Happy Towel Day!

Are you celebrating Towel Day? It's the annual celebration of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams and you can  participate simply by carrying a towel all day, in SL or RL (I've got mine!!)

Visit the Towel for Towel Day freebie on the SL Marketplace for your free towel!

Madcow's Aliens

Thanks to Lucky Kitty Hempy Weezles for finding another avie maker by Madcow Cosmos, this time at Alien Isles (SLurl). Like the Goblin Maker (Web) and the Robot Maker (Web), the process is simple and fun. Just select your body components, "wear" the folder you are given, then customize skin color (keeping in mind your base color is pink so the tints are additive), choose some eyes, and away you go. There is even an awesome HUD with some wild alien sounds.

Explore the rest of the region, too. Wild and beautiful stuffs there.

Madcow's Robots

In a previous post (Web) I mentioned that I was looking for Madcow's Robot Making Machine but couldn't find it. Eventually, I updated the post with the gadget's location and yesterday I finally made my own robot there (SLurl). The pic shows me in my final configuration, just waiting for the paint to dry. There were soooo many good bits that I could have used so I might have to make another, but for my first one I went for a classic, svelte look. Later I'm going to see if any of the bits are "mod" and maybe try to get the chest orb to glow in variable colors.

Fashion Week 2009

What? It's Fashion Week 2009 and no one told me? OMFrickin'Goodness! Okies, I'm probably the last person who should know. But I read about it at the Alphaville Herald with appropriate ooohs and aaahs over the pretty pictures (Web). You can head over to the event with this SLurl. Pic from Socialite Life (Web).

New Blog for Shoppers

The Fashion SLurls blog (Web) is actually more of an aggregated list of clothing and fashion stores in Second Life than a commentary source. In addition to listing stores it provides Web links for designers, modeling agencies, fashion blogs, and on-line stores. Worth a look.

Linden Labs Owns Xstreet & OnRez

Click for larger image

Press Release (Web)
Merchants & Shoppers FAQ (Web)
Acquisition FAQ (Web)
Official LL Blog (Web) Also discusses the acquisition of OnRez
Kat Linden's Forum Thread (Web)
Xstreet SL (Web) OnRez (Web)
Editorial on The Poultry Report (Web)

Freebies are born of Choice

Check out the Dot Lane, Girl Reporter post (Web) about why the Grid has so many Freebies. She explores some pretty high concepts such as definition of self, market forces, the de-evolution of prize hunts, what our money is really worth, and more. Save it for when you are camping, maybe, because it is a long piece.

But it is quite insightful. It made me think hard about some of my philosophies and feelings:

When I build items for my store I don't think about what the market wants, I think about what I feel like building. If I sell enough to cover my expenses, I'm happy.

I think most Hunts have become less about the fun and more about the accumulation of boxes that are never opened. Recently I tried to discuss the quality of the great prizes from the Solange holiday hunt and quite a number of girls admitted they haven't opened or looked at the prizes from the 2007 hunt, let alone the 2008 one. A large number of people I've asked couldn't tell me what many of the prizes were from my last two hunts. A shame because some of them came to my store and bought the prize that they won.

More prizes from chairs should be transferable but not copyable. Many of you know that I'll bump chairs when I have the time and then try to give the prize to the person that announced it in chat. Right now I have more clothes than should be healthy to own and I can afford to buy most anything I want. My building skills satisfy my needs for the most part and I feel good when I give money to someone more clever and skilled for the work they put into something I want. So I count my time as valuable in the freebie versus paybie war.

At one point in this life I found myself devoting so much time to freebies and the acquisition of treasure that I lost track of what was really valuable. My Friend list was filled with other freebie fanatics and little else. Today I have very few folks in Friends just for the freebies and that is usually just for Crew business. I didn't realize that until Dot's article. We all find a niche to fill. What is yours? How have freebies changed your Second Life?

Halp! Halp!

Make that writing paper. er .. writing topics. I explore and I find things to write about, but then they get into announcements or passed on by word of chat or (more likely) I realize that my taste in things really doesn't match the taste of most Crew kitties. What I'd really like to do is to feature shops owned by members of the Crew. Drop a note card on me with a landmark, your name, your shop's name, and anything you think is really important about your store. I'll drop by and write a nice piece about it. Not on toilet paper, but on this blog.

1550+ members and tons of readers can't be wrong. Don't make me start with my shop.

My Gripes & I Own Up to Them

Once again a Lucky Kitty (or someone close to a group member) has taken the low road to gripe about Serenity and the group in an obscure and anonymous forum rather than be grown up enough to stand by thier convictions. Fine. Freedom of speech can hurt, but try living without it. I may not agree with everything I hear in our group but I don't hide to stab others in the back. "Coward" I call you because a coward you are with your actions demonstrating your nature.

Before I get off my soapbox (Web) I would like to call out the "non-callers." If you show to claim a chair please take a moment to announce the new letter to the group. Especially if the person who made the original group chat post isn't at the chair when you win. Many of us don't stalk a chair until we win, calling letters to the Crew so that the odds of "our" letter coming up increases.

XD Fusion Santa

One of my favorite seasonal freebies is the Mini Santa from XD Fusion but it is available on the Interwebs only (Xstreet SL Web; OnRez Web). It is stuffed with some gifts to give out but you can add to or replace those with gifts of your own. I have one hovering around me nearly all the time thru December as it is a great way to spread holiday cheer.

Use Xstreet SL (Web) or OnRez (Web) to snag more freebies or visit Todd Borst's store in-world (SLurl). Look inside the store for an animated skeleton, free if you tell it you found the shop thru our blog!

Freebies in Ginza

Lovely Hearts (SLurl) has some nice free tattoos. I ran across these when I was exploring after checking on a previously posted freeb and writing about it for my blog.

Shep did it again!

Lucky Kitty Shep Korvin, inventor of the Lucky Chair, had invented a new doo-hickey for merchants to draw customers ... the Midnight Mania board! Check it out at Lapgirl (SLurl) now.

Essentially, if enough avatars click the board before Midnight SL™ time each day (meeting the number set by the owner), everyone who clicked it wins the prize. In this case, I was one of 75 to win an exclusive new outfit made just for testing the board (can a girl get a Wooo! here?).

That's Shep in this pic and his blog is here.

Freebies from Torley

Linden Lab®'s beloved Torley Linden now has his own sim as she proudly announced recently on the official Second Life™ blog. It is a fun place to explore and watch his popular video tutorials in-world, not just on the Web. It is also a place for Freebies!

And you can find several when you first arrive (SLurl). The free Follow Cams will change your avatar's point of view (sometimes nauseatingly so) and a "Stop Viewer-side Effects (drop this in your objects as needed)" script will erase hover text from a prim and more. Caution: Gathering these items is strange. You 'Buy' the cams and touch the the script sign to get the script. Other items in TorleyWorld are Take-a-Copy.

Right next to these are Torley's textures and a texture viewer. You can also get the textures in other places and I've seen better viewers (I love the free one from Prospero Linden. I heard from a friend that some watermelon clothes are near by, but I didn't see them. FYI: I recorded the SLurls for the various freebs I found but managed to lose them. Sorry. They aren't hard to find and you'll want to explore anyway.

If you head across a small bay behind the texture vendor you'll see a walkway skirting the water. A small bucket with a fish gives a fishing rod when you click it. Didn't try it, though, but I plan on trying it when I go back. I tried to make this a quick trip. If you look carefully in the water you'll see some bubbles rise and a small stick near by. Maybe. It seems that someone put in a sea mine rezzer.

So when you grab one of the free boat rides (you don't get to keep the boat) be very careful when you drive around. You can't circumnavigate the island, but it is a fun way to get to the games arcade. That 'someone' is Ravenelle Zugzwang, by the way. Also known as Mrs. Torely, I suppose. She seems to be the Architect, Landscaper, Artist, Designer, Builder, and Chief Cook (lot of eggs all around).

But I get ahead of myself. If you explore around the little bay before heading to the walkway you'll find some shelves with a box of 100 prims (w00ters) and a bottle of SLixir. Both are really gag gifts but cute. Behind the shelves is a bulletin board where you can post pix you've taken. Also near here are some bunnies you can sit on as they sit around egg shells. Eggs and watermelons are definite themes here.

About that Games Arcade: Here you will find a free guitar and some of the art on the walls is 'Take-a-Copy'. Of course, you can play the games, sit on Kimagure (AKA Bashful or Inky) from the Pac-Man game, or just hang out.

Lots of places to hang out in this sim. At most you can watch some video tutorials but others are just for fun. There are a couple "dueling" spots that I haven't figured out. Maybe I should have logged in one of my hundreds of Alts to help me. This spot is cool, even if you don't mess with the sky settings like this pic shows.

Of course, you'll find Torley's office. Kinda blends in with all the green and pink and .. erm .. artful clutter. So drop in to Here (yes, that is the Sim name) and explore, grab some freebs, and maybe even learn a few things.

Are Freebies Killing the Grid?

Of all the 16¾ tonnes of blogs about Second Life™ that one could read, VintFalken.com is one of my faves. But I was shocked at her post "Are Freebies a showstopper?" from today. Then when I saw it all stemmed back to comments by pundit/gadfly/lightning rod Prokofy Neva I relaxed and read on with some amusement.

Freebies from the Web

Ophelia's Gaze on New World Notes is usually just something I skim but this post caught my eye. It names several places with what appear to be some really excellent fashion freebs from hair to shoes. Check it out. I have the sculpted Painter Shoes from Shiny Things as mentioned in the article. Another pic has reminded me that I still need to make a Pris skin for my avie. Call me nuts, but I like the look.

n00bie frEEbie b0nanza

Have you looked into your basic, Linden Labs©℠®™-supplied inventory? Tons of new avatars there! A couple are from Grendel's Children! Check them out and read this blog post from Vint Falken.

update 18 June 2008: If you tried any of these avatars before today, check the folders again for updates.

Where the Heck did this come from?

Knowing what an object "really" is or knowing who made it can be very handy. For example, the Isle of Lesbos prohibits weapons and some ladies frequently try to tell us "but, hon, it's only decorative!" Or you don't want to ask someone where they got that nifty doohickyjiggerthingy they are wearing but you want one so badly you'll melt without it.

This is where "Inspect" comes in handy. Simply right-click on the object (sorry, doesn't work with mesh layers like skin or clothes) and choose More. If you don't see Inspect in the next menu, choose More again then choose Inspect. A window pops up showing the name of each prim, who owns them, and the creator of each prim.

If you want to visit the creator's shop, click the See Creator Profile ... button and check their Picks or Classified.

Second Life's™ own Torley Linden has a video tutorial demonstrating this feature on YouTube. And an earlier post on this blog describes a similar technique for gathering the same info. But no matter which way you do it, gathering the information can be quite useful. If only to keep you from melting.

Governor Linden Gives Freebies

So I popped into Bay City (SLurl) to grab the Freebies mentioned on the official SL™ blog and who did I find? Why it was Governor Linden! Sure, there is no "real" such person, but folks were pickled tink that she was there. Lucky Kitties Kira and Lerochelle begged to be teleported in to see the 'Supreme Overlord.' Also showing up was our 'Supreme Overlord' Serenity and Angela (not pictured below, but you can see her IM greeting to me).


Ms. Linden confirmed that the Mole avies used by the Linden Department of Public Works (wiki entry) were made by the very talented Wynx Whiplash. They got the avies free, but you can buy one at Extrovirtual.

Now if you are wondering why everyone is standing around, we were watching a Linden having trouble setting the box to be sold for L$0. Yep. The issue was mentioned on the official blog, too, but I figured it would be fixed by the time I got there. It wasn't, so I offered a free "giver' script. She declined my offer and put one of her own in -- then deleted it saying that a script showing her as the creator shouldn't be released in the wild. I choked back "But the script I'm happy to give you would deliver the contents in a folder without a copy of itself! And then folks wouldn't need to unpack the box!" Honestly, it is so hard to teach a Linden :::giggle:::

About the freebs ... some of the textures in the box are awesome! I look forward to using them. However, nearly every object that my wife rezzed from the pack was merely (oh! how can I put this politely?) ... Well, I'm sure that when I check the official work done by the moles it will be better than the mole-built freebies in the pack. Hey, I'm not a great builder (here's one), but get paid to do it by many who think I'm better than average. And these items were not quite up to being average.

Still, the freebs were generally nice and maybe I'm ultra picky. All-in-all, I do recommend heading out to get this Inventory-busting goodie (lots of stuff in the box). And if you see Governor Linden, say HI for me.