Mar 3, 2015 | Monday Memes
Strawberry Singh’s mission for us this week: the Avatar Transformation Challenge:
Meme instructions: Transform your avatar completely so that even your friends wouldn’t recognize you. Don’t forget to share the link to your image in the comments (here) and add your pictures to the Blog Memes flickr group.
The rules said we had to stick to our usual gender and species. That made it a little tricker, but the rules didn’t say we had to stay the same age, so I thought I’d revisit my childhood. 😀
I’ve never tried to create a kid avatar and wasn’t sure what to wear. I don’t really have an interest in being an SL kid so I didn’t want to buy new clothes I’d only wear once, and most of the stuff I had in inventory didn’t work too well. I had a nice pair of gym shoes that fit, but otherwise mesh was totally out and the system shirts had too much boob shading. Unfortunately this left my youthful self stuck with library clothes, but that’s okay, I was just going to get them all dirty on the playground anyway.
I thought while I was reliving my childhood I should find a good place to visit, and the first that popped into my head was Livingtree, so off I went to goof around. It was fun to have the whole playground to myself!
I didn’t change my face sliders dramatically, just enough to try to look a little more kid-like. Still, I suspect if I had run across any friends they wouldn’t have known who I am unless they read my name tag. If I showed up as a tiny, or some other little non-human critter it wouldn’t have been unusual at all, nor would being any form of elf or faerie, but a kid av would be unexpected. I’m not sure how good a job I did making a kid version of myself, but it was fun to give it a try. 😀
Feb 17, 2015 | Monday Memes
This weeks Monday Meme from Strawberry Singh asks Have you ever SecondLifed?
Well, maybe a little.
- Have you ever owned a sim in Second Life? – No, but It’s still a dream.
- Have you ever created content in Second Life? –
Oh yes. Tons of stuff. I make little things all the time. I make decorations for my house, or things for my avatar. Once upon a time, in my early days, I even had a shop, with various pagan themed home decor. My inventory all looks so dated and basic now, so very 2007, but I love all my scultpy creations and still pull them out to decorate my house. Sometimes I miss that little store. ♥
- Have you ever driven a vehicle in Second Life? – Yes, I have tried several times and I am still terrible at it. I’m a hazard to myself and anyone around me.
- Have you ever gone sky diving in Second Life? – I don’t suppose inadvertently walking off my platform counts, does it? I haven’t skydived out of a plane, but we used to go parachuting off the Eiffel Tower. After our first visit my husband would wear his parachute all the time, and was constantly looking for tall places to jump from. 😀
- Have you ever played a sport in Second Life? – No.
- Have you ever gone clubbing in Second Life? – Not often, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been to a club.
- Have you ever fangirled/fanboyed someone in Second Life? – Once in a while at events or stores I’ll recognize a blogger’s name and think it’s neat to spot them out in the wild. I’ve never felt fangirly over anybody in SL though.
- Have you ever taken a picture of your avatar in water in Second Life? A few times, but when I went looking for a pic I realized it wasn’t as often as I’d thought.
- Have you ever taken a picture of a sunset in Second Life? – Lots and lots. I even have a few pre-windlight ones, but I really started having fun after windlight. This is a few years old, but I still like it.
- Have you ever taken a nude picture of your avatar in Second Life? – Maayyybeee… and my guy alt can look pretty cute sometimes so… lol. Really, though, I tend to keep my avvies dressed all the time.
- Have you ever dated in Second Life? – No. I joined with my husband, so it was never something that crossed my mind. Now I can’t even imagine dating in SL, I think it would feel really weird.
- Have you ever had or attended a wedding in Second Life? – I’ve attended quite a few weddings. At least one of the couples is still partnered.
- Have you ever drank, smoked or taken drugs in Second Life? – I have attached the occasional champagne at the aforementioned weddings. My avvies don’t smoke though. I quit IRL a good dozen years ago and I refuse to let my avvies pick up the habit. And how do you even take drugs in SL? o.O
- Have you ever engaged in sexual activity in Second Life? – The hub and I occasionally hopped on pose furniture for giggles, but pixel sex with emotes and everything? Nah. I imagine that’s much more meaningful if you’re in a long distance relationship.
- Have you ever been to Bukkake Bliss in Second Life? – Haha, no. I see it mentioned a lot in blogs but I’ve never been there.
Thank you Berry, for the questions! 😀
Feb 12, 2015 | Images, Monday Memes
So I said to myself, “Self, we need to think of something to blog for this weeks Berry meme…”
I’m just ridiculously happy that Strawberry Singh has started up her Monday Memes again. I know I won’t always think of something on topic so I can take part, and I’m often quite late, but I just love going through the comments and checking out everyone’s responses. This week she talks about her blogging milestones. Her instructions:
Share when you started Second Life, when you started blogging about Second Life and talk about any Second Life blogging milestones you wish to share with your readers.
I’m not sure I have any typical blogger milestones. I’m very casual about blogging. I love to write, I do it all the time (mostly on my own where it won’t be seen) and I love my blog, but I don’t post often enough to build up an audience. I don’t mind this, I continue this because it makes me happy, and even if it was a private journal I’d still make posts, just because it’s fun.
I began SL on Feb. 5, 2007, I just passed my 8th rezday last week. 😀 The blogging came much later though. Originally the only thing I had was a Flickr account to post my pictures, and for a few years that was enough. Sometime in 2010 I decided I really really wanted to blog and started on Blogger, mostly with RL stuff and iphoneography, but occasionally an SL related post crept in. After a year or so I lost interest in that and moved on to Tumblr, where I eventually made the same-named predecessor of this blog (I imported most of the original posts to this blog when I started it.) The first post was in February 2012 and was a stand of trees where I’d been experimenting with shadow settings.
I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with the blog, and for a few months I posted very infrequently. There was a small SL community getting started on Tumblr, but I was having trouble finding people to follow. Since my SL blog was a side blog I could only follow from my main account so I’m sure it puzzled SL bloggers who wondered why someone who seemed to have no connection to SL was following them. I enjoyed Tumblr a lot and am still active there, but I began to want a slightly more full featured blog platform because I thought it might give me more incentive to post long things, and I always wanted to play with WordPress, so here I am. Yay!
My milestones are just my little memorable blogging moments. I think my first was deciding to start doing Strawberry Singh’s memes, because it gave me a topic to work on each week, when I was having trouble thinking of something to say. The second was taking part in Vanessa Blaylock’s 30 Days of Avatar Blogging challenge. That not only got me in the habit of thinking about what I could post, it also got me exploring SL more, and it introduced me to a lot of wonderful blogs that I try to keep up with when I can.
My favorite post was in response to a Berry meme, about my best friend, where I wrote about my RL husband/SL partner. I talked about how much fun we had exploring SL, and how much I loved his love of our virtual world. Less than a month after I posted that I lost him to a heart attack. Reading that post is bittersweet now, it reminds me that I’ll never be able to explore the world with my soul mate, but I will always have the most wonderful memories.
These days I’m trying to get myself back into the swing of blogging. I’ll be trying to find time to get in world and think of something to post and trying to figure out what use I will make of my studio at Medici University, while still adjusting to a new job IRL. Might be tricky, I have no idea how dedicated I’ll be. Still, I have lots of things I want to do. I want to post more and go in world more often (I’m averaging about once a week at the moment.) I’ve contemplated breathing some new life into the Tumblr version of this blog and trying to keep up with posting to the Facebook page I created.
I’m not sure how far I’ll get with all my plans, but I’ll try, and if nothing else I’ll continue to entertain myself. If anyone else enjoys this as well it’s always a lovely bonus! Who knows, maybe I’ll even reach a new milestone this year. 😀
Jan 19, 2015 | Blog Challenges, Images, Monday Memes
Oopsie doopsie.
And I said to myself, “Wait, where’d my house go?” as I was plummeting towards the ground…
Thank you Berry for today’s meme! 😀
Jan 8, 2015 | Blog Challenges, Images, Monday Memes
Wow, it’s dusty in here. I was surprised to see how long it had been since I blogged anything, but sometime in late summer it slipped away from me. I could contemplate the reasons why, but I’ll save that for another day. I’ll just sweep the dust bunnies aside and jump back in! 😀
Of course it was easier to start posting again when I noticed Strawberry Singh has posted a brand new blog meme and will be back with new challenges. Yay! This week she’s asked us to do our best yearbook smile. How could I resist?
It’s always a challenge to make the default smile look somewhat normal, but after playing with my face sliders a bit I think I’m ready to start off 2015 with a cheery smile.
Hooray for new blog challenges! Thank you Berry!
Aug 13, 2014 | Images, Monday Memes, Sightseeing
I went wandering today, looking for quiet and peaceful landscapes. I love the abstract, wild, impossible in real life sims, but I always seem to have the most fondness for the pretty, realistic, naturally landscaped places. I often wish I could transport myself into one of the quiet spots in SL and sit on a swing and enjoy the quiet.
With Love in Her Heart is one of those pretty places that was a joy to visit. According to the Destination Guide: “With Love in Her Heart is a simple seaside farmstead that evokes memories of days gone by. It offers a relaxing peaceful surrounding with spaces to hang out and enjoy the company of friends. Visit and experience, just know that it was created with love in her heart.“
I also noticed this week that Strawberry Singh has a new blog meme up, asking about computer specs and performance. I was curious enough to turned my stats on while I was taking the pics above, and on average I stayed at about 15 FPS, with things about one notch below ultra. This, to me, was perfect for exploring. I’m content puttering through the world at 10 to 15 FPS, I know I can more than triple my frame rate if I turn off advanced lighting and drop my draw distance, but I’d much rather have a low frame rate and beautiful surroundings.
- Share any of your computer specs (video card, memory, etc..) – 2011, it’s a bit aged now: 2.00 GHz core i7, 6GB ram, Nvidia 460M.
- Which viewer do you use most often? – Firestorm.
- What is your FPS (Frames Per Second) when you have your graphics on ultra? – It depends entirely on the sim, anywhere from barely 1 FPS up to 35 or so in really empty spaces. Quite a few of the art installations or nature sims will turn SL into a 2 FPS slideshow (dense forests are particularly hard on me) so I often try to find an out of the way spot to park my pixels, then I explore via the Space Navigator. It’s still slow going, but never seems to crash me like extensive camming with the mouse can.
- How often does Second Life crash for you? Is it usually just a viewer crash or your whole system crashes? What are you usually doing at the moment of the crash? I’ve only had viewer crashes. About half the time when I take a snapshot I will crash when I try to save to disk, but only on the first try, and usually if I’ve been camming a lot before the shot. If I can successfully save the first shot then subsequent ones never seem to be a problem, so I sometimes take a throwaway pic after I log in.
- Do you know of any tips or tricks in the settings that would improve performance? I think when I insist on running with graphics cranked up there’s not going to be much I can do to improve my performance short of getting a brand new machine, so I am tipless.
Berry says she’ll not be doing regular weekly memes any more, but I’m hoping she might give us a challenge at least once a month, I’ve really missed doing these. 😀
visit With Love in Her Heart
RSS - Posts