Mistakes Were Made

You may recall that on New Year’s Day, my alt Clover decided to try her hand at virtual farming (with the Digital Farm System, or DFS). About 3300 avatars are part of the official group, and these avatars grow virtual crops, raise virtual livestock, sell their produce or else use it in recipes to cook food, and then eat said food to replenish Energy Points (EP), which are depleted during various farm chores. I was told early on by a pair of experienced farmers, “You won’t make your fortune, not for a while anyway” and had no idea at the time just how serious they were.

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.

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 got a DJ gig tomorrow night…

And I have NO FREAKIN IDEA what I’m gonna play. I think my plan will be to just hit Shuffle and see where it goes. It’s an eclectic venue. I could pull this off.

Also, I’m building my own fireworks effects and getting ready for a super cool fireworks show next week for the Good People at Faery Crossing. They’re celebrating Samhain which is Kind of a Big Deal for pagan-type and faery-type folks and I’m always trying to stretch my creative muscles to come up with new effects for my shows.

A good friend of mine is talking about stepping out of SL altogether and while– for purely selfish reasons– I wish he’d stick around, I want my friend to be happy and in good mental health. So we’ll see how that goes. If he does decide to close his community I know a GREAT demolitions person.

Image is from some anime doll maker and I don’t remember which one.

‘Kay bye.

Sticking my feet in

So. I’ve done two fireworks shows since returning inworld. I’ve also rented a shop space, not really that I have a whole lot to sell but I have a little and it feels good to have a home base. I set up a sewing machine and a crude counter in there so it feels like a work studio.

I love that Philomena is still a place, if a slightly different iteration than I recall. It’s really really surreal knowing there’s a street named after me. I’m just this elf, ya know?

LETS BLOW THINGS UP!!

Pass it on! I’ll be giving my first fireworks show in four years this Sunday (April 29th) at 7:30 PM SLT at Toot Toots Carolina Pub in the sim of Sifton (SLurl to be added soon)!

The theme is “Spring Spectacular” and will feature uplifting classical music to accompany the beautiful explosions from Bach, Beethoven, Strauss, and more! Watch the sky fill with beauty as the music makes your heart soar with the end of winter and the coming of Spring.

Tell your friends, and join the Manic Elf Media group for more announcements of upcoming fireworks performances. See you Sunday night!

This SLB…

In years past, I’ve explored SLB (Second Life Birthday) expos and excitedly reported back to you all about the true awesomesauce I witnessed.

But this year, I’m on the wagon. I’m fighting the pull to log back in, which is stronger this time of year than any other. I love me some SLBs. Just… everything about them (except lag) is just the culmination of everything I loved about SecondLife: the creative displays, the excitement, and the people I’ve met and friends I’ve made.

This year, I won’t be able to share a Green Guide with my favorites of the favorites to lead you to… this year, YOU have to tell ME.

So! Today was Opening Day. I long for some pictures and descriptions. I want to know what you were enraptured and fascinated by. If Mistletoe were there with you, where would you take her?

I miss you.

So the next Second Life Birthday is in planning stages. 13 already. Damn. Does that mean that this June would be my 10th rez-day?

SLBs are the hardest time of year for me to keep away from SL, because they’re some of the best of what the grid has to offer all in one convenient spot: a font of creativity and genius, without the Lab putting their dirty hands on it. It’s hard not to miss that; I would be lying if I said I didn’t.

And there are people I miss a lot too. I try to keep up on emails, or chatting with them on Facebook or Twitter, but it’s really not as easy to keep that connection without the medium on which you made the connection in the first place. I want to, though. If you see this and haven’t heard from me in a while: I miss you.

I logged on my alts once, about two weeks or so ago, to shake them down for loose change. It was a little, just under a hundred bucks, and is helping us get through a tight spot. The spots are always so tight these days. My job isn’t going so great, but I’m working and trying to further myself in it. I can’t really afford my hobbies (SCA and LARP) anymore, either in money or in time.

I do have a Fiverr gig going on now, though. After playing Undertale (which a friend got me for Xmas) I’ve wanted to live in an 8bit world a while longer, so I fired up RPGMaker and now I make custom video-game greeting cards for five bucks a pop. Nothing too fancy, but cute as hell: a custom sprite of the recipient solves a puzzle, opens a door, and gets a personalized message from the sender. You should have a look! And if you’re on the evil Book of Faces, you should like my page and share the love!

I’m tempted, speaking of Fiverr, of doing machinima videos of firework greetings like I used to do. But that would mean investing myself in SL again and I don’t think I should do that.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on in my world. What’s going on in yours?

” I don’t want to be [Avatar Name] anymore.”

One of the hardest things about withdrawal from Second Life has been the loss of touch with my SL friends (see previous blog post). There’s some on Skype who aren’t on Twitter, some who aren’t on Twitter or Skype but only on email, some I can just never seem to pin down in any way at all. But fortunately we haven’t all disappeared completely off the face of one another’s planets. Mostly we all keep in touch via email (but that does remind me to turn Skype on. BRB.).