!

Day 253 - We All Scream For Ice Cream!

It's been a week and a day since I got my brother and sister, and I couldn't be happier! They've really made me feel like part of a family and I know it can only get better. ♥

Tonight we went on a family outing for ice cream!!

[And if this photo looks weird, it's because I can't use Flickr to share at the moment because someone flagged my account as having photos marked at the inappropriate safety level. After I moderated the photos the way they told me to and requested a review of my stream, they kindly marked my photostream as RESTRICTED. I've been fighting with Flickr for 2 days now to get my account back to Safe. As you can see by this photo, OBVIOUSLY my account should be restricted because I'm showing all kinds of genitalia, pubic hair, and full frontal nudity. Obviously.]


Unfortunately, Aldwyn was working tonight and he couldn't come for ice cream. I was going to get him some, but we don't have a freezer yet in our kitchen and it would melt before he could get home. So I ate one in his honor.

Hey, it's what any good wife would do, right?

Day 252 - There's Always A Seed Before There's A Rose

So we've been taking a break from our vacation to spend some time on Bluebonnet because I've been wanting to decorate and get our new home situated. I think things are coming along pretty well so far. The outside looks decent, but as you all know, the inside of the house takes me foreverrrr to do. But I'm having loads of fun because I adore decorating and have a billion things I want to put out. It all takes time, but it is hard to not want the whole house instantly decorated immediately! Of course, the Piglets were the FIRST things that I put out because I didn't want them suffocating in my inventory! I'm looking for a better shelf for them, though. Something more delicate and adorable. The second thing was a couch because you know I need to have somewhere to sit with my honey!




Earlier tonight, I went exploring with my sister and brother in law at this really cool place called Partington Cove Lodge. Our brother and his family have been on retreat there and I could see why, because the sim is lovely! Takeo even rode an orca! LOL!! But he made fun of Lolita and me for carrying bags of soil around with us. Hey, you never know when you're going to need to garden! We talked about renting a cabin to do a long weekend at Partington. I think it would be so much fun!

Ooh, I'm so sleepy I'm actually shivering, so I think it's time to get into bed.

Day 251 - Hayyyy

Even though we're on vacation, once in a while I have to fly back to Bluebonnet to check on things. Gotta make sure no one has rezzed a garden of peens or anything like that. Plus, you know, the cows need attention, too.




We'll be moving into a new home soon. It's slightly smaller than our home now, but still spacious enough for all the things I feel like we must have out. [Like my PIGS!] Of course, a new house means new landscaping and all that. But that's not exactly a hardship. :) And I know people are going to tease me again about my constant house changing, but I don't even care! :-p When we settle into the PERFECTFOREVER house, I'll know. Until then....

But it's time to fly back to our beach home. Moving and landscaping can wait!

Day 250 - As If I Could Say No

Sit down, folks. This is a long one. :)

As many of you know, we lost Millie Gears this past week. She passed away suddenly, or at least, what felt sudden to probably most of us. I can't say she and I were close and I really only knew her from Plurk, but she was a sweet girl who always had something funny to say and her passing leaves a dark space in our community.

Natalee offered a challenge to us in honor of Millie. She challenges us to be thankful and improve.

I have to think that I'm a pretty thankful person. I am thankful that for as bad as things were for me emotionally for so long, that they're not that bad any more. I'm thankful for the friends who have helped me in ways they could never imagine. I'm thankful that no matter what happens, these people are here by my side. Second Life has allowed me to meet Ulaa and Aldwyn, and I know that no matter what happens or where we go in the future, we'll be close way beyond Second Life. And I'm very thankful that life has led me to this point and to new friends and family that I'm eager to grow close to.

But for all my thankfulness, the SLife I've led in the past 2 years has been a cautious one. I've been cautious of who I talk to, of what I blog, of what I talk about publicly. I've not stepped too far out of my bubble because I've been scared of being hurt, of being left, of learning things that I didn't want to know. Part of me thinks that I've needed it. That it was a bit of karma that needed to be repaid. The other part thinks that I did it to protect myself and maybe that was necessary, too. And then, of course, there's the little part of me who thinks I was being stupid about the whole thing. :)

Over the past month or so, I've been slowly trying to step out of my comfort zone. Lightning hasn't struck, nothing's exploded, a limb hasn't fallen off. I've been taking baby steps, though. Tiny little baby steps.

This leads us to this morning. I logged in to blog, and had an offline from my friend Lolita. She had sent me a notecard with a landmark that said she and Rune would like me to go somewhere. I figured it was for some event or just something they wanted me to see. So I teleported on over and stood there for a bit. I didn't see anything except Lolita's home.

Then I turned around.




I could not believe it!!

The thing is, as much as I have talked about family and wanting one in SL... I was never really sure if I was ready to make that leap. Aldwyn and I have been married almost 2 years. Ulaa is someone I consider my RL sister [we're even facebook related!]. But this SL family stuff...I just didn't know. But I also knew that even if I said no, they would not hold it against me. I knew I had the option of saying no without losing their friendship.

So I took a deep breath...and took a big leap.




It's part of the challenge. I'm challenging myself to improve, to be more social, to meet more people, to be more.

It's been a long time coming. :)

Day 249 - The Great Unknown

Do you ever wonder what else is out there? Beyond the sky, beyond the ocean, beyond anything you could ever imagine? Some days, I like to just sit and think about things like that. I think one day, I'll know. I think we all will, one day.




Things in my RL are slowing down again and my thoughts, again, are turning towards SL families. I kind of want to get a big brother. I've never had brother before and something about it just appeals to me. Well, no, I lie. I had a big brother in college, and 2 big sisters. But as much as my big brother was supposed to take more of an interest in helping me through that first semester, he was a busy guy, and I didn't see him much.

But I think a big brother in SL would be fun. Or more sisters. Or just more...more.

Of course, I say this now while I have time and I'm alone a lot. Next week could always be different.

Day 248 - Beach Baby

It's always nice when we actually get some time to cuddle out on the beach. :) And that's about all I got for tonight because I'm really tired. All I want to do is shower and curl up in bed and read a book.

Day 247 - Arabian Nights Start With Pizza

Lolita and Takeo invited me out tonight to go to an Arabian/Silks themed party! They're the best dates ever because they decided to feed me beforehand. :)




I couldn't take any pictures at the party because of course I crashed 3 times and I had my settings soooooo low everyone had a melted face. But luckily Lolita and Takeo were able to take some, so if you have them on Plurk, or me, you can see them. :) But it was super fun and I had a great time actually getting out! I never quite realize just how little I go out until I actually DO. And plus I always like spending time with the two of them, so that was awesome.

I'm super sleepy now and all danced out, so it's time for bed!