We Bought The Farm

You may recall that when my sister alt, Clover, closed her shop, it was largely because the world had changed too rapidly for her to keep up with. Hundred and thousands of Ls and av-hours of work to create the products that made Clover’s Kitchen a success were suddenly all in vain and the food and beverage became almost laughably obsolete, practically overnight.

Well, you know that I love creating food for people in the Grid and so– in what may or may not be a moment of weakness– I invested a sizeable chunk of my savings into starting up what will be Clover Farms. (People who were fans of Clover’s Kitchen may remember, back in the day, that “Clover Farms” was an imaginary brand name used on items such as milk and orange juice).

Fireworks Show Tonight!

Ladies, Gentlemen, Friends, Neighbors, and Avatars of all ages and sizes! You’re invited to come see the debut of a show I’ve spent weeks building from the ground up. “8 Bits We Have Heard on High” is a retro Christmastime fireworks and music spectacular, full of light, color, and nostalgia. This is an all-ages friendly show in cozy Glenwalker Park, in the modern city of Lionheart, which starts at 5PM SLT and runs for about 20 minutes (so don’t be late or you’ll miss it!)

Please wear a low-impact avatar to the show and be considerate of other viewers.

Don’t miss the explosive pixellated fun TONIGHT, December 1, at 5 PM SLT!

Glenwalker Park, Lionheart Scar

I don’t contribute to the economy?!

I was talking with a particularly cynical acquaintance the other day who had some less-than-kind things to say to me when I mentioned going to Marketplace-only with Clover’s Kitchen, and no longer having a prim-and-mortar shop in his estate. Two particularly stinging things he said were that I’m “part of the problem” for going to MP only, and that by not having a prim-and-mortar shop, I’m no longer contributing to the economy.

Sorta finding my groove again

My friend Thaddeus has revamped and reopened Antique Square, and it’s lovelier and more vibrant than ever before. I logged on the other day to have a look at it.

Clover received a lovely automated “fill out our survey” message after three years of renting from a single spot. Really warmed the cockles of my heart. It’s not that I think I’m owed a thank you after the St. Patrick’s Day parade, the newspaper, the Pride festivities, the medieval faire… yeah well OK I guess I kind of think I am.

Instead, I got a thank you message from someone I wasn’t expecting and it made me genuinely giddy.

I’m freeloading in a cottage amid some grassy dunes, where I can fish or explode fireworks (but no exploding fish. Ew.). I just got a Christmas tree in there and I like it a lot. I put a one-horse open sleigh ride in at Antique Square, at Thaddeus’s request. And I’m kind of building again; I even broke down and got Mesh Studio.

So I’m not saying I’m full time In Second Life again or anything, but at very least, I’m finding a little more interest in it than I did.

Lionheart Festival Plans Roaring Along

The post-Fantasy Faire shindig I’m planning, the Festival of King Richard, is roaring right along (see what I did there?). I’m getting more and more merchants (good ones at that!) and have almost filled my booths. I still have a couple Priority booths left and the rest are the regular ones.

Merchants will set up on May 3rd, and the gates open on May 4th. The festival runs through May 12th. Then clean-up day is on the 13th. And did I mention the quality of merchants? We’ve got everything from eyes to clothing to jewelry to flowers to landscaping to animations and furniture. Many of them will have games like gatchas. We’ve got a food court. We’ve got jousting lined up. Fireworks, storytellers, and a singer too.

If people don’t show up I’ll be pissed.

Tonight I should focus on goods for my own merchant booths, one for Manic Elf and one for Clover’s Kitchen. Clover has been working on some new mesh medieval food to debut. For the Manic Elf booth I got some of the sweetest tip jars you’ll ever see. You’ll want them if you have a medieval village of your own.

So… I should stop yakking. I’ll get something to eat and then it’s back to work for me.

I get to be Eleanor of Aquitaine!

My Eleanor of Aquitaine costume. For the upcoming Festival of King Richard, coming to Lionheart (where else?) in May.

I love “Archimides” so very much. My RL husband and life’s partner, he is often the voice of reason when I start to getting overwhelmed. Well, planning this festival in May was starting to overwhelm me and I was in full-on panic mode yesterday.

“So here’s what you do,” he said to me last night as we were retiring, “Get a handful of your very closest friends, the people you trust the most, and form a kind of committee. People you know will be there to handle things when you can’t be.”

One float, extra awesomesauce.

Spent the afternoon NOT getting my new OSX upgrade to happen because of DVD drive problems.

So instead I spent the afternoon working on my float for the Lionheart St. Patrick’s Day parade.

Not to give a lot away, but…

Also, I got things I made for others to build parade floats and mini-floats. Next on the agenda is horsies.

This is fun. I hope more people are as excited about this parade as I am.

Packing up, moving on

Fond Remembrances: me with Julius Forwzy (of Faery Crossing).

This is not a post about SL9B.

OK, this is not a post entirely about SL9B.

Now that Thaddeus has made the announcement public, I feel I can safely talk about it in my blog: Antique Square is closing up. Time and money are just against Thaddeus right now, especially with his RL work and studies, and after 6 months it’s, unfortunately, time to make a hard decision.

So I’ll get right to the question I’m asked first and most often when I mention this to friends:

“Doesn’t that mean you did your SL9B build for nothing?”

Absolutely, categorically, can not say it enough, not.

The point of taking part in SL9B was not to promote Antique Square; it was, simply, to celebrate Second Life’s 9th anniversary and to have a part in a hugely successful resident-run event. It was to create, to share, to play, and to give it all an old-fashioned feel. It was to meet new people, learn new things, and– I’ll say it again– to celebrate. All of these things remain true whether or not Antique Square itself remains open. In fact, knowing throughout most of SL9B (as I did) about the upcoming close made me realize all the more how really trivial self-promotion is in an event like this, and what really is important.

Mind that won’t make me cease self-promoting. I do still have a job and I do still have to pay rent. Just, time and place.

The fun of SL9B provided a bit of a distraction from the reality of having to move house again. I mean, yeah, you can pick your whole dining room up and put it in your inventory, that’s not the tricky part. The tricky part is working out where to rez it this time, and if we can afford to, and so on.

Lelani made me an extremely generous offer. In SL– as in RL really– I tend to be very friendly to many (indeed anyone who doesn’t outright prove they’re too much of an asshole to deserve it), but I tend to be close with few. Lelani, I count among the few. She’s got a place in Steelhead (as does Thaddeus, actually) and offered to sublet some of it to me. I thought it over and finally decided against it for a ridiculous reason, but still a valid one: I want to set my own TV and radio changer. Because when I can do that, I really feel like my territory is my own.

So I ended up getting a small residential parcel back in Lionheart. I’m taking a different approach this time; instead of rezzing the farmhouse that I used to have before, I’m making multiple skyboxes. A play yard with a treehouse for Petal. A Japanese tea garden for guests. A big home theater where I put my big giant TV. A small wooded grove with a duck pond on the ground. It gives me something new to create, and thus, something to look forward to, instead of something to stress over.

Antique Square will have one last big blowout party on Sunday. I’ll play music, I’ll blow things up artfully, I’ll even cater. Hope you can stop in.

I’m going to make a tag that says “And my point is?”

So I’ve started the Lionheart Times back up a week or two ago. It was a great idea until I remembered I’m never around to be at any of the newsworthy events. Howdy Neighbor day? I bet it was great. Wouldn’t know. Town Meeting? Haven’t been able to attend one in months. Live performance in town? Heard it was awesome. SL8B’s opening? Not only am I not available to log on because I was called in to work, but even if I were around, my rural net connection combined with the multitudinous hordes of avatars make it a one-way ticket to Crashville.

It would be really really really REALLY cool if people would volunteer to cover things like this and send in write-ups and/or photographs so that I could be the editor instead of the reporter. But then again it would be cool if people did lots of things differently. You know, world peace and all that good shit. It would be really cool if Johnny Depp would knock on my door. But I ain’t holding my breath on any of the above coming to pass anytime soon.

However, I am going to start getting the Best of Lionheart together so people can start with the voting. So there’s that.

Cleanin’ Up This Here Town

John Wayne in Rio Bravo.

All right, so I promised I’d write a blog on my ideas and opinions about repairing/rebirthing/re-instituting a healthy community. To preface, I’m no kind of expert. I have no degree or credentials; just my own experiences from which I hope I’ve learned something.

If your community is languishing, growing slowly, or just plain nonexistent, these ideas may help you. I’m hopeful that they’ll at least provide some ammo for thought.

Listen to your critics.

You learn more from your harshest critic than you ever will from a room full of yes-men. It’s because of the room full of yes-men approach that we’ve had such monstrosities as the last season of Roseanne thrust upon us. If one person early on had said, “You know, that’s a fucking stupid idea,” and the higher-ups had actually listened, who knows what kind of a note the show could have ended on.

Now, the trick is figuring out what is actual criticism, and what is just trolling. If one troll just says “THIS SIM SUX LOL” then don’t put much stock into it. But when a group of once-active people disappear all at once, and one of them complains loudly? Pay attention to that. Amid all the profanity and name-calling, you will often find the words of someone who actually does (or did) want the community to succeed and has some real insight as to what’s broken.