Aleri Darkes

After struggling with one hardware and software battle after another, I have finally been able to get everything sorted out. Knock on prim wood. But at least my computer is displaying the intended color of items…I think…if someone tells me all this stuff is blue I am gonna scream! ;P

Aleri Darkes has created Celeste in scarlet and entered it in the EFA Design Awards. This gown is a lovely scarlet cocktail gown with lots of shimmer and a lovely jeweled broach. The gown moves fluidly, and attention is paid to the back with beautiful results, with a lovely dip in the front. Click here for more details at OnRez. The entry for the contest is the scarlet dress, other colors are available OnRez, and in store on the Addictive sim.

AD-Celeste in Scarlet-EFADA entry available at OnRez, shown with Diversity Hair’s Sophie in Dune.

But she didn’t just stop there! She just released this adorable dress called Daisy.

The polkadot bow is just killing me! I can’t get enough polkadots! Above is Daisy shown in white, below is Daisy in oh so cute pink. Daisy (Pink) is available in store-Free until the New Year! So get your Pink & Polkadot fix at OnRez and the new store location at Addictive 101, 168, 23! Shown with Diversity Hair’s Jess – Dune Dipped

Christmas Sparklies

Ewing Fashion Agency and OnRez have put together the EFA Design Awards. Lot’s of details here. After signing on to OnRez, and searching through submissions, I was really taken many of the entries. But Hibiscus Flossberg’s entry caught my eye.

One of the entries for this award is ‘Holding My Heart Out’ Set by Hi-Flo, The Hidden Jewel. (available at OnRez), shown with Gracie… By Grace Winnfield- Carroll’s Fire Christmas Red Dress–Christmas Freebie

When I saw this I about died I love that rich red, and the hearts make me skip over Christmas and go straight to Valentine’s Day! I was hard pressed not to do a Valentine’s Day themed photo. Very lovely work, and a steal at $750, the choker, bracelet, ring, and earrings set also comes with a lovely heart shaped gift box. Hint…Hint… for you guys out there clueless as to what to buy your girlie just click here. To view other entries, search “EFA”.

I have been working hard coming up with numerous Christmas outfits for this season’s numerous social events. There are a tons of cute sexy outfits out there but I wanted to have a little more fun with a more traditional outfit and came up with this.

Gracie… By Grace Winnfield- Carroll’s Fire Christmas Red Dress–Christmas Freebie; Santa Hat (Miss Santa outfit) by LIBERTE; Belt by Aurora Fairplay; Fur Cuffs-(City Chick Outfit) from Mimikri; not shown-Freebie white ice skates.

A nice way to stand out at the next holiday party is really taking a good look at your inventory and playing around with what’s in there. Plenty of holiday freebies out there to play with too. It’s make leaving SL to do RL Christmas shopping a tough thing, I haven’t really started either yet. Shame on me! To busy hunting down holiday gifts and playing in my closet.

Today’s Shopping Uniform:

Frangipani-Gold Silk Jacket; artilleri-kat’s meow coat-leo-fur collar, cuffs; Last Call-Carolina Belt Pants; Gracile-City Girl Boots-Snakeskin (texture changable); Armidi-The Angel I Hair in Auburn

I doubt I will be able to resist the Freebies and Holiday Store gifts enough to keep me on track while doing my Christmas shopping. As soon as I tp into a store, snag my holiday gifts, I spy something I have to have, and completely forget my shopping list. With many store doing daily gifts this is really turning into fun. Wrong, Solange…the list is endless. Read your blogs to stay up on the latest in holiday gifts, and releases and wish me luck I am off to do my Christmas shopping.

Ice Skating at Viva La Glam

Last night I took Gary with me as I went to pick up the latest freebie from Miam Miam Jewelry.

The announcement said it was on the ice rink, and it was right next to free ice skates, and so we turned my quick shopping trip into a mini date.

Viva La Glam is a cute little sim, this upscale urban area reminded me of the sights I had as a kid. The apartment buildings with all the neat little windows in a row. They had a skating poseballs that allowed us to skate together synchronized as a couple. A quick trip, unexpected fun, a two cute holiday necklaces.

Hurry up and grab your friends for a quick trip and an afternoon or evening of fun. Bundle up! It’s snowing.

Cubic Effect and not just the dress

While going over the zillion or so style blogs out there I came across Miss Haruka Kish. Japanese Second Life resident, style blogger, and fashion model. I quickly added her to my blogroll, and got busy going through her list of stores, hunting down some really cute items.

It’s always fun to find a SL resident from another place in the world, cause they have had a different SL experience then I have, and have come across places I haven’t found yet. Bonus if they blog, and are detail oriented like Miss Kish. She and I had the opportunity to chit chat a bit inworld via IM, and I am looking forward to following her blog Felice Haruka. I am a bit crazy for anything Japanese, I devour the culture in RL, so finding Japanese made content in SL is like nirvana for me. I love the Harajuku look especially, even though strict cosplay and its variant subset fashions for some reason really don’t appeal to me other then I like to see it on others. I hope to find more and blog it, but silly me is really picky and if something doesn’t have the “lines” I like, I instantly dismiss it.

Felice Haruka blog is very high fashion, and I enjoyed finding a few stores I hadn’t heard of. I was limited on time, and Second Life has been very laggy recently so I only indulged in a few quick trips here are there. But I found the cutest cordoroy dress at Cubic Effect which I bought in bordeax, I quickly whipped out the boots I had been wearing since purchase-the LunaViola Boots with scrolls from PixelDolls and was pleased to find the purple matched. I love my color change boots. Just can’t seem to take them off. Another quick trip to Aden, and I found Spice Girl hair, so I purchased the Ginger Spice one. The dress I love for the texture. If it weren’t $390 while I am on a temporary…/me shudders….b.u.d.g.e.t… I so hate that word…then I would have purchase the other colors, and the sweater coat is which so lovely and nicely textured…I believe Haruka blogged it, if you wanna take a gander at it.
I promptly wore this outfit for two days! LOL. I have had severe graphics/texture problems within Second Life, this past week. I thought it was simply my graphics card. But now I am not so sure, I even movedmy chat/IM logs to a temp folder and then uninstalled all the Second Life clients..Regular, RC, Windlight…damn they sound like colas. Reinstalled the RC (release candidate) and still found I had this issue. it’s really horrible. I can barely get a thing done in SL like this. I have spent a great deal of time outworld trying to play around with my computer to get this fixed..and I still end up with settings that make the picture here at left make my eye make look runny. I even cleaned this up in photoshop.

Second Life has looked pretty crazy for me. I thought it was me and now I know its far worse. I have no clue how to fix it. I am not that tech savvy when it comes to this sort of thing. Suggestions anyone? Here’s the problem..in Pictures.

This one was when it started.. I simply put on a Last Call Jacket over my Armidi Dress…and I get this.

Now I am thinking, something is horribly wrong with my graphics card.

Here’s what I see around me…when it’s not so bad…

This is a tree..A mangrove tree from Hearts Garden Center next to my patio.

This is what it’s like trying to build:

Now here’s the problem..it’s not just me..last night Gary and I squeezed into a photobooth to take some pictures in Tableau. Gary had to take the pictures as there was no way I could take them with this issue..still thinking its me. So everything went great he took some fun pictures..until suddenly he started to see what I see…

This is Gary’s Photo sent to me in a postcard from Second Life..This was how I was seeing my av at the time..cept I also saw him this way but purple with green hair..and over time the whole sim deteriorated to this texture.

Ok so what have I done about it? Well, I had rebaked, relogged, cleared cache, cleared browser, scan disc, defrag, spyware scan, virus scan, deleted SL, reinstalled sl, I have updated drivers, and rolled back drivers, and updated drivers-it makes no difference, I have adjusted settings, updated windows, updated microsoft, consulted my graphics card support database, and SL database..blah blah blah. and I still get it. I am using a crap machine, a GeForceFX 5200 I think, and if I go into the control panel for it I reboot. I also have had the computer reboot when trying to open SL. I can make this go away on my av by changing skins, editing appearance, changing clothes. But it still comes back, and I can’t change the sims now can I..those textures always end up looking like that. I can tp somewhere and have it all cleared up as soon as the tp complete but eventually it comes back to looking like this.

Any ideas out there? How can I fix this? This is what someone should look like when they have spent too much time in free sex resorts..not me.

WHOOPS! I deleted my Age Verification post.

I am really pissed off as I was getting ready to post another entry and hit the wrong button, and my age verification entry went bye bye.

Sorry folks.

basically it went like this…I did it..

I’m American so all I had to type was my Name, Address, Date of Birth, choose between my Dr’s Lic #, or the last 4 digits of my SS#. DONE.

and since comments are closed on the SL blog, I can comment here.   How did I get a link on there?    Also…it was easy and painless…and since I used to work as a criminal background researcher who verified thousands and thousands of American citizens information for their employment with their social security numbers, addresses, dates of birth, drivers licenses, names of schools they attended, and access to all the people they put down as references that I had to call and check, and know what a good background you have to have to do the job…even though this was just run through an secure database…rest knowing that my information is secure.  Probably more secure then it is at my local college, bank, insurance office, doctors office, etc.  Just a thought there.  Think about it.

A concern I have is how do they know it was me and not my teen with my wallet.   I do have to applaud Linden Labs for trying to get the grid cleansed of children.  Even LL I am sure knows they will always have a kid slip through here and there and if not, I feel bad their teendoms weren’t full of the hooliganism that mine was…they must have been very jealous of me.

It was harmless, it was easy…and I bet I will still have to end up paying when its out of beta…murphy’s law.

I have a skeleton in my closet

The Fashionista Closet by Dominus Skye

I am afraid of my closet.

Why?

It’s scripted, that’s why!

In theory I will be able to put all my COPY clothing items in it, and be able to access them anywhere on the grid via HUD. I am overwhelmed by it as I am a script phobic. But I am determined to use it. Thus far it sat in my inventory for a bit, then I rezzed it in my bedroom. Now that I have adjusted to it’s presence in my life, I need to be brave and load it. I plan on documenting this on my blog, each little step along the way from here, to my first outfit ordered from it on while away from home. But for now….I’m still scared of it. Even though it’s cute.

TP to Sparkle Skye’s Allure store, it’s to the right.

Your Worth

I am going to bring up an ugly topic: Camping

I came to Second Life, cause I couldn’t run The Sims 2 any more without upgrading my RAM. I knew to check the blogs as I downloaded Second Life, for clothes, hair, and skin because just like in TS2, I wasn’t going to walk around looking like a townie. I had heard about camping on one of them. No details were provided, but I knew it was how to make money. While shopping at The Free Dove, I noticed what appeared to be a tipi outside. I went out to see if this was a campsite. Nothing.

After making my first friend in Second Life, he showed me where I could camp. It was at a club with a CampMaster. He should me how it worked, and I was pleased to finally have some money. It was the standard camping rate at the time $1 every 5 minutes, with a $100 daily limit. I will refer to these rates using this: $1/5; and $1/5/100.

I quickly accumulated a folder full of LM’s to campsites all offering the $1/5/100. All over the grid this rate was highly available, and seemed to be a basic rate. You could also find many $4/15, a few $5/15, and wow…the $10/15/200. All offered via my favorite camping system The CampMa$ter. There were tons of camping chairs, and dancepads around Second Life offering the same rates, some booted you after a set time, which was anywhere from 1 hour and 30 minutes, on up. It was hard to find one that gave you a pop up menu to click to continue camping, if at all it was pop up menu to put in a code that would allow you to move up in rate. If you were AFK, you continued to dance at the rate you started at.

My favorite campsites were Club Arsheba, a $1/5/100 CampMaster, where I would camp overnight with my friends. Perched on a sign, close to a money tree to pick lindens when I could. During the early evenings, I would camp at the camping chairs high up on a platform above the Goddess Mall, in the Spiral region. I loved these. I really don’t know why but I did. $3/15 for 1.5 hours. When your time was up the camping chair made you stand up. It then locked the chair for a maybe a minute where only you could reclick to sit. No one else could steal your chair during this short time. Sure lag, and a screw up view could slow you down to not be able to click in time, but this was still not so bad. It was nice and quiet. Hardly anyone talked. No one danced. No one played obnoxious sound files. No one wore particles. Nice and quiet. I would turn my sound on, and sit and listen to the quiet sound of Second Life at that altitude. Arsheba’s CampMaster is long gone, sad since I also grew accustomed to the sounds of the casino there. I miss hearing the repetitive sound of one of them in particular. I would hear it all night as I slept SL/RL Spiral/Goddess Mall is gone too, it’s still in my home sims, but now it’s the owners design studio and store and the region name has changed. I miss it. Funny enough I spent so much time there, and had such positive experiences there I moved into the Goddess of Love Apartments in the sim next door, and now live in a lovely home in another GOL sim nearby.

I have up until this late summer earned all my income by camping, with the occasional purchase of lindens. On my own, I could earn bottom line a minimum of $360L on a bad day. I did just fine, shopped as much as I liked, lived in nice places, and had nice things. Life was good. Sure I noticed the few places around that had $2/15 camping. LOL! We used to laugh at that rate and walk by! If I saw some poor soul who didn’t know better I would flood them with LM’s to campsites offering the basic rate: $1/5.

As I spent more time building and less time camping unless I was afk, I noticed more of these lower rates popping up. $1/10, $2/15. I continued to walk by and never camp there. But others did. I would find a new place, but it gave a pop up to continue camping, I left, others stayed. I alway knew I had another campsite in my landmark folder with a better rate or no pop up. Soon these “no bot” devices were everywhere. Silly thing is I know how the bot program works. I have it. I have never used it. I will never use it. People think that booting someone or giving a pop up will combat them. Nope, there is a setting for that. The program will handle a variety of tasks. Like logging in. Reclicking after a set time, etc. The person behind the av doesn’t have to be there, the program running along side Second Life will take care of what ever settings you choose to select.

Bots became a problem because you couldnt move faster then them as a computer was controling their click. They could be focused on a chair, pad or log in button set to auto click. Ever been to a campsite and heard the log in button of a campmaster being clicked? Ever heard it with 10 people there, and still 10 openings…click….click…..click….click. No soemone is not checking their time, it’s a bot already logged in and still running the program…click…click. Now I could care less if someone has an alt camping. Bot’s are alt too, their re-clicking and logging be set up via a program. An alt has the same chance as me at getting a spot. I don’t care if you are camping 5 alts. But seriously if you are camping that many alts, think about why–bots too. If you are doing this to earn Lindens to cash out to USD, you’re nuts. Go get a RL job.

With the end of casino’s, SLingo, etc on the grid campsites vanished overnight. I spent an entire day teleporting to my best sites and…gone nothing there but a patch of grass. What did SL lose? Well me..with up to $700 a day of disposable income. Nearly $4 USD lost a day by not shopping. Now think of others who left. Campsites became hard to find. The rates dropped. After awhile things picked up again. Lots of campsites around. Camping everywhere in fact. But! It’s crap rates with crappy low limits. Who is going to offer $1/5 camping when they can pack them in at $6/60 minutes.

People heads up here! What is your worth? Why are you flocking to these rates? Do you value yourself this cheaply in real life. If no one camps at these crap rates, the owners will be forced to take out half the chairs/pads, and offer a better rate. Spread the word. Start a Union even. DON’T DO IT! Get camping back in control. Owners will have to change the rate to a better one. QUIT the surveys! You are opening up yourself to having email spam, snailmail spam, and identity theft. Take a stand. Report a bot to a bot group. Don’t camp at bot friendly places-the owner are simply going to eliminate camping their eventually and put their alts on the property to get a traffic rating. Shop where you camp, start a business there, help them become successful in their mall or business.

Don’t camp for less then the equivalent of $1 every 5 minutes.

Tag! I’m IT!

Sasy Scarborough I AM going to remember this.

Ok, blog tag rules:

1. Ya gotta post (on your own blog) 8 random facts about yourself.
2. Ya gotta tag 8 more people to post, so post their names at the end of your blog post!
3. Be sure to leave a comment in your taggee’s blogs so they know they’re tagged!!
4. Be sure to post these rules in your own post so your victims know what to do!!

Whimsy Winx

8 Random Things About Me

1. When I was 17, I broke my ankle so badly I was in a wheel chair. I actually smashed bones into nothingness. I can never rollerskate or any type of skating ever again. Ok…I was drunk…the brakes failed, and I discovered that I was riding a bike that was too tall for me as I had mounted it while standing on a curb. I then walked .5 miles home on it. A month later I convinced my dr. that I was healed enough to be allowed to visited a friend at her college for the weekend, where I met the most incredible guy and had the dirtiest se….whoops.

2. I wanted to be a Roller Derby Queen when I was 10.

3. I can “jump” a 12 ft fence in white stilettos, run three miles, to avoid getting busted for skipping school, and do serious damage control when family members “thought” they saw me. Can Ferris Bueller do that…in heels?

4. In the 6 degrees of seperation game, I am one away from Madonna, and two from the Queen Elizabeth of England, and one away from Princess Michael of Kent.

5. I am afraid of success.

6. I am currently recovering from fractured rib/cartiledge. Kick scooter-Thanksgiving break. Don’t ask.

7. When I was in preschool my teacher had to have my parents stop teaching me foreign languages, as I had integrated them into one hybrid language. Le elephante ist blau, und eine flor es the couleur rojo.

8. I am 1/8th Comanche. I resent being pulled continuously out of my 6th grade class to attend the mobile “Indian School”, for a couple of hours a week, where I was taught Ojibwa, Cherokee, and Iroquois culture, btw the Iroquois is not one but more then one nation of peoples. Could have been worse, I wasn’t the Blackfoot in class, who was full blooded and actively involved in his own nations cultural affairs. I appreciate the kind citizens who established the social programs in hopes of saving our cultures, but..get a clue. I learned something though. I learned shame, and learned to be thankful for my “other” heritage which gave me pale skin, and freckles, so I was able to disconnect from this, rather then be forced to embrace a culture that is not my own, and hand that down to my children. It would be like sending a 6th grade American kid of Italian descent to special classes to learn about French and Portuguese 18 and 19 century culture. Cause they are like..all Euro..ya know.

I tag….

1. Una Ewing 2. JennyH GossipGirl 3. Milla Michinaga 4. Shir Dryke 5. Arbel Vogel

6. Malkavyn Eldritch 7. Sai Pennell 8. Aphrodite Outlander I have Caliah Lyon as an alternate.

In other news: I have created a new SL flickr group just for showing a little skin. lol not like THAT! Dirty minded thing you! No like…your blogged skin demos, or your ads that you designers have tucked away in your flickr, etc. Silly you. Come post your photos. YES ALL THE SKIN PHOTOS in your flickr! Nothing cooler then DEMO stamped on your head. Second Life Skins

Breathe Deep-Seek Peace

When Milli Santos created the Ginny Talamasca memorial at her place, and offered it for the community to leave something in remembrance, I rushed over and put in a gazebo from a series I had been working on all fall. At the time, I didn’t know why it had to be that piece, but looking back I now know why.

When I first started making them, the fall collections had come out, and I was always here in my studio designing them while wearing my new Last Call and playing around with the outfits, and almost exclusively all of them Last Call cause I have a teeny little obsession problem with the store. When building this one, I had a picture in my head of how it would look when finished. In my mental picture there was a woman standing near it wearing a dress from Last Call. It wasn’t finished yet, so I raced across the grid to grab what I needed for it, and came back upset and empty handed because I could only focus on the dress, then it occurred to me what was missing. I went to my patio and ripped out the roses I had purchased for this series from another temporary design, and went back to the studio. I then titled it with the only thing I could think of as comfort for a title, rushed over and dropped it on the site. Breathe Deep, Seek Peace.

It’s a Dinotopian saying from the Dinotopia books by James Gurney. A few years ago one of my daughters had chosen it as her book for a school project. A report and diorama. It turned into an immense project, with even the report being submitted in English, and translated into the Dinotopian language. She learned the values represented by the Dinotopian culture, and I through her seemed to memorize them at the time, and one thing has always remained. Breathe Deep-Seek Peace. In the worst of times, this is the only thing you can do sometimes.

I was really overwhelmed when Milli IM’d me about it recently. She loved it and wanted to buy it. I came over and set it for sale for her. My first official sale. Sad and happy at the same time. She kindly let me set another gazebo, The Cloister, at another location at Stern and set it for sale.

Thank you Milli, I have been really dragging my heels, and almost avoiding some of the work I need to be doing. I am glad you liked it. I wanted something special, and it’s perfect. Thank you too for giving us a place we can express our appreciation for an inworld artist who delivered what so many men fail at…we felt beautiful.

The Ultimate Accessory

Shoes? No. Jewels? No. The Latest Handbag? No!

MystiTool!

I am amazed at how many people of the fashionable set haven’t heard about it. What on earth are you wearing besides the obvious? I know…just your ao right? My god! How do you function? Honestly!

So what is a MystiTool?

Well… Let me overwhelm you with a list of features then I can go over some of the more everyday features you might immediately find a use for.

Avatar Scanner, Sim-wide AV Scanner, Remote Sim-Wide, AV Scanner, Bug Scanner, Bug Radar, AV Chat Range Notify, Movelock, Non-Physical Vehicle, Collision Notification, Channel Listener, Locate Avatar, Unsit, Eject, TPHome, Ban, Unban, Music, Kill Avatar, Trap Avatar, Drag Avatar, Toss Avatar, Orbit Avatar, Crush Avatar, Disrupt Object, Teleport History, Landmark Manager, Favorite Locations, AV Following Chair, DynaTable + Automatic Chairs, Object Rezzer, Flight Assist, Posing Stand, URL Catcher, SL URL Maker, Sky Platform Rezzer, Instant Platform Rezzer, Camera Follower, Sim Warnings (sim stats, flags), Anti Idle/Away Prevention (the only feature you dont need cause you can disable that in the Client menu), Color Converter, Land Calculator, Emoter, Animation Control, Avatar Stand, Mimic (AV Imitation), Popup Sender, Avatar Find, Dust Particles, Light Emitter.

What! Whoa! That is a LOT of STUFF!

Not really, but yeah, kinda.

ALL IN ONE HUD! You can access all these amazing features either by typing in a simple command in chat like: /1 light on; or click theHUD button, select Privacy, then select Scan Sim.

First you get your MystiTool box, unpack, and watch this nice little folder unfold in your inventory with the following items:

Landmark to Mystical Cookie Designs, MystiTool Hud, MystiTool Implant, MystiTool Land Relay, MystiTool Settings Backup, MystiTool Sleeper, MystiTool Manual.

You wear the HUD. This is the majority of the features listed.

Implant: If you like a nice face light, and maybe the ability to locate someone you’ve lost in a sim, or like dust particles while flying wear the Implant.

The Land Relay: Rez on land you own, or you can have this deeded to the group if its Group Owned. This will allow you to scan your home sim for a list of avatars in the sim it’s located in. Nice if you happen to have checked your home on map, and notice someone is at your house-don’t tp in to say WTF?!?, scan your sim, and know WHO you are dealing with first. Perhaps it’s friends stopping by, maybe someone using your poseballs, or your nearest and dearest having an affair! OOOOH! Now we are talking gadgets aren’t we!

The settings backup is nice as you will store a lot of information in your MystiTool. The designer has a built in update feature so when she tweaks, or adds content, she can send you the new update and you can add your accumulated settings to the new MystiTool. Also great for when SL goes horribly wrong and you need to reset.

Sleeper: built in is the ability to put your MystiTool to sleep. It cuts the scripts running down to the basics. I do this when I notice I am having difficulty in a sim, and can’t bear to detach. I need my radar and the ability to protect my av in seconds.

Manual: You won’t believe how many people never read it. Save that bad habit for R. This is so important, and so much better then IM’ing the group with stuff like “how do I turn my dust off” and very simple things like that. READ THE MANUAL! If you find you have problems reading the note cards in the manual getting messages like “you do not have permissions to read this” or some shit like that, Drag the notecard out of the manual and into your MystiTool folder, then you will be able to. This is a common SL glitch.

Start out using MystiTool every day. Now for the features.

Radar: Now if you have never used radar, it displays a list of avatars within 96 meters of you. You can get other free radar huds to wear but not all also tell you if the avatar is Sitting, Walking, Hovering, Flying, Typing, Busy, Away, or on Alway Run. Nice for having conversations with people whose ao overrides their typing animation. Instead of standing around looking at each other you know the other person is typing something to say or…just standing around looking at you. They appear as follows on your screen in a nice list on the right:

1 AVs within 96m [0]

Philip Linden (5m) BAR (this means that Phil is 5 meters away, set to always run, and has his busy on.

or

Philip Linden (88m) SA <–Sitting, Away

Philip Linden (88m) HT <—-Hovering, Typing

Philip Linden (88m) FB.AR <–Flying in busy mode, and set on always run.

You are also notified if someone comes into chat range with green text on your screen in the chat space:

[12:02] MystiTool HUD 1.0.21: Entering chat range: Philip Linden (19m) This is something that you can choose whether or not you want it to display on your screen. On/Off functions are nice.

No one see this but YOU! This is the one tool you will use all the time because if you are wearing it you are seeing it, you will after time rely on this to the point of being handicapped when not on. No radar is like being naked, at a podium, blindfolded.

Av Scanner: Just what it says allows you to scan for avatars.

MoveLock: Probably the second most used tool you will learn to use. Typing /1 ML on gives you the ability to not get pushed by greifers, or in crowded places. Camping and tired of people pushing you out of range of the camper to take your spot? Movelock! Tired of shopping and some newbie/greifer tries to push you around. MoveLock! This is an on/off feature as well. I am 24/7 ML on.

Non-Physical Vehicle: Rezzing this orb and sitting on it makes it very difficult if not impossible for a greifer to orbit you. Sitting helps too against some devices, but this is pretty much a sure thing. To disable this, stand up. It disappears and you may go about your business. This is the first thing I do when a greifer strikes, if I am in a place where I can rez objects, rez and sit, disable particles in the client menu, check my radar for the name of the person I am going to file an Abuse Report on, while protecting myself and others with my MystiTool features.

Collision Notification: I have my settings so that if I come in contact with a script object I get a notice similar to the chat range notification. This will tell me what is trying to interact with me, be it someone shooting their watermelon gun at me, or my clumsy laggy ass bumping into scripted objects.

Channel Listener: This is a favorite! When this feature is on, I have the ability to see in chat when you type any channel command in chat, like change your hair color, or show/hide poseballs. I can also see if you try to use any channel commands on YOUR MystiTool.

Locate Avatar: Duh!

Unsit, Eject, TP Home, Ban, Unban, Music, Kill Avatar, Trap Avatar, Drag Avatar, Toss Avatar, Orbit Avatar, Crush Avatar, Disrupt Object—ok, some of these are land commands you can use if you have the land relay on your land and deeded to your group. Someone comes onto the property and you want them to leave. /1 unsit Philip Linden; you can also change your music settings with this. Now the main Hud, will allow you to use the other features to protect yourself if greifed. /1 toss Philip Linden; /1 orbit Philip Linden. Now while I am using El Presidente’s moniker to demonstrate how easy it is to use these features, I highly recommend NEVER typing most of these exact lines. All these feature if you are not able to easily remember channel commands, are able to be accessed and used via the menu system. It will scan the local area for av’s within range, and give you a list of people to choose from. But come on, if you are gonna use these, you don’t have that kind of time. Use your brain and REMEMBER them, I can orbit your ass while you are still navigating the menu system. Be Proactive. And a nice public service announcement from all MystiTool users: DO NOT USE this for greifing, the MystiTool community prides itself on responsible ownership, and fellowship. Don’t be an ass, you wanna play like this–go play Warcraft.

Teleport History, Landmark Manager, & Favorite Locations: Yes! There is a back button! Forget where you’ve been and wanna go back. TP History! This will automatically store a selection of places you have been recently. Landmark Manager allows you to drag your LM’s to it to store for easy reference, and out of your inventory. Favorite Locations allows you to “bookmark” your favorite places to quick TP there, without digging around for LM.

AV Following Chair, DynaTable + Automatic Chairs, Object Rezzer: Fun things! Need to help someone get somewhere? Going afk and don’t want to have your friends just leave you standing there. Rez a chair behind yourself or another person. This chair will follow you or them. When SL was having some problems and I had Delilah Karas over, I used this chair to have her sit while I flew her 3 sims over to go shopping in my home sims. DynaTable + Chairs- this will rez a table and as many chairs as it can as people require them. Color changeable too. Object Rezzer- You can now store any COPY item in here to rez when you want it. Picnic, bench, poseballs, car. If its a COPY item, you can have it wherever you can rez. Nice for storing couples poses, kisses, and champagne.

Flight Assist: Delete your flight feather! You can fly with no added assistance now, and at different speeds-even fly plaid.

Posing Stand: Hello! I was wrong, this will be the 2nd most used item.

URL Catcher: Someone just mention a website and you want to check it out, this will assist you.

SL URL Maker: Tired of freezing up every time you click MAP to make a slurl, via menu you are two clicks away from having three types of SLurls posted in your chat for you to copy and paste into IM’s, etc.

Sky Platform Rezzer: Need more room? Rez a 40m x 40m sky platform! Loaded with options–the floor can be changed with a click to grass, builders measuring grid, asphalt, wood, and more. Bit of a klutz? one click and you have a railing around the parameter-I like to call these Gary Walls. Need some privacy? Enclose the entire space! No see in, you see out!

Instant Platform Rezzer: Handy device for accurate placing of your Sky Platform. Rez it, and sit, select the altitude you would like your Sky Platform to be at, 300m for example, and it whizzes you up there. Rez your platform.

Anti Idle/Away Prevention: As I said before the only feature you don’t need cause you can disable that in the Client menu. If you are still wearing a scripted object to keep you from timing out and getting logged off–DO THIS RIGHT NOW! You WILL need to double check the next couple of times you log on to make sure the setting as “taken hold” after a couple of times it will remain like this. You may need to do this when installing a different viewer, or an upgrade. Many people think that doing this is a cheat type thing. If you are one of them, you are misinformed. This information comes directly from the Second Life Knowledge Database from the Lindens for YOU! On your keyboard, press Ctrl+Alt+D or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+D. On a Mac, press Option+Shift+Open Apple+D.; The words Client and Server appear next to the Help menu at the top of the Second Life window. From the Client menu, choose Character. From the Character menu, choose Character Tests. From the Character Tests menu click on Go Away/AFK When Idle to remove the X next to it.

Color Converter, and Land Calculator: I haven’t used these yet-but they are for the color …mumble…mumble..technical..something or other, and Prims per Sq. Meter finder thingies.

Emoter: Make yourself smile, look sad etc.

Avatar Stand: Stand on someone’s head.

Mimic: Really fun and quickly obnoxious. Scan the area to get a list of avs in the area to mimic, click one, then type fun things like, Select Philip Linden, /1 say I would really like to help you recover your lost armidi hair collection, but I really have to take a shit right now.

[12:01] Whimsy Winx: Mr. Linden, I am really upset that I have invested a great deal of USD purchasing power into the grid, which has helped the SL economy grow, and tried to conduct myself at all times as an upstanding, responsible, SL resident, only to lose precious items due to asset loss on an unstable grid. What can you do to help me. BTW I will be blogging this. (white text)

[12:02] Philip Linden: I would really like to help you recover your lost armidi hair collection, but I really have to take a shit right now, and upload a texture of it for the SL Scat Fetish group. (you can’t fool everyone with this-it will be displayed on all screens in green text)

[12:02] Philip Linden: WTF? (white text)

Popup Sender: More fun! Scan the area, select a person, send them a pop up. Tell someone you love them! Send a pop up that won’t get missed in chatting areas to people around you. Hey! It’s Whimsy’s Rez Day! BTW it’s January 9th. I will be available for you to adore, throw surprise rez parties for, please give me advance notice so I may wear something fabulous!

And how much do you think you would spend to purchase these items? You are looking at some serious Lindens! But not with MystiTool. $396! Interested but overwhelmed? Pick up a $1 limited feature MystiTool at the store.  For a limited time, Mystical Cookie Designs will be listed in my Picks in my profile.   Mystical Cookie Designs is located in Avendale 197, 242, 22.

After a very very very long blog post I realize this sounds like a infommercial. I was in no way compensated for this post. I purchased my MystiTool, in the Spring of 2007, on my own. I loved it so much, I will tell anyone and everyone about it. Try it out for yourself.

Entama-Musume

While taking photos for the topic I had planned to blog next, and am putting off for a bit, I came a strange folder in my inventory. I picked this up in some sim somewhere that seemed to be a hub for Asian newbies to stop and grab some freebies. This is a full avatar pack called Entama-Musume, comes complete with hair, skin, shape, eyes, clothes, and cool accessories like helmet, jetpack, and skateboard. Some of which are scripted, but I have never played with them–I’ve learned to be cautious when playing on my sky platform at 700m. Wondering what else the designer made, I checked the edit box for the creator and found she had a skin store. Intrigued by the lovely skin ad she has, in the mood for fun after trying on this avatar, and wanting to know more I went to investigate her skin store.

Surprise! Surpise! The teleport brings me to a box in the sky where only weeks ago I tp’d into after someone reported in the Fashion Emergency group about some new skins at a reasonable price. I wasn’t the only one that day to come investigate that day. Grazia Horwitz, who declared a short while ago, that skins were the new black had come as well.

All of the skins and a few avatars are done by ChicoTan Sperber, with more avatars for sale by uRieL Soothsayer. The Building is a dual purpose shop the content from uRiel Soothsayer being sold under the RoBot RoCk InC business name. Christyna Voom of:+:PureMAG Aoba Shop:+:, has a vendor here, selling the cutest bottle cap beanie hats, and whatnot. Her creations can also be found at :+:PureMAG Aoba Shop:+:, in Aoba, check her profile for a teleport.

ChicoTan has 9 series of Skins for females, and three for men. All include a shape, and the skins are MOD so you can change the tone. Individually they run $800 per skin/makeup, with a fat pack of 6 for $3500, demos are $1. I grabbed some demos that I liked, and here they are: Special Skin #009-only comes in this one skin, #001, #002, #006, #008 all shown here in brown and pink lipstick’s.

Avatars by ChicoTan, are available, a very cool one for $700-T2 skin, includes eyes, shape and skin, and can be purchased in one of 5 colors. Great av, but for robot fetishists, it’s gonna look silly with the X3 cock from xcite. I suppose it would make you a cyborg then, whatever. Male and Female Tintable Henley’s $77.

RoBot RoCk InC -carries some fun avatars for a reasonable price, pink and blue frogs fully animated for $300, Oversized Scissor Hands Suit $100, Scripted beer taps for $200, to a Minion of Shadows Avatar for $150, I picked up a Chicken for $1, that lays eggs. Gary being a big breakfast in bed type guy, I though this would help out with the household budget if we just kept a chicken. Sonic the Hedgehog avatar is animated and runs $50. The coolest thing I saw was an avatar that reminded me of the cat like robot vehicles in Voltron of my youth, these are called SaberTiger’s for $300 and other av’s can ride you.

Second Life is very much a trip down the rabbit hole, a simple photoshoot can turn into an expedition. You never know what you are going to find as there are so many residents out there creating content. I think it pays to be an explorer of sorts, but I think by nature Second Lifer’s are a curious bunch. We found SL, we stayed, we acquired skills. Our brains know the next bit of eye candy is around the corner, or a tp away.