Well.. not THAT kind of confessions….

I started a new blog and I thought I’d let ya all know here.  Its called Confessions of a Shop-a-holic and its my little foray into the fashion blogging scene.  You can access it here or from the sidebar.

I hope I can showcase a few designers that do awesome work, but don’t get the press or traffic that the big ones do.  If you have a designer you really like and would like their stuff blogged, please let me know and I’d be happy to add a post.

Not sure how many of you have noticed this… but the Emerald viewer is getting more popular by the day… especially with this newest release on October 14th.

They added a couple new features that are, in my opinion, soooooo worth it.  First, double attachment points.  NOW…. I can wear shoes with socks AND pants cuffs; a belly ring AND a belt; lashes AND glasses; rings AND fingernails… I could go on and on and on, but you get my point.  That has probably been my biggest complaint for a few months.   The next thing they added (and this one is AWESOME) “enhanced breast physics”… in two words… BOOBIE JIGGLE!! Damn…. I enabled that and my eyes about fell outta my head. It looks AWESOME. 

The following is a list of the cool things Emerald can do (information borrowed from the SecondLife Wiki):

Extra Features

• Optional “Proprietary Pack”
  • Enables Voice in world
  • Proprietary technologies that increase speed
• Avatar Scanner
  • Full sim range (detects over 1M in the air)
  • Shows name, age, payment info, current activity.
  • Land and estate commands for ejecting/banning multiple avatars at once
  • Buttons to open profile, IM, teleport to or track selected avatars
  • Ability to chat radar info (keys) to boost lsl radars
  • Ability to display chat notifications for entering sim, exiting sim, entering chat range, exiting chat range, entering draw distance and exiting draw distance respectively.
• RLV API Implementation (off by default)
• Different login page
• Ability to open and display the owner and location of objects that IM you
• Teleport to positions by double clicking
• Option to disabling progress screens (teleport, login, and logout respectively)
• Clothing layer protection (prevents sending of individual clothing textures to other clients, ensuring they can’t copy the clothing)
• Customizeable IM Autoreponse system, including giving inventory in the response
• Fly can be set to always enabled, even with Admin menu closed
• Can turn your avatar ‘visually phantom’
• Allows ground sit anywhere
• Can enable the attaching of objects in inventory by double-click
• Can block object sit-on-click
• Chatbar as a command line for rezzing platforms, teleporting to coordinates or sims, or teleporting to particular heights.
• Various crash fixes
• Free uploading of “temporary” textures (sim-local and disappear on relog)
• Notification when a friendship ends
• Detection of cooperating alternative viewers
• Shows object last owner in build floater
• Scripts are compiled to mono by default in agent inventory
• Inventory is fetched in background immediately on login
• Group info can be accessed in about land, even if group is not deeded
• Profiles show agent key
• More minimap dot colors, blue for lindens, grey for muted, and purple for friended lindens
• Build Floater Enhancements
  • More object choices (from the drop down that lets you change a cube to a sphere)
  • More precision information (5 decimal points)
  • Ability to set all prim parameters without changing shape (easy prim torture)
  • Ability to easily change skulpt stitching
  • Can set transparency to 100%
  • Can set texture repeats above 100
• Can turn off the typing sound
• Teleport History Floater
• Animation Info Floater
  • Shows you all current animations being played on your avatar
  • Allows you to stop, or revoke permissions of animations you do not want
  • Ability to detect owner of the animations being played, as well as their name
• Included the 1.23 Bulk Permissions Setting
• Option to block the 1 click auto sit
• New custom skin

Links

• Website: http://www.modularsystems.sl
• Direct download link: http://tinyurl.com/lv25db or http://code.google.com/p/greenlifeemeraldviewer/downloads/list
• Source code: http://tinyurl.com/lv25db or http://code.google.com/p/greenlifeemeraldviewer/source/checkout
• Easy to remember URLs: http://bit.ly/GreenLife http://bit.ly/Emerald

The above information was current as of the prior version. The double attachment points and “boobie jiggle” are new to the version released on 10/14/09.

Do you believe in love in SecondLife?

I know someone (who shall remain nameless) who is searching for love. They believe that they can find what they desire… eventually.  They also have more than one avitar searching.  They have a love now, but are not entirely sure it is what they want, or not sure it can grow into what they want.  They spend a lot of their time searching, making dates, flirting, chatting always with one eye looking at them and wondering.. is this the one?

I’ve had my share of “love relationships” in SL.  Some short-lived, some a little longer.  And I don’t like being lonely or wandering alone through my SL days (and nights), but I don’t believe in searching for love or companionship either.  I have many, many friends that I spend my time with.  But nothing can substitute for the closeness of a love relationship.

I truly believe that if you spend all your time looking, you will miss what you really need. You have this ideal in your head of what you think love on SL “should” be.  What you want it to be.  And you search for someone to fit that mold.  You want things too fast… you want to open a box and see that perfect lover/companion/partner.  It doesn’t happen that way in real life (not usually) why should it be that way here?

I’ve changed my outlook… I don’t look.  If I am destined for love, it will find me. But really I think it takes a great friend to make a fantastic lover/companion/ partner.  So, stop looking out your back door for that all encompassing love… it may already be sitting on your front porch….

hmmmmm…. takes a look at who’s sitting on her OWN front porch…. <grinz>

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I go to SecondLife to have fun. When it ceases to be fun, I’ll go elsewhere. So, why do those who have horribly negative attitudes stay? Are they so miserable that the only enjoyment they can find is to suck the joy out of every venue they walk into?  They say over and over how miserable everything and everyone is and “threaten” to leave.  Well, my advice is… LEAVE ALREADY… you bring everyone else down.  I’ve tried very hard to be pleasant, but I just can’t do it anymore.  You speak of things to others as if you are the expert, but you know nothing. 

I try very hard to remember that everyone there is a person behind the avi.  That for the most part they are normal, everyday people, that just want to have a little fun.  Maybe build or create, maybe dance, maybe make a connection or two.  I don’t make assumptions about anyone else’s SL or RL.  And I try to speak kindly of others, or not speak at all.  I am generous with my friends and helpful to new avatars.  But starting today… you fuck with me… then I am done with you.  Don’t expect pleasantries, don’t expect my help or generosity.  You get back what you put in.

What do you think? Is deception ok in SecondLife? I dont mean your avatar is not a carbon copy of you. Or even saying your 30 if you are 40. I mean full out deception? If you are romantically involved with a person (and I mean a person, not an avatar) are you certain that he or she is REALLY a he or she? And how would you feel if you found out otherwise?  Or even what if you have two people on your friends list.  You talk to them each over time, you are friendly with each over time.  How would you feel if a few weeks down the road you found out they were one in the same?

I asked a group this morning if they felt SL was all about deception and role play. Pretty much as a group they said yes.  But in further discussion, its not because they are deceiving or rp’ing themselves… it’s because they were cheated on by someone with an alt.  And even that is not the type of deception I mean. 

When I talk to someone, my avatar is just a vehicle i use to speak.  Its still me.  I don’t pretend to be something I’m not.  Maybe its me that is a rarity.  Maybe everyone is pretending to be something else.  I think I’ve mentioned this in other posts… Its too HARD to try to remember all the stories you tell when you are pretending to be a fictional person.  It becomes even more complicated if you have to make up two wholy different lives to talk to one friend! And then even more difficult if one of them is female and the other is male.  Do you keep notes? I guess I just don’t think that way.

I suppose, I trust too easily.  I know now… I won’t take people at face value, and I think that is sad. I think a little piece of me died when I found out someone could be that deceptive and not see a thing wrong with it. The only thing I can give credit for, is that he had the balls (or ovaries) to tell me the truth.  Too bad it ever happened in the first place.

Well I bit the bullet. I decided to actually pursue SecondLife Photography as a business. I rented a storefront at Junkyard South (paid for 2 months so I can’t back out), and am in the process of selecting things to display. My signboard is up, but I will be updating that too…..

OK… location is ready… swing by if you want a peek….

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Junkyard%20Blues%20South/183/171/22

Profiles, singles, couples, groups… location or in studio.   I can do pretty much whatever you want.

On a side note… if any of you know of good places to take pictures… nice poses, good builds, your favorite sims (I seem to be on a fairy kick lately so that is a plus)… please send me landmarks. Or IM me!

(I’ll apologize in advance this is not SL related)
I can’t wait for 5 o’clock…. the hands on the clock can’t move fast enough. From the moment I walked in the door at work this morning I was hit from all sides… can you do this; stop everyone at my door.. I can’t be interrupted; make these changes.. like yesterday; oh no.. you made “those” changes… change it back.. but make these changes too; call this person for me; set up a meeting.  Can I PLEASE get a cup of coffee first? Can I even set my purse down, maybe open my email?  GAH!  Let me sit down… for just a minute! Its freaking 8am….

Well now it’s 3 and everyone is quiet… but the clock is CRAWLING… i want it to be 5 o’clock… NOW!!! I think I need a drink……

In this corner you have the girl next door, sexy, flirty, fun… everything you want… in the other corner you have the hunky guy, suave, sexy, confident….. she walks out to the center of the ring… he circles her, sizing her up….. she moves, slowly, seductively…. he watches, in silence… then.. he strikes, moving in quickly the dance begins.  He throws the first jab… feeling her out… she tentatively swings back, not sure quite where to go…. and round and round they go… back and forth.. trading innuendos, flirtations, toying with one another…. its all fun and games… until you’ve been at it an hour or so….. then.. the inevitable…..

She MUST want you to take her home… she has been teasing you for hours…. of course she wants it… And there you have it.. the “match” that happens over and over again.. day in and day out, in every club, every hang out, almost anywhere you go in SecondLife.

I want a dance partner, I want someone to “flirt” with, I want someone to talk to. I don’t NEED that… I WANT that… and it doesn’t mean I want to take you home. Flirting is fun, its romantic, its silly, its imaginative…. why then… if you flirt is it expected that you will take it to the next level?

I don’t know if its just my era, my age, my own warped sense of the way things should be… but even though its “just a game” I don’t want to be a slut… I don’t want a man to think if he whispers sweet nothings in my ear I will fall at his feet and worship him. I just want to flirt (I know Iron) dammit its fun!

How old are you in SL? Does your avitar represent you at an earlier time in your life? Do you come to SecondLife and relive some of your youthful exuberance? Or is your avi you…. just you?

I never even considered age when I created Gala. I was so new to the scene of interactive chat that I literally had no clue what I was walking into. I just made an avitar and started wandering around. But as I wandered and chatted and got to know people, I realized one thing… a really BIG thing….. age is a touchy subject.

When I meet a man, there are two things I like to know about him:  time zone (logistically its important) and age.  And it seems most men cringe… I can literally feel them cringe, when I ask how old they are.  So what I usually do is say, may I ask your age… I’m 45.  Then…. they know I’m not a 20 something that they have to be scared to say they are 57.  But the reverse happens too.  I will find out I am with a younger man….MUCH younger man and I cringe. 

Where do you draw the line? Do you care? I kind of have this arbitrary line I don’t like to cross … about 12 years older/12 years younger.  I do make exceptions, of course.  Sometimes you just click with someone. And age makes no difference at all.  And then some just flat out refuse to tell you their age and I have to go by the conversation and feel out if they are mature enough for me.  That being said I know a few older gentlemen (I use that term loosely) who are not very mature either.

So, tell me, how old are you, your avi that is?!?

What do you want out of SecondLife? Really.. ask yourself. What are you looking for? What is the reason you sign in to SL everyday or every other day or every weekend? Do you just wander? Dance? Hang out? Are you alone or do you need a companion? Are you male or female?

I am pretty content right now with my SecondLife.  No I don’t have a partner.  No, I don’t even have a boyfriend.  Of course I have special people in my life.  Ones I like to spend time with.  But its not necessary.  Yes, there are things I like to do, but I don’t always need a companion.  And yes, even I want “male” companionship once in a while… grinz. 

But sheesh… lately… I feel like a piece of meat.  It seems like every guy I have ever flirted with just lost their piece of ass or something… or maybe their girlfriends are on vacation or on SL-cation (thanks Iron), whatever the case may be.  Why do they only IM if they are horny?  Is that really what they think of me?  Why can guys flirt.. and geez… “I’m only flirting”?  But if a woman is a flirt, she must be asking for it. 

So, sorry guys if I seem like a bitch.  If you can’t ask me to dance and spend a little time with me, then don’t come knockin’ on my door when you want to do the horizontal mambo. And if i offend you.. delete my ass, really you’re not gonna hurt my feelings.  Well, maybe you will, but that’s life and I’m a big girl.  I’ll get over it.