Apr 15, 2015 | Blog Challenges, Images, Monday Memes
I haven’t been keeping up with the blog lately, again. Things were going along swimmingly, then RL decided to poop on my head right around mid March and I haven’t quite recovered. I didn’t really want to blog about how irritating it is to be laid off just when you were really starting to enjoy your job, or how even more irritating it is when after this happens you start having things around your property fall apart and the repair estimates make you want to hide under the bed. I tried log into SL a few times and at least attend meditation sits, which do sort of help with my focus and stress, but for the most part I just couldn’t get into going in world. Second Life, I love you to bits, but you don’t really lend yourself to allowing me to vent about my RL woes, or to escape from them by immersing myself in sharing new concert clips and flailing about with fellow fans over phenomenal set lists and awesome new pics and generally being a giddy fangirl.
It’s times like this you realize how fortunate you are to have good friends to lean on. None of them read this blog but I still want to just take a moment to be so exceptionally thankful for my little groups of friends in various corners of the internet, I can’t imagine where I’d be without them. All have helped me survive the past year and a half (and the stinky past couple of weeks), they’ve listened to me ramble in dms and forum posts and on Skype, they’ve been there when I needed them. And so, thank you, thank you, thank you. I love all of you more than you can ever imagine. 🙂
Lately I may be back to myself. Or sort of myself. Or at least I thought I’d blog something because I really, really, really need to write. And so here I am. Yay! I thought I’d catch up this week by grabbing the recent Berry memes that I’d skipped over. First I’ll try the The Double Threat Meme.
Two online screen names you’ve had: For the most part every username I had prior to about ten years ago was a total throwaway, I saw no reason to build a uniform online presence so I just made something up if I wanted to join a service, and forgot about it later. As a result I don’t even remember what most of my AOL usernames were (and I had a bunch because I kept making new ones and deleting old ones. But in general everything either of these two: 1) Some weird spelling variation of Rhiannon, I was determined to use that name in my early internet days, and so was everybody else it seemed, so unless I wanted to resort to adding numbers to my username, which I hate hate hate, I had to get creative 2) Some spelling variation of “fairy” coupled with a season.
Two video games you’ve played: 1) Various versions of the Sims. 2) Tetris. I loved Tetris.
Two things you love about Second Life: 1) My inventory! ♥ 2) Seeing the cool things other people make.
Two things you’ve done in Second Life: 1) I built a replica of the air studio from my college radio station, I was always really proud of that. 2) I got to be a shopkeeper for a while
Two things you still want to do in Second Life: 1) Own an island! 2) Maybe learn to do mesh
Two things you like about your Second Life avatar: 1) They all have great clothes! 2) They’re so pretty. 🙂
Two of your Second Life Pet Peeves: 1) Random friend requests are weird when they appear out of the blue from someone you’ve never seen or spoken to. 2) The idea that I can’t transfer inventory between my own accounts has always been a pet peeve.
Two things you did as a newb that you’re embarrassed of: I didn’t really do much as a newb, I mostly just wandered around by myself and looked at stuff, and if I saw anybody on my radar who looked like they were coming towards me I’d tp out immediately.
Two of your closest friends in Second Life: I have friends in SL who I enjoy saying hello to and chatting with, but still there’s not really anyone that I hang out or share things with in the way that I do with my closest friends (who are all also people I only get to interact with online, I do wish I could get them into SL but alas…) I often see bloggers talk about their amazing friendships in world and I wish I’d found that, but I guess I’ve just never met really like minded folks in SL. That’s entirely my fault, I let anxiety get the better of me and don’t really try, or even know how to find people who share my interests. In some ways the people in SL put me in mind of the cool kids in school who I just automatically guess will think I’m boring. SL people always seem much more grown up and interesting – they’re chatty, they’re sociable, they’re exciting, and I’m a total dork who never knows what to say, so I just stay in the background.
Okay, That was a bit of a whine. Whaaa.
Two of the most beloved things in your inventory: 1) The wedding ring set that I made for my avatar because I felt like she needed to be wearing a ring. 2) The aforementioned radio station is a grouped item in my inventory that I’m always afraid I’ll mess up.
So! My next goal is to get myself logged in and try to participate in something at Medici University before it goes away. My intentions when I joined were good, but all the offline stress just torpedoed my desire to do much of anything beyond consuming passive entertainment and pestering people to talk to me. Can’t do that forever though, it’s time to do something new and fun and different (I tell myself). Positive thinking ftw right? \o/
Now I’ll see how far I can get before I’m distracted by something again.
Mar 24, 2015 | Blog Challenges, Monday Memes
It seems that this week OnLive decided to make Firestorm the only viewer for their mobile SL Go apps. Yay for that! Since they added Firestorm for the desktop app I’d been trying out SL Go for my aging iMac, and it works great, (even though the 720p resolution is frustrating on a higher res monitor) but I haven’t paid as much attention to the mobile apps because the only option was the official LL viewer. Now that it defaults to Firestorm I had to try it again. When I found myself sitting around waiting for my mother to finish up an appointment this afternoon it seemed like a perfect time to give it a test drive.
If I look frustrated, it’s because I can’t figure out how to leave my house.
The only trouble with my experiment is I was trying this on a phone, and SL on a 4.7 inch screen is pretty darn tiny. It rendered fast, it looked great, and I wasn’t getting any blurring, but trying to select anything in the UI is not easy. Pinch and zoom, attempt to select, click the wrong thing anyway, zoom back out, try again… It was a challenge. I couldn’t get my landmarks to scroll so I thought I’d type a sim name in search and go exploring that way, but it didn’t feel like recognizing my on screen keyboard. With no handy landmarks I was trapped in my house, but hey, my house was rendering fabulously, so that’s something, I guess. 😀 I did try later on the iPad with a bluetooth keyboard and everything worked really well and looked nice, so yay for Firestorm on SL Go! If I ever have some need to log into SL late at night when I don’t have the laptop handy I can always grab the ipad and I’ll be all set.
Meanwhile, sitting around this afternoon also gave me time to take a look at the Monday Meme. Strawberry Singh has a quick and easy one this week, and I couldn’t resist. Her instructions:
Copy and paste the following statements in your post and complete them writing down the first thing that pops into your head. Don’t forget to link your post in the comments (here).
I am… pretty awesome 😀
I want… to find the motivation to exercise regularly
I have… so much to be grateful for.
I wish… the concerts I want to see weren’t always so far away.
I hate… being laid off 🙁
I fear… the future
I search… for things often, because I misplace stuff a lot.
I wonder… if I’ve ever made a difference for someone
I regret… abandoning my diet just when I was almost at my goal
I never… thought I’d be a widow in my 40s.
I always… light a candle for my husband every night, just because it feels right to do so.
I usually… procrastinate
I dance… infrequently.
I sing… all the time (when I’m alone)
I often… log into SL, switch to Chrome to surf while everything loads, then forget I’m still in SL.
I sometimes… spend hours just trying outfits on my avvie and moving stuff around in my house.
I cry… a lot.
I need… to network and find a terrific new job
I should… go to bed earlier.
I love… blasting my car stereo at top volume \(^_^)/
I’ll add one
I will… get through this RL rough patch and move on to even better things!
Thanks Berry, hope you’re having a fantastic spring break!
Mar 10, 2015 | Fashiony, Monday Memes
This week’s Strawberry Singh challenge is the First and Recent Challenge. We’re to post our first blog pic, and a recent blog pic, so we can see the changes we’ve gone through. Rather than grab an early blog pic, which would only be a couple years old, I went further back and pulled a shot from March 2007 , when I was just a month old. I snapped my now image earlier this evening.
I think I am still wearing one of the early newbie skins here, or possibly something from a freebie pack. The clothes were all from Little Rebel, and the hair was Gurl6. At the time I thought I looked awesome, although I seemed to be having some hair sizing issues here and it’s growing out of the sides of my face. There is just a bit of a difference between then and now!
When I was looking back through pics it was interesting to watch my fashion choices. In the early days I wore a lot of contemporary casual things, but I also went for a lot of costumey clothes, faerie wings, frilly ballerina skirts, or fantasy wear. At some point, probably with the rise of mesh, I stopped dressing in quirky outfits and started dressing very much like my RL self would if I were at my goal weight and had the cash to go on a shopping spree. I suspect it was because early mesh clothes seemed to be more real life fashion based and I wanted to try out the newest thing. I certainly love my avatar wardrobe, but I do miss my offbeat clothes sometimes.
Early on in my second life I wasn’t blogging, though I did start posting pics to Flickr later in the year. Then, as now, I took a lot of selfies, and then, as now, I never post most of them. I’d like to think I’ve gotten better at composing images, I don’t tend to take so many clueless tourist shots where I’m standing idly in front of some build. I still flirt with the idea of doing fashion pics because half my time is spent just trying on outfits and admiring myself, but I haven’t quite reached that point yet. And I’m not really sure my avatars have that much fashion sense anyway, like me they just wear what they want. 😀
Berry also asked if we’d like to join in the DearMe initiative and write a note to our teenage self. As a teen I was fortunate enough to have a family who were always supportive and told me I could do anything I set my mind to. But like many girls who carried a little extra weight around, I was teased at school and terribly self conscious so I was always afraid to do anything that would make me stand out and be noticed, because I was afraid I’d look silly and be laughed at. So what would I tell myself?
Dear Me:
You are absolutely beautiful, talented, and creative. Don’t listen to anyone when they tease you, and don’t let them shake your confidence in yourself. High school may feel rough but hang in there, when you get to college it is all going to change and you’ll meet people who are just as weird and goofy and amazing as you are. And when you worry that you’ll never have a boyfriend – just be patient because you really will met your soul mate one day. Don’t be afraid to stand out, don’t be afraid to take chances and follow your dreams. Life is going to work out beautifully for you. ♥
Love,
Your future self.
I felt too cute and had to take a full shot. I splurged on the Maitreya Lara body and I really like how I can plump it up a wee bit more, especially when I’m in fitted mesh. I may even have to start wearing more skirts and dresses when it gets a little warmer. Yes, it is a quirk I have… if it is cold outside in RL I cannot bring myself to dress my av in summery clothes because hey, if I’m cold then my avatar is cold too.
The rare attempt at image credits 😀
Blueberry Shoulder Jacket & tank top
Maitreya Zipper-Skinny Jeans * #4 updated for Lara Mesh Body
Baiastice_London Sneakers-Print-PinkLace at the Arcade
Glasses: K_gs Sploit 1.03
Hair: Dura-Boys&Girls*48(Coffee)
Skin: League Erin Pale (no brow)
[mock]Smoothie LipColor [Burnt Peach]
IKON Horizon Eyes – Dark Gray-Green
Eyebrow/ face details tattoo layer my own
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. 😀
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