Another new me

I decided I wanted a better skin than the “Hot n Hairy” one I bought early on, and I also wanted prim hair that worked well with the skin. So after trying lots of demos, I decided on “Dusky hairy” by Max (available only in brown) and two hair styles from Naughty Designs. In this photo I’m wearing “Gabriel’s Hair” in sable.

Close runners-up were “Tawny hairy” and “Tawny red” by Max (if they had a hairy redhead, I’d have gone for it); “Dante” tan and light from Naughty Designs (fewer choices in facial hair and lack of chest hair did them in, although having a crew-cut option was very attractive); and CMFF’s “Hairy Male” and “Hairy Male 2” (which are nice photorealistic skins, but they have no options except a well-done built-in crew-cut). The Naughty Designs hair options were plentiful and well-done, so I pretty much confined my looking to them. Even so, I needed to tweak my head shape a bit (come to find out the shape was doing more than the size to give me a bad fit with this hair).

All in all, I’m happy with the L$4,600 I spent. I may even go back and buy a premade shape from by Max. Although I’m pretty happy with my shape, it’s a bit tall. I’ll live in it with this skin and hair for a while before I try anything else, though.

Dragon dance

There was a dance in Limbo tonight (every other Friday night at 7 SL time), and it was lots of fun. I tried dancing as a Spirit Dragon for a while, but it’s awfully big and disorienting. I also tried playing an elven drum for a while. But here I am dancing with an artsy shot up at flying/dancing dragons.

I hope it survives

I’m having a ball in SL (and I’ve certainly ploughed in enough money already), but the instability of their infrastructure is worrisome, especially in light of their exponential growth. I just hope they can keep up and keep the grid open more consistently than they have so far since I joined.

Live from the Wyrm hatching

I’ve been on Cathedral for a couple of hours already, waiting for the midnight (Linden time!) hatching of Daryth Kennedy’s Wyrms. I still can’t decide between the Spirit and Royal Wyrms!

By all accounts the noon hatching was a chaotic nightmare–the sim was burdened and LL was having some problems as well, as I hear. Daryth & co. had a backup plan, which entailed buying a red box, but some people seem not to have heard (or paid attention) to the instruction to buy it. Sometime after Daryth said “Go” the sim crashed. There was a big crowd in Limbo for quite a while until things began to get sorted out.

So now I’m sitting here, along with about forty others. Here’s some of the crowd (many “away”):

And here’s the Grand HedgeWyrm herself, Daryth Kennedy (in one of her many guises so far tonight):

My first flexi-prim

The Peace flag hanging from my porch is my first successful flexi-prim. I used a do-it-yourself flag kit, so I had instructions–but it still required a fair bit of tinkering because I was doing a banner-type flag. I made the texture in Photoshop (with some gnashing of teeth), it’s 256px the long way. I can’t tell if it’s a good size for 2.5m, because when I get up close the type is definitely pixelated, but it may be anti-aliasing. I’ll have to try a straight graphic, I guess.

New home at Dragon Hill

17th December, 2006

This is the Rockridge, a prefab Craftsman bungalow. It was an absolute breeze to put together (there’s a box that rezzes and positions (and repositions) everything. I’d like to change the shingles, but I need to find the right texture. The darker shingles I have are too small at the same size as these are (and these are a bit too small–it makes it look like it’s brick). I took out the kitchen cabinets and accessories to save prims (and really, who needs a kitchen in a SL house?), and then I needed to redo a wall. Well, I got to know it a bit better that way.

Fantastic art gallery

I went to the Phoenicia Center for Contemporary Art (Egremont/116/63/34). One of the shows is photography by Phil Borges. He’s done portraits of people from endangered cultures, mostly Asian and African. It’s a powerful exhibit.

Creative Commons anniversary party

Tonight the Creative Commons folks threw a fourth anniversary party. I went briefly to check it out. It’s the first time I’ve really been in a large group. They seemed to be having technical difficulties with their video feed, but there was nice music streaming. I people watched for a bit:

And I think I looked stylish in my free Winter Festival T-shirt:

Changing land ownership

I’ve continued to wheel-and-deal with land ownership, which has been so far a generally positive experience. I had a very nice visit with a representative of Anshe Chung, and I found out directly how she’s made her millions–the L$ I was offered for the property was very low. By waiting it out (and subdividing the property) I’ve been able to get pretty good selling prices. Interestingly, most of the land I’ve sold has gone straight back onto the market, so I’m still selling a bit low.

I’ve sold the Geoje land (after deleting the house and landscaping!) and most of the Lota mountainside. The remaining land in Lota I’ve just split into two 512 m2 parcels, since those seem to move much faster.

And what have I done with the capital? I’ve plunked it down on some hillside and waterfront in Pockwock. The price per m2 was higher than anything else I’ve bought, but I think this will be a keeper. I had two nice conversations with neighbors when I was just looking at properties, and it gave me a really good feeling about the sim.