It’s a thing to do.

Honour Samuels (supportingactorw), yet another alt

So the other night I’m hanging out and dancing with my fabulous friend Teleny and we get to talking in IM. I mention that I’m thinking of getting some new lipstick for Mistletoe, because between the VERY pale skin and very thin lips, the lips just kind of disappear sometimes.

“Have you considered getting a new skin?” he asks.

“No, no, I really like the skin. I just wish I had a little more color in the lips is all.”

Well we got to talking some more and I mentioned, you know, I might consider doing bargain cosmetics as a kind of a side thing. I know I am FAR from what one would call a fashionista, but, I’m not completely inept and I think people would be willing to pay for something like that. And it’s a thing to do.

But I’ve got a marketplace shop for Manic Elf things as Mistletoe already. I have one for Clover’s Kitchen. I sort of even have one for Petal.

So, I dusted off a seldom-used RP alt and spent yesterday getting her made over. Meet Honour Samuels, founder of the not-yet-existing-but-in-progress Flattery Cosmetics. That’s my first-ever lipstick she’s wearing.

Keep an eye out soon for “her” products: lipstick, mesh nails, mascara, eye shadow, blush… you know. Pretties, but at an affordable price. Think like Avon or Mary Kay. In fact, once I get Flattery going, I plan to even have shop-at-home vendor “catalogs”, like Avon or Mary Kay.

I blame you, Tel. Unless it takes off. Then I thank you.

And as an aside, if I say so myself: how gorgeous is Honour?  I’m in love with her deep eyes and her new Wasabi Pills mesh hair.  And that’s what an expensive skin looks like, heh.

July

Anyone who’s read my blog for at least one of its four years has probably picked up on a pattern by now. Then again I flatter myself, to think anyone really gives enough of a good god damn about my SL habits to look for a pattern. Anyway what I’m getting at is this: when summer, and especially July, comes about, the number of fucks I give for SL takes a nosedive.

A lot of that is seasonal, of course. Summer in Maine is very short. My one weekend of vacation occurs in July. My wedding anniversary is in July. My nieces are on summer vacation so we finally get a chance to hang out. As a result of all of these seasonal occurrences, RL not only comes first (as it always does), it plainly overshadows SL interests in ways that aren’t equalled in other months.

Consider, too, SL right now. The bubble has burst, make no mistake; the big crowds that were at the medieval faire I organized in August of 08 simply don’t exist anymore. Now I don’t buy wholly into the idea that SL is doomed and that the other shoe will drop at X date and after that SL will be Gone Forever. I think it’s more like when the “dot-com” bubble burst: it didn’t kill the Internet, obviously. I’m still here, you’re still here. It’s probably more like the Hype Cycle, and right now, SL is in the trough.

Add to that the fact that my most productive avatar, the one that I build most with and make most money with, still can’t log in. So, shop work isn’t happening. So my interest is waning more still.

And finally, back to RL a moment, I’m working on a book. More information on that another time. I’m trying to stay focused on it as much as I can, to keep it from becoming yet another project that I start and then forget about.

But, anyway, those who (I flatter myself to think) are worried about not seeing me much lately inworld? Don’t be. It’s just July is all.

Clover is MIA – UPDATED

I mean, no, she’s not the rapper, I mean she’s missing in action. Only that’s not a really apt comparison, in that she can’t log in and therefore there is no action in which to be missing.

It’s Day 4 now that I’m unable to log her in. I type in her name, her password, click login, the rainbow pinwheel spins, and then the viewer crashes.

But here’s the thing: it’s only when I try to log on Clover. Mistletoe, no problem. Petal, Piggy, any of the others, no problem.

It’s got me especially worried because guess who is the main income earner of our family of alts. I’ll give you a hint: not Petal.

So now I’m working out a contingency plan so that at least some of the income earned can make its way to avatars who can log in and pay for things like, oh, rent. I may have to split earnings on items sold at Marketplace with either Mistletoe or Piggy (Piggybank is, well, the money holding alt). It will completely mess up my sales records but it will help keep the doors open at least. I’m able to set up sales on my in-world vendors (I LOVE YOU HIPPO!!) to do the same thing if needed.

Who needs accurate sales reports anyway? I mean it’s not like I’m trying to run a serious business in Second Life or anything.

Let me state for the record that Secondlife.com makes asking for help an exercise in making the simple extremely complicated. I like their little dropdown menu system for filing a ticket, except it lacks a very necessary choice: “None of the above”. To even find where or how to file a ticket is a hunt in itself. What the hell do they expect new people to do? Suddenly I totally understand why people keep tweeting Rodvik with their technical issues: because what the hell else are we supposed to do? Still, I’m trying to go through the “proper channels”, even though I’m reminded of that line from The Train about normal channels existing to entrap the incompetent.

So I’m doing what I can, which is mostly walking the floor and logging on Mistletoe. I could put her face on her own milk carton*. Have you seen me?

*-Oh except I can’t because guess who built the milk carton in the first place…

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EDIT 7/12 – I went to the forums, did some looking around, and I suspect that something with Clover’s settings on the SL Viewer is causing the problem. I even discovered that I can log her on with Imprudence (first thing I did: gave all my Ls to Piggybank!). I saw some information on how to reset her setting if I had a PC, but nothing yet for us lonesome Mac users. But I’m working on figuring it out.

NO PRESSURE!!

Well didn’t I get one hell of a surprise to find myself listed among Suella’s “10 SL Blogs You Should Read“. And not only on the list, but at the top of the list! It’s a very exciting endorsement and my ego is very happy about it.

But with that comes the other side of the coin: “People are reading this thing now! I gotta write something and it better not suck!”

So until I think of what that something that doesn’t suck may be, I’ll give a kind of an introduction to you lovely new folks about who the hell I am and what you can expect when you read my blog.

First: Why I blog in the first place.

I find a picture says a thousand words, don’t you?

Petal on the Road – Part 4

One kid, one bike, and hundreds of sims: it’s Petal On the Road, the adventures of Petal as she explores the main road on the Mainland. No flying, no TPing (except to get unstuck), no money from home. Of course you have to suspend disbelief in thinking that any mom in her right mind would let a nine-year-old do something like this. But here we are, on Day 4 of her adventure, where she begins at a campsite in Alice. Let’s see where the road takes her today.

Day 4: departing from Alice and the delicious BBQ food. The weather is clear.

My favorite n00b comeuppance moment…

[13:48] Clover Windlow: ((OOC)) Ok funny storry.
[13:48] Clover Windlow: I-as-Mistletoe am making the rounds in Northfarthing
[13:49] Clover Windlow: and a couple of noobs have let themselves into [name]’s castle and were helping themselves to her bed
[13:49] Clover Windlow: so I ride up under the window and hear that they are in fact speaking Italian
[13:49] Clover Windlow: so I throw on a translator and tell them they have 10 seconds to get the hell out of the private house
[13:49] Clover Windlow: They totally ignore me of course
[13:50] Clover Windlow: So I kicked just her
[13:50] [redacted]: lol
[13:50] Clover Windlow: and since I had the translator on I could tell he said
[13:50] Clover Windlow: “Oh, yes, so beautiful… where did you go?”
[13:50] [redacted]: lol
[13:50] Clover Windlow: by this time the sim owner is there too, so he’s hearing this all
[13:50] Clover Windlow: now if there is any kind of benevolent SL god
[13:50] [redacted]: oh dear, that’s a good one
[13:51] Clover Windlow: then I kicked her to a newbie infohub
[13:51] Clover Windlow: where she arrived, nekkid as a jaybird, dryhumping the air
[13:51] Clover Windlow: I don’t know if that’s where she went but I like to imagine it that way
[13:51] [redacted]: *evil snigger*
[13:51] Clover Windlow: Some noob walking around “Where cna I to get teh sexxx?” *poof*
[13:52] Clover Windlow: “Best game ever!!!”
[13:52] Clover Windlow: lmao
[13:52] Clover Windlow: I says to the sim owner, hey boss, I learned the Italian word for cock, wanna know what it is?
[13:52] Clover Windlow: so now here’s the guy, his gf gone
[13:53] Clover Windlow: authorities outside, mocking him
[13:53] Clover Windlow: He disappears in a hurry
[13:54] Clover Windlow: never saw them again
[13:54] Clover Windlow: Christ I miss that sim

Behind the keys is a real person, always

OK, first thing, read this article: A Virtual Life. An Actual Death. It opens in another window; I’ll wait here.

Now before you mistakenly think that I’m posting this link as a way of saying “See? Gor is bad!”, I want to say that–much as I personally dislike the setting–I believe that Gor had little to do with the story of Carmen. It could just as easily have been any other RP setting, be it Steampunk or Harry Potter or Vampires or Star Trek. The setting really is but an incidental player in this drama.

What matters is how deeply someone with such a rational mind and a clear eye let herself get drawn in, emotionally. And I’ve seen so many people in SL do this (myself no exception), get sucked in to an emotional investment which in the end is so much fantasy. Building closeness and friendships and genuine trusts is a good thing; letting those feelings take over your life (first, Second, or otherwise) is dangerous.

Petal and the Super Secret Awesome Adventurers Club

Usually I blog about being Mistletoe, but I spent the evening logged on as Petal and had so much fun I just had to share. If you’re bored, annoyed, indifferent, or otherwise uninterested regarding the world of child avatars, move along.

It was one of those hazy, hot, deliriously happy late-summer afternoons when Petal got out of school. She put her books in her lock-chest and made her way toward the docks for the ferry back to Northfarthing, taking her time to window-shop as she went. But when she got to the docks, she received a message saying that due to stormy weather off the coast, the usual afternoon ferry was cancelled. She would have to take the evening ferry home.

“Well now what am I gonna do?” she wondered to herself as she stalked away from the docks, kicking at a pebble that was unfortunate enough to be in her path at the time. She wasn’t just sure where she was walking, other than away from the docks. She supposed she could head in the direction of the school, at least until something else might catch her attention.

“I’ve got issues. Wanna hang out?”

So I’m on as one of my (too many) alts the other day when I spy someone just kinda standing by the roadside in Northfarthing. Came up to her as I was headed home. I said hi, she said nothing back, so I checked her profile.

What followed was 500 characters about how wicked, evil, and “sadusive” (?) her ex-partner is/was. Names, ages, and personal insults given. Not one word about the individual now standing by the side of the road… well, that is to say, nothing intentionally said about her. She actually does succeed very well in saying “I’m petty, vengeful, immature, and so hung up on my past baggage I can’t be bothered to make anything of myself.” Congratulations, Miss Thing, you have succeeded in having the ugliest persona I’ve come across yet in SL. And believe you me that takes some doing.

I quickly left the scene before she said anything back, feeling like I dodged a bullet by avoiding conversation with her.

Really, if you make your baggage your whole identity, who the hell is going to be interested in talking to you? I have yet to meet a single individual, male or female, real or virtual, that the “poor me I’m such a victim” routine works on. You don’t hear guys saying “Whoa, dude, check out the chip on her shoulder!” or women saying, “Boy, I’d like to listen to HIM piss and moan and whine about how unfair life is all night!” Of course we all have past hurts, at least most of us. And our past does certainly have an influence on who we are and how we approach things in the present. But as the mostly useless Wayne Dyer once put it: the wake is behind the boat, it shouldn’t steer it. And of course it’s important to talk about your past and your hurt in order to process it and move on. But there’s a time and a place, and your SL profile is neither. You’re neither processing nor moving on.

And speaking of useless, attempting to exact revenge is the very definition of useless. When you’re hurt, you want the one you feel wronged by to “get it”. We all want that. But some petty act of revenge, be it badmouthing them in your profile or stalking them as an alt or whatever else, doesn’t accomplish that. All it makes your ex “get” is that they are the luckiest person on the planet to not be with you anymore. If they’re going to “get it”, they’re going to do so in their own time and in their own way; and, they may never “get it” at all. If you get rid of that attachment you’ll find yourself free to go forward and get on with your life; to present your best You to the next person to come along.

So, yeah. We all have issues. Get over em and move on.

Medieval/Fantasy Kid Avatars? *Heads Explode*

I am thinking I want to make things for kid avatars.

This one’s really going to boggle people’s minds I’m sure. In a world where more people question the will to be a kid than the will to be a slave, the idea of kids in a medieval/fantasy RP type setting is sure to set a few cerebral cortexes to critical mass.

A few years ago when I was flipping through the dials, I saw one movie version or another of Beowulf. Goodness knows there are tons, none of them that good (some more tolerable than others), so I’ve no idea which one it was or even how true to the original work it is. In the scene I was watching, Beowulf and his men arrive at a village and realize that something is amiss when they discover that there are no children in the village. None. It’s an eyebrow-raiser, even in an epic violent saga, for there to be no children in a medieval society (or for that matter in any society, but what we’re talking about now is this particular type setting).

The Seven Isles sims, bless ’em, have a kids’ group. THIS IS ME SHOUTING OUT TO YOU. You guys rule. I gotta remember to get Petal’s paperwork out to you folks. I gotta remember to pick up paperwork to do up, heh.

So. I want to make some medieval/fantasy kids’ garb. And skins (if nobody else will do it, damn it, *I* will!). And Stuff. I’ll add them at my leisure at XStreet.

As it stands now, one lonely (and increasingly bored) young ‘un lives in Nortfarthing. It’s a start.