New Costumes for St. Patrick’s Day

You know I love my old-fashioned small-town 1910s community of Philomena. Well lately I’ve been inspired to make some things for St. Patrick’s Day festivities and to start, here’s a matching pair of costumes I made.

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.

My visit to the World Goth Fair

Lately I’ve been resolving to explore more, to get out of the skybox and go out and do fun things more (and plan events LESS). So when the message popped up on my screen to visit the World Goth Fair, and mentioned that the proceeds benefit the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, I said, what the hell!

I didn’t have a whole lot of money to spend there, which is a pity because if Ls were no object I’d have brought a LOT more home than I did. But I got this freebie dress from Evie’s Closet, and this makeup (with 100% of the proceeds going to charity) from Adore & Abhor. The parasol is my own, made last year as one of our SL9B freebies; and the boots (which you can’t see) I already had are from Lassitude & Ennui (but they’re available there at the fair too). I’ve always preferred the vintage-style, flowy type of goth for myself over the more modern leather & latex style, so I think I came away with some nice treasures.

There are all kinds of styles at the World Goth Fair, and you’re benefiting a really great cause when you go. So… get thee hence.

Things that are Not Medieval, Vol. 1

I just learned today that Regretsy, one of my favorite websites, is hanging it up after three and a half years of whimsicle fuckery. Well in honor of them and their “Things That Are Not Steampunk” series, I’d like to offer some discoveries I’ve made while browsing the “Women’s Medieval/Fantasy Costumes” tag at the good ol’ Second Life Marketplace.

And so, without further ado…

Think Flatterbots don’t listen when you talk back? Think again.

Backing the truck up, those of you who haven’t encountered them yet, a Flatterbot is a (duh) bot that IMs you randomly.  Their usual MO is to start by either accusing you of bumping them or else claiming to be catching up with you, their long lost friend.  They then compliment your avatar, give you a long sob story about an ex-boyfriend that made them log off, and their brave return to start SL all over again… and oh by the way, could you maybe “loan” me 300L to get a new avatar put together?

This is all old news for many of us by now. Many shops now have signage warning about this practice, and many blogs have covered what to look out for and not to fall for it.

But up until today, I was under the impression that any amount of reply to a Flatterbot went largely ignored or unheard by their anonymous programmer. I was wrong. And apparently I touched a nerve.

Below the cut, my complete interaction with just one such Flatterbot while I was shopping in Henmations.

A Word on Branch Shops

Let’s suppose you have a business in RL. Maybe not a huge one, but a moderately successful one. And let’s suppose it’s time to grow, to branch out, to open up a satellite shop in a mall.

So let’s continue to suppose here. You find a mall that seems just right for your shop, and what do you know, they have a space available for a rent that’s reasonable. So you sign your lease, you pay your rent, you move your things into the vacant slot in the mall… and then you totally ignore it, waiting for the money to just roll in. After all, it’s in the mall now, it’s completely up to the mall owners to promote your shop, give you a reason to have a sale, and otherwise tell people to go into your store to buy your product, right?

Wait, you mean it’s not? Well isn’t that the damnedest thing.

Am I just behind the times?

Photo: Teleny Macarthur

So I’ve been running Clover’s Kitchen for something to the tune of 3 and a half years now. One of the things that I do, that I’ve been doing since the beginning, is manually inviting customers one-by-one into the shop group. I don’t believe in using Subscribe-O-Matics because they make it difficult for an unwilling customer to leave (click and “leave group” from the comfort of your own home is way simpler), they’re abused and mistrusted, and they rely on sending notecards. Nobody usually READS notecards.

The oldschool SL group, on the other hand, enables me to program my vendors so that group members get special deals (like the monthly group-only dollarbie); they get the message and a LM right away, logged on or not, and–most importantly to me–they are in the group because they actively chose to be.

And so at least once per week I round up the names of those who have made a purchase from me, and one by one, I add them to the “invite” list for the shop group. Then I send the invitation. Those who are already in, never get the duplicate invitation (god damn, LL did something logical! Good going!). Those who want in, click “accept”. Those who don’t, click “decline”. The list gets purged, life goes on. In the three and a half years of using this method, I’ve gotten two complaints from people.

The second arrived just a short while ago. I got IMed: “please im me before spanning me.” I hope she’s all right with me ignoring her and closing the chat because that struck me as the kindest and most honest thing I could do. Like I say, if you don’t want in the group, I don’t want you in it either. So… click “decline”.

So am I just behind the times here? I figured a quick opt-in group invite sent once would be way less rude than, say, IMing her out of the blue first. She apparently does not agree. And I think it’s way WAY less rude than my just putting you on a list for a Spam-o-Matic machine that spits notecards at you whether you like it or not, and forcing you to come back into the shop in order to (hope that you) remove yourself from said list.

Am I mistaken?

Why We Keep Going Back to SL

Despite the troubles and frustrations of Second Life, there are some of us (raises hand) who just can’t seem to walk away. Here are a few not-remotely-scientific reasons that Second Life has such a hold on us, like the scumbag boyfriend we just can’t seem to get away from.

Our Friends are There

Step into any other grid and if you find people at all, they won’t likely be your people. Oh sure you could try to get your people into this grid to pay you a visit, but why would they want to do that? It would be easier just to get in touch with you on Skype or email than to make a whole new duckwalking avatar. The fact is, if you want to “see” and hang out with your friends, and have hours-long IM conversations broken up into little digestible bits, it’s going to have to be in the world where you met them.

Work Around

(by RayCharles Linden)*
(Original tune: “Mess Around”, Ray Charles)

Blues Brothers Night at Hotlanta Blues, Feb. 2009

Aw you can talk about the new Marketplace
Where the descriptions don’t match the face
ahh, Work Around
We doin’ the Work Around
Do the Work Around
Ev’rybody do the Work Around

Nobody was rezzed, you can bet your soul
Waitin’ for the restarts to start to roll
We Work Around
We doin’ the Work Around
Do the work Around
Ev’rybody do the Work Around

Now the office hours are from noon to one
Nobody ever gonna get stuff done
So we Work Around
We’re doin’ the Work Around
We’re doin’ the Work Around
Ev’rybody do the Work Around

Now see that girl with the extra bling
She’ll make a laggy mess of everything
So we’ll Work Around
We doin’ the Work Around
Do the Work Around
Ev’rybody do the Work Around

*(not really. It’s by me, Mistletoe.)

So, yeah, still not having a lot of luck getting shit working at the Marketplace. So, I’m working on finding a way around it. Wish me luck.

The plan is: all the erroneous listings that are in the Magic Box, I’ll relist with DD, and vise versa. We’ll see.

Ure gonna love this one.

So the other day, Clover got a quick “Greetings!” IM and a notecard. I really don’t know how to make PLEASE IM ME FIRST bigger or more capital in her profile, but anyway, here comes a notecard with a marketplace invitation.

It has been my experience that branch shops tend to cost more than they pay, with some occasional exceptions. Why this is, I could speculate all day, but what it all comes down to is this: if I’m going to open a branch shop in your marketplace, it has to be worth my while to do so, in one way or another. Even if I don’t make a profit in a branch shop, if it introduces my product to a considerably wider audience, that may be an example of worthwhile.

But, back to this notecard, which was such a lesson in what not to do I’ve decided to make an example of it for the Know-it-all Pages.