SL Premium Gift Winter 2013

The Lab has updated the Premium Gift! You may recall that previous editions have been mostly vehicles (see here) that have eventually gone on to be items you could buy via Amazon. com (like this set). This gift is themed for Winter holidays – Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Hanukkah (though you can't tell by the spelling of some object names that the latter holiday was included – The Lab has typos, too) – with decorated trees, wrapped presents (empty), themed bears, and even whole dressed dining tables brimming with food. I hopped to my favorite Premium Gift Kiosk (SLurl) and grabbed my set as soon as I could.

Included in the box I got was a note card with some helpful information:

Happy Holidays! 

This set includes tables and chairs for three different scrumptious dinners, plus other holiday decor! Everything can be copied as many times as you wish. 

The dining sets are "coalesced" objects -- each is a table and six chairs, coalesced into one inventory item with the proper chairs-to-table relationship. Once you've rezzed the table and chairs, you can move chairs around, or remove some if you don't have five other people for dinner. See the article on coalesced objects at: 

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Building-tips/ta-p/700041#Section_.1

The "Ham Dinner" has a Land Impact value of 20; the "Brisket Dinner" has a LI value of 19; and the "Turkey Dinner" has a LI value of 16 (very low-fat!). You can light or extinguish the candles on the tables (and on the other decor items) by clicking on their wicks. 

Separate from the dinner tables are some other decor items -- candles, a menorah, a poinsettia, a garland and wreath; a variety of gift boxes to scatter about, and two decorated trees. The "Lo Detail" tree has a Land Impact value of 15; the "Hi Detail" tree has a Land Impact value of 26. 

There is a family of holiday teddy bears, including two that have "carrying animations" -- when you Wear the "Holiday Teddy Girl" or "Holiday Teddy Boy" you'll be hugging them to your chest! 

And there's a "Holiday Hat" to wear while distributing presents!

There is an awful lot of stuff in the box. I can't fit it all on the screen!!

All items are No Mod (so no fitting the hat to your avatar) and No Transfer (so no using the boxes to wraps the presents you give out. You'll need a mesh-capable viewer (but who doesn't have one these days?) and a place to unpack the box. Since you are a Premium member, might as well hit Sandbox Bricker (SLurl) or use Search to find another.

Here are some pictures with my impressions in the captions:

The bears are cute. They are based on the ones created for the last SL birthday celebration by Bonnie Mole.

One of the dinner tables has a full perm item ... can you find it?

The seats are animated and most offer to attach a knife and fork when you sit. They poof when you stand.

I'm so friggin' hungry now. This looks so delicious I'd be tempted to leave it up all the time. Thank you, Ancient Mole!

The trees are nice. I might put one up at the Pouloco station. Thank you, Crazy Mole!

So, there you have it. Another nice prezzie for being a Premium member. I'd love to hear how you plan on using these items so leave a comment if you post pictures somewhere, let me know and I'll take a peek.

Amazon & the Hoverboard

Today's news from The Lab (Web) that Second Life goods are available on the hugely popular shopping Web site Amazon (here) has so many ramifications and possibilities. Let's explore some:

You can sign up for a Second Life account via Amazon and download the client or you can use an existing account.

Residents who wish to take advantage of this partnership need to "link" their Second Life account to their Amazon account. What? You have one Amazon account for your household but several in your family with different Second Life accounts. Sorry, you'll have to have a separate Amazon account to take full advantage of the partnership. That could mean splitting your Kindle library, your AmazonCloud service, and so on.

Don't worry, folks outside the United States. This is not for you to worry about yet.

The free Vehicle Starter Pack (here) includes L$1000 dropped on your "linked" account and a hoverboard. With a new appearance, this is the same board you could have gotten at the Georgean Test Track (SLurl) before Halloween when the vendor was taken away. If you don't mind a the 2009 style, drop by CC's Pouloco Station (SLurl) and click the box under the snack bar for a free copy. You'll also get an LM for the Test Track, one of the best places to play with your board, on the track or off. Hopefully you'll buy a soda or frozen drink while you are there.

At this time, two other packages are available.

The Premium Vehicle Pack - Soar, Sail, and Drive for $24.95 USD (here) includes the same hoverboard, a sailboat that was the Premium account gift in December 2011, and the Dune Buggy that was the Premium account gift in September 2012.  How many $Lindens could that much RL currency buy? At the moment I write this, some L$6162 virtual cash. A "free" hoverboard and two vehicles you could otherwise buy very similar or better versions of elswhere in Our World.

The Deluxe Vehicle Pack has the hoverboard (again) and the sailboat, nothing else, here for $14.95 USD. Based on a peek at purchasing $Lindens at the moment I write this, that amount of Real Life currency is worth about L$3692 ... they value that boat rather darned highly. As good as it is, I don't think it is as nice as my MLCC Loonetta (see this blog post) or other boats from that maker.

No word about the Rail Handcar gift that you can still grab free in the Premium Rez Zone in Saminekim (SLurl) or the currently available airplane or even the first gift, some nice furniture (read about them all on my blog here.

And  lastly (for now), more questions: Will the other two Premium gifts be bundled into packages? Will future Premium gifts get bundled up? Will Lassie get help for little Timmy laying with a broken leg at the bottom of the well before it is too late or the episode ends?

Certainly, the value here can be questioned, but I think that The Lab is taking a positive step in growing Our World. Prices can always be adjusted and packages can always be jiggered for different content. That's retail for you. It is just nice to see that they haven't forgotten about their core constituency, Second Life Residents. I hope to see what they do next. Until then, check out Tateru Nino's opinion on this development (here).

And the next Premium Gift is ....

Since September of 2011, The Lab has been giving gifts to it's Premium account Residents. Intially, the gifts were to be doled out monthly but that quickly went from plan to poo right away. Eventually, several gifts were given out, including what I consider to be a gift, the opening of some Premium-only sims: The Wilderness Area (Web) and very quiet Sandboxes (Web). Here's a quick review of the physical gifts, though (in no particular order).

The most recent Premium gift was a very nice biplane. I wrote about it here. Also introduced at this time was a Premium Resident-access airport in Orville (SLurl)

The second Premium gift was a pretty nice sailboat. I know a few Residents that snoozed and missed out on getting their copy and now they can't have one. I first wrote about this gift here.

The first Premium gift was a very nice furniture set. While folks eagerly awaited to see what the October gift would be many argued about free advertising being given to the non-employee creators of the gifts. Since then all the gifts have been made by the very, very talented LDPW Moles. My first post on this gift is here. Most of the free avatars and clothes you'll find in your default Inventory were made by non-Lab employees, by the way, and are very good.

An extremely popular Premium gift was the Dune Buggy. I very briefly wrote about it here. This gift also came with the introduction of new Premium regions like Salt Gulch (SLurl) so owners could race their new vehicles. Interestingly, the gift kiosks in the themed regions distribute the most current gift, not the one associated with the region. If you want the Dune Buggy now, you are out of luck but you can rez anything here. I see lots of folks riding horses at times.

One of my favorite Premium gifts is the Railroad Handcar. As with some of the other gifts, special Premium access regions were introduced so Residents could play. Visit Saminekim (SLurl) for some fun if you have any train. I wrote about this gift here and here.

I suppose that you could also consider having a Linden Home as a gift. I mean, you can have up to 512m² of land without paying tier costs or you can have the land with a home on it. That conserves the land's prim count for your furniture and whatnot. And having a cash stipend is something of a gift, too, plus Premium accounts have more support options and have a bit more pull if someone tries to remove you from Second Life.

But this post is about the physical gifts. Four of five have been about transportation. Do you think the next gift will be an automobile for the many Second Life roads? Maybe it will be a special mesh house for small plots of land. What do you think the next gift will be or what do you want to see? Feel free to leave a comment below and if I get enough, I might drop a line to some Moles I know.

Not a Second Life Resident? Click here to join. If anyone asks who referred you, tell 'em Uccello Poultry.

New Premium Gift! [Update]

The Premium Sandboxes also have Premium Airports like Limia (SLurl) and feature Mole Gas for your birds. 

The Lab has a new premium gift out today, a Lindy Premium Airplane v1.04, and you can grab it at any Premium gift spot such as the one in Sandbox Mirificatio (SLurl). The plane features seven texture schemes, 10 animations (mostly hanging off the wings), and customizable controls, all available via menus when you click the plane. Use the Help option in the menu for a note card explaining everything and a list of places to rez your new toy so you can go flying. This is just a quick post for now. I'll write more about this cool gift as soon as I get back  .....

Update 01:38pm SLT

Looks like there is a new Premium airport! Check out Orville (SLurl) with your new plane. More updates to follow.

Update 03:48pm SLT

My first full flight in The Crate. I left from the Bay City Municipal Airport (SLurl) because no matter which direction I went, I wasn't able to exit the Premium regions to visit Mainland if I left from Orville. I noticed a few issues such as dramatic altitude drops upon region changes and as often as not direction changes, too. There seems to be no way to maintain consistent altitude in any case. Constant vigilance in the cockpit is required as it seems the SL winds will buffet the plane and force X,Y,Z direction changes. Combine that with controls that are far too delicate at the standard (Advanced) setting and the plane is a bit tricky to control. Beginner mode can be set to make this a wee bit easier, even in mid-flight. I'm working on figuring out the throttle, but I was able to determine that when you are taxiing that take off happens at 40% throttle whether you hit the flaps or not. Most notably, there is not food or drink service.

Happy Skies, y'all!!

Be Alert (the world needs more lerts)

Towel Day is May 25th, just a few days away. As of the moment I write this post I've given away 110 commemorative towels via the Second Life Marketplace here. A number have gone to men though I honestly don't know how they'd look. But the towel is transferable so maybe they are gifting it. Or maybe they are getting it because there are pix of me all scantily clad in the cottony goodness of this towel.

New Premium Gift [Update]

Premium account Residents check your emails! There's a new gift for you and it looks pretty cool! Or skip your mail and head right to a gift kiosk (list here) and get started right away at a railroad near you (here or here or here).

[Update May 9, 2012 - Added a pic of my customized handcar below and more info.]

Zipping through the yards in Calleta (SLurl).

The handcar is customizable via a menu system. I made the body of mine a shade of purple, changed the wheels to red-centered, and plastered it with rainbow stuff all over then took a copy back into my inventory after renaming it. With full Mod/Copy perms (No Trans) you can make "manual" tweaks, but the textures on the mesh prims are very, very shape specific. There's no way you would be able to match the baked in shading, for example, so your edits would be rather cartoonish. Maybe not even as good as cartoonish.

Any rider can help you drive — using the Up arrow key repeatedly and endlessly, otherwise you stop — but only the owner can apply the brakes. Three friends can join you and each position is animated. If you rez the handcar away from approved railroad tracks you are tossed off and the car suggests in chat that you visit the train station in Tuliptree (SLurl). An included note card lists other suggested starting points (no pun intended, I tell the English railroaders who read this) and explains all the options for customizing and driving. This really is a pretty cool gift. I've seen over half-a-dozen folks out on the rails having fun already and I've been out for no more than a couple hours total.

What's In My Closet: Latex for Christmas

Normally one thinks of wool, fur, and natural fibers during the winter months in the Northern Hemisphere. For my wife, Angela, she thinks of latex, it seems. She bought two outfits from Graves (SLurl) for me and a promise of more when we can go together. This the the G204 Enigma Cat Suit with Alpha Boots and its my have of the two. Here are the other particulars of the outfit for those who care:

Hair: Magika PCF Red Aina (SLurl) special Hug Japan edition
Weapon (on my back, not in view): Sexadoll ingram M-11 back holster from LPP (SLurl)
Jewelry: The G204 collar modified with Open Collar Scripts; custom-made wedding ring; PrimOptic Finesse glasses (SLurl)
Location: Little Mos Eisley (SLurl)

She also bought for me the Graves G203 Enigma Body Suit. Each has variations that either leave some skin exposed or cover it with a semi-transparent latex/mesh mix (as shown above).

I hope you got some fine things for  Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate) like I did, but I also hope you that you stayed safe and were able to enjoy good company.

Lost the Feelin'

Nope. I haven't felt like blogging. Haven't felt like doing much of anything. Christmas sort of does that to me since my father passed away many years ago. Then, just in the last few weeks, the father of a friend passed on, too, and I was treated like I was part of their family at the funeral.

This is a bad time of year for my mom (whom I take care of), too, and that just worsens my mood. She goes from depressed to hyper manic in a heart beat. Example: "We aren't going to decorate!" was the mantra for a month then one afternoon "You have to get things decorated; we have only a few days!!" That was on top of trying to get several other things all deemed to be ultra-high priority to her done at the same time.

To top it all off, there is frakin' snow on The Isle of Lesbos. SNOW! I hate snow. My boss lives in Key West so she things this is marvelous. And her boss is Norwegian. They have snow 366 days a year.

Did I mention that I hate snow?

The Abranimations Advent Gifts (available here) cheer me up, though. Like this penguin avatar from today pictured below. It is so cute and it comes with a fishie to slap folks with!

Slapping the Meeroos at Lesbos with this fish cheers me up.

Normally I don't like to get presents, but Advent gifts in SL are something different. Lots of places have them and many are featured on freebie blogs. I don't go to many, but the Abranimations one is always fun and they are always so generous.

Really, there's no reason to be depressed. Life is actually rather good, I suppose. And Second Life is certainly a highlight. I'll buck up soon, probably after the holiday and after the Isle goes green again. That will be exciting because of some surprises. I'll post pix. In the mean time, I'll just slap people with my fishie and make the best of it.

New Premium Gift! [Updated]

Months after announcing a monthly gift for Premium Residents in Second Life, The Lab has finally gotten around to putting out a second one out at the various kiosks (click here for a location list). It is a fine-looking sailing boat, as you can see in the pic below. Hopefully it will encourage Residents to try the rather nice vehicle sandboxes available to Premium Residents (click here for a list of Premium Sandboxes).

If you are a Premium Resident, you probably received an email about the new gift so you can click the "A Sailor's Guide" links for other places to sail. The gift also comes with several landmarks for sailing locations. I'll try to find the nice sailing tutorial my friend Dusty came up with and post it here so you can get the most fun out of your boat if the included instructions aren't enough (just leave a comment).

The boat is very, very nice. A HUD lets you customize some textures as well as gives you control of how the boat is operated (wind vs. motor, for example), and other aspects of your experience. It appears to be well made by the Linden Moles (of course ... the Moles rock!). One really cool bit is that after you sit, simply click the boat and your avie moves from pose to pose to pose, one of which is perfect if you get seasick. Is the boat worth the membership fee? Probably not, but if you are a Premium Resident, then you should certainly take advantage of this freebie.

[Update] My friend Dusty contacted me with more info:

• The Linden boat seats up to 11 avies at a time.
• The Wind mode is "dumbed down a bit" so you have no real control over how the sails interact with the wind. So it's sort of like an Auto Pilot.
• Sailing classes or tutorials aren't really needed, but they might be if you upgrade to another boat, like the FREE Nemo 2 at Dusty's place (and other locations). 

I've sailed the Nemo 2 that Dusty recommends and it is more fun because you have to read the winds and make decisions. If I just want to party with folks, then the Linden boat would be great.

Object Permissions Need A Gift Option

Here I am in my new AfterHours Collection - Batgirl by Lourdes Laysan (SLurl) costume. It is well made and at just L$200 I think it is also a great deal. Yes, I am Batgirl! But I wanted to buy it as a gift. The texture on the vendor prim did not show any permissions information and peeking at its contents was equally fruitless. It turns out that some items were No Transfer which, in this case, means No Gift. Sure, I would have bought one for me anyway, but if I want to give it to someone like I would Real Life clothes, I can't do it.

Sure, I could contact the maker and ask to have it sent as a gift, but her profile indicates that she is on a sabbatical. Her Xstreet store front does not have this item, so while that might is an option -- albeit less attractive than being able to hand my friend a gift box -- for some items from that store, it is not for this one. Besides, many merchants mark up items on XStreet to cover the commission fees.

What we really need is an overhaul of the permissions system. Everything should be transferable just like in Real Life. Since that would raise havoc with the other system permission Copy, a creative form of Transfer needs to be found. I propose a Gift Upon Purchase option. It would have been great to be able to right click on the vendor prim, choose Buy as Gift rather than just Buy, and then be prompted for a name for delivery. Some vendor systems allow this, but for many reasons merchants prefer to use non-scripted prims so having the gift option built into the fabric of the Second Life viewer/servers would be best.

Decorating for Christmas

Just wandering the Interwebs today I ran across a notice from Rezzable Greenies that they were accepting decorations for their tree. Since I had recently made a bunch to give out as gifts I figured I had a shot. Bam! There she is ... wooters! Drop in to see it yourself and grab some nice freebies under the tree (SLurl).

After my wife logged out for the night I started wrapping her presents and found the process getting out of hand. This is what happened nearly 200 prims later... (SLurl).

BIG Teddycello

Many Linden Lab© employees with a presence in the Second Life™ (SL) world give away teddy bears that they have made. I have a few and sometime last year I made a teddy to give away in much the same fashion. Since that first bear I've made several to give away at the Isle of Lesbos or for other reasons, but I've never been quite happy with that first bear.

Sure, it had a nice hug animation, but it was really a rather basic effort that more or less duplicated a Linden bear design and not too fancy. So yesterday I got working on a new one that would better reflect me and here it is. Well, this is a giant version over 20m tall. The one I'll give away is about one meter tall. But both reflect what I love to do in SL: Build. This one is working on a slightly tortured prim with my state of Maine vehicle license plate "name" texture.

At 173 prims I don't see too many folks rezzing it for extended display, but this one is me. She is even wearing what I often wear (dang! I should have changed for this pic!).

Some thoughts about prize hunts

The Isle of Lesbos is running another prize hunt so I'm partly excited and partly sad. Excited because I worked hard on this one (just on volume ... 40 prizes! ... not complexity) adding some fun elements and some nice prizes (if I can toot my own horn). Sad because I see too many folks making land-marked lists of prize locations for others to follow.

C'mon, folks! The stuff is free, odds are you won't use it all anyway, and the prize isn't the point. Treat it as a game, not a harvest! Once again, I'll be moving the prizes around every few days to defeat the listers. That takes time and increases the sadness.

Three more hunts this year ... Halloween, U.S. Thanksgiving, and Christmas. No idea what I'll do for prizes. I'm running out of ideas and "mini-projects" that I have tucked away. I don't want to do pumpkins again this year. I'm thinking of a maze. Maybe with pumpkins. For Thanksgiving I might do turkey legs again. That was funny. Maybe bring back the "treasure hunt" gimmick from previous hunts. Last year's Christmas stockings were nice but maybe Christmas Cookies this year.

I just hope that people have fun. Sometimes I spend a fair bit of my own money on these things and that is fine if folks are having a good time. I just don't like the idea of cheaters profiting from my sweat, skills, and shekels. This is what I do it for: "I thank you :-)) well its so beautiful all around I didn't know that ... very nice places everywhere ... I basically knew the dance floor and the beach only so far ..." This was part of a nice IM I received shortly after the hunt started. Surprising it was so quick but very welcome, indeed.

Bouncy Bosoms

I'll try to update this with pix, but right now I'm too angry.

There is no way I can recommend the Bouncing Bosom Tintable Wife Beater Top by Raven Ivanova (available on SLex, her store, or discussed here).

Cripes. I wish I had seen the review on SLex before buying this product in the store. The way that this even remotely works is a black shirt with black prims. Otherwise you have a tinted shirt with texture and tinted prims with no texture. The picture on SLex is the same as the one in the store ... completely contrary to what it looks like in-world.

To the maker's credit, they do mention in several places that the product does not work well with Windlight-based viewers. What they should say is that it does not work at all. I tried an older viewer and some colour combos were acceptable but as most folks don't use those viewers (or tweak graphics on the newer viewers per the maker's instructions) there is no point. This product should not be sold as is. Either updated pictures should be show comparing the viewer types or the product needs to be pulled. This was purchased for me as a gift and I felt so bad I gave the generous person thier money back.

I also don't understand why an AO is in the box if the post-purchase information notes that the effect doesn't work with AOs. There is no mention before purchase about this serious problem.

I agree with Aydan Darcy: "Don't waste your money.

(posted here)