day 263 – What does it meeeaaaannnnn????

I was in a bad mood earlier today. I mean, just a foul, bear of a mood. Well, it was easily remedied by eating, but while I was all angry, I was watching some of the YouTube videos I’ve marked in my favorites. One of them happens to be the Double Rainbow guy. I can’t help it. He’s hysterical! And I love to watch videos of people filled with joy, and honey, it doesn’t get more joyful than that!

I went to XStreet to try to find one, but I couldn’t seem to find a listing for a double rainbow. I turned to Plurk, as I usually do, and of course the adorable Aisuru offered to make one for me. I love itttttt!!!

DOUBLE RAINBOW! It’s too muchhhhh! Double raaaaiiinnnnbowwww…. It’s so intense!

Nothing like a pork chop and a double rainbow. It makes every mood better!

Day 253 – Nothing to gripe at!

I’m in one of those “I really wish I had something huge to bitch about” moods. But I don’t. Things are good. Anything I could gripe about is pretty damn small. I could gripe about how I’m beginning to dislike the one day sales because I keep feeling like I’m missing something and I think creators are truly shooting themselves in the foot now with them. I could bitch about this chick that put me and a bunch of other bloggers on her deliverator list, sent us affiliate vendors and demo packs and the demos expire after 4 hours and looked like they should have expired in 2005. I could even simply just talk smack about how I love HGTV but it makes me want my house done up differently and I have no skills or energy to do all the stuff. But I won’t talk shit about that because HGTV has some freakin’ HOT men on there and that makes up for everything. Seriously. Watch a few shows sometime. The guys are eye candy like mad.

I was taking pics in the new Calypso’s Cave from Belle Belle earlier because before I blog any builds, I take a billion pics BEFORE taking the actual blog pics just to make sure I can get all the angles and stuff right, and this picture was in the middle of a bunch. I went buckwild crazy in Photoshop with it. Suffer through my post processing!!

I think it’s time to curl up with some HGTV and watch some hot men home decorating shows.

Day 63 – All that and a bag of bitch

I’m in one of those “Don’t ask for my opinion, because I’ll give it and you’re not going to like it” moods today. So I’m hiding out in my skybox.

This is my favorite skybox at the moment. It’s across from my photo area, so I just hop back and forth when necessary. It’s my little quiet place away from everything. I believe only one other person has ever spent any time in there with me, that’s how guarded I am with my skybox. lol

So did you guys see the Vain “awards” nominees? Excuse me while I gag a bit. Some of them I do agree with, but most… gah, are you kidding me? Styles of Edo? Puh-LEEZE. The Jazzologist? Who in the world is that? Models hardly anyone has heard of, stores where only a bare few people bother shopping at anymore because, I don’t know, it’s not 2007 anymore… Everyone’s been joking about these on Plurk today. I don’t know who exactly was doing the nominations, but good grief. Of course, if I ever actually paid attention to the Vain group anymore, I might have seen that there was some voting to be going on, but I close pretty much every notice & group chat pretty quick these days. I’m not even sure why I’m still in the group.

So last night the homes tour continued and we all headed over to Heidi’s and Black’s home. Oh my god, their house makes mine feel so completely lonely and dull. LOL!

Their home is very steampunkish, and just….very cool! They have lots of great little details here and there and it was really fun getting to visit them with other friends. 🙂

They have a TIME MACHINE, for pete’s sake!

Fricker had to stop and gaze at himself, but Heidi wouldn’t let him use her lipstick.

This is where the magic happens!

Any time I get together with my buddies, it’s a good time. 🙂 Although I will admit, visiting their home made me a little sad that I live alone. lol Tomorrow the tour continues as we invade visit Asthenia’s home!

I’m feeling bratty as hell, so I really better close this down before I start talking about something else.

Big Bitch Sunday

I’m not feeling so hot today, so let’s start off with me getting some stuff off my chest. You know how we do Love Thursday? Well, look out for Big Bitch Sunday.

I hate the new LeLutka skin because it looks like shit on my face, I am not a fan of the whole zombie look, I can’t stand that ::69:: charges for their group and has $1L demos that come in 3 sizes when their hair only comes in 1 size, I hate tier time because I don’t feel comfortable or feel like I can shop until I know it’s paid, I hate that I never get even near enough time with the people I love, and I hate that it’s still rainy, gray, and gross in my physical world.

There’s a big hubbub right now that fashion bloggers need to disclose if they paid for what they are reviewing or if they got it for free as a review copy. And that’s fine. I don’t mind telling people if someone was kind enough to give me something for free that they want me to promote on my blog. I’m more than happy to do it. But I do think there’s going to be a huge bitchfit if all the review bloggers start doing it. Most people think that anything we blog, we get for free anyway. For those of us who are not big time bloggers, that’s just not true. A lot of us pay for what we review. However, there are some bloggers that haven’t paid for a thing in ages because they ask for review copies and kiss a lot of designer ass. I died today when I asked a designer I love for a review copy, even though she told a group to please ask for a copy of her latest work if we wanted to blog it. But if some people knew how much free swag certain bloggers got, it would make them sick.

What else can I bitch about? Oh, plurk. There are 2 people on plurk that I absolutely cannot stand. One was a friend who showed her true colors to me recently and one has always been someone I don’t like. The problem? They are friends with almost every one of my plurk buddies, so I have to see them blah blah blahing all over the place. It makes it EXTREMELY hard not to reply back to their ridiculous comments sometimes, so as a result, I end up having to mute a lot of my friends’ plurks. It really sucks. And drama breeds on plurk, and the last thing I want to do is add to it. God knows some of these “fashionistas” can’t ever stop picking at scabs in order to make someone bleed. At least I stay quiet. Usually.

But it’s not all bad today. I get to blog a dress from someone I’ve long admired, I saw a cute movie on TV, and I have new hair.

Hopefully I’ll be able to have some fun tonight in SL. I really kind of think I need it. Badly.

Lag

So I’ve been thinking about something a lot lately and since I’m in kind of a foul mood today, I figured it was the best time to be a total bitch about it. 🙂

Lag. Ok, I understand lag. I understand that if you put too many avatars in a place, there will be lag. I understand that too much of anything in Second Life can cause lag. We practically brought down Bluebonnet yesterday by throwing down a billion physical Legos. And I also understand that a person’s computer can be the source of their own lag. I understand all that.

However, it stands to reason that if someone around you is scripted all to hell and primmed out beyond belief, that you will be lagged out too, right? I know what they keep saying. “ARC is a myth! It’s all a myth!” Well, I’ve been in SL too long to not know that when an avatar with tails, ears, weapons, bling, and frizzy ugly flexi hair walks by, I’m going to lag. I’m sorry, it’s true. If it’s never happened to you, you must be on one super powerful computer. Please do not give me all the blog posts on how it’s not true. I’ve read them. They make sense…right until one of those avatars walks past me with particles shooting out of their butt makes me slow to a crawl – and I DO have a powerful computer.

I’ve been wanting to go to Hair Fair since it opened. I managed to make it in once, but it was so horrible, I ended up crashing out. And the rules are there. Don’t wear too much stuff. Don’t wear too many prims. Not that I saw many people complying with the rules, but they are there.

People started telling me things to do to reduce my lag while I was there. Put the settings to the very very lowest. Ok, that did help some, but now everything looks crappy. Turn off the sky. Great, now it’s like I’m shopping under a black sky. Turn off the surface patch, the water, turn off anything I can. Oh…ok…So now I’m basically just looking at busy sculpties and busy textures. Well…that’s cool?

The final straw was when a friend of mine said I could turn off how many avatars I saw. I did it, although it didn’t help all that much since the flexied, frizzy, blinging avatar that I was standing near was still there. But it really got me thinking.

If I have to go somewhere, take away EVERYTHING, even the people standing around me, what kind of fun is that?!

I think better sim designs and people following rules set by sim owners would be better. I know that no matter what, fairs and expos are going to be laggy. I expect them to be laggy and I plan my outfit and how I go there accordingly, as do most people who attend these events regularly. But something really should be done, because having to walk around at a 64m draw distance with a flat black sky and no ground and nothing’s shiny and 5 avatars are flickering in and out…that does not make me feel like shopping. And a world where I don’t feel like shopping is really a bad bad world.

A bit of a catty post. A bit. :-p

So Sophia and I finished up our 5 Day No Shopping Except Freebies, Dollarbies, Group Gifts, and Lucky Chairs Challenge. It’s Saturday in Australia. Don’t judge. :-p

We ran over to Truth to hit up the sale and ick. LOL There was so much bad fashion and crazy people, I didn’t know what to think. We even got kind of surrounded by this!

Alicia Chenaux: omg, this is going to be a whole wtfug post. bling blanging at truth.
Sophia Harlow: it is unreal
Sophia Harlow: i think you are a fug magnet
Sophia Harlow: ive never seen anything like this

I should have put that guy in WTFug, but that would have been too easy. LOL Plus I didn’t get a very good picture of him because I was blinded by his partner’s bling.

Oh, also this random guy kept going away. I don’t know who he was, but it really bugs me when people go Away in stores because I feel like if they can’t be bothered to stay there long enough to shop and leave and free up a spot for someone else, especially during a sale, then they need to just NOT be there. Log out or something.

Alicia Chenaux: there. i finally pushed that guy’s head into the wall. that’s what he gets for going away so much.
Sophia Harlow: omg go stand next to him and take a picture

After all the fun at Truth, we went our separate ways and I hopped around the grid picking up things that I saw this week and wanted and couldn’t buy. I got the cutest shirt that I really should have taken a picture of, but I’m sure I will at some point because I love it. While I was hopping around, we got into a discussion about the new Ingrid shoes from Stiletto Moody. Personally, I’ve yet to see anyone in world who has the fake foot the same color as their skin on the first BARE shoes that came out. I saw a blog post earlier on the new Ingrid ones and the SHOES themselves are just wonderful. Probably because they’re “inspired” by a Gucci heel. [See what I did there?] If these shoes were available without the freaky foot, I’d probably buy them, a sentiment shared by many of my friends. But looking at them on the stand, in just a plain Daylight setting….

Uh. Not hardly.

I’m NOT paying $2199L for a wrinkled ankle with a big seam line. No no no.

And what’s up with the no demo thing still? SM is over a year old, right? Hello? I wouldn’t even buy $50L hairs today without demoing them first. LOL

I’m completely starving [as I have been all day] so I think it’s dinner time and then more SL time. 🙂

Oversized Shopping

I have a bone to pick today. [No no no, not Bone. Don’t hit me, Sehra!!] As I’ve been shopping quite a bit lately for the dress up challenge, I’ve finally realized something that I have kind of thought for a few weeks now.

Shopping is getting to be too BIG. No, not just big in “Oh my god, everyone’s shopping constantly!” But big in the size sense!

I understand almost everything in SL is oversized. Prim skirts are almost always hula hoops. Couches are so huge, a person looks like a 5 year old trying to sit. Couples poses are never “right” because you’d have to be a whale or a giant to get it to fit correctly. I get it. And you don’t want your store to be TOO tight and small, because of camming. But good grief!!

First of all, let’s talk landing points. You paid for a whole sim, good for you! Guess what? Most of us aren’t there to look at your sim when all we want is a skirt. Forcing us to land on one side of the sim when your store is on the other side of the sim is just rude! I cannot tell you all how many times I’ve landed somewhere and asked, “Where is the store???” A lot of the time, I’ll just leave. Hey, you don’t want to show me where your stuff is right away, that’s cool. There’s someone else who wants my money. Put us at the front door. That way, we can go in and shop, and then explore your sim later if we have time. Artilleri is a store that I believe does this correctly. You land at the door, and then you can turn around and go check things out when you’re done. Not only that, but there are scooters to ride around the sim! That’s even more fun!

Second, what’s up with having several buildings? If you only have 7 hair styles and 10 outfits, there’s no need to have us walking halfway across a sim to look at things. Condense! ETD has a million hairs and a lot of clothes and accessories, and they’re all nicely packed into one not-overly-large building. If you absolutely feel it necessary to have 10 buildings spread out all over, please provide a TP board so we can get where we want to be without getting frustrated. I promise you I personally will spend more money if I find what I need quickly.

And last – just the size of the buildings are getting enormous. If I have to turn up my draw distance to 400 just to see to the other side, it’s too big. If I have to fly to get from one side to the other, it is too big. [I totally hate flying in stores, anyway. Personal preference.] The worst offenders of this are the people who make huge stores for 5 items. Honey, set up a tent. If you’re going to have a gigantic store, you need to fill it up. And maybe you have aspirations to later fill it up. I don’t know. All I know is that when I walk in to a huge store and see 4 things, I really start to wonder.

Maybe I’m the only one who has these problems. Maybe everyone else is happy with running all over a store to find one item. But much like my real life, I will spend more if you show me more without me having to jump through hoops. Maybe others are the same. Just a little something to think about.

This and That.

I suck at Poser. LOL I’m super cereal about this, too. I downloaded and installed the SL avatars to use, I turned off the inverse kinetics or whateverthehell, and then the little avatars said O Hai, U Suck, and proceeded to do their own thing. :-p I’m usually really good about picking up programs fairly quickly, but I think this one I may have to actually read up on or something. I WILL learn it, because I’ll be damned if there’s a program out there that I can’t at least learn the basics of. I’m not asking to animate a jive. I just want a nice couch pose. LOL

You know what really bugs me about FashCon lately? I mean, aside from the 50,000 stupid group notices everyday, half of which are “oops, forgot my LM/notecard/texture!” The fact that there doesn’t seem to be a real screening process for who gets to post notices. I could sign up as a designer, I guess. I make crap to wear. But I wouldn’t because I am not that good. If I ever get better in the quality of my builds, then maybe I might feel like I can be up there with the better creators. Until then I’ll just be over here in the corner. But then I see everyone who has half a store in FashCon sending out crazy notecards that are misspelled and lame. OH! That brings me to another thing. Using textspeak in “business” notecards. A notice that comes through with “And then u will look grate in ur new cloths” usually doesn’t make me want to run my ass over and grab the “cloth.” LOL I know not everyone has English as their first language, and I know PLUH-ENTY of native English speakers who couldn’t write a coherent sentence if it would save their life, but wow. It’s business, right? Maybe I’m just a bitch. LOL

OMG, check it out! I’m totally on the wall in the slideshow at Striking Poses!!

While I was out there waiting to see my pic, a neko was there with her tail like, in her butt, not coming from her spine. I should have taken a picture of that.

I think I ate too much. I have a headache. It’s a chicken headache!