Someone’s junk is someone else’s history.

Earlier today on Plurk, Daniel Voyager showed us this notecard from YadNi Monde of YadNi’s Junkyard fame.

I remember heading to YadNi’s back in the day. YadNi’s, Sarah Nerd’s, The Free Dove…they were heaven to a newbie. But YadNi’s was the first, and when you go, you can even check things out by date, starting from when the Junkyard began in April 2004.

Six years later, we face YadNi’s closing down. And I know what a lot of people are saying. “So? There are better freebies. That stuff is old. There is free stuff everywhere from big designers.”

The thing is? These items are our history. In some ways, it’s like a museum of old SL artifacts. Yes, our legacy might be old rave sticks and system shoes, but if we don’t have somewhere to look at the old items, how will we be able to see how far we’ve come? There’s a reason that museums in the physical world are fun to go to – you get to see life before air conditioning and internet. At YadNi’s, there are even big maps of SL on the walls, dating back to 2002!

I grabbed some items from the April 2004 shelves. I couldn’t help it! You all know what a prefab addict I am and there was a box of free houses. The funny thing is that some of them were “kits.” You couldn’t just get a house, you had to build it yourself. I attempted the September 2003 House In A Box, Log Cabin edition.

Now here’s something that a lot of people don’t know these days: Back a long time ago, before 2006, SL residents had to pay to rez prims. And not only did they have to pay to rez them, they had to pay to keep them out. Can you even imagine?? So on my notecard for the Log Cabin, it said:

“This is a fairly large house, and it will cost you a pretty penny to build. Depending on some customization choices, the actual building can cost as much as L$3000, and your maintenance taxes will be considerable.”

Wow. There really IS no such thing as a free lunch, huh?

Luckily, I’m living in 2010 where I can rez prims for free. [Um, relatively free.] So I pulled out the box and looked at the picture.

Well, that seems simple enough.

The folder contained several pieces for the house, and some extra textures for customizing. I was instructed to rez the base out first, and then lock it down so I wouldn’t accidentally move it. Heck, I wish I’d remembered those instructions before taking the bedroom off of my house the other day and landing in the grass.

Ok, the base is down. Do you see the big red thing on the side? That’s the positioning pin, which is very important. You have to line up the other pieces with their positioning prims to get it just right. In many ways, this is GREAT for newbies because it helps teach building and camming, including the ctrl-alt-left button hold to scroll around the screen. I always just see people do alt-click to zoom. The other one is so much easier to use. Oh, I’m getting off topic.

A few moves and pieces down, and boom! I had a free “vintage” house that would have cost me at least $3000L back in 2003. Geez. I wouldn’t even pay that much for a house now!

And sure, I’m not going to use it. But the fact is, I got it for free and without YadNi’s, I might not have ever found it. It’s history. From the notecard to the build, it’s history.

You know what else is hanging out at YadNi’s that probably some designers would rather forget? Clothes.

Do you know who made those jeans? Nephilaine Protagonist of PixelDolls. And that top? Why, none other than Launa Fauna of L.Fauna/Chai. So many names in these boxes. And you can see their potential.

It’s usually only in places like YadNi’s Junkyard that we can find the old items. We can look at them, laugh, and say, “Wow, what an amazing trip it has been so far! I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!”

Day 96 – A true hump day happiness

I’ll fully admit that sometimes I’m a “plurk first, think later” type of person. Almost all of my friends are on plurk, so it’s just natural for me to rush over there when I’m sad or happy or whatever and bang out what’s going on.

Last night after the trivia party, I decided to check out 69L Hump Day Happiness. I love sales, but like a lot of people, I get tired of all these daily sales. Even worse, I am starting to not find anything I like at all. So when I DO see something in the notecards that is actually cute, and knowing it’s on sale too?? Well, I cannot run over fast enough!

Last night I saw some really cute shoes in the notecard from Adam & Eve. I skipped over happily to go buy them, because when can you really buy super cute shoes for less than $300L these days? Heck, if you can get them for under $500L, that’s almost too good to be true. At $69L, I was excited!!

But then, not so excited when I got there and they were $269L. What the heck? It’s $69L Hump Day Happiness, this does not make me happy! So I ran to plurk to whine. Yes, whine. It’s not that I didn’t have the money. It wasn’t that I was even being cheap. I just didn’t realize that those participating in this particular event could have something else up as long as it has 69 in the end, like 169L or 269L.

Luckily, it’s a good thing I said something on plurk, because other people did not know this either! I wasn’t the only one! Thank God! LOL 🙂 Hump Day Happiness organizer Catty Loon is one of my plurk friends, and she explained it all out to me. Plus, my plurk was helpful to her because they are still ironing out the bumps in this event. Yay for helping!

When I logged in earlier, I had a really nice note from Damen Gorilla, the creator of the cute shoes. He apologized for the misunderstanding, AND he sent me a pair of the adorable Valentine shoes!

It is amazing when you receive such service from someone when you haven’t even bought anything. Although I know many generous designers, one that goes the extra mile for someone that hasn’t really been a customer is something amazing. In fact, I was so pleased, I went out tonight to check out more shoes and bought a couple of pairs. He’s got a customer for life in me now, and for this hump day, I couldn’t be happier. ❤

Episode 1077: The One Where I Spam You

There’s a lot going on, y’all!!

TODAY AT 1PM SLT!!!!!! The Shoe Expo fashion show!!!! My adorable Sophia is walking in it, and I think she might be a little nervous, so please come out and sit with me so we can cheer her on AND see some pretty shoes!!

Speaking of the Shoe Expo, there is a RAFFLE going on!! You have until tomorrow to buy your ticket and OMG YOU GUYS. The prizes for the winner? SO GOOD. You can see the list here on the blog but sponsors were still being added last night, so this list is in no way complete. Let me tell you just a few of the prizes if you don’t have time to go to the page. A fatpack of choice from Phoenix Rising AND the opportunity to be a model on one of the vendors, which means a very professional photo from Skyhawke Sodwind. The unfurnished Wisteria house and a $5000L gift card from The Loft. A $2000L gift card from Musashi-Do. A fatpack of the Long Boots from J’s. A $2500L gift card from MechanizedLife, so you can get that FilterCam I’ve been using a lot lately! Three fatpacks of Tiny Bird hair. And so much more!!

What do you have to do? Go to the Shoe Expo and look for the GREEN ornaments. They look like this:

Pay $1000L and buy your ticket! The more tickets you buy, the better your chances of winning, and of course all the money goes to Toys For Tots. With over $50,000L worth of prizes, it’s a fabulous deal and you’re helping out a really awesome charity.

And in my last little bit of spam, don’t forget that my island is hosting the SL Bloggers Meet-Up for December! The party will be on the 13th at 12pm SLT. If you are a designer who would like to offer a prize or two for us to give away during the party, please contact me or the SL Blogger Event Coordinator, Tymmerie Thorne. In the past we’ve gotten anything from gift cards to various stores to just fun things like backpacks and other accessories. It’s always a lot of fun! 🙂

I need to start figuring out what to wear to the fashion show, so that’s all the spam I’ve got for you at the moment! 🙂

Work the runway, sweetie!

I’m a huge fan of Second Life fashion, as most everyone knows. However, I’m not a huge fan of SL fashion shows. Even the smallest ones seem to be incredibly laggy and the models almost never rez all the way. It’s very rare I attend shows. But, when I found out that my friends SySy and Shiryu were having some of their designs presented in a fashion show, I knew I’d brave just about any amount of lag to go check it out. Because well, I adore them. 🙂

This show was put on by a modeling school and so of course, the models were students. I have pretty mixed feelings about modeling schools in SL because the best models I know? They didn’t go to school for it. They’re beautiful women who know how to edit a prim on the fly and can basically walk a straight line or know how to point their eyes at a prim so a photographer can move the eyes where needed. But hey, if someone wants to pay however much it costs to go to modeling school, that’s their deal. And if any modeling school staff would like to talk to me or show me what the schools actually do, I’d be more than happy to check it out. 🙂

These models, bless their hearts, they seemed to need a little more time in the classroom. Luckily SySy and Shiryu are totally easy going because holy cow…parts of this show were just BAD. I seriously couldn’t stop laughing at some points! Maybe that’s mean, but what they were dealing with was more than just the normal fashion show lag. One model had on the wrong shirt. Another took “runway” too literal and was running in a formal gown from spot to spot. At one point, one of the models either didn’t know how, or didn’t notice, but his shirt collar was up in his ears. I wish I were kidding. If I could have stopped giggling, I would have gotten a picture. And then, even though there WERE some transparent bumpers around the runway, another model fell off the runway, flew up, hovered for a while, and then crashed.

But, it was fun to spend an hour hanging with a couple of friends I don’t really get to see or talk to outside of IMs because they are often busy working. And although I’m quite familiar with their work, it was nice to see it presented. Huge kudos to both SySy & Shiryu for being so incredibly nice, too, because I know some designers would probably have had a fit by the middle of the show.

Weeee….it’s 5am. It’s SO bedtime.

Getting ready for Christmas!

So we’re not supposed to be buying or selling or uploading or fashion blogging today and tomorrow or… I don’t know. There’s too many rules for the next two days, and I don’t quite agree with them. So if you see me out happily spending money and talking about what I bought…there ya go. The “no upload” thing for me is not hard because I will go days and days without uploading anything at all.

I was talking to…uh, we’ll just call him “Big Name Designer” last night about this whole boycott thing. BND is VERY often stolen from, but he doesn’t let him stop him from working. We had a long discussion about it and BND made a whole lot more sense to me than a lot of this stuff that’s been thrown in our faces lately. I don’t often feel like I can say a whole lot about what’s going on because I’m not a creator and I really only shop lately at stores that I know, but hey, if BND [and others like him] feel like this isn’t the way to go, then maybe it isn’t? I don’t know. All I know is that I like to shop, and if I’m shopping at stores that I know and trust, then it’s all good.

That little opinion break over, let’s move on.

Yesterday I went to the Merry Christmas sim! Winterstock 2009 opens up today and you all just have to go if you love the holidays and love shopping for winter clothing as much as I do. The place is really built beautifully. People were still setting up yesterday when I went, but hopefully most should be finished with setting up today. Let’s see pictures!

The main street of the sim.

Look, it’s SySy’s shop! SySy and I are divas together over on Facebook. I’m a bigger diva than she is, but her farm is way better. LOL

I have a HUGE love of snowglobes!

Ooh, it’s Shiryu’s store! I was really surprised at how many people I know had shops & booths out there. Thank God for plurk. It’s allowed me to become friends with so many people I would have been too shy to talk to before.

Oh, just chillin’ with the snowpeople. 🙂

And a big ferris wheel!! I’m in one of those seats, but you can’t see me. I couldn’t figure out how to stop the ferris wheel once I got it started, so I had to make a flying leap for it to get out. Sometimes, I’m just like a superhero. LOL!

I’m not in world so I can’t give you the SLurl, but just open up your map and type in Merry Christmas and you’ll find the sim. 🙂 Several of the shops have gifts too, like at Sn@tch and Stellar Designs, so check that out. And if you think it’s still too early for Christmas… well, don’t go until next month. 😀

Ali’s Thanks of the Day: I’m thankful for creators in SL who are not only richly talented, but absolutely sweet. They make my life so much better just by waking up every morning.

Girl, get your bloggin’ on!

As I’m getting ready for my 30 Days of Thanks & Blogs, I keep coming across all kinds of things I want to talk about NOW. But I keep telling myself to save it, because I’ve gotten writer’s block before, and how sad would it be if I ran out of things to say on day 5?

But, I do want to talk about something today. Now, I’m not a marketing professional, I don’t have a degree in business, nothing like that. But I am HIGHLY susceptible to marketing. Hell, sometimes all a person has to do is mention cheeseburgers, and I’m running out the door to McDonalds.

However, I get annoyed by bad marketing really easily. Tell me you are having a sale, and it’s very likely that I will run to check it out. Tell me you’re having a sale EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES FOR THREE HOURS and I will run to your store to get OUT of your subscribe-o-matic or trip over my own fingers to get out of your group.

There are stores in SL that apparently went to the Lemania Indigo “Girl, get your spam on” Academy of Marketing. This doesn’t make people want to shop at your store! In fact, it comes off as so desperate, people start to wonder why you feel the need to remind people very 30 minutes that you exist.

[Also? You don’t want to be compared to Lemania Indigo. Ever.]

I had to leave a SoM yesterday because I just couldn’t handle it anymore. I think the designers of the store are very talented, and at one point I think I had bought every single dress the place had to offer, but enough was enough. It wasn’t even just daily notices anymore, they were flying in sometimes more than 3 times a day. I can’t do that. It annoys me. All I was doing was declining their flurry of notecards and textures anyway.

If I’m in your group/SoM – tell me when you have new releases, tell me when you have a sale, and maybe award me for being in your group with a gift now and then. Put your store in your picks and maybe do the $50L classified too so it’s easier for me to see, and honey, you will have a customer for life. That’s my $2L on it.

In other news, I’m going to be one of the Shoe Expo bloggers!! I’m really excited about it because I’ve never done expo blogging before. I hope I don’t make an ass out of myself. But…hey, even if I do, it’s entertainment. LOL

Last night was the Thorne-Darwin Halloween party and it was a BLAST! I had such a good time. Lalo Telling took pictures, which you can see in his Picasa album. But I’ll show my picture off because I love it. 🙂

I’m sure there’s other pictures out there because it was a PACKED house and it was mostly bloggers and plurkers, so I know there’s more pics out there. 🙂

I don’t usually DJ two nights in a row, but I couldn’t resist when my friend Gwendolyn asked if I would like to come DJ at the Jittery Junco Coffee House for their Halloween party tonight. I’ll be there at 7pm SLT tonight for about an hour or so. If you want to get more use out of your costume, I’d love to see you there! The actual theme is League of Extraordinary Dorks, so come nerdy if you want, or just come! 🙂 Gwen said she’s not being nerdy, but heck, I think I might.

I think it’s time to sneak some Halloween candy!

If you can’t stand the heat…

We were having a little discussion on Plurk that I thought I’d take over here. Because it’s something really HAS been bothering me for quite some time.

When did it get to be such a bad thing to have opinions on products that people create in Second Life? Are designers such delicate baby blossoms that they cannot handle someone saying, “That’s not really my style?”

This isn’t a case of people saying, “The shoes that person made are ugly, therefore the designer is an idiot and a reject and an inbred halfwit.” Although I don’t doubt that a minority of people in SL believe that when they see an item they don’t care for, it’s not really the majority mindset. Most of us think, “Oh, I don’t care for that style” and move on with our day.

Unfortunately, what is happening is the delicate designers are not saying, “Well, that’s their opinion and they are entitled to it, but others bought this item so it’s ok.” Nooooo… they’re going on plurk or blogs or groups screaming and banning people from stores or threatening to leave SL and never design again.

Really?

Listen to me carefully. If you never read another word I write, read this: You will never – N-E-V-E-R – create something that everyone in SL loves completely. NEVER.

This has nothing to do with you as a person. You could create the most gorgeous skin on the grid. It could be flawlessly highlighted and shadowed, with absolutely no seams, and no weird stretch thing at the crotch. It could be a masterpiece of brilliance, and I bet you any amount of money that someone will say, “It’s nice, but I don’t like the skin tone.”

It happens, ok? And as a creator, you have to be ready for that to happen. You have to open your mind and remember that there’s always going to be the chance that someone doesn’t like your item, and an even bigger chance that they are going to say outloud that they don’t like it. With there being eleventy billion fashion bloggers and 99% of them are on plurk, someone somewhere is going to say they don’t like your item. Not that they don’t like YOU – they don’t like your ITEM.

And here’s the thing – You need to listen when someone says what they don’t like because you need to decide if it’s the quality or the style they don’t care for. If it’s the style, then don’t worry so much! I don’t usually wear “goth” style clothing, so it’s rare you’d catch me in one of those kinds of stores, but that doesn’t mean I’m calling all those designers morons. If it’s the quality, ask for honest critiques so that you can figure out how to make your next creation even better! When you throw a diva fit and flounce around and emo yourself all over the place, people remember that. They may not remember what item from your shop they didn’t particularly care for, but they will remember your fit and they will tell their friends. And don’t give me that whole, “I don’t care if people come to my store or not” bullshit. Yes, you do. There are very very few designers in SL who do it just because and honestly don’t care if anyone is blogging/buying their items.

If you honestly don’t think you can take peoples’ opinions on your creations, you’re probably in the wrong business.

/me jumps off the soapbox and goes shopping.

Designer Showcase Network

I’ve been meaning to blog about this for the past week, but all the non-picture posts were stressing me out. I cannot WAIT to get my stupid new video card. But for this, I upped my settings a little and prayed not to crash while I took a picture. 🙂 Hopefully a little Orton Effect and a little liquify will mask how badly I’m seeing the world these days. LOL

Do you like my skirt?

That skirt came to me last night from Sn@tch, via the newest and most awesome thing in SL, the Designer Showcase Network. Haven’t heard of DSN yet? You are missing OUT!!

Created by the brilliant Rika Watanabe and my good friend [and equally brilliant] Peter Stindberg, the Designer Showcase Network takes us back to a time when designers who chose to give gifts did so generously, and not in desperation to drive traffic to their stores. After all, what good is traffic if no one is buying? I maintain that gifts are truly one of the best marketing tools in SL, if used correctly, not as an attempt to force people into wandering aimlessly around your store searching for a gift they may or may not even like in the end.

DSN is really really simple to use, especially if you’re a subscriber. All you have to do is go to a place with a kiosk and sign up! Oh where can you find a kiosk? Well, you can head right on over to WTFug HQ and go inside. It’s on the wall by the scale and looks like this:

[There are also lots of other places to sign up as well, and you can find SLurls to on the DSN website if you didn’t want to visit HQ.]

Like any regular subscription kiosk, just click it. It’ll ask you which channel you want to sign up for to receive gifts. There are 9 channels:

* Female fashion
* Male fashion
* Skins and hair
* Jewelry and Accessories
* Home and Garden
* Gadgets, Vehicles and Weapons
* Animations and Poses
* Business, Tools and Services
* Full avatars

Currently I’m signed up for every channel, but you can choose one, two, or all nine. Just whichever you’re interested in! There isn’t a “Subscribe To All” button that I’m aware of, so just click again when you want to sign up for another channel.

And then? You wait for gifts!

It’s been SO AWESOME to get gifts, both from the designers I know and the ones that are new to me. It’s been great to check out new stores, too! The pretty skirt I’m wearing in the first picture was a gift from Sn@tch, which I think gets overlooked all too often as being just a “punk” store. [Although it did come with pink skully top, which I’m not wearing even though it was cute.] My adorable friends Aisuru, Laleeta, and Lola are also all part of the DSN. You can find a full list of DSN designers on this page.

If you’re a content creator and want to join, it’s very easy! There is a one time fee for your starter kit, which you can buy at the Clever Things store or on Xstreet. There are some rules, but it’s nothing that you probably wouldn’t agree to anyway. 🙂 If you’re interested in having just a subscription kiosk on your land, you can pick that up for free.

I really hope you all subscribe, or join if you’re a creator, because I think this is really just one of the most marvelous things in SL these days. Thank you, Peter and Rika, for putting it together. And huge huge huge thanks to the creators who have been so generous to put out samples of your work. Everytime I get a gift, I am amazed at the talent & creativity that is in Second Life, and I get excited to go see more of your work. You are the ones that keep this world wonderful!