Greasy Joe’s PitStop

I FINALLY made it to Zindra. For breakfast, no less. *grin* Hey folks – remember – this blog is rated PG. Actually, I had to change my maturity setting to get to breakfast this morning. I didn’t know that I even HAD a maturity setting. I guess that’s part of what happened when I installed the latest SL viewer this week. I got maturity. /me makes note of several people that need to download the new viewer.

I was hanging about this morning, drinking my coffee, trying to wake up, when a shout came through the Hey Girlfriends group chat. It was JoyD, wondering if anyone was there. I passed JoyD a cup of coffee and replied that when I finished MY coffee, I would know if I was there or not. JoyD IM’d back and invited me to see his diner. A diner?????? OMG. I live in the diner capital of the world!!!! And if you don’t know WHERE that is, well, sigh, you live a deprived existence. Of COURSE I wanted to see the diner. So JoyD sent the taxi. That’s when it happened: my maturity setting did not permit me to tp there. Did I wish to change my maturity setting. Darn straight. I really do NOT want to get into this, but…. personally… LL is doing this backwards. The people who want a controlled environment should be segregated, not those of us who do NOT want a controlled environment. (Yes, I believe STRONGLY that areas of controlled environment are ESSENTIAL.) Anyway…. digression over. I changed my setting, called for the taxi and found myself in Greasy Joe’s PitStop, which is JoyD’s diner.

I LOVE Greasy Joe’s. *grin* I may have found a new place to hang while I drink my morning coffee. Or maybe that place to go when we’ve been partying all night and don’t want the evening to end. There are milkshakes and burgers. You can raid the refrigerator. I had to share the experience. I tp’d Panacea in. SHE knows where the diner capital is and she appreciates a good diner. Yeah, we swapped diner tales. The three of us sat there talking about diners and looking at diners for sale on xstreet, and moaning about prim restrictions that prevented the rezzing of a juke box and other fun items. The music stream there is great – sorry, it was hidden and I can’t tell you what it was. But it was wonderful – PERFECT diner tunes.

I had a great time talking with JoyD. Turns out that we have a lot of other interests in common – scripting, opensim, stuff like that. So of course we friended. When JoyD had to leave, Pan and I were still hanging about chatting. So I invited Natalya to join us for a real diner experience. (I’m fairly certain that Nat doesn’t know the TRUE diner capital of the world nor has she been there, but I love her anyway and maybe now she has a little taste for diners. *grin* ) I had to limit myself with photos here, but the whole set is up on my flickr account.

It was a wonderful way to start the morning, hanging with friends having breakfast in a diner. And all because I was hanging about in Hey Girlfriend group chat enjoying my morning coffee.

Happy Rez Day, Oura!

Oura had her first rez day this week! We celebrated by hitting as many events as we could in a limited period of time. We both love live music and dancing so you KNOW there was going to be a lot of that!

We started the evening at the Art Box. Dale blogged about this recently. It is a wonderful build and a lot of fun! Oura had been there earlier in the day and enjoyed it so much she insisted we go back so that I could try it. We picked Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks. One of the many nice features of Art Box is the background/description they supply for the pictures.
A Sonnet of Love / Rob Hefferan.
Rob Hefferan is an extraordinarily talented figurative artist & portrait painter, born in 1968 in Warrington, Cheshire, England. For Hefferan, realism is about bringing an awareness of the everyday in a very beautiful and optimistic way. Specialising in the female form, he says “”I aim to capture the character and soul of the sitter and to freeze that moment forever”.
Nighthawks / Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper, born 1882, was a prominent American realist painter, his piece ‘Nighthawks’ being generally considered Hopper’s most famous painting, as well as one of the most recognizable in American art. Painted immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, it reflected the sense of gloom prevailing in the country at the time. However, the portrayal of modern urban life as empty or lonely is a common theme throughout much of Hopper’s work; he said, “unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city.”
The Art Box ‘Nighthawks’ set was used in the creation of a machinima film intended to capture this sense of isolation in 3D. The film is on YouTube here: Nighthawks

From there we jumped to the Gallery of Light at the Crown and Pearl. Bailey Dazy is displaying her photography there this month and the opening for the show was that night. Besides being a fun person, gorgeous Neko and great dancer, Bailey is a resident of Angel Square and a DJ at the Crown and Pearl. About herself she said: “Second Life photography is a passion; it’s something I truly enjoy. When the mood strikes, I shoot… and I often enjoy what I see.” You can see Bailey’s photos at the CnP or on her Flickr site. Much as we wanted to stay and keep partying at the CnP to the tunes Bailey Longcloth was playing, time was working against us if we wanted to hit the live performances.

So it was off to Noma Falta rocking SL from Wiseguys. I love some of the dance balls I encounter. I don’t know about you, but I have NEVER done backflips or splits while I am dancing in RL. In SL, however, I can bend like Gumby. Better. So Oura caught these pics of us dancing on our heads. It helps when there is no law of gravity. By the way – if you notice the improved photo quality, that is because Oura took all these pictures. *grin* The difference is immediately apparent. Yay Oura!

While we were at Toby’s I found out that my friend Bob was DJ’ing at Ruby’s, rocking with the blues. Okay, I love the blues. I wanted to hear Bob DJ’ing. So although it hurt, we left Noma early and went to Ruby’s. I don’t think I’ve ever been there before. I like the dance floor and the synchronized dance balls. Faust had caught up to us at that point and he was partying alongside us. *grin* I think I’ve mentioned my good friend Faust before. Check out his cool hat.

We were having a great time at Ruby’s, dancing up a storm. But we were racing against the clock still and needed to make Von Johin’s concert at Ruby’s. *grin* Never a dull moment in SL. Von was great as ever. Faust saw someone wearing a green dragon on his shoulder and fell in love with the dragon. Faust IM’d the gentleman, who told Faust that the dragon was found in a hunt. I mentioned this to Oura. LOL. Oura not only KNOWS everything, she probably HAS everything in her inventory. In this case, she did NOT have the dragon, but she did know which hunt and which store. I am happy to say that Faust was able to track down the proper hunt and find the prize and now sports a dragon on HIS shoulder. *grin* It takes so little to make some of us happy. My dear friend Nat often has a bunny on HER shoulder and it always makes me smile.

The evening was getting long at this point. Von’s sim was full and Jonah couldn’t tp in to join us. I decided that perhaps it was time for me to call it quits – I’d already done quite a bit of adventuring on the road earlier in the day. So we timed it well and I tp’d out and Jonah was able to tp in and join Oura and Faust. I headed home to get tucked into bed and sleep, in preparation for a new day of partying!

Happy Rez Day, Oura! I hope you had as much fun as I did! I’m so glad we’re friends! Ahuva <3 Oura.

4 Dancing Chicks

On the fifth day of August, my true love gave to me:
4 dancing chicks
3 background folks
2 fantastic chims
and Von playing live yet again!

Von Johin has been very much in action lately and I have been loving every minute! Oura and I went chimera shopping earlier – she got hers, I was too tired to make a decision (yes, I seem to be back to being tired a lot. WHY isn’t 4 hours a night sufficient rest????) Dz has one of the best chims going – I LOVE dancing with Dz. So we all met up at Von’s concert. Sharon logged in and told me that she’d just graduated university!!! WHOOOO-EEEEEEEEEEEEEE Sharon!!!!! That is so fantastic!!!! So I tp’d her over and she jumped on Dz’s chim and the 4 of us danced up a storm. I am so proud of Sharon, let me say – she is smart, funny, talented. Congratulations, sweetie!!! She and Oura had already met, but I introduced her to Dz that night. Dz really is one of the best scripters I know. *grin* I love when my scripting friends hit it off. My friends are not only smart, but beautiful, inside and out.

I should mention that Dz and I were having a side conversation about my problems with my demo. Our demo has crashed the last four times we tried to run it. ???? I began to think Honour might be right and that it was my hair. I explained it to Dz who caught the culprit right away: my radar script. I had it cycling too frequently. So combined with other timers at the site, yeah, I crashed the region. LOL. Or at least that is the current theory. We’ve not had a chance to test it. So all you radar-wearing folks – be aware of what your scripts can do. Ahuva, Sim Destroyer.

Messages from RL

Well, I went to the reunion and survived. *grin* It was okay. Not traumatic, not wonderful. There were 3 positive events, so I guess I’d have to call it a win event. Will I go to the next one? No, probably not. Most of the evening was entirely superficial and repetitious. LOL. I did give my unfettered Ahuva free reign at one point. *grin* There is someone who may now regret having stood me up on our date way back in our senior year. And he may well be thinking of me in the future. /me smiles the wicked Ahuva smile.

My wonderful husband came through yet again for this year’s birthday. I asked for and got a new iPod. BUT….. he had it engraved. For all of you who ask “What does your husband think about your time in SL?” – he engraved it with both my RL and SL names. So now you know.

Chestnut had a fantastic blog the other day. Who is a content provider? Guess what – we all are. Even more to the point was Raven’s comment. Wow. I can’t say it better. Go read it for yourselves.

I’ll close with this thought. It’s triggered by 2 things: something that someone in SL said to a friend and by thoughts of my father.
Life is too short, folks. It could end tomorrow – snap! So I’m not playing games. I am who and what I am. I’m not backing down, I’m not running away. If there’s something I want – I’m going for it. I don’t intend to be rude. Yes, I may be forward. My apologies if I surprise or offend you along the way – that is not my intent. But I want to live NOW. I’m shooting for the stars. Today could be my last day. I’m not wasting it. Enjoy life!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Fine, it was only one day. But it was vacation. I have two laptops going – my work one and my gaming computer. I was on vacation. So I was inworld on the gaming computer (thank you again my dearest husband for my wonderful wonderful setup – I’m hoping this year’s birthday is MUCH better than last year).

I also had my work laptop up and running. I had my email and my calendar set to vacation. We have an internal IM system. I had my status set to away. I thought that should cover me. Because, you see, I was actually sneaking INTO work. You read that correctly – INTO work. Because I LOVE what I do – part of it, anyway. The other part I enjoy but it requires that I take vacation time. There was a meeting that I, omg, WANTED to attend. I had VOLUNTEERED (sheesh – not even a bus this time to run me over) to think up some ideas for an action plan. So I was on that computer also. And someone from the enjoyable part of work IM’d me, starting in on his issues. I watched the text grow and thought – I need to nip this in the bud. Now. /me blushes because I suspect my answer could be construed as “snarky”. Maybe even “rude”. I basically stated that I was on vacation. *grin* I suggested he take his issues elsewhere or he could wait for my return. I then changed my away status to the slightly stronger “Away on Vacation”. Since I was actually communicating with people about work through the work IM, I couldn’t really turn it off. See – life is so COMPLICATED when you lie about being at work. No – NOT at work. At work?

But most of the day I wasn’t working. I was playing. All day into the wee hours of the morning. Oh yeah. That may have been the most marathon session I have ever spent. /me smiles happily in recollection. Most of the day I spent with Oura, but lots of other friends dropped by or IM’d. We spent hours in the pool, without undue harm. Oura entertained us by dancing in her chains. What guy in the other tube? Later in the day Jonah dropped by to join us. The 3 of us splashed and played some more. Oura is right – I need many more animations for the pool, now that it is summer. Especially when people go AFK in my deck chairs so that they can work.

I spent time working on my AO for opensim. Although some people appreciated the AO I was using, I suspected that for an unanimated world, it might be a bit too strong. All of the poses were really bland by SL standards. But surrounded by newbies in default everything, the gestures seem more overstated. So what do you think of this new one I was trying? *grin* No? Or is it just the attire?

I love my SL house and friends. Last Friday’s vacation day was at the RL shore and was heaven on earth. This Friday vacation was at my SL pool and was wonderful. You can have your cake and eat it too.

NEVER Trust Your Friends

I stand before you a sadder but wiser woman this morning. I broke one of the great SL rules last night. SL and alcohol do NOT belong together. Especially for one such as myself, for whom a glass of white wine can pretty much be my limit. Yeah, I know – world’s cheapest drunk date. My coworkers used to LOVE going on business trips with me – I could never drink my share. Of course, that was in the days when corporate travel was allowed and when people were allowed to admit they enjoyed a drink now and then. Good grief – I even knew people who – GASP – smoked!!!!

This story actually starts the night before last. I met someone new and stayed up WAY too late chatting. It was lovely, but I really do need more than 3 hours of sleep. I relied on a super-large iced coffee, turbo’d, to get me through the morning at the office. By lunch I felt like I’d been kicked in the head. I actually left the office by 3:30 (omg – and the building didn’t collapse without me in it!!! rofl). But of course I logged back in to work when I got home. The rest of my family was heading out to the movies. I poured myself a glass of chilled wine, sat back and dealt with emails and such. A coworker contacted me about business – we ended up testing code, installations, etc. Poured myself another glass of wine, expecting to get some dinner when we were done. Oops. Moved into SL and floated in my pool chatting with a friend. Sipping wine, floating, chilling. It was truly lovely. Said friend left. Okay – time for dinner! But first – I went to answer a plea for help at an MM board. *grin* How could you NOT want a Toblerone chocolate sword?????

I tp’d to the board. Saw Dale logon just then so I tp’d Dale over for the sword too. *grin* Dale likes chocolate. As we stood there clicking the board – WHAM. That wine and the fatigue just came right up and slammed me. I truly could not see – my eyes simply teared, couldn’t think, and knew that I was way way past any coherent or reasonable behavior. I threw myself on Dale’s mercy. Explained that I was done-for. I needed rescuing. LOL. Dale actually had to remind me how to get back home. Once there – how to climb onto my bed. Which I seem to recall missing about 3 times before I got there. Oura had logged on in the meantime and said Hi. I said – I’m trashed, contact Dale. And that, dear readers, was my mistake.

Dale and Oura. OH, how ye have BETRAYED me. /me lets tear run down my cheek. My property is protected. You must be in my group to rez objects on my land. Only MY FRIENDS are in that group. I logged in this morning to get my MM winnings. Which – by the way – I never got because I was so stunned when my house rezzed. THEY TRASHED MY ROOM!!!!!!!!!! OMG – they stole my bed, they left garbage piled up (with FLIES no less), they obscured my artwork, left empty bottles. I recoiled in shock and horror. eeeeewwwww It was so GROSS!!!!! I still can’t quite figure out what is under my bears. or the big white waving things (toilet paper streamers???) I’m SURE I did not have a ceiling fan. Is that from the pool table downstairs????

Hell – here’s a public apology to you. *grin* I saw your plurk yesterday about being bored and wanting to party and live it up. When I saw my room – I thought you and Nat had been there and done that. *grin* I guess you were too busy doing whatever to Prad’s floor. *hugs*

So dear reader – learn from my mistake. SL and alcohol don’t mix. Never trust your friends. Don’t give anyone rez rights.

Um, Dale, Oura – could one of you PLEASE give me back my bed??????

Snapshots from Yesterday

This is NOT the post I intended for today. *grin* Now doesn’t that make me sound organized and thoughtful? As if I actually PLAN for my blog. I really really want to post about the Crown and Pearl. I had so much fun there last week. But yesterday was a real treat for me in the way of seeing friends. So often we only get to wave at friends in IM. Then you look up and realize it has been days since you actually talked. That’s why today’s post is a snapshot of my stolen moments with friends.

zazek and I so rarely get time to play. We have hunted Easter eggs together, visited AM Radio’s The Red and The Wild together. But mostly we only exchange a few words in IM and then one of us has to run. Last night we actually had time to talk, catch up on life. zazek is doing something that I can’t do. Even if I were capable of doing it – I probably would not be brave enough to do it. zazek began blogging a few weeks ago. “So?” you might ask. “Doesn’t EVERYONE blog these days?” Maybe. But zazek is not writing in her native language. I only know one language. I have a smattering of others but certainly no competency. Even if I KNEW another language well, I doubt I would be writing in it. So zazek has my great admiration and respect! Her blog is fun to read, too! *grin* Check it out for yourself.

Dark and I used to have time to dance and party and fly planes. Then somehow my schedule got totally out of control. We chatted periodically, but rarely ended up in the same SLURL. Yesterday we were chatting about building. I am still fairly intimidated by manipulating prims. I simply do not understand path cut and taper and shear. I know, I know – you all tell me to “try it, play, experiment”. I do not learn that way. I like having another human being nearby who can answer questions. Dark tp’d me to a sandbox to give me a quick introduction to torturing prims. *grin* I did my best – teasing a pink torus. But you can see that Dark REALLY knows how to torture prims. It was a quick start, but he’s promised we can do it again. YAY!!! Thank you, Dark!

Oura got home yesterday. *hugs* Welcome back, Oura. I missed you. We started in immediately on girl talk, catching up on the week’s events for us both. I told her about my escapades at work, trying to move my AO and boots and hair over to opensim. We started inventory diving – looking for any fullperm boots and clothing. LOL. We tried on some pretty amazing outfits. I promised her I would NOT take pictures or blog, so you will simply have to imagine the wet T shirts that we found. Is that okay, Oura? Can they use their imaginations???? Oura also noticed that my bear either smokes or the room was excessively cold, causing breath condensation. Being in a silly mood, we somehow decided that the bear was indulging in a post activity cigarette. *grin* Since none of the other bears were smoking, there is still some mystery here. We ended up standing on the bed, swapping freebie outfits, finally finishing the evening as twins.

I guess I haven’t mentioned work in the last few days. I’ve been involved with the usual building for the demos. We’ve been meeting with others trying to learn more about opensim and developing in virtual worlds. We’re making great progress, imho. We plan to begin demo’ing to folks next week. I’ve been attending meetings in a variety of virtual worlds. As you know, I really get tired of being “dweebie”. A friend wrote and gave me an AO that works in opensim, another friend taught me how to build my own AO in SL using the ZHAO. I bought poses and FINALLY understand (somewhat) what happens in my AO. Maybe I will finally have the courage to toss the 2 poses I dislike. I have different hair as well. I have been learning to wheel and deal with builders and scripters. I’ve also been friending coworkers and enjoying all the cool lectures and such that are available. Have I mentioned recently how much I enjoy my job? And now I even have boots and hair.

Happy 2nd Rez Day, Chestnut!!

Happy, happy rez day, Chestnut!!!! I hope you have a wonderful, fun, perfect day and a great year to come! I know that this is an “old” look for you, but it happens to be one of the best shots that I have. I suppose I could have gone to your blog and lifted some pictures (gee, I wonder where I got THAT idea from ????) but since I had so much fun at the Rave of Aquarius – I decided to use my pic from there.

Chestnut was one of the first “names” I learned in SL. I read her blog, learned so much about what was what in SL. I remember the first time that she commented back on MY comment on her blog!!! I was so excited. We began talking through our blogs and then became friends inworld. Chestnut always was helpful and upbeat. She helped save me when I threw myself under the bus at work, volunteering to make trees for the upcoming major conference. Over time we became closer, giggling together as girlfriends do, sharing confidences, catty remarks (okay, that would be me *grin* , I would never claim that Chestnut would make snarky remarks), life observances, RL occasions. We have been fairies together, danced together, Rave’d together, listened to music together, and provided tissues and comfort to each other.

I love you, Chestnut! Thank you for turning me on to live music in SL. Thank you for all your posts about sailing – I never would have known/tried it/loved it without your posts. Thank you for introducing me to the world of blogging. Thank you for all the friends you shared (one of the biggest blessings you ever gave me was introducing me to Honour). Thank you most of all for being you, in all your wonderful warm, talented, giving, imperfect, understanding, embracing-life self. Thank you for being my friend.

I wrote this for you before, and it is still true for me:
Warm, thoughtful Chestnut
Always a hand to help friends
Giant, noble heart.

But also:
Giggles and laughter
FUN to be silly with you
Your friendship warms me

Stylish Carriage

I get in to my office nearly 2 hours ahead of most of my coworkers. I CLAIM that I get in early to try to get work done. But as you know, what really happens is that I spend that time catching up on SL friends and fun. The other morning Calli and I were chatting and she told me she had a new toy: Stylish Carriage. Of course I needed to go there and SEE it. *grin*

It LOOKS very unprepossessing. I mean, it’s a little rusty. Not much in the way of a paint job. No spoiler bar. And for sure – NO air bags. Sorry – I just bought a car in RL. These things are on my mind. Calli assured me not to be fooled by the looks – that this baby could MOVE. “Sit!” she commanded. Sit I did. And yes – I of course forgot to turn my AO off first (Dz tells me that there is an AO w/ an auto feature to save me from this recurrent embarassment.) So Calli vroomed her feet and off we went!!!

ZOMG. What a hoot! The photos are terrible because I was laughing too hard, we were moving too fast, the whole thing was simply ridiculous and I couldn’t type comments fast enough to Calli and take pictures – zoom in, zoom out. I missed the sparks flying from the back the first time we did tight circles. *grin*. Don’t want to miss the sparks!!!! Calli realized that my AO was overriding the cart so we started again, this time with me standing. Oh yeah, MUCH more fun!!!

Calli vroomed me about in her carriage for several minutes while we laughed and laughed and laughed. Then she showed me the “package delivery” feature. The same people make a shopping cart with a shopping basket. She showed me the basket also. I am a NICE person. Really, I AM. I help old people across the street (I’m going to be old some day). I help crying children. I don’t kick dogs. But when Calli went sprawling on her face and the groceries went flying all over, I am ashamed to report that I literally laughed out loud staring at the screen. I suppose I should confess that I used to find the 3 Stooges funny also. I bet most people wouldn’t have guessed that. Anyway, the carriage is hilarious as is the shopping basket. I’ve not yet seen the shopping cart, but I understand Shen has already gotten HERS!!! I am heading back to pick up MY shopping cart and we will be having races. *grin* Care to join us? /me digs through LMs looking for correct one…..

Hi There!

Okay, I’m really neglectful. It’s been ages since I posted here. I actually started a post Thursday morning and then I had to – GASP!! – work!!!! OMG! How rude can they be???? Expect me to actually do THEIR work instead of MY pleasure? Oh wait – I love my work. Never mind….. *grin*

It’s been a really good week, both RL and SL. I bought my son a car in RL. It was nearly as easy as buying one in SL, but nowhere near as inexpensive. And he’s already run his first EZPass because he forgot his car doesn’t have one. Yet. /me makes note to self. Work is going well – lots of positive conversations and feedback. Lovely RL indulgence on Thursday (none of your business ). Seeing friends.

And in SL – oh wow – seeing friends BIG TIME!!!! I was back at the Crown and Pearl not once but TWICE!!!! OMG – How I have missed that place and those people. I had a hilarious morning with Calli – that’s the post I actually have half-written. It’s coming, I promise. She finds the best toys. I went dancing with another friend at the kind of place and kind of outfit that I simply can’t mention on this blog. Oops. I discovered Midnight Mania boards and got a Red Succubus War Queen outfit. *grin* Yes, there ARE pictures out there. I could NOT resist trying it on. I LOVE it. I’m sure if you offer enough, one of my dear friends will betray me. Make ME an offer. Dale and I went to a great little party. We rode a carriage and danced and chatted and laughed. I should probably post THAT, too. And I got some good work accomplished the last 2 days – built a platform for the latest demo, accessorized it, “acquired” a teleport script to move us from the office to the sky platform (you have to love Google and people who want to share their scripts).

I think, however, that there is a storm cloud on the horizon. I have a strong suspicion that my next-door neighbor wants to buy my property. I logged in this morning to find a “I HAVE to talk to you IM”. And since we don’t ever talk, and since she’s been doing extensive remodelling….. well, that’s what I think. Sigh. You KNOW how bad I am at decisions. And I love my property. Where would I go?

But right now…. RL is calling – have a brunch to attend. Where the chef is phenomenal and so many good friends will be there. So my blogging must wait yet again. And I MISS Oura, who is away for a few days. So after all my running about yesterday (scripting, Noma concert, CnP, MM boards, buying new hair), I went to Oura’s and relaxed in her chair and missed her.

I’m not sure I’ve mentioned this before – but I really, really, REALLY love my life in SL. *grin*