Snickers' Doodles

New release from Inga Wind -- Yvonne

2012-01-16T19:33:00.000-08:00

Overlooking the hideous angle at which I shot this (making my feet look like boats), this new version of Yvonne from Inga Wind is fantabulous! It's an absolutely perfect salsa dress with a wonderful ruffle and lovely lace detail. Inga's a total whiz at texturing and shadows and, as usual, the wrinkles and highlights are perfect.

Complete outfit sells for $600L but if you join her group, it's available for $350L. Includes hat, dress and matching shoes.

The outfit is also available in red but to me, this color way is much more striking.

SLURL to Inga Wind Clothing:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pitreavie/195/249/375

Tiny Empires returns to (unreal) life

2012-01-12T15:27:00.000-08:00

The Tiny Empires servers are back up and all those HUDs and alts are back online. The restore time was around 3am SLT with a brief hiccup of a few hours. You may now return to your regularly scheduled sabotage.

Oh and I'm still looking for more subjects so if you want to switch kingdoms to a fantastic one, IM me. :)

Our futures with Tiny Empires?

2012-01-11T18:23:00.000-08:00

I dunno, what do you think?

The Great Tiny Empires Crash of 2012

2012-01-11T12:09:00.000-08:00

As of this writing, the Tiny Empires servers for one of Second Life's most popular games are still offline. That's 2 days and counting. According to some, the last time they went down for longer than a few hours was in 2008 when they were toast for 3 days.

Let's hope Ultralite Soleil can get them back up soon. The natives are getting restless, bored and some have even been forced to play another game called Real Life.

Second Life launches Direct Delivery beta

2012-01-10T14:15:00.000-08:00

The SL Commerce Team just launched the Direct Delivery Beta on the Aditi (Beta) grid for SL Marketplace.

See: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Direct-Delivery-Beta-Launch/m-p/1327243

Direct Delivery basically means merchants won't need Magic Boxes to hold their Marketplace items for inworld delivery. Assuming the bugs can be worked out, this is certainly a long-term good thing. At the same time, the old if it ain't broke, don't fix it rule applies. Magic Boxes, while a pain to deal with, seem to work at least 98% of the time for me. Good luck Lindens!

Tiny Empires server down!

2012-01-10T11:32:00.000-08:00

OMG! I'm going through Tiny Empires withdrawal now. Ultralite Soleil's game server went down yesterday and as of this morning, it is still offline. From the official group notice:

Greetings all,
There is bad news and good news. Which shall I give first? <rolls dice>...

The bad news is that there has apparently been a catastrophic failure of some kind in the Tiny Empires servers and they will have to be rebuilt, which could take the rest of the day.

The good news is that I managed to grab a good backup before the failure, so nothing in the Tiny Empires games will be lost. Your acres and gold are safe.

I will update you more as I learn more.

Ultralite Soleil

I guess I'll just have to go shopping.☻

P.S. If you are interested in playing Tiny Empires (in Second Life of course) or moving to a great kingdom (White Horse), please feel free to IM me in-world (Snickers Snook) or send me a PM on Twitter @snickitty.

A taste of Asia in Second Life

2012-01-09T14:19:00.000-08:00

I'm not big on "exploring the world" blog posts (there are others who do that far better) but today is an exception. I just love the build so much and think it deserves a quick visit. It's a small shopping district called Virtual Asia (with a bunch of other keywords thrown in(like Tokyo, Japan, Singapore, Jakarta, etc. -- I'm sure to help search.) But really the flavor is mostly a gritty, run-down Tokyo. Maanaf, the developer/owner/builder, has really captured the look quite well.

To get in the mood, I put on a cute little kawaii / cosplay Japanese outfit from BareRose and posed in front of a closed shop. Set for sunset, the feel is total urban grundge.

Next a view of the shops along one of the main streets. Most of the stores are fashion-oriented but there are also a couple of places to play games.

And another view along the street (see "Bread Talk" at the end?)

And finally a small urban park. Those big cone-like signs actually rotate. Very cool looking.

Keep in mind it's a small, compact build located on a sky platform. Unfortunately because there is residential on the ground, setting up local windlight for the build is not an option since it would be much better set to a sort of permanent sunset or twilight look.

Here's the SLURL to Virtual Asia -- http://slurl.com/secondlife/MaxStudio/178/150/4001

Let me know what you think!

Take the candidate match quiz!

2012-01-09T10:54:00.000-08:00

For political junkies and undecideds alike. Results were a bit surprising for me, but on reflection, they probably fit.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/candidate-match-game

New poll about 2012 Second Life economy!

2012-01-02T00:27:00.000-08:00

OK, apologies to all those who voted in my poll. I realized it was worded poorly. Please revote in the updated one. Thanks!

Poll about the Second Life economy for 2012

2012-01-01T21:14:00.000-08:00

I just put up a short, simple poll asking people what they think the state of the economy in Second Life will be like for 2012 vs 2011. Whether you're an SL merchant or simply a shopper, feel free to express your thoughts with the click of a mouse. You can also comment on this post if you want to give more details!

Happy New Year!!!

2011-12-30T22:45:00.000-08:00

Yay! 2011 is coming to a close and given the state of the economy in real life and Second Life, it can't come any too soon. Hope your 2012 is much, much better! Hugs to all!

BIG SALE: Nymph Couture closing shop

2011-12-05T13:21:00.001-08:00

Nymph Couture, like many in-world stores, is closing its doors and moving exclusively to SL Marketplace. So, for a limited time, everything in the store has been reduced to $25L or less. First a warning. Lots of things look to me like re-colored template items and really only worth $25L at most in the first place. However, there are a few gems lurking around. One I particularly liked was Kountry Kutie -- a complete outfit with top, undies, ripped brown jeans, belt and hat on every layer imaginable. It's very well done with realistic textures, shadows and some nice sculpty work on the hat (even if you will have to heavily mod your hair to keep those strands from poking through).

If you're selective in your shopping, you'll have fun unearthing other great outfits and items like I did at Nymph Couture. There are some guys skins and items too although I didn't have a chance to really look at them.

SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Corrupted%20Innocence/198/96/26

New outfits from Inga Wind

2011-12-05T10:37:00.001-08:00

It's been awhile since I've blogged about much of anything. What with holidays and all, I've been too busy for second life. Darn that real life! Anyway, Inga Wind sure hasn't been idle. Three new outfits in two weeks!
Two of them are nice re-colors of existing outfits and one is completely new. First the new one called Pavonine -- sort of a 20's flapper look mixed with Las Vegas or French showgirl. Although everyone know peacocks are male, this stunning outfit is perfect for channeling your inner Rockette! The colors are striking and the detail in the feathers is wonderful. Includes all shown including shoes. $800L ($450L for Wind group members)

Next up is a re-color of one of Inga's older outfits called Evelyn. I have modeled Evelyn in green and red and frankly, I think the new Silver version is the best of the series. Worn with black pearls or hematite, it's girly girl casual done right. Complete outfit as shown includes the cutest little bowling shoe style flats. This has become one of my favorite daily wearables.

$350L ($250L group price)

And last we have Millie in Pink-- another re-color. Also available in black (see left), Millie is a great example of how a recolor can often look totally different than the original! Millie in Pink including shoes and neclace is $400L ($200L group price).

SLURL TO INGA WIND: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Pitreavie/192/223/375

Thumbnail images for Second Life Viewers?

2011-10-14T18:41:00.000-07:00

As I was scrolling through my collection of Second Life outfits, I realized I was hopelessly lost as to what was what. While I try to rename folders so they are more meaningful than "Charlotte in Blue", I still can't remember what the outfits actually look like. So I thought...what if you could have an arbitrary image assigned to a folder and the viewer or server or whatever would convert it into a thumbnail? The idea being you could visually see what the outfit looked like in its folder. It might even be helpful for builds or full avatar folders.

However, I'd only want to see this feature if it didn't appreciably affect viewer performance and if it could be turned off and on, or made into a different "view" on Inventory. Thinking further, if you could name an image (not always possible though) with a convention like thumb_myimage, the viewer would know to make it the thumbnail for the folder.

Anyway, I made a JIRA new feature request for it here (vote for it if you like the idea):
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-27168

And here's a link to my topic in the Second Life forums if you'd like to discuss this there:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Second-Life-Viewer/New-feature-Thumbnail-images-for-folders/td-p/1167227

Random gripes about Second Life Viewer 3

2011-09-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

OK, I've spent about two weeks off & on with Viewer 3 and all I can say is, the next version of Firestorm can't come any too soon! Keep in mind my comments are coming from having stuck with old style viewers including Phoenix and Imprudence up until now.

I can't see how Viewer 3 could EVER be considered easier for a newbie to use let alone anyone who wants to make or build things in Second Life. The user interface is just awful. I'm especially frustrated trying to create a new item of clothing. With Phoenix and the old versions of the SL viewer, you can edit appearance, create the new item, upload a texture for it, drag the texture into the item, save and done. With Viewer 3, uploading throws the texture directly into inventory and naturally, trying to retrieve it throws you out of appearance edit mode. Who is the idiot who thought that would be helpful?

Plust there's the obscure little gear that actually triggers the Edit appearance or create new clothing item. Stoopid.

Your World, The Linden Lab Way
Viewer 3 Confusion

And communicating via IM/group/local chat has become a mysterious artform. No longer simple windows for each conversation or a nice single window with tabs. Instead I'm having to pick through bottom bar notices that open wildly different views to chat depending on who or what I'm doing. On top of that everything take up soooo much screen space it totally gets in the way of the SL experience. You know, your world, your way. I have a nice big widescreen monitor and SL now looks like a mass of info windows with your 3D experience relegated to an unviewable background half the time.

Oh and those slide out windows? Nice Linden Lab that half the information on them (like inventory) isn't visible unless you either undock them or scroll. That's easier for newbies how?

And setting up my microphone for voice? That was real easy to find -- not. I mean WTF?? Input/Output Devices? Huh? That sounds more like something to do with Xcite attachments than anything to do with my microphone or voice.

How about worn items not showing the folder they come from? Ugggh. My usual routine is to ADD items to my outfit then REMOVE the old outfit by clicking the top level folder. Well that can't be done because WORN items doesn't show what folder they come from. So now you have to REMOVE them one stupid article at a time.

I'm sorry Lab rats, this M-inspired monster hasn't improved one bit other than the back-end features like mesh and finally being able to build with megaprims. The interface just flat out sucks.

It's Oktoberfest in Second Life!

2011-09-28T02:06:00.000-07:00

Don't I look cute? Spaten dunkels anyone?

OK, I'll admit it. I love Oktoberfest events in real life and I love trachten (Bavarian / Austrian peasant clothing) -- especially dirndls and those poofy half-blouses that are often worn as separates. Call me strange but on my last trip to Europe several years ago, I bought a totally cute pair of red edelweis-style walking shoes in Switzerland. My friends thought I was nuts!

So today, after seeing an ad for a local Oktoberfest event, I thought hmmmm -- what does Second Life have to offer? Using Linden Labs awful excuse for search plus terms like dirndl, oktoberfest and biergarten, a few promising spots turned up.

After visiting several, I didn't find much in the way of any genuine duplications of the big giant Munich Oktoberfest with its massive beer tents. However, a sort of mini-version is available at Munich City. There are some rides, an outdoor biergarten and a number of temporary tent vendors set up in the midst of a very cool German town build.

The best part was finding a FREEBIE vendor for something like 20 different dirndls!!! OMG! Dirndl heaven! Yay! I grabbed almost all of them. The one shown in the photo is called Dirndl Walli and you get the flexi skirt, blouse, glitch undies and underblouse. The details are excellent and similar outfits go elsewhere for upwards of $300L - $450L (although usually with more layering options). I added the socks (the gray around the toes is a lighting glitch), "Jane Fire" heels from Tesla and a freebie red wood ball necklace and earrings.

Here's the SLURL to Munich City. Look for the dirndls on a long wooden cart. They say $120L on the boxes but they are actually all set to $0L. Whee! There are also several merchants with low-priced trachten including lederhosen, men's alpine wear and more dirndls.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Munich%20City/12/222/41

So what Oktoberfest places, events or things can you recommend? I'd love to hear about them. PROST!

BURN2 - Second Life's "Burning Man" - Oct. 1 - 9

2011-09-27T23:51:00.000-07:00

Just a short public service announcement to let you all know that BURN2 "Rites of Passage" is on for October 1 - 9 in Second Life.

For those who don't know, BURN2 is Second Life's version of the annual semi-crazed desert event known in real life as Burning Man. Now yours truly has never been to the real Burning Man but a few of my friends have done the adventure and I've seen their photos. Crazy? Yes. Fun? Looks like it. Creative? Oh you betcha.

However, I have been to the old Linden Lab sponsored "Burning Life" and it was definitely crazy, fun, creative and in the best of Lab traditions for official events, a bit laggy. Sadly, Burning Life is no longer around, but it lives on as BURN2 with all the work now being done totally by volunteers on donated sims. I missed last year's inauguration of BURN2 but hopefully I'll make it to this year's. So here are the details:

Official website for Burn2
Official website of Burning Man
To volunteer or find out more about plot sales in BURN2, try this SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Burning%20Man-%20Deep%20Hole/230/72/24

Happy Burning!

New fashion line crashes Target website

2011-09-13T21:21:00.000-07:00

I admit, I like shopping at Target. They carry Gillian & O'Malley bras (which I love) and Calypso St. Barth at great prices along with some, usually, cute seasonal clothing items. Plus, a lot of their home decor stuff fits my budget and style. Hey it's not Nordstrom's but it stretches the budget a lot.

So like a lot of people, I was intrigued by the news that Target was going to be carrying some Missoni items at Target prices. For those who don't know, Missoni is a high-end Italian design house whose clothing articles can easily jump into the thousands of dollars.

So being the online shopper doodle that I am, I went to Target's website and this is what I found! (OK the stuffed doggy is too cute by half.)

Anyway, Target's website has been crashed and offline for almost a day now and the news even made it to the NY Times. NY Times: Demand at Target for Fashion Line Crashes Web Site

Oh well. It's not like I really NEEDED new clothes is it??

P.S. And I owe Target another thanks for introducing Pomplamoose (the band) to the universe via those wonderful Christmas carol commercials!!!! If you haven't seen/heard their cover of the Angry Birds theme on video, you have not lived!!!

Pomplamoose -- official Youtube site

Vinyl Cafe - a mixed bag

2011-08-25T18:16:00.000-07:00

I've done some more random shopping and one of the places I've been looking at is Vinyl Cafe -- a combination coffee shop and women's clothing store. The reason I noticed them is because they are heavy promoters in FashCon and in one of the freebie fashion groups I belong to in Second Life. They have an ongoing "Dollarbie a Day" promotion that, well, you guessed it -- offers up one outfit daily for $1L. Now don't get me wrong -- anyone willing to sell things for $1L can't be criticized too badly. Even if only one out of 10 outfits you buy at that price is a hit, you're only out about 5 cents.

What IS a problem is when you go for the dollarbie item, by something more expensive (even if still inexpensive) and those items turn out poorly. Or where the package photos have been doctored to make the outfits look much different than they are on rezzing. Which, in my opinion, is the case with Vinyl Cafe.

The good.

I'll start with two decent outfits. While neither of these will make you think of Redgrave, Wind or Blaze, they aren't bad. The first one is simply called Teal Bubble Dress and it's a group member dollarbie. The shadows are good and the textures line up ok. The use of the sculpty prims to make the skirt is interesting and different. And it's offered on undie and regular layers.

Next up is the $25L Bikini in Orange. Not too original with names but again, the details are fairly good. Biggest complaint is that like most things at Vinyl Cafe, it's only offered on one layer (underwear). That makes it really had to mix and match with other items. Further, it's not much better than most of the freebie bikinis out there. No shadows to set the straps off or make anything look more realistic. It's just kinda flat.

The bad.

On the right we have a $25L outfit called Sequin Vegas Dress Gold. This picture actually makes it look better than it is in person. It uses two fixed cylinder prims for the skirt that won't fit anyone's body. I tried 3 different shapes and even with about 20 minutes of stretching and fiddling, nothing worked. Plus, as you can see from the photo, none of the textures line up and when you move, your legs jump in and out of the skirt with every step. While some skirts CAN be done with fixed prims (I designed a pretty cute go-go skirt using a single prim), it has to be very short or it will look like hell if you move. The top itself is a real simple template job that doesn't match at the shoulder seams.

And again, the top and bottom are only offered on one layer. WHY? It takes all of an extra 2 minutes to put the textures on undie layers.

And the uglee.

This is an OMG moment. The package makes this "Babydoll Yellow" top look totally cute. Rezzed it's completely different. That's because you never see it from the back or know what size it is. The colors on the avatar layer are darker than those on the prims so the effect is like your babydoll is glowing orange and suddenly ends at a dark halloween pumpkin halter. In addition, the package model must have been an 8' amazon because as a top, the babydoll is way too big for any normal body. And the prims are just basic 1/2 cones with no attempt at making them flow with each other or even hide the texture on the ends. So they all look like 1" thick pipes or something. Seriously, this is worse than the worst of the old "New As" series of 2006 barbie dresses.

Again, one layer only, $25L.

I wouldn't have as much of a problem with any of these if the photos on the packages weren't so doctored to make them look better.

Anyway, if you're willing to wait out the occasional find on their dollarbie a day deal, go for it. But until they get serious about the rest of the items, I'd pass. And yes, I'm unjoining the Vinyl Addicts group. :(

SLURL to Vinyl Cafe: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vinyl%20Cafe/54/205/21

What happened to Aubrey Oday's boobs?

2011-08-22T18:07:00.000-07:00

She was lovely without the implants. Why we do this to ourselves I'll never understand. I certainly wouldn't. It got me thinking. Certainly it's a lot safer to do this via the sliders in Second Life than in real life.

Full story here:

http://entertainment.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/08/22/what-happened-to-aubrey-odays-body/

Photographer stands up to bullies

2011-08-21T22:47:00.000-07:00

This is a great story. Shows someone taking personal action and a moral stand rather than relying on others to do it for them.

http://holykaw.alltop.com/photographer-stands-up-to-bullies

I feel like a princess!

2011-08-17T12:22:00.000-07:00

OK technically I am a princess. In Tiny Empires. And my self-given tag for my own small fashion group is Odd Princess. So when I looked at the snapshot for a new outfit from Inga Wind called "Ariel", I thought, hmmm this looks kinda "princessy" (I like that word). It wasn't until I wore it that I realized how really incredible Ariel is.

From the extremely detailed silk-look embroidered bodice to the flexi-prim lace over-dress and back bow, Ariel will make any princess or wannabe princess look spectacular. I'm showing three shots of Ariel below. Two in the original white/cream and the other in the recently released olive. As always, click on the photo for the full-size.

Ariel is available in 5 color ways - white, black, red, blue and olive -- and includes tiara and matching pumps. Price is $950L but if you join Inga's group, you can get the olive version for $550L (and maybe the others, not sure). For those who already own an older version of Ariel, Inga is offering updates for $100L for 2 days.

The white version shown is the older style while the olive is the newer one.

Click for SLURL to Inga Wind

Namaste brinda Allen

2011-08-14T17:13:00.000-07:00

I have traded a few posts with brinda over the years in both the official SL forums and in SLU. I had no idea she passed away until I read Lalo Telling's blog.

Two tributes to her spirit...

http://lalotelling.squarespace.com/likeitis/2011/8/11/namaste-brinda.html

https://walkingwithavatars.wordpress.com/2011/08/14/what-you-leave-behind/

Sniffles.

Inga Wind "Mistress of Textures" strikes again!

2011-08-14T16:24:00.000-07:00

Inga Wind's "Latisha in Sand"

Two new outfits from Inga Wind prove once again that she is a master at making highly detailed and delicate clothing textures. First, I'm showing off "Latisha in Sand" a frilly sort of prom / cocktail dress with a bodice and prim skirt that is to die for. Click the image for a full size view and look at the embroidery details in the top and skirt. Ladies, I don't think it gets any better than this in SL. The prims move perfectly and I can totally see myself slow dancing the night away at some Jazz club wearing this.

Now for Kaira. Again a marvel of texturing and lighting. From the details in the belt to raw silk look of the fabric, this is amazing. It's a lovely "lunch with the girls" outfit with enough style to double as an informal cocktail dress.

Price for Latisha is $600L including shoes shown. Wind group members can get it for $350L. Jewelry is by ~~DS~~ (Derek Sienkiewicz Inga's business partner). Hair is Damselfly Pya and the skin is my own custom made.

Kaira is $400L ($250L for group members) and also includes shoes shown. Jewelry is Exodi.

Inga Wind's "Kaira"

Legal battle over virtual critters in Second Life!

2011-07-29T23:07:00.000-07:00

Came across this article via Tweet from @SlashMorgath.

You Can Lead a Virtual Horse to Water, But You Might Get Sued Along the Way

It's timely cuz I recently found out that a longtime friend of mine in Second Life is really, really into Amaretto Ranch Breedables. She did the Ozimals bunnehs for a while (and they are too cute for words) but moved to horses when they came out. I have to say, from seeing them in virtual person, they are very cool. Being ridable makes them even better.

The concept of virtual pets that you have to feed and maintain has been around forever (I have a hamster on my iGoogle page) so I don't see what Ozimals original complaint was all about. Which I guess is the point of Amaretto's countersuit.

Blech.