Dot Lane, Girl Reporter

I Drink Alone

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:59:00 +0000

5th and Oxford cocktail bar, Dot is wearing the "Little Miss" slip

Ros and CJ of 5th and Oxford have been busy at work not only on new skins, but clothes and home furnishings as well. For those of you who saw the pictures of my humble shack, you know that the joint could stand a little classing up so I have bought both the cocktail bar and bed they recently released. Now I'm a girl who loves her drinks and a cocktail bar adds a touch of elegance to any household. Not only is there a bar and stools which are color changeable, but clever drinks and garnishes to put on the bar, and soda siphons to spray at each other, which is generally how my cocktail parties end. Okay, okay, I'm thinking of the wet t-shirt contest at the all you can drink night at my local bar, but I have a rich fantasy life. My one quibble is that only martinis and highballs are provided, to which I ask, "What, no Champale?" I suppose I should be thankful that I have real drinks, and not the girly crap that is so often passed off as a cocktail these days. Take off the training wheels, sisters, and put some gin or whiskey in it!

Are my lips moving while I read?

After a few drinks, I like to settle into the Little Miss bed for some reading before I pass out, errr, go to sleep. The bed is beautifully textured and has cuddle animations, a reading animation, and even lets you bounce on it, although the low ceilings in my shack mean multiple concussions if I try to to do it too often.

Perhaps the most welcome development though, has been 5th and Oxford's foray into lingerie. Lingerie in SL is a paradox: I love having it, but never have occasion to wear it. In that respect it's very much like real life, where tucked away in my dresser drawer are a few very expensive, very fancy items I almost never wear, but I feel better knowing that I *could* if I wanted, and I really want to walk around SL clad in nothing but Little Miss lingerie. I'm wearing the Little Miss slip in the above pics, below you can see the lingerie set which is currently a group gift. Both are available in multiple colors to suit one's mood and the loving detail is evident in the close up of my butt, which makes me wonder when the GreenLife Emerald viewer is going to implement a subtle butt shake to go with the jiggly boobs. Hey, you know what they say, shake your moneymaker!

"Little Miss" fore

"Little Miss" aft

Baby Let's Play House

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:55:00 +0000

My new house, "Sea Shacks", in TwentyThirteen

With winter approaching, my nesting instincts have started to stir so I've made the plunge and rented a new place. Those of you who Plurk might remember my request a few weeks back for a sim which had a decrepit old port town feel to it, a look that proved difficult to find. For the life of me I can't understand why someone wouldn't want to build a replica town dominated by a cannery and warehouses. But one helpful soul mentioned Jori Watler, who suggested TwentyThirteen, an island with seven residences which met my requirements for privacy and abject despair. And what's not to like? I could have lived in an abandoned factory, an anarchist's warehouse, a bunker, or several other appropriately dingy buildings. I settled on the "Sea Shacks," however, which are hidden behind a hillock within view of a ship which has apparently hit shore and partially sunk. If my new home were getting an award in a high school yearbook, it would have been elected "House Most Likely To Have Someone Murdered In It", which is fine by me. I'm externally sunny and cheerful, but I also have vast unplumbed reservoirs of despair, and my new house reflects that bleakness.

Here I am, resting at home. The broken windows really don't keep the wind out and since the house is literally built on water the boots are necessary for high tide. I have tried to make the house a little more cheerful with my Bettie Page Voyager Mannequin Head lamp, Artilleri ashtray, and lamp from 120BPM. Can't you just hear the clock slowly ticking? If I actually had a wife and a servant girl, it would be modern update of Ethan Frome.

There are occasionally stunning views from the house. I solve this by quickly going into the GreenLife Emerrald viewer's handy menu of windlight settings and selecting "Foggy Morning".

It does get cold on the foggy mornings, so Hair OH's "oh my SnowMan" hair/hat combo along with the matching "Lovers Muffler" helps keep me warm. You'd think I'd have enough sense to not wear low rise jeans, but I don't.

For me, nothing says class like having a couch on your porch. After all, what could go wrong with a large piece of furniture made of absorbent material sitting out on an unprotected porch? Take a deep breath. Smell that? Hah! You now have anthrax or some other terrible airborne mold.

Because I live alone and am girlfriendless in SL, I decided a property with two houses was really what I needed. This is the second house on the property. I think it is haunted and I'd be happy to rent it to you to find out.

I'll be sharing more pictures and home decorating tips soon. Let me know if you want a tour!

In Which I Return, To The Sound Of Crickets Chirping

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:01:00 +0000

"oh my ramen"

So it appears that a few people have actually missed the blog enough to ask me when I was going to start writing it again. In all honesty, I figured "never" was the proper answer, since I hadn't been feeling particularly creative for a few months before I stopped blogging. Peer pressure being what it is though (and I'm looking at you Bella, and you, Sam B), it was either start blogging again or start smoking again, so true to my Puritan family roots I chose the less pleasurable activity.

Now I know what you're all saying. You're saying, "But Dot, you're charming and perfect and adorable so really how hard can it be for you to blog about your fabulous Second Life?" What? You think it's easy being Dot Lane? I should let you walk a mile in my shape and then you'd find out the truth. But now that I've actually committed to blogging again (I didn't say how *often* I would be blogging though, suckers!) you can look forward to more pointless commentary, more poorly taken pictures, and more bitching about prims which don't fit the shape I stubbornly refuse to change. In other words, be careful what you ask for since you just might get it.

I suppose at this point I should say a very public thank you to Whimsy and Sasy who hung out with me on my birthday and took me shopping with them. They showed me a new store, Hair OH, which, since they were on voice, I totally thought was going to be a replica of the Chicago airport--hey, they said "We're going to OH Hair". My disappointment soon vanished though when I saw how cute the hair was. Not only is the hair there perfect Dot hair, but the hats and bands and hair twists all have color and texture change, which make me very happy. More Hair OH hair:

"oh my snowman" which has an available matching scarf

"oh my honey"

Hair OH group gift

And, if you really must know, the skin is a Fleur Boutique Vanilla Parfait 2, the quilted vest is from E. Watkins and the t-shirt is just a t-shirt.

Walking Away

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:17:00 +0000

It's been a great ride everyone, but I am pulling back almost completely from SL. I will have more to say in a few days, but I just don't have the passion for it I once did. What I do have are wonderful memories of amazing, smart, and talented people which have made it all worthwhile. You'll see me in-world on occasion, but just for brief chats and to keep poor Dot from being buried by notices.

And Now For Something Completely Serious.....

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:43:00 +0000

Dear Readers:

In my previous post I indicated that I wouldn't be around for a week or so, in-world, on Plurk, blogging, what have you. Then, yesterday on Plurk, I read about a friend who is having some serious medical problems, and when I say serious, I mean life or death. I'm not going to outline them here, but please read this blog post, which gives the broad outlines of the issue, and this post which provides more details.

Shir Dryke is one of the most self-effacing and charming people I've met in SL, makes beautiful lingerie for sale at her Ornamental Life store, and is one of those people who enriches my SL experience. I say this because in this day and age we're gun shy when it comes to calls for help, especially through an anonymous medium. It's so easy to say "that can't possibly be real, that story seems flawed to me". It's almost as if people look for reasons not to help, that they need to convince themselves that a call for help might not be genuine to justify inaction. We need to understand that despite evidence to the contrary, people are basically good.

What can you do? First, and easiest, is to go take a little shopping trip to Ornamental Life. If you haven't shopped there before, you're in for a treat (you can see me wearing some Ornamental Life here). Second, a number of designers are making items specifically as a fundraiser for Shir. I will be blogging them as the appear. Third, you can make a straight cash donation through the heart collection box at Shir's store.

So here comes the hard sell: we've all gone through the pain of someone disappearing from SL and not knowing what happened to them. What would be the pain of someone disappearing from RL, knowing exactly what happened, and not helping?

Not long ago I read an essay from 1985 by the historian Thomas Haskell, "Capitalism and the Origins of the Humantiarian Sensiblity". Follow that link, go to page 354, and read about "the case of the starving stranger". Haskell writes, "As I sit at my desk writing this essay, and as you, the reader, now sit reading it, both of us are aware that some people in Phnom Penh, Bombay, Rangoon, the Sahel, and elsewhere will die next week of starvation. They are strangers; all we know about them is that they will die. We also know that it would be possible for any one of us to sell a car or a house, buy and airline ticket, fly to Bombay or wherever, seek out at least one of those starving strangers, and save his life, or at the very least extend it. We could be there tomorrow, and we really could save him. Now to admit that we have it in our power to prevent this person's death by starvation is to admit that our inaction--our preference for sitting here, reading and writing about moral responsibility, going on with our daily routine--is a necessary condition for the stranger's death. But for our refusal to go to his aid, he would live." Of course, there are myriad reasons why we are unable to go save the starving stranger, and how much causation would be assigned to us by our inaction. Haskell observes, and rightly so, that "the limits of moral responsibility have to be drawn somewhere and that the 'somewhere' will always fall far short of the much pain and suffering that we could do something to alleviate."

But what really struck me about Haskell's analysis is his comment on what the future holds. After noting that the invention of the airplane has likely altered what we think of as being possible in aiding others around the world because of changing notions of time and distance, Haskell argues "This suggests that new technology--using that word broadly to refer to all means of accomplishing our ends, including new institutions and political organizations that enable us to attain ends otherwise out of reach--can change the moral universe in which we live. Technological innovation can perform this startling feat, because it supplies us with new ways of acting at a distance and new ways of influencing future events and thereby imposes on us new occasions for the attribution of responsibility and guilt. In short, new techniques, or ways of intervening in the course of events, can change the conventional limits within which we feel responsible enough to act. Imagine that we have at our disposal an as yet uninvented technology, more advanced than the airplane, that will enable us to save the starving stranger with minimal expenditure of time and energy, no disruption of our ordinary routine. If we could save him by just reaching out to press a button, then a failure to act would become indefensible."

I pressed a button and donated 10,000L to the cause yesterday. That's a pretty small down payment on hope.

No Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:44:00 +0000

I'm on hiatus until the 2oth of January, at least.

Love,

Dot

Merry Christmas To All!

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 02:42:00 +0000

Peace on Earth, good will to all!

Jingle My Bells

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:19:00 +0000

Dot Lane Wearing Fleur's Biba

So many posts to do, so little time to complete them, what with the holiday rush hitting from all angles. Still, I'm taking the opportunity to do a few quick hits before the holiday and first up is a reminder that Fleur has redone its Biba skins as part of the Allure line. I'm planning a longer blog post about Biba (which has long been my second favorite Fleur skin, after the Parfaits) but Fleur is giving out holiday gifts via lucky stocking and the stocking includes the limited edition Biba skin I am wearing in the photo above. I won't even tell you what I had to do to get myself taken off of Santa's naughty list so that I would come up a winner when I clicked the stocking. All of you nice girls won't have that problem, so go try your luck. While you're there, be sure to take a walk around the sim to see the new Biba skins. Best of all there is a huge discount if you buy skins using the Fleur card--a 3000L card lets you buy 6000L worth of skin and clothes. That's 50% off people, for the skins that make me a vision of wondrous beauty. And if I can look this good, just think what they will do for you! The gloves I'm wearing also came from the lucky stocking and really set off the dress by Yuli. The hair is from booN (duh!) and the lights nestled all snug in my curls are a group gift from Deviant Kitties. The eyes are a new group gift from Fleur.

A Viral Marketing Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:48:00 +0000

For the past two Halloweens in SL, I have worn a collar rigged to give out candy if you click on it. This leads me to a question: have designers tried rigging hair, shoes, and other attachable objects to give out demos and landmarks? The script is easy and free, and it is simply a matter of boxing the demo and landmark together. While you wouldn't want to put it in every copy of every hair you sell because of lag issues, why wouldn't you rig your own personal hair this way, or the things worn by your customer service reps? I see it going something like this:

Person: "I love the hair you have on!"

Hair Designer: "Thank you. You can click it if you want and get a demo and landmark."

Person: "Thank you so much!"

How easy is that? The potential drawback is that I'm not sure about the ins and outs of transferring objects which contain no transfer items however--is this possible?

Now what's the flaw in my viral marketing plan? And has this been tried before?

Fair Isle Fleur

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 11:57:00 +0000

Fleur "Fair Isle" Dress

While global warming might be raising the annual average temperature in RL, it doesn't mean that winter has disappeared completely. And, as the poets say, in winter a young woman's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of chunky sweaters and woolly dresses. Thankfully Fleur has stepped up to fill a gaping void in my wardrobe by creating a set of Fair Isle patterned dresses and socks, with ribbed turtlenecks to wear underneath. To me, Fair Isle is one of the holy trinity of patterns, along with plaid and argyle, and I just don't see enough of it in-world. The new dresses are available in six colors and you'll want to wear them by the fire with a nice cup of cocoa. Best of all--you can get all the dresses, turtlenecks, (which will work great with other outfits) and socks for $1000L. You'll also want to make sure to see the new Fleur skins as well--I'm wearing Fleur's Vanilla Parfait Trois 4. A little birdie told me some selected skins might be on sale.....so go try on some demos and maybe you'll find a bargain!

I'm also wearing hair and tights from booN.

Dot Lane Takes The Dress Me Up Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 03:37:00 +0000

I have accepted Achariya Maktoum's "Dress Me Up Challenge"!

The rules, according to Achariya:

Rules:
1. Post a picture of yourself in your underpants.
2. In this post, invite your readers to suggest a particular outfit (or hair, jewelry, shoes, skin, etc.) from a designer for you to purchase and write about. (Designers, feel free to suggest items from your own line - why not, after all?) People who respond should explain why they like these items.
3. In the next few weeks, look back over the suggestion list and incorporate these ideas into your regular blogging, marking these entries with the tag "dress me up." Post in as many or few suggestions as you want. It's up to the blogger's discretion to pick which items to wear, so no complaining if they don't pick your idea, K? :D

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So there you have it, the floor is open for your suggestions dear readers. And yes, I already own a bag to put over my head so no recommendations for that, please.....

The Objects of My Affection

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 21:07:00 +0000

Giving Pancakes the Eye

Garden announced a group holiday gift a few days ago so this afternoon I made my way over to the store. While there, I found a table set with food and you know how I feel about pancakes. Any bets about whether or not I can eat them all?

Bonsai!

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:26:00 +0000

Sachi Vixen and her partner Damen Gorilla are now making bonsai under the auspices of their Artis Natur brand, and she kindly sent me one which I promptly put out. I think the snowman likes it too!

Christmas Spirit? Well, Maybe....

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:27:00 +0000

Schadenfreude's Feather Tree

Val Kendal Made A Stocking For Me

Christmas Lights by Deviant Kitties and Mistletoe by Chapeau Tres Mignon

Everyone is fortunate that the prim limit at my apartment keeps me from fully indulging in the spirit of Christmas, because God knows if I were left to my own devices my place would be full of blinking crap. As it stands, blinking lights stuck in my hair don't count against my prim limit, which is good because these Christmas lights from Deviant Kitties weigh in at 55 prims, but aren't they just the best? When combined with the high prim hair from booN, it means I'm giving everyone a big box o' lag for the holidays. You can thank me later. I've hung the stocking my friend Val made for me on my washing machine since I don't have a fireplace. I'm not sure if my washing machine is a teleport point from the North Pole, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I also put up my violet feathered Christmas tree from Schadenfreude. If you go to the store, you can ride a mouse which will take you to a tree farm filled with these lovely creations. Finally, if you see me in-world wearing my mistletoe, be sure to come get your kiss. After all, everyone deserves the oscular equivalent of a lump of coal because I know you're not good all the time....

Tonight, On A Very Special Episode of Dot Lane, Girl Reporter.....

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 02:10:00 +0000

Dot Lane, Ready For Slings And Arrows

On Plurk, Sachi Vixen recently asked "if people think that the freebie/hunt culture in SL is damaging to the economy and to designers. What do you think the future holds?" Since Sachi and I have talked about this issue in world, and God knows I'm not shy about offering an opinion, I thought I would take a crack at an answer, free of the 140 character limit Plurk imposes.

Shopping and Self

Is shopping in Second Life® (SL) a transmutation of the real life (rl) desire to acquire? I'm sure it is, in combination with a transmutation of real life desires for attention and praise and beauty. I mean, really, why do you think I write my blog? I'm alternately embarrassed and secretly pleased by the praise I get. But this can be a difficult trap: one has to keep finding new ways of being fresh, different, not like everyone else. We regularly seek to reinvent ourselves and this means buying new clothes, becoming a space demon or a giant jello mold, or having sex with unicorns, among the myriad choices which are available to us. But after a certain point, we find, just as in real life, that our desires are limited by our ability to pay for them, except for unicorn sex, which is apparently always free.

As I noted in a post a few days ago, it is difficult not to feel overwhelmed in SL these days. While hardware and information distribution systems may be scalable, our attention span is not. Fashion Consolidated notices, generated through the group created by an SL business promoting new fashion releases, come out at an astounding rate when I'm in world, and I can only imagine how many I miss when offline. The number of blogs about SL appear to grow exponentially and most seem to be about fashion, but I have to confess I read very few of them, and, judging from my blog's traffic, I assume the converse is true. Then again, I've always considered myself to be the licorice of bloggers and something of an acquired taste, so I'm not surprised at my traffic, but the ever increasing demands on people's time makes it hard to build a readership no matter how well done or widely appealing one's blog is. What's that? Right. An astute reader just noted that, Sachi asked about the state of the SL economy, not my own personal issues, which are legion. I do think my experience points to a larger problem however, one that has a real world analog, and that is the idea that the increasing overload of information and shopping opportunities slows the SL economy by creating paralysis of choice.

(/me waits for you to read the New York Times article)

(no, really, you need to read it /me taps her foot and points to the link above)

(I know you know how to read, since there aren't any pictures in this post. Oh, you're done? Good. Carry on.)

How does paralysis of choice manifest itself in world? Think about what happens when someone asks you for fashion advice. How many times have you heard someone ask for the "best" of something? You can generally answer that question, perhaps with a few caveats, but at least you know what is best for you. Now think about the responses that same question gets when asked of the Fashion Emergency group. You may as well count the grains of sand on a beach.

What is going on? First, in SL, it is hard to know the universe of choices. Asking someone what "is the best [insert product type here]" , is a way of doing research, of making sure if one is going to spend money that ten minutes later he or she will not come across a better, more appealing choice. Second, asking for advice can also be a way of confirming preconceptions about a brand. “Oh, you recommend skin x? I've always liked their work too.” Third, and perhaps most of all, people, especially when new, are limited by their account balances and are afraid to spend precious lindens on clothes they won't wear or hair they end up hating or on something which other people think is uncool. Choices in world are virtually unlimited, and for things we don't normally buy in RL: skin, hair, talking private parts. If there were only three hairstyles in world, it would be easy to make a choice, when there are thousands, well, good luck. Have you shopped for black knee high boots? A little black dress? It's much easier not to buy and wait for the new new thing to come out and then not buy that either.

So Dot, What's Your Story And Do You Need A Ladder To Get On That High Horse?

When I was new in SL, I did the usual tour of freebie spots, finding odds and ends that seemed to suit my style at the various freebie stores, ragpicking through folders of full perm clothing people dropped on me, taking advantage of free skin and hair offers from places like Sin Skins and Gurl 6. I was essentially clueless: I hadn't even thought to look for blogs about style, and most people I met weren't particularly well dressed. There were exceptions however, and I was lucky that early on someone took mercy on me and gave me 5000L as a gift. With advice from a few people, like the girl at Popscene who told me about CKS Designs, and some investigation on my own, I started to build a wardrobe. Those early purchases are easy to remember--the “Tweed Mod” outfit from Tres Blah, the “bem querer” dress from Bossa Nova (now comme il faut), "Earthy" from CKS Designs--because each was made after careful consideration. I had to watch my pennies. It wasn't until I received a group gift from Tete a Pied (now Fleur) that fashion really clicked for me. Yes, a freebie changed my life.

But when thinking back about my early shopping, I don't recall many freebies in stores themselves. Rather, I think freebies were found at the freebie megastore type places or came via group gifts. In a way this makes sense, because stores presumably wanted to reach new players where they congregated, and a store owner couldn't assume the new player would ever find the main store on their own (has everyone forgotten exactly how bad search was in 2007?). It seemed to me at the time that a designer would make something simple like a t-shirt, a skirt, sandals, or a basic dress, and set it out in a box at The Free Dove or wherever and hope for the best. What changed?

The Rise of Freebie Culture

I suppose there have been freebie blogs since the start of SL, but in October of 2007 Creamy Cooljoke's Free*Style came onto the scene. I met Creamy in late September 2007, picking up a “Free Burma” t-shirt Iris Seale had made for Punch Drunk, and we hit it off and have remained friends since. Why do I mention this? Because, to my mind at least, Free*Style has become the dominant force in shaping freebie culture. I'm not writing this to be critical of Creamy, but rather to explain a phenomenon. I don't think Creamy had any idea what Free*Style would morph into: a taste maker for people of limited means, a freebie store, a group with almost 5,000 members, and a blog with some of the most stylish contributors in SL. Why the rapid growth of the Free*Style brand, which is coming up on a million page views at the blog? I think choice paralysis stimulates the desire for freebies. After all, it's hard to make a bad buying decision and suffer from buyer's remorse if something is free, and free means you can conserve your lindens. So freebies become a little hit of guilt free pleasure. Buy it, try it, trash it if you don't like it. Easy right? It is for the shopper, but what about the other side of the equation?

If you're a designer, Free*Style is hard to ignore. Given the size of the Free*Style group, the traffic to the blog, and the blog's syndication into the major fashion feeds, a mention in Free*Style has to be seen as major p.r. coup—I know when I'm mentioned in Free*Style, I see a significant traffic spike to my blog, and I don't even make clothes. Then think about the secondary and tertiary blogs, and then work your way down to Dot Lane, Girl Reporter. Most blogs which write about fashion cover freebies in one way or another and if you're a designer competing for the consumer's limited attention span, a freebie (or a review item, which I also have strong opinions about, but won't get into here) is a good way to do that but it had better be of high quality to get noticed. While there are some bloggers who will “poop rainbows” over just about anything, most are increasingly discerning about what they choose to feature. Do you see the spiral here? More designers making more top quality free items means it is less important for a consumer to become one who uses real money for purchases. In short, it is entirely possible to have an economy where more is consumed, but the total size of the economy stagnates.

But what else can a store owner do but get into the freebie game? Designers want people wearing their clothes, talking about them, and recommending them to their friends. Freebie promotion isn't the sole province of freebie blogs either. How many Fashion Consolidated notices come telling of new releases and an in-store freebie? There seems to be an expectation of free stuff these days, and anecdotal reports of people complaining about demos being priced at a dollar or wanting to know where a free gift is when a store has a new release only serves to reinforce the idea that something is rotten. A secondary problem is the 25 group limit. Freebies used to come more frequently via group gift but a the group limit again means stores are competing for increasingly scarce resources: one's group slots. It seems to be it would be much easier to just put a free gift out in one's store, and the let the fashion press do your promotion for you.

Adam n Eve is trying something different, a customer loyalty card in which one receives points for each purchase redeemable for merchandise. This seems to be a happy compromise. After all, many marketing experts will tell you that creating brand loyalty and word of mouth from satisfied customers are the keys to success. This program is in its infancy however, and there is no guarantee it will be successful and meet its goals. But at least something different is being tried. What other ways can content creators develop to attract and retain customers?

I consider freebies to be an amuse bouche, a treat given with the expectation that I will be buying a full meal at some point. One can't live on the free popcorn given out at your local bar. Eventually you're going to need to step up and buy a drink or maybe a meal too, otherwise we'll all starve to death at the banquet. Now I hear the complaints. They go something like this: “Oh, Dot Lane is encouraging mindless consumerism and SL should really be a libertarian paradise where people make what they need and don't worry about capitalistic concerns." Perhaps SL should be like that. But maintaining stores and sims and uploading textures and creating takes time and real money and that means at some point, consumers have to buy.

The Thrill of the Hunt.

When I first started SL hunts were rare and smaller in scale and usually confined to a single store or sim. I always enjoyed doing them, because they became a social event. You'd go with a friend and poke around a store searching and chatting while you did so. I particularly remember doing the Mischief “Panty Raid” with Kit Maitland, and it was a pleasant way to kill an evening, with the panties (most of which are lovely) being of secondary importance to the camaraderie. I don't remember when hunts became quite so epic, culminating in the ongoing Peace on Earth hunt, which has over 300 prizes. I do know that hung has been the source of ongoing chatter in several groups I belong too (I can't find globe 79...any help?)

Of course, there are cheat sheets which pop up almost immediately after a hunt begins, like new movie releases showing up on New York City street corners as DVDs the day after the movie hits the theater. I'm of two minds regarding them. First, if there is a hunt with over a hundred locations, chances are I'm not going to want 85% of what I find. A cheat sheet is a handy way to know which stores are participating and which I might be interested in. But cheat sheets also encourage a completist mentality, where one needs to have everything in order to have finished the hunt. As human beings we like order and completeness and a sense of accomplishment. But do we honestly need all of what we hunt for? I know I'm guilty of having things in my inventory from hunts six months ago that I have never opened—certainly this isn't the type of marketing boost stores participating in hunts are hoping for.

Can hunts be improved? Perhaps not, but there are other models for distributing gifts and getting traffic. The Creators Stamp Rally (CSR) is a good model, I think, of a way to distribute gifts. You buy a marked item at a participating store and then take the special card enclosed with the item to other stores to get your card "stamped". Once you've visited all the store, you can redeem your stamped card for a prize. The beauty of this is you can get as many cards as you want, but you have to buy an item to get them. You can also simultaneously wear all of the cards you acquire so you only have to make one circuit of participating stores. {Edit}: after more thought, there is another facet of CSR I like. Even though you may buy one item in one store to get a card to redeem, you can redeem it for a prize from a completely different store. It is this type of recognition of mutual dependency that seems to be missing from many of the hunts, an acknowledgement that the SL economy doesn't have to be a zero sum game.

Other hunts have more convoluted set ups, requiring some effort to complete the hunt. The Albero mall has had two hunts in which I've participated. You find numbered boxes at the mall, each of which has a word attached to it. You then go to the main stores of the shops at the mall, where you will find more numbered boxes. You say the word associated with the proper box number, and receive your gift. While time consuming (the last Albero hunt took several hours, and I had a little help) it slows the pace of frenetic acquisition.

Other hunts have successfully introduced an element of humor, like the D-Hunt at Blockheadsville which recently took place in a sim built especially for the hunt. In short, hunts should be fun and sociable, not a recreation of the running of the brides at Filene's Basement.

Bonus film clip of the running of the brides:

The Future.

Does SL end up resembling third world countries with an established oligarchy and a mass of poor residents?

Much of the problem in the SL economy lies on the demand side. People have wants, but they don't have the means. SL, for all of its ability to unleash the creative side of people to create what they envision, has very limited employment opportunities for those of us who don't create. Camping for 1L every ten minutes doesn't work, prostitution is legal but apparently high effort/low reward as the search for paying clients becomes more difficult. I'm not even sure how much models make. The lack of adequate employment needs to be addressed. But how? I don't really know. If waged employment isn't the answer, there needs to be an expectation that if someone stays in world for a substantial length of time, that they will eventually invest some of their own money in world and yes, that means the creation of a true consumer culture in which one uses money. Freebie culture militates against this by adequately satisfying many wants.

What would I do if I had a store? I'd set a few items for 10L or 20L and opt out of the in-store freebie altogether. I'd have a robust group gift program or rewards point system in which customers who bought something in the past month received items in group exclusive colors or designs, while group members who didn't buy something in the past month would be entered into a drawing with other non-buyers for the month to win the same outfit. After all, I want loyal customers, not people who simply join a group to grab the freebie (as an aside, why can't we have more groups? I'm guilty of group jumping from time-to-time but, before I leave the group, I try to buy something from the store as a mea culpa).

But really, what's a reasonable amount of real money for someone to put into SL? What is SL worth to you? $10 a month, which is the current cost of a movie in most of the United States? My own budget allows me to put $200 a year into the SL economy and I could go higher except that I've found that $200 satisfies my wants and even allows me to write blog posts bitching about how much choice I have. We're fortunate that Linden Labs® doesn't require a monthly fee for entry into the world. But think about that. Other online forms of recreation often require a fee to participate. SL offers so much and asks so little of us in exchange. In return, I would argue, we all bear some of the burden for supporting those who create what we value most.

And that is how I would answer Sachi's question, although I have much more to say on the issue and hope to get to it in future blog posts, so long as someone doesn't try to kill me for this one.

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In the way of disclosure, I suppose it is worth reading this post of mine from several months ago. The only significant change is that I am now also a Fleur Insider. Needless to say, my opinions are my own and not those of any other person or store with which I may be associated.

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The Dark Streets of London

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 01:09:00 +0000

The Black Canary's "Frigid Belle" in Rivet Town

Back home for a close up....

It's hard not to feel overwhelmed in SL these days. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, when I signed on I kept seeing between 70,000 and 75,000 users logged in, a significant jump over where SL was even two months ago, if I recall correctly. FashCon seems to have grown exponentially to judge from the notecards, store hunts are a permanent fixture (note to content creators: my rez day is 11 July, so you may as well start the planning the hunt for that important occasion), and more people are blogging and plurking and flickring.

My natural inclination is to shut down, clean my inventory, and putter about, hoping that the tidal wave of information doesn't drown me. I've been avoiding hunts and I've been deleting FashCon notices fairly regularly without looking at them, pausing only if I recognize the store or if the description really really grabs me. So I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the notecard from The Black Canary which came over the transom a few hours ago. First, the notecard was charmingly written and second, there was an outfit called "Winter in London".
Now, if I could choose a time and place to move to, it would be 19th century London, so I eagerly waited for the pic to load. An hour later (okay, okay, it was only twenty-eight minutes) when the pic had rezzed I saw a beautiful outfit that made me jump over to The Black Canary post haste. I decided against "Winter in London", but did buy the "Frigid Belle", another new outfit. The lucky chair also went into wildcard mode while I was there so I picked up another outfit and then, after TPing in Creamy to the lucky chair for a "C" (an epic fail on her part, since things didn't rez fast enough) the lucky chair went back to "D". Well now. That's certainly a sign of something.

As soon as I put on "Frigid Belle" (please, no jokes about how this might actually be an entry in the "Dot Lane Design Challenge") I knew I had something special. Beautiful fur trim, a grey wool coat and skirt with a sheer black crinoline underneath, "Frigid Belle" harkens back to a simpler time. And even though you might be as overwhelmed as me, I suggest a trip to The Black Canary and a visit to Rivet Town, where these pictures were taken, and let yourself be transported.

I'm also wearing Diversity Hair's "Ruby" (thank you Aleri!) which is currently a group gift with five colors in the pack, none of which are the black I have on, but you do get a blue-black version according to Sasy, who says I should have opened the group gift, but that would be like reading the instruction manual to something, now wouldn't it? Rezit Sideways gave me the White Roses Barbed Wire Tiara which is available from her Designs of Darkness store, and the skin is a brand spanking new (please note, no actual spanking took place) Fleur Vanilla Trois Parfait 4. Have I mentioned before that I love Fleur skins? I have? Maybe once or twice? Well, go check them out and the amazing new store which recreates Greenwich Village in the winter time.

Hat tip to Kaycee Nightfire for suggesting Rivet Town as a location....

Also, if you don't have it, you need to own The Pogues "Red Roses for Me", which has one of my favorite songs, "The Dark Streets of London".

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Procrastination, Thy Name Is Dot Lane

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 19:12:00 +0000

This is how my blog works. Yesterday I started to get ready for the new skin and sim launch for Fleur, which will happen this afternoon at 2 PM SLT. In my case "getting ready" means obssessing about what I will wear since I know I will be running into lots of friends and SL luminaries who can get dressed in a dark closet in ten seconds and look better than I will even after I spend a couple of hours trying on outfits. I also have the added pressure of being a Fleur Insider now, which means I will be under particular scrutiny. I thought I would wear a new Fleur Shoujo skin to the party so I searched for "shoujo" in my inventory.

Lo and behold, I found that I have a dress from a store called "Yome Shoujo". How odd. I check the date I acquired it, and learn it was sometime last September. I have no recollection of the dress so I put it on, and I love it! (see the "pepe" dress below) Immediately I forget that I'm supposed to picking out an outfit for tomorrow and I run off to the store where I stand, slack-jawed at the cuteness I see around me. Not only is there cute, but it is inexpensive cute with lucky boards and gifts and OMG I just had to see everything. I picked up the gifts, waited around for the lucky boards (which are fast ones, just so you know) and bought a dress and legwarmers and a sweater and I've spent the past hour taking pictures and getting this blog post ready. The sad thing is, I still don't know what I'm going to wear to the Fleur opening, which is less than two hours away as I finish writing this. /me sighs.

But just look at what you will find at Yome Shoujo! I love that the dresses usually have multiple skirt options, generally long or short, and the fabric patterns are very different than what one usually finds. YomeShoujo also sells furniture and other little odds and ends to make you happy.

With the exception of the pepe dress which is paired with a lucky board skin from Yome Shoujo, I'm wearing a brand spanking new Fleur BND Lotus Shoujo 3 skin and my trusty booN KARo7 hair. (I know what you're saying. You're saying, "Doesn't that girl have more than one hairstyle? One that makes her look a little less Bride of Frankenstein?" Oh yes, dear readers, I know exactly what you're thinking.) I can't say enough about the new Boutique skins at Fleur. I've been wearing the freckled Vanilla Parfait for months now and I'm pleased to say that the third-generation Parfaits include freckled skins with a slightly more grown-up look to them.

Yome Shoujo "Pepe" dress with "dede" skin (skin free from lucky board)

Yome Shoujo Life2 (free from lucky board)

Yome Shoujo JamPink (free from lucky board)

A trio of gift shirts

dot shirt
psychedelic shirt
heart shirt

Look closely at the psychedelic shirt. No, not at my breasts! Sheesh!

Yome Shoujo "Shimonu" sweater

Youme Shoujo "TR" dress with long and short skirt options

Dot Lane Goes To The Dogs

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:03:00 +0000

Fall means houndstooth and woolly sweaters! I've gone through my inventory and grabbed a few of my favorites to model. In other news, I've been named a Fleur Insider. I'm really excited about this, and flattered to be in such beautiful company. I have to apologize for my lack of substantive blog posts, but I have a few RL writing deadlines that need to be cleared up before I turn my attention back to SL.

Jill's free CMD outfit

Hair: booN MOM55
Necklace: Bliensen + MaiTai "Agroglyphe"
Sweater and Skirt: Jill "CMD"
Skin: Fleur Allure Alabaster Vampy

Punch Drunk "Jenny"

Skin: Fleur Vanilla Deux Parfait 6
Hair: booN ERA794
Dress: Punch Drunk "Jenny" in purple
Hand Tattoos: B390 "Aisha"
Earrings: Bliensen + MaiTai "Dark Bloom" earrings
Necklace: Cipher "Black Eye" necklace
Ring: Hanauta "Thank you Kiwi Ring"

CKS Designs "Emily"

Dress and Tights: CKS Designs "Emily"
Shoes: Yuka Shoes "Charcoal Suede Court Shoe"
Hair: booN SHY48
Skin: Fleur Allure Alabaster Kit 2
Ring: Hanauta "Thank you Kiwi Ring"

Hair: booN BON75
Dress and Stockings: Mayuki Nozaki "Houndstooth Dress Love 1" in brown
Shoes: Tesla "Leather Vixens" in chocolate
Earrings and Necklace: Bliensen + MaiTai "Industrial Revolution"
Skin: Fleur Allure Ivory Bare 3

Best Item Camp Ever

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:08:00 +0000

Best Item Camp Ever
Originally uploaded by dot.lane

It used to be that when you camped for an item, you simply sat in a chair and waited. This evening at Tokyo Pig Sight however, I came across and item camping device that required me to repeatedly kick a vending machine for five minutes to win the tiny AV you see in the picture. That's five minutes of priceless therapy..... you can get your own from the Mega Graphics store at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tokyo%20Pig%20Sight/100/127/24

Do You Know Who I Am?

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:43:00 +0000

The new Celebre gown from Adam 'n' Eve. My bodyguard is keeping watch.

Celebre with the micro-mini skirt option.

Celebre also has a sculpted skirt.

The train for the Celebre gown.

Those of you who know me well know that glamour is not my strong suit. I am usually found working the cute side of the street, so it was with a little trepidation that I tried on the new Celebre gown/dress from Adam n Eve. After all, we short curvy girls usually aren't the belle of the ball because formal wear often doesn't look quite right on us. Now I hear what you're saying. You're saying, "Dot Lane! Who is this 'we' you keep referring to? Don't you know people realize that when you're using the first person plural you're really talking about yourself?" /me feigns innocence.

Sachi Vixen has accomplished a very difficult design task with Celebre: she's managed to balance the weight of the beading on the gown and the fabric stiffness it would take to maintain the shape of the gown--one can almost feel the dress because of the cut and texture. The cutouts on the side accent my curves while the front of the dress slims my belly. I didn't even have to wear my skirt shape to make this dress fit, and no prims had to be tortured, which are both big pluses in my book. I also appreciate the versatility, since one has the option of a micro-mini for clubbing, a long skirt for formal events, and a sculpted skirt for when you're not quite sure what to wear. Head over to Adam n Eve and check out the other colors!

As befits my celebrity status I have my bodyguard with me at the Hotel Dare where these photos were taken. Lester Lubitsch isn't afraid to get his hands dirty and his dashing "bandido" mustache gives him an air of mystery. And, as you can see, there are no paparazzi to be found anywhere near me so I know he's doing his job right. Thanks Lester!

What is Dot Lane wearing?

Dress: Adam n Eve Celebre in black
Hair: booN KAR07
Skin: Fleur Vivant Blush Biba 02
Necklace: Shiny Things Knotted bead strand, mother of pearl
Sunglasses: Mokoptical "Disco" currently a store gift--hurry!

Dot Lane Uses The FilterCam 1

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:40:00 +0000

Dot Lane Uses The FilterCam 1
Originally uploaded by dot.lane

See details below.

Dot Lane Uses The FilterCam 2

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:40:00 +0000

Dot Lane Uses The FilterCam 2
Originally uploaded by dot.lane

CodeBastard Redgrave hooked me up with her new FilterCam and I'm just starting to explore the possibilities. It's a hud which allows one multiple framing and filtering options from within SL, meaning one doesn't have to rely on post-processing for certain effects. I've just begun to scratch the surface of this tool and look forward to blogging more photos. I met Helena Stringer of The Stringer Mausoleum last night, so I'm wearing The Stringer Mausoelum's Orly hair, a Fleur Parfait skin, jewelry from Bliensen+MaiTai, a collar from Eat Rice!, and a little black dress from B390. The star tattoo is from Original Choice.

Who Do You Love?

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:11:00 +0000

Living as I do in a state which recognizes marriage equality, I can assure everyone that Massachusetts has not fallen apart since same sex couples have started to get married. So I was somewhat surprised that Californians voted yes on Proposition 8, which reverses same-sex marriage in that state after a brief period of legality. The idea of putting what should be a basic right up to vote--to vote!--as if it were simply a bond issue or a property tax override chills me. The idea that someone would then vote to deny another person the right to marry makes me ill. We all have a lot to answer for in this world, made up as we are of our own imperfections. So I would like to ask all of you who are convinced of you own moral rectitude, the self-righteousness which allows you to judge your fellow citizens: Who are you to cast the first vote?

Valhalla Beach Designs Opens!

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:35:00 +0000

Dot Lane Models VBD Earrings

My friend Val has been making jewelry and other items for some time now, and I've enjoyed watching her craft progress. She's finally taken the plunge and opened her own store, Valhalla Beach Designs, and, as a plus, has set out a few lovely freebies for a limited time including a set of earrings modeled by yours truly. There's no bling here and no diamonds, but plenty of other things that just scream restrained good taste. Of particular note are the five and six letter ID bracelets which have text change capabilities, and I love the jade items as well. I also like the organization of the store, which is built onto the side of a cliff. On the lower levels are things like anklets and belts, moving up to bracelets, then necklaces, and earrings on the top level--you can deck yourself out from head to toe.

VBD Daisy Earrings

Standing Over The Ocean At Valhalla Beach Designs

1960s Dot

noreply@blogger.com (Dot Lane) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:33:00 +0000

1960s Dot
Originally uploaded by dot.lane

Ros saw the pic of the new booN hair and said it looked very 1960s, a connection I didn't make. So I grabbed a 1960s inspired dress from Marlys and sure enough, there I am ready for swinging London!