Happy Christmas

Hi-Tech Christmas

A Sister in Need

This graphic says it all. Well, almost all. I'm seriously depressed so I'm pouring lots of energy into making the fundraising a success. I built a specially-themed club for use and continuing to make hats, shirts, and other things to give away. Ladies are invited to the Isle (SLurl) anytime, not just event times, to help with generous donations. Gentlemen are welcome to help, too, at the Lesbos mall donation spot (SLurl). Look for the big "thermometer" in either location.

XStreetSL is Going to Suck

Coming changes to XStreetSL means I'll be pulling my merchandise from that venue. Read more about the debacle on the official blog and the forums. I'll sum it up for you: GREED

Zindra Tree Roots

Shortly after the adult-access continent of Zindra was opened I took a stroll to see the hubbub and discovered some nice architecture, interesting landscaping, and some truly horrendous region crossings, the latter usually occurring right along roads. I went again today to see the new monorail system (Web) and found not just a really cool build, but a "problem" that I figured would be cleared up once the LL Moles building the regions had left: Tree Roots.

During a sim crossing on my first visit I found that each tree has a sphere prim below it, deep in the ground. "For positioning," I figured and thought "they'll clean these up and add to the prim count." Apparently not, if the image here is a comparison. I was at the Eichorn Cove station (SLurl) and a typical sim crossing again dropped me underground for a while where I saw the "tree roots" were still there. Zindra is a really interesting place filled with, if not people, mysteries to be solved.

I have a gift box!

Queen Coronet, of Queen & Co. (Oganically Rezzed Prims), has a new skybox and for just L$100 it's a fabulous bargain. As you can see in these pictures it is giftbox-themed with wonderfully trendy colors. The structure uses only 55 prims so it should be friendly for a basic 512m² parcel (which is 16m x 32m), but since it has a 20m x 30m footprint you'll need a larger parcel.* Probably a good idea anyway as my first thought when I saw Queen's post on Plurk (Web) "This would be a great shop building for a fashion designer or a jeweler," so you'll want plenty of prims anyway.

I love the fountain wall that graces the entrance porch and the first of two rooms. It is nicely textured with the right amount of glow. A clever touch is the ribbon from the the top of the "box" extends down the falls. The animation is smooth and has virtually no affect on lag.

Inside is a beautiful chandelier and flowing decorative ribbon. Very attractive accents that fit beautifully in the cleanly laid out interior. The colors are quite complimentary. Queen has rather good taste. Pretty typical the other products in her shop (SLurl).

The layout just flows with the simple checkered floor providing a continuity between the three distinct spaces. Plenty of room for store owners to set up vendors or displays. Since the structure is Copy/Mod one could easily adapt it to a chic, modern home.

* If you have just a basic parcel the overlap onto neighboring parcels does not affect the prim allotments in those areas if the Root Prim stays over your land. As long as your neighbors don't mind, of course. Unless you remove prims you'll have 62 prims left for displays or furniture. (UPDATE: Please see the comments section. I mis-measured! It does fit within the confines of a basic parcel.)

What's in My Closet? Baggy Pants

Yes, this is me, in baggy pants that weigh as much as any ten outfits I own (yes, this is virtual -- work with me). Certainly not my style. In fact, I've often made fun of such apparel both in-world and in meatspace. But the Isle of Lesbos was having a party and the theme was "Baggies" so I had to support the crew. I surfed XStreet SL for a while and found a couple fairly conservative outfits -- well, conservative for the style -- and chose this one from Lacey Rumpler (Web). For L$200 I think it was a steal. Not only did I get the huge pants, but I got a fancy belt (that I edited to remove some things I didn't care to have), body paint stars, animated color strips (on the pants, belt, and as jewelry), plus a hat and some nice hair (neither pictured here) and other goodies. Again, not my typical style but I think I carry it off. What do you think?

Evolution of a Prim Doodle

It has been a year since I added this beach pool, first featured on this blog in May 2008 (Web), to the Isle of Lesbos and I've been asked to revise it for use as a club on the Isle. I always thought of it as a sort of club anyway, but now it will be part of our Rez-on-Demand system that allows us to quickly change out structures based on event themes. Several weeks have passed since I was asked to start the project and it struck me that I've had a subconscious reluctance because I know it would need to be expanded, dramatically changing the original form. The bar needs to be moved from dead center, club placement dictates that the structure could no longer anchor on the beach as originally designed, and other changes will be needed.

But I've finally buckled down and started, donning my builder's belt, sturdy boots, and a hard hat for safety. And as I learned in High School Shop Class, I've eliminated all loose clothing that could pull me into dangerous machinery. The gap you see to my right in the picture leads to a new reef on the Isle and I'm thinking of leaving it open so folks can easily swim out or dive.

Maybe my original idea has passed on or maybe this is just an evolution, but like paper doodles, prim doodles are free-form thought exercises whether they become useful or not. I build for fun and sometimes there is someone who likes what I do. Hopefully, someone will like what my original doodle becomes next.

Wear Gray Fashion Show TODAY

SLurl

The ladies of NAIL Productions are nailing and hammering again to bring you a fabulous fashion show. On October 16, 2009 at 7pmslt we are proud to strut the runway for The Wear Gray Fashion show at the Pavo Isle festival area, (SLurl), featuring the talents of 31 different designers from all around the grid and their gray outfits made exclusively for the Wear Gray Campaign.

From men’s suits to gowns to skins, we are pleased to be showing the talents of such great designers as Musashi-Do, Dreams, That Rocks!, BalAni’s, SUS, Coquette, Ameri’s Designs, Blacklace, .hc&co., A-Bomb, Morbid Mausoleum Designs, Cilian Gel, Kaotik Kreations, E3D, Poebe & Feeb’s, DragonLady Designs, Cat Crap!, XTC Designs, PeeBox, PixelBody, Extremely OFFCourse, Hate This, HopScotch, Kitsune Couture, Lacie Days, Lady Disdain, Larnia Kids, Ambylicious, Milady’s Fancy, RGK and DeadBunny. The show is sponsored by VR Style Magazine, SilverStar Modeling Agency and N.A.I.L Productions.

For more information about this charity campaign please go to http://weargray.blogspot.com/

What's in My Closet? Faerie Slave Dancer

It is a rare day when I wear just one avie or set of clothes and I'm constantly tweaking anything I wear. For example, I put on my Faerie Slave Dancer "silks" by Summer Seale for an event at Lesbos and started with my darkest drow avie. Eventually I changed to my human skin and ears. For this pic I ended up changing into a SinSkin light blue drow with Playful Kitten Mischief Bound hair. But it's the "silks" that are the focus. People always ask "Where did you get those!" with eyes all wide.

This picture hints that there are particles, but with simple chat commands a fog of particles emits from the anklets or streams of colorful asterisk-like particles come from the wrists and ankles. Each of these effects are great when dancing. Oh, and there is no top to this outfit so folks might not look at the particles for long or the animated glow to what little cloth is on the skirt.

Summer Seale's store

Lesbos Haunted House & Freebies

The Isle of Lesbos has a free 5-minute carnival-style Haunted House ride in the mall sim, open to men, women, child avies ... well, anyone not banned. It can be a wee scary and has flashie-lights, but it's all in fun. I'd post more pix, but that would take away some of the surprises. When you arrive (SLurl), click the door shown here then the swirly light to enter.

Well, here's one pic from inside, exclusive to this blog. Be sure to set Midnight after you enter the House. World > Environment Settings > Midnight This will give you the right lighting for the special effects, like this demon skull ahead of the ride car. Other settings should be fine. Use your keyboard's arrow keys to look around as you travel so you can see everything.

At the end of the ride you can grab copies of the plushie toys shown here. Just buy for L$0 each. No, you can't buy the piggy. That's my alt in the Prize Avie from the Loco Pocos Halloween game (Web).

Loco Pocos Halloween 2009

How lucky am I? Lucky enough to be invited to a press preview for the Loco Pocos Halloween 2009 Trick or Treat game. Just like last year's game (as blogged here), you grab a customizable pumpkin after teleporting to a creepy, dark neighborhood and go from door to door, "knocking" in hopes to get a gift.

Sometimes when you knock you get a trick not a treat, even though the door asks your preference. You can be blasted with fire, as seen here, attacked by a ghost, or crushed to death. A couple new tricks await you this year but I don't want to spoil the surprise. Just be ready for anything, including lots of candy that you can nom at or give away if you get duplicates. Other prizes like an arrow-through-the head are given out, too.

And if you are given a special key, you can win a new avie! Teagan Blackthorne, pictured here, on the left, won while I was there and quickly added hair, a dress, and some shoes to this adorable piggy. She and I both found that sometimes you have to click on a door two or three times before it is "knocked." It isn't a problem, really, and I thought it was just my mouse until she mentioned it.

During my 30-minute run I got a lot of candy and helped snag some bugs in the build, pointing them out to the ghostly owner, Damien Fate, and trying to steal candy from his pumpkin. Damien worked very, very hard on this, like all his projects, and if you see him floating around, be sure to give him a hug.

Though I didn't win the prize avie, I think I looked pretty sportin' in my demon avie, one of several recently released spooky new ones (read more about them here). They are L$350 each with another L$100 each for the leather jacket and leather pants I added. You can buy them in the store or in the Trick or Treat village as you see here.

The game opens at Midnight SLT on the 7th. Read more about it here or go to Loco Pocos Island and use the teleport there to start.

What's in My Closet? Adventure in Fashion

The enormously gifted and oh-so funny Austie Pegler announced in Plurk some new additions to her store, Reasonable Desires (SLurl), and called out for bloggers to review the fashions. Naturally, my response was

℧cciesays

my blog isn't known for fashion reviews.

Then quick as a wink, an *RD* Adventuress Mega Pack! showed up when I logged into Second Life®.

Honestly, I didn't expect to be included, but as Austie is as generous as she is talented I shouldn't be surprised. And I really am tickled pink as I like period fashion and plan on wearing this over and over during my frequent trips to the Steampunk sims.

As you can see in the picture above the 21-piece, L$250 set comes with two skirt variations, two hats, a really well-made lantern, plus a nice set of goggles, the "signature" item in any Steampunk wardrobe. You won't easily become bored quickly with the possibilities with all these goodies. For example, I decided to not wear the shoulder pads as a regular item. As you can see in my Inventory I moved things to folders so I can simply right-click/wear what I want and then choose to add optional items as needed. Then find some nice boots and you are done!

That's where a couple minor criticisms come in, though. footwear. All my period-style boots and shoes use invisiprims, which look odd when viewed through the open skirt variation's lacy front. It's a great texture and really makes the look, but I will have to keep looking for something that works. Perhaps I'm too picky over a viewer bug that affects everyone. With the black socks included in the set, though, I can wear basic black shoes and rely on the fact that most folks won't look that close anyway. Nor will folks care much about my second criticism: Full bright on the prim lace. The bloomer frills which attach to the legs (though detach when most calf-boots are worn) show as odd bright spots through the lacy part of the skirt. Since these prim bits are No Mod the Full Bright feature can't be turned off to prevent this problem.

It's a balance, though. On the fabulously textured lace collar with cameo I was able to turn off Full Bright and the lace turned to mud. I'll keep that option open for night pictures but otherwise won't bother. On the whole, this outfit is a great value and would make a nice addition to anyone's closet.

Another Perfect World

Look for me on the left at 2:22 into the piece, hugging Janeforyou Barbara.

Wear Gray for a Day

Really, you need to visit the Wear Gray for a Day blog now. Don't blink. Don't think. Just go now.

Still here?

Then maybe you should read this from the blog header before you go:

On 9-18-2009 there is an effort to improve brain cancer awareness. you can also help me by wearing gray on September 18, 2009 and raise awareness for brain cancer. The tee shirt is available at *DREAMS* from now until 9-20-2009 http://slurl.com/secondlife/gannet%20island/196/176/24 any other questions please contact Sanura Snowpaw, Prue Genira, Colorful Sinister

Now GO!

I have a confession

Of my three brothers I am closest to CC, though I love them all dearly. To make a long story short, CC more or less raised me, shaping my values, likes, dislikes, and talents. One way he did this was teaching me to write. Not the letters, but the process of expression. When I went mute, writing became a more important way for me to communicate -- at times the most important way -- to the world. Part of the circumstances that led to me being mute made me afraid of the world, though, so while I wanted my thoughts to burst out I wanted to remain hidden.

I wrote under CC's name, on his blogs and Web sites. Often.

No, I won't put links here. He's had several blogs and most are gone. A couple remain, mostly without recent posts, and one of them is full of my writings. Some were assignments from him to keep my mind occupied when it was tearing itself apart. Others were rote exercises to keep me in tune with the world and my writing skills. But all displayed the passions within me, opening myself from a place of safety to refresh my soul.

Many of my writings were about music. Like all my brothers I adore Rock and Roll. Classics from Hendrix and Led Zep course through me as regular as my pulse, mixing with Metallica, Creed, Evanescence, and others of more recent vintage. My father gave me an appreciation of Jazz but I found the Blues and Bluegrass on my own, stretching me in new directions, encouraging me to listen to Alternative, Country, and Hip-Hop. The Masters complete me as I'm often lost in a swirl of Vivaldi or Bach that wisks me through the ordinary cares of life to a plane filled with joy.

A joy similar to what writing gives to me. So while The Poultry Report is primarily about the Virtual me in Second Life, I ask you to pardon the occasional foray into the Atomic world. So many forget there are genuine people behind the persona. Perhaps they are like me, hiding behind a non de plume, of sorts, but letting their true selves come out through their avatar. In-world I am just me. In writing, I am me and then some.

What's In My Closet? BINA Slutress Outfit

The other day I had some time to kill, what with all the avoiding projects and responsibilities I was doing, so I decided to go slap some Midnight Mania prize boards for the Lucky Kitty Crew so everyone could win their dream whatevers. I wound up at BINA (SLurl), a shop that features out of the ordinary clothes for Gor RP. Normally I decline the prizes as I don't need them, but this looked nice and I thought "Well, I'll at least try it on."

When I first wore it I was at least partly in love. After I played with the sleeveless, short-sleeve, long sleeve, and open bodice options I was considerably more in love. The textures and design are top-notch and this is just what I needed for my "period clothes" collection. The barmaid/servant girl outfit I have is too clean, too "new" looking. This outfit has some wear to it, better befitting the position the wearer would likely assume in a Role Play. Options include cooking implements on the belt, a flower for the hair, lovely sandals, and the aforementioned top options. Except for some kayaking and losing a game of Strip Greedy to my Angela, I've worn this since getting it.

If it is not in the Midnight Mania when you get there, look for it in the store. It is a great compliment to any closet.

Kayaking!

While looking around the Starboard's Yacht Club (SLurl) I came across a kayak rezzer and took a wonderful trip around the Blake Sea, quickly deciding to get my own kayak rezzer to install at home (SLurl) and at the Bay of Lesbos (pictured here; SLurl). You are welcome in either place to try one for yourself. Choose a single, a double, or even one for a Tiny. This kit is very easy and very realistic. Plus it's free, it's fun, and you may decide you want one for yourself!

What's In My Closet? B@R MicroBikini

So many Second Life resident blogs are about fashion, many either promoting wares in their stores or simply detailing their recent purchases. My Plurkfriend Jacqueline Daniels is a bit more unique in that her blog, called In Jacq's Closet, is described as "Raiding my inventory one outfit at a time." I like her focus and think that I can get away with liberating her idea for an occasional feature on my blog: What's In My Closet? No details on skin or hair or accessories, unless it is important, just pictures and comments about the outfits.

So mixing all these ideas, let me present the Bare Rose MicroBikini Type C, pictured at left. It comes in eight colors, but I seldom wear any but the black one. I wore the white one the other day but it didn't seem right on me. The other colors are nice and I'm determined to try to wear them more often, but if it doesn't work out I'll be gifting some. As with other Bare Rose clothes, the textures are crisp and well-detailed. What I really like, though, is the flexi-prims that make the string ties. If there are other suits available with ties as clever as these I haven't seen them. Certainly none of my some 50 other suits are like this, those with strings simply drawing them on the clothing layer.

Here's hoping I continue this feature. It might save me some money. Once upon a time I sorted clothes and decided to take pictures of every outfit I was going to keep so that I could "poke through my closet" to pick an outfit without having to try on everything in the process. A couple thousand L$ later I got most of it done then lost interest. And since then I've added many, many outfits and separates so maybe this series will help. At least until I decide to import the pictures, exploding my inventory and again depleting my wallet.

Geography Lesson

Thank goodness for Second Life®. Otherwise I might not know how close Israel and Texas really are on the map. Why, it looks like you could walk from one to another. And Israel is much bigger than I thought.

Just some recent pix

My Angela recently won a Neko outfit from a Midnight Mania and hasn't changed clothes since. Not that she's big on changing clothes anyway, but she really loves this outfit. And she's adorable. In this shot she's stretched out over me in the standard "gaze' pose you'll find in most MLP furniture. I took this in Mouselook.

This is me and Angela, sitting in the Memorial Park at Lesbos (pre-Nekoness). It is a comfortable, relaxing place and for various reasons we've been spending quite a bit of time there of late. Some of the time has been used to remodel a bit.

I write posts for the Lucky Tribe blog, featuring prizes from various Tribe affiliates. This shot shows me sitting at a lovely Japanese-style table set from one of the Tribe shops. It would be nice to put it in my airship home, but it's 20 more prims that what I have now. Maybe I'll trot it out for special occasions.

If you've been reading this blog then you've noticed that I love two places in Second Life: The Isle of Lesbos and Dive World. So here I am in Dive World wearing my Bay Watch swimsuit and rescue floatie, watching the surfers (that you can't see) to make sure they are safe. I should look for that whistle and lanyard I have somewhere.

Last night Angela and I just hung out in my airship, cuddling and talking and snuggling and sharing. :::sigh:::

No, the text didn't stick with each photo, but you can figure it out.

Cliff Diving @ Dive World

Yes, I spend a lot of time at Dive World (SLurl). Yesterday and today I've been cliff diving off the waterfall in the western region (SLurL). No poseballs for that so I'm using my Swimmer from Siggy's waterworks. Lots of fishies in the water and an fighter plane wreck at the bottom of the lake. Sometimes I put on my scuba gear and explore it. There are a lot of interesting things like that to see in any of the Dive World regions, wildlife and structures, alike.

My friend Kaikou Splash is doing most of the building, it seems, and right now he's adding an underwater observatory near the spot the manta ray school frequents. More wildlife is showing up in various places. A school of hammerhead sharks was spotted near the wreck of a galleon and some interesting critters are in a cliff-side cave.

Giant Chessboard

My latest build for the Isle of Lesbos, a giant chess board dance club. There is a "flaw" that I'm waiting for more folks to notice, added to see how many folks play the game. Pretty much just one person found it so far. I have a full-perm chess set I might cannibalize to make this playable. With or without that, I wonder if it is sale-able.

Product Review: (mirada)smartCAM

Fate picked me to beta test a wonderful new product, the (mirada)smartCAM. Specifically, it was Damien Fate, the maker (and ebil genius behind great things like Loco Pocos). Why me? It pays to be quick. And to beg. Not sure cuteness was a factor. But I got to play for a few days and I love it.

In the picture above you'll see a HUD in the upper right. It controls a camera that you rez from your inventory. For one function, simply cam to the view you want, press a HUD button to memorize it, and do that up to 6 more times. Then whenever you want, you can have your camera go back to each of those presets quickly and easily. The inset shows three of the views I had from where I was standing as shown in the bigger picture. I was watching my Shilo (such a sweetie), then watching what she was building, and keeping an eye on the Lucky Board in one of my shops (SLurl). The Big Pic was a fourth preset, but I arranged things so you could see there orb-camera in the view. Normally it trails behind your camera's focus point, usually behind you unless you alt-mouse a new view.

Which is part of the other function of the gadget: Follow Cam. Of sorts. You can give a special HUD to anyone else and their view will synchronize with yours with the press of a button. Imagine shopping and being able to show someone across the store what you found. Of course, scripts must be enabled and you need rez rights, but you get the idea. This made me think of all those school trips where the teacher used a laser pointer to show everyone where we should work. In SL® folks often use their "edit" beam to point, but that isn't always effective. With the synchronized views an instructor has better assurance the students are watching. This would also be great for group builds and machinima projects. For the latter, the HUD can display framing guides.

The potential uses are many and varied. One of my concerns was security. There is a function to make the camera invisible, great if multiple people are using the system for a machinima project, but that gives it the potential to be a spy device. At my suggestion Damien added hovertext on the camera so anyone seeing it would know who the operator is without needing to "inspect" it but that hides when the camera does. The preset views function gives it great utility for security officers, though, so I guess there is a balance. You are limited only by your draw distance (if your graphics are set to High, many prims and avatars won't be visible past 128m even though you can have the preset across a whole region) and your cleverness.

A very good manual is included and covers many of the details I didn't mention here. You can also read an overview on the Loco Pocos blog or simply buy one and play with it yourself. It's a hoot to use and very useful.

Grungeboarding

In no fashion could I ever call myself coordinated or athletic so I find myself attacking sport in Second Life® with much gusto but little grace. This applies doubly so to Grungeboarding at Grendels (SLurl). Check out this video ...

My experience was nothing like what these virtual athletes (AKA "showoffs") exhibit. I was at my peak in touching the necessary prim to buy equipment for L$0 to try grungeboarding myself. After that every action was a disaster. But I had fun anyway and zoomed through the tunnels suspended some 3000m above the Avarian sims several times. A HUD for tricks accompanies a special AO and the board in the free startup kit, not that I was able to use it much. All my coordination was used to steer myself in the right direction. Clicking on the HUD to flip, roll, spin and generally look cool was out of the question.

I wasn't even cool enough to appear in the pictures I took, the best of which shows this avie gloating as she contemplates another run. All that being said, I'm sure I'll return time and again so maybe I'll improve. After all, if I can type, I must have some ability to use two hands for different tasks at the same time. As I crash into one wall after another, I'll keep telling myself that "pain is fleeting; chicks dig scars; glory lasts forever" and having fun anyway.

Where in the world is ...

As I look back I see my last post on this blog was about three weeks ago, quite some time in the fast-paced world of blogging. While I can "blame" my First Life for consuming much of my time, quite a few things have been going on in my Second Life, too, and I should have been blogging about those.

The biggest of these has been the total reboot of the club venue at the Isle of Lesbos (SLurl - women only). Earlier this year, the Isle Manager, Threshin Barnett, had come up with the idea of a versatile space some 500m above the Isle where clubs of different themes could be rezzed based on the event theme: Sci-Fi, Western, Jazz, Grunge, etc., to reduce lag and to have larger clubs. Planet Lesbos (Web) was one of these builds. For a variety of reasons it was decided to move this space to ground level, replacing the Sunrise Dock, the basic gathering area and club. That meant that all of the clubs in the sky had to be redesigned and re-constructed. Right now I'm working an a dark, Ridley Scott-ish space station to replace Planet Lesbos after completing a giant snow globe to replace the Winter club, a rebuild of the Pride Club, and a near complete reworking of Faces, one of my favorite clubs (see below).

As you can see, it is based on my SL6B Exhibit (Flickr), which was based on the original Faces club. I'll try to get pictures of the other new clubs posted here soon and on Flickr.

I've also taken time to do a lot of exploring when not building, spending a fair bit of the time on a great "planetoid" called Mos Ainsley (SLurl), a region built by the Linden Moles for no reason I can discern other than fun. I blogged a bit about it for the Lucky Kitty Crew (Web), focusing on the free space suit and overalls on site. But whether as my Pocos mouse avie (at left) or in other forms, I had a lot of fun driving the surface buggy that can be rezzed, finding alien artifacts, trying to find a way to completely seal the base, or even flying the shuttle around the sim and onward to the mainland.

Much of my recreation has been scuba diving, though. The sport has long been a favorite of mine in SL so I was delighted when I first found Dive World (SLurl) nearly two years ago. Recently they've expanded to four regions from one and have changed the basic land settings so really deep dives are possible. As before, most of it looks to be built by my friend and neighbor Kaikou Splash (SLurl to his shop) and it is all excellent. The remodeling is proceeding such that the flora and fauna appear to be reaching out to claim the new landscape. Following the growth is a great way to relax or explore in earnest.

Recently I took my Shilo there and during a dive we spotted a mermaid (and a merman!) so we quickly changed to become part of the wildlife. On another outing with my Angela, Kaikou joined us in his hermit crab avie, I switched to my nautilus avie and we floated around cracking wise and just having a great time. On a visit with both Angela and Shilo we flew the hang gliders, surfed some gnarly waves, swam, and even snuck in a little diving. Can you tell I love this place?

You can follow me on Plurk (click here) for more frequent updates about my whereabouts and doabouts, but I'll try to blog more. Unless I'm diving!

Quality vs. Quantity: Ordinal Malaprop

Once again, Ordinal Malaprop has an insightful post that it worth your time. In "On the one hand, and on the other hand" (Web) she asserts that reliability is a more necessary goal for Linden Labs virtual world Second Life than new features. Look for my comment there.

SL6B Exhbit: Earth Primbee

Not far from the Lesbos@SL6B exhibit (SLurl) is Earth Primbee's Virtual Life Media exhbit (SLurl) one of the most spectacular builds at the fair or anywhere. In the pic I'm some 1700 meters above the entrance area, a stunning build on it's own, doing Tai Chi on a small planetoid with stars, asteroids, and galaxies whizzing about me. You can also sit and meditate or zoom about with the heavenly bodies. Well worth a stop when the fair opens at 10am SLT on the 23rd.

Alpha Bugs

Logging in today I noticed that I was partly invisible when wearing the jacket and shirt layers of a top from Worldwide Industries unless I turn on View Transparent. If I remove one or the other layer I also appear as I ought. It doesn't matter which region I am in and changing the graphics settings in Preferences has no effect. Could this be a temporary bug? Not sure if it is a problem with the 1.23 RC viewer as I don't recall if I've worn this shirt since the "upgrade," though I think that I have. What I do know is that the primary problem I have with the RC involves any alpha texture. They are the last to rez, leaving people and prims entirely gray for extended periods. If an object is just at the edge of the draw distance I have set, any prims with alpha will be completely invisible while "solid" prims remain visible.

Later that day ...

I changed clothes to the same clothes I had on for the first bug pic and all was fine ... for just under five minutes. Then my lower body disappeared. In this instance, turning on View Transparent brought my pants back. When I removed my underwear, others saw my body restored. Only those with the Second Life 1.23.4 (123908) Built with GCC version 40001 saw this problem. They also reported something I experienced the other day, but attributed to a bad avie change ... their head disappeared save for eyes, hair, and jewelry.

Permissions for Prim Contents

I got a great note card from Sylva Petrov (owner of Sylva's Animation Factory; SLurl) today and thought I'd share. Of course, this works with more than just animations in a prim. Click the pic above for a larger image.

How to use the new 1.23 viewer's batch permissions system to properly set permissions on your animations:

1) Open the edit window of the object with the animaitons (does not have to be the same prim, just open the root prim)

2) Click the 'Content' tab.

3) Click the "Permissions..." button on the Content tab.

4) In the new window click the 'Uncheck All' button.

5) Go up and click the 'Animations' check box.

6) Go to the right and ensure 'Modify' and 'Resale/Give Away' are checked or else 'Modify' and 'Copy' but NOT both 'Copy' and 'Resale/Give Away'.

7) Click 'Apply'.

8) Watch the little scrolling indicater of what is being done.

9) You're done.

SL6B Couples Portraits Panel

SL6B Couples Portraits Panel
Originally uploaded by UccelloSL

I'm biased, but I think my wife, Angela Seale, and I have the *best* picture on the couples portraits panel in the Lesbos@SL6B exhibit.

Unicorns

Thanks, Sis, for my new riding unicorn :D

/me quietly hums the Happy Birthday song

Land for Sale

My two parcels of land in Shouldice have been reduced in price from L$2700 each to L$2500 each. Both are a full 512m² with 117 prims. The neighbors are quiet and the area is very peaceful. Ideal for residences. The lot on the left is at SLurl and the lot on the right is at SLurl.

Update: No, the terrain really isn't that color.