White's Virtual Life

ArtZine 2.0

2010-06-13T07:39:00.003+01:00

You have not heard a lot of me lately, have you? True. But I did not sit still. Over the past few months I have been working hard though! Together with a great group of volunteers, I have set up a magazine on Virtual Arts by the name of ArtZine 2.0. And I can now present to you: The first issue of our magazine!

ArtZine 2.0 Website
ArtZine 2.0 Issue 1 on Issuu

Recycler for Proteggtors

2009-11-27T22:53:00.004Z

Here is another product in the category "something I needed for myself":

A recycler for expired proteggtors!

Now that we have been living with sionChickens V12 for some months, some eggs are beginning to expire.
You may have found out already, that the proteggtors can be re-used? But there is a small problem: It is quite a lot of work to make them ready to be used again.

If your proteggtors have been boxed by my EggBoxer, they are in a neat box that displays the age of your egg when clicked. If the egg is older than 60 days, the proteggtor can be recycled.

To do that, you would need to open the box and get the proteggtor into your inventory. Then you have to delete the -- now empty -- box. Then you have to rez the proteggtor and click it, to make it free again. And finally, you have to take the -- now empty -- proteggtor back into your inventory.

If you have done that ten times, you know it is easy, but tedious and messy!

To make this process easier, I have developed the Proteggtor Recycler.
It works as follows:

Drop a bunch of boxed proteggtors into the recycler. Click the recycler. Now all the boxes are rezzed in a neat row, opened automatically, and the proteggtors are rezzed above them. The boxes are automatically deleted.

So you are left with a row of proteggtors, ready to be clicked for recycling. Click the proteggtors in the row one by one. Then taken them back into your inventory one by one.
(By the way: It is also possible to drop in "bare" proteggtors; without a box; these will be lined up together with the proteggtors from your boxes.)

It saves you a whole lot of work!

A Weekend full of Stress

2009-07-19T23:59:00.000+01:00

Chicken farmers were very enthousiastic about my EggBoxer and I was making quite a lot of sales, when suddenly a disaster hit us all: The EggBoxer stopped to work! Immediately it started raining IMs from disappointed customers. And I rushed to find out what was wrong.

Well, that did not take very long: It soon became clear that Sion, the creator of all these eggs and chickens and the "proteggtors", had decided to change the password that was used to encrypt the details that are displayed when an egg is put into a proteggtor.

The EggBoxer, of course, NEEDS this encoded data to be able to store all the information. There is no other way to get it, because the eggs have a lot of cool features, but an API (Application Programmers Interface) is not one of them. For some reason, Sion does not seem inclined to make it easy for other developers to create accessories for his products. (I don't see a reason for that, an open interface would in my view only ADD to the success of his products...)

Of course I immediately decoded the new password and found out it was a sentence in plain English text, that was a direct threat to sue anyone decoding it! Amazing! Sion's non-co-operative attitude to other developers was clearly not by mistake, it was a company policy.

Meanwhile the farmer's group discussions were of course fizzing with activity about the EggBoxer and speculations of what had happened and why and how. And this was not just a technical debate, the legal and ethical implications were part of the discussion as well. Some people considered it wrong to decode the encrypted messages, but the majority of the farmers just wanted the convenience of boxing their eggs without the tedious and error-prone hand-copying the color codes on their screen into a more usuable form.

I soon had a new version (1.45) of my system ready to be released, but I was hesitating: There was the threat Sion had hidden into the new password and there was of course the possibility for him to keep changing his password every day, making the development of accessories into an arms race instead of a normal business.

Of course I IMmed Sion to have a talk with him, but he did not reply.

Then, towards the end of the weekend, an official announcement appeared. Not from Sion himself, but sent to the chicken groups via other people: Sion had come to the decision to make the password public, so that everybody would be able to use it for building accessories.

The password he published, was the original password, that was already built into my system. And the proteggtors that were sold from that moment on, were all using the old password again. No need to release version 1.45, no arms race, and an end to a stressful weekend.

Vidal Yeodeol

2009-07-17T23:59:00.000+01:00

I recently met javabox Kawanishi. A great clothing designer from Holland. I like the stuff he makes and the price tag is way below what we are used to see from the established designers.

What I did not like, was the way his stuff is marketed. Maybe it is just an allergy of mine, but I hate it to yell from the rooftops how great you are and that everybody should buy your stuff. (To be honest, it is not even javabox himself who does that, but some of his affiliate vendors do.)

I would like a Vidal store where customers can shop around in a relaxed way and ONLY have to talk to the sales staff if they have a question about the products. Well, that is very well possible: I just had to open my own store to do it. And I did. Javabox gave me the vendors and the building materials to make a shop in the true Vidal look-and-feel and I managed to fit it into an unused area in my sim.

So now Yeodeol has its own Vidal Fashion store.

EggBoxer

2009-07-11T16:53:00.002+01:00

Of course you all read about my Egg Wrapping system. It made life easier for us and other breeders. Unfortunately it soon became obsolete with the introduction of the V11 sionChickens and sionEggs. Over the past weeks we have been working on a system for collecting and packing the V11 sionEggs.
This resulted in:

"EggBoxer" -- EGG COLLECTING AND WRAPPING SYSTEM

Every time you click the system, it will pick up one of the eggs your chickens have laid. It fetches the egg to the location of the EggBoxer and helps you to put it into a proteggtor. Then it helps you to pack the proteggtor in a box that allows you and your customers to see all the important data about the egg inside.

All this information is collected WITHOUT HAVING TO TYPE ANYTHING.

The central element in this system is the "EggBoxer". It is a prim you install about one meter above your chicken pen. When there are eggs to be picked up, all you need to do is click the EggBoxer and it will rez a small basket, that goes out to fetch the egg for you.

This "Fetcher" picks out one of the eggs and moves itself below it to pick it up. Then it moves upward with your egg to the same height where your EggBoxer is located. Next it moves in horizontal direction to the EggBoxer.

When the Fetcher reaches the EggBoxer, a proteggtor will be rezzed on top of the EggBoxer. Now it is your turn to take some action: You have to click the proteggtor, to move the egg from the Fetcher to the proteggtor.

When the EggBoxer sees you egg has been transferred to the proteggtor, it will rez a "Wrapper" to put your egg in. The wrapper will automatically be named to reflect version, race, color vectors and color name(s) of the egg. The Wrapper will also be colored in the two colors of the egg.
Once the egg has been transferred to the proteggtor, the Fetcher is no longer needed; it will vanish automatically.

You now need to take the proteggtor into you inventory and put it into the Wrapper by dragging it from your inventory to the Wrapper, holding the <ctrl>-key. Finally you take the Wrapper, with your egg in it, into your inventory.

So what will you get this way? As you collect eggs, they will get stored in a standard way in your inventory, making it easy to see which egg is which. The boxes are also usefull when rezzed in-world: You can immediately see the two colors and when you click the box, it will display the egg's race, color names and two color vectors for 30 seconds in hovertext.

To be able to work, the EggBoxer needs to be filled with empty Proteggtors. These will have to be bought from Sion of course. You can just buy a pack of proteggtors, unpack it into your inventory and the drag the whole bunch of them from your inventory to the EggBoxer holding <ctrl>. You will then be ready for packing a lot of eggs.

You can buy the EggBoxer in my shop at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Yeodeol/96/25/53
Or at XStreetSL: https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=1629248

SL-Goldrush

2009-06-02T12:56:00.003+01:00

Have you heard about the SL Goldrush yet? It is a brilliant idea! The avatar behind it is Nite Zelmanov. He sells gold nuggets you can hide on your land in SL.

All the nuggets get listed on his website and people can go find them. This brings lots of people to your land of course and they come to look at the place, because they want to find your nugget.

Inside the nugget you can put an object, that is given away as a prize to each avatar who clicks it. They also get a landmark to your place and most of the time they get some money (L$ 2 or L$ 3) from Nite as a reward.

But there is more! All the finds are stored in a database on Nite's website and every week, one of these is drawn to get the jackpot! The amount in the jackpot depends on the number of nuggets that were sold in the past week.

This week was a great week in nugget sales and the jackpot contained the record amount of L$ 14070. And guess who won it?? I did! Yay! Time for a big thank you to Nite in the form of this blog post.

Make sure you go check this out at the GGG HQ In-world: Peacock Park 134,236,64 or buy nuggets from one of the many GGG-vendors you find at all the locations of participating land owners. You can find mine at the New Egg market in Yeodeol...

SionEgg Wrapping System

2009-05-12T14:40:00.007+01:00

I am in the egg business nowadays. I run a few farms and eggs keep rolling into my inventory. Some nice colors too! I Want to sell them, but... Have you noticed all these eggs look THE SAME in your inventory? What a mess!

And the eggs are no-modify, so you cannot give them descriptive names.
The only solution is to put them in boxes you can modify.
Best would be to put the color code and the color name into the name of the box.
If only that wasn't so much work... :(

Here comes our Egg Wrapping system to rescue you!

Use the system as follows:

1: Rez an egg from your inventory.
(By dragging it to the floor.)
2: Click it and read the color code that appears.
3: Click the Wrapping System. (Two boxes will now appear.)
4: Say the 6-digit color code of the egg you just rezzed.
(Both boxes now get that color and the color code and name will appear above them.)
5: Drag the egg from you inventory (while holding ) to the box that is next to the "Copy" arrow on top of the system.
(The text "(fp)" will now be added to the name above the box.)
6: Change the permissions for the next owner on the egg in your inventory.
(By right clicking it, selecting properties and removing the tick-mark in the Copy box.)
7: Drag the egg from your inventory (while holding ) to the box that is next to the "Non-copy" arrow on top of the system.
(The text "(to sell)" will now be added to the name above the box.)
8: Delete the egg from your inventory.
9: Delete the egg you rezzed on the floor.
10: Take both the boxes that have been rezzed into your inventory.

Done! Your egg has been wrapped!

The boxes check the permission on your eggs, so you cannot wrap an egg with the wrong permissions by mistake.
The color names are filled in automatically from a database of more than 1500 colors.
The color code is displayed both in percentage (00...99%) and in HEXadecimal code (00...FF).
Percentage, hex code, name and permissions are saved in the object name AND displayed in hovertext above the boxes.
The boxes get the same color as the egg inside them.

[This product is no longer for sale due to the transition to V11 sionChickens]

Avatar dashboard

2009-04-10T18:11:00.005+01:00

I've been away for a long time, but I return with a nice product: An Avatar Dashboard!

This dashboard is designed to wear as a HUD.

To use it, unpack the box and find the dashboard in your inventory.
Right-click it and choose "Wear".

You will now see the dashboard attached to the top-left of your screen.
It gives you the following information:

- Compass: Indicates the direction your avatar is facing (North, South, East, West...)
- Attitude Indicator: Shows if your are in a horizontal position or at an angle compared to the ground. ("Roll and Pitch" indicator.)

- Altitude meter: Shows the height of your avatar compared to zero level. This has a tall and a short hand. It works like a clock in that the tall hand turns quickly and the short hand turns more slowly. The tall hand makes one revolution in 100 meters of altitude, the short hand makes one revolution in 1000 meters. In addition to this analog indication, there is a four position digital indicator, with a range of 0...9999 meters of altitude.
- Speedometer: This indicates the speed at which you are moving, just like the speedometer in a car or the air speed indicator in a plane. Also it has digital counters for the distance traveled. The top one shows the distance with an accuracy up to one meter the bottom one has an accuracy of 100 meters. A decimal point indicates the value of the numbers. (The figure to the left of the decimal point is the distance in kilometers.)
- Reset button: At the bottom of the speedometer is a button you can press to reset the top distance counter to zero. (We call that a "day counter", just like in a car.)

The package includes:
- The dashboard to wear.
- This notecard to explain how to use it.
- A texture that shows an overview of where all the instruments can be found on your dashboard.

Get it on SLX: https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=1368363
Or in my shop: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Yeodeol/91/84/53
Or, if you are really quick, you can get it for free in the gold nugget on the top floor of my shop. (The nugget is at the side of the voting box until 5 AM SLT on April 12th 2009.)

Gone to the Dogs

2008-12-06T00:53:00.004Z

Today Tull introduced me to the VKC dogs. Very nice scripted pets! They all are very intelligent (scripted). But some of them look better than others. The most expensive, most popular and most beautiful of them all is the German Shepherd.

My own trains

2008-11-23T11:34:00.002Z

As you know I love trains!
I have been traveling all over the grid to go and see them. Of course I want to build my own train, but my building activities always take ages and ages to complete. And looking at other people's products is a good learning experience to find out about one way of doing it.

So I decided to buy one... From Kitto Flora. And over the past few months I have built a system of tracks in my sim that is probably the coolest KFTrain system in all of the grid. In the picture you can see Kitto visiting my Yeodeol Central Station. He was impressed with what I have done with his system.

I have also built some accessories to his KFTrain system. I will tell you more about those soon.

Pearls Before Swine

2008-11-10T23:55:00.002Z

*)

OK, let's be honest: My rezday party was a bit of a disappointment this year. I did get some visitors, I did get some presents (including a hippopotamus, which is a BIG present indeed), and Sam did a new stand-up comedy. But the turnout was a lot less than last year.

I see this too often in Second Life **) : People put a lot of effort into events, make very beautiful buildings, create cool products... And nobody even bothers to have a look at them! Personally I have grown over it: I feel a great deal of satisfaction in just building things I like. But I have friends from all over the world who put lots of work and money into starting a business, only to see it fail.

Now if they made a mess of their business, it would be easy to understand: People will not buy crap. SL is almost like RL in that way. But when I see real good stuff that gets no attention at all, it makes me feel sad. Avatars seem to go after only two things: FREE SEX and FREE L$. Bummer...

*): Picture by Tull kit, see http://www.fotolog.com/tullkit
**): Second Life is, of course, a registered trademark of Linden Labs.

What's another year?

2008-11-09T22:56:00.003Z

Another year, another rezday! I remember my first rezday as if it happened only yesterday. So many nice friends in my club. It is really something one should celebrate!

A rezday is an even bigger event than a birthday in RL, because years in the virtual reality are like 'dog years': Each year really counts for 7! Virtual life is a lot faster than real life. You can see it when you try to use your old landmarks: Many places have disappeared, NEW venues have taken their place!

Two years in Second Life and still loving it! This calls for a celebration with all my friends and everybody who loves a party. Come to Club XFM at noon on November 10th. and see what happens! There may even be a surpise performance on the stage...

Dresscode: Elegant and sexy.

First conviction for virtual theft in the Netherlands

2008-10-22T12:19:00.003+01:00

In a criminal trial in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, on Tuesday, October 21st, two minors were convicted for stealing virtual goods in the online computergame "RuneScape". They had malteated and threatened another minor and forced him to transfer a virtual amulet and a virtual mask from his game account to theirs.

The judge ruled that virtual goods are indeed goods as mentioned in article 310 of the criminal code of the Netherlands and can therefore indeed be stolen.

We can see this as an acknowledgement of all the work virtual citizens put into the creation of virtual goods and we also know now that Dutch legislation is on our side when someone illegally takes these goods away from us. A step forward!

Zoinks!

2008-08-29T23:59:00.000+01:00

When I came home from work today I could not get to my home location.

Zoinks! I hate it when my sim is offline!

What an ugly hole in the land...

I could walk to the end of the road, but no further. I just had to wait...

I was so happy when it came back online!
Sometimes you done know what you've got until you lose it...

Linden Lifestyles comes to an end

2008-07-29T14:31:00.002+01:00

I just read the sad news: The Linden Lifestyles fashion blog will stop posting as of August 5th. This is very sad news: Linden Lifestyles was one of the things that inspired me to start the "White's Virtual Life"-blog.

I think I have neglected to put a link to them in this blog, so here it is now, now that it is almost too late. Fortunately they will keep the existing content online. So you can still go check it out.

I want to thank Sabrina Doolittle and Salome Strangelove for all the work they have done on that blog! I have learned a lot there and they helped me to find some of the best outfits in my wardrobe.

I know about the effort that goes into maintaining a blog, especially a high-quality, high-traffic one like Linden Lifestyles. They managed to keep it up for a very long time. Kudos to all of the Linden Lifestyles Staff!

The World at your Feet

2008-04-03T00:27:00.001+01:00

Everybody wants the World at his or her feet. Well, here is your chance! On Sunday April 6th. 14:00-16:00 we will have an oriental party in Club XFM.

The Serenity Belly Dance Troupe will be performing and a live DJ will be spinning the disks for us.

And the World will be at your feet! It's a promise, come and see ;)

Dress code: Sexy & elegant

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Yeodeol/101/78/83

What's in a name?

2008-03-31T23:39:00.003+01:00

You may have heard it: We are no longer allowed to refer to Second Life *) as the title of a website. So I have decided to change the name of this blog to "White's Virtual Life" instead of "White's Second Life".

People say Linden Labs must have been afraid the name Second Life would go the same way as Kleenex or Xerox: No longer a brand, but more a product. Well, I must say I see no problem with Kleenex or Xerox. The same happened to Google: The word google is nowadays not just used as a noun, but even as a verb! So what? It makes Google into a search engine nobody will ever forget. Yahoo tried to reach this effect on purpose with their slogan: "Do you Yahoo?" but it did not work for them.

The way I see it, this change of name in the blog takes me one step away from Second Life. Sure, I am still a resident of Second Life, but with this name on the blog it can also be about other virtual reality, like VRML, VirtuoCity or even the World of Warcraft. :)

*) Second Life is a registered trademark of Linden Labs.

Rezday

2007-11-10T23:59:00.000Z

Today it was one year ago I first rezzed in Second Life. Time for a party! Tull and I invited all our friends and we broadcast notices in our groups. I also posted this as an official event on the SL website.

The party turned out to be a big success. Many people visited Club XFM and many thought this was a new location. No, it is not, I have just redecorated the place beyond recognition :) People enjoyed the XFM audio stream that features non-stop dance music 24/7. (Well except for the short news broadcasts, but someone even said she loved to dance to the news :D )

Highlight of the party was a performance by my good friend Samantha Gustafson. It was her début as a stand-up comedian in Second Life and it was very well recieved by the guests. I think we will see more of her in the future.

Another train

2007-09-03T23:59:00.000+01:00

Today Tull took me for a ride in his car to take me to a surprise location. And I was certainly surprised. He took me to see a train! (At http://slurl.com/secondlife/Steamboat/78/84/68)

Of course we wanted to have a look inside...

So I sat down, waiting for the train to depart...

...but nothing happened! Maybe this was a self-service train?
We got out and started to inspect the engine.
Driving a train can't be very difficult! Where is the main valve?

The was no way to make the train move, so we decided to inspect the tracks instead. Where do they lead? First they went over a beautiful bridge and then they disappeared into a tunnel...

And that was the end of the tracks! Obviously this train was not created to move, it was just a static build. And a very nice one!

We had a nice chat in IM with Farallon Greyskin, the guy who built this masterpiece. He turned out to be a friendly furry character. He explained that the train had far too many prims to be used as a vehicle. It was just designed to be static.
We complimented him on his building skill and then we picked up the car and went home to Tull's skybox for a final dance for this evening...

Time machine

2007-08-25T23:59:00.000+01:00

At startup the Second Life client shows a picture of the last place you visited on your previous session. Sometimes that is a surprise! Today I logged in from a computer I had not used for a while and I was pleasently surprised to see a picture of my first house in the Wards sim. This brought back nice memories of my first months in Second Life. Note my very early attempts at building furniture in the room. See the beautiful view I had from my living room.

It is a pity my hair was rendered in such a bad way, but I wanted to keep this picture anyway. I can never make this picture again. The Wards sim is now being ruined by Hotla Hoodoo, who griefed me out of the place by putting an ugly black wall into this beautiful view.

Churches and Animals

2007-08-21T23:59:00.000+01:00

Today Tull and I went exploring. The first place we visited was the Chebi Mosque - Mezquita de Cordoba in the Chebi sim. We also met the creator, Marino Nuvolari, who showed us around and invited us for a cup of tea in the nearby visitor centre. I was not very succesful at taking good pictures in the mosque.

But the evening was only just starting! The first unusual thing we saw when we left the visitor centre was a horse with wings. It looked like a build of remarkable quality, so we clicked it to find out who built it. That turned out to be Julia Hathor.

We also found a beautiful little chapel that was built by Marino Nuvolari too. There was a tower next to it and we both tried to climb the stairs to the top. Climbing those steps was not very easy and I think we both cheated a little, but we did reach the top.

We decided to check out Julia's picks. If she can make such a nice horse, maybe she does other animals as well. After some boating and a musical intermezzo we moved on... We were trying to find a camel!

We found many animals and also another nice chapel. We saw donkeys, panthers, chamois, a unicorn, rabbits, wolves etcetera etcetera. But no camel!

We ended up in a pet shop. This had the advantage we did not have to explore to find the animals. They were neatly laid out on shelves along the walls. It was full of cats and dogs, even a T-rex was available. But still no camel! Maybe I will have to build a camel for Tull myself...

Single Prim Lamps

2007-08-01T13:55:00.000+01:00

Another product I would like the "highlight" here are my 1 prim lamps. The shapes you can create with a single prim are sometimes amazing. The shapes reminded me of Tiffany lamps, so I made two different textures in Art Deco style for them.
The first version is textured in orange and off-white. All four models are for sale individually in my shop for L$ 29 each. On SL Exchange and in some malls in SL they are available in a pack of five:
This set includes:
1 Tall floor lamp
1 Table lamp
1 Cieling lamp
2 Wall lamps
1 Bonus item: A vase in the same design

Simply click the lamp to switch the light on/off.

To the right in the picture you can see some of the other texturing as well: similar shapes, but colored in Red, Yellow and Blue. These are also avilable in my shop and on SL Exchange.

Prim Letters

2007-07-01T08:36:00.001+01:00

Second Life has many things to offer, but one of the main reasons I joined is the ability to create your own three-dimensional objects. I haven't written about this on my blog yet, but I have created some cool products I would like to show you here.

In the picture above you see an example of my Prim Letters. If you look closely you can also see in the background how Tull and I used these letters to put our names on our shops at Porto de Galinhas. On the right you can see how I used the letters to put my name on my big shop in Yeodeol.

These are 26 cool letters to use for you. But letters are just building blocks. What you really want are WORDS!

So the letters come with a guide on how to use them to make words. Once you have built a word, you can do whatever you like with it, like resizing and coloring. Please note that these letters are NOT suitable for applying a texture, the results will be disappointing. All letters are COPY/MOD/NO TRANSFER, so you can try as many times as you like, until you are satisfied with the result.

The complete set of 26 letters is for sale for L$ 400 in all my shops and also on SL Exchange.

Exploring the railroad

2007-06-23T15:50:00.000+01:00

I love trains and streetcars and today I decided to finally go and have a look at the official Second Life Railroad. The Northern Continent in Second Life is home to the Second Life Railroad (SLRR), a railway that consists of 3 tracks and runs a total of 53 different regions. On the official SL blog I found a list of stations, so I teleported to the first terminal listed there.

1. SLRR Bhaga Terminal, Bhaga (103, 26, 28)
There was not a train in sight, so I followed the tracks to the next station.

2. SLRR Tenera Station, Tenera (200, 141, 83)
You see you lot of robots in SL, but Tenera railway station that looks like a robot is unusual, even in Second Life.

By the side of the tracks I did see a train, well, just an engine really, but it was not in a perfect condition.

3. SLRR Aglia Station, Aglia (147, 146, 83)

The next stop was Aglia station. Still not a train is sight!

4. SLRR Crenulate Station, Crenulate (145, 29, 86)

Crenulate Station looks a bit old-fashioned. I like this architecture, because it stands out between all the modern looking buildings in SL.

5. SLRR Clearwing/Paranthrene Station, Clearwing (255, 26, 86)

At Clearwing station one track ends and another one starts. Passengers will have to change train here.
Since I still had not seen any train, it was now clear that the whole part of the railroad I had seen so far is not operational at the moment. What a pity!

6. SLRR Foxglove Station, Foxglove (147, 230, 90)

I followed this second part of the tracks to Foxglove station. This is an example of very modern architecture. I wonder if it was completely rezzed, it looks somewhat unfinished. A building like this may look very nice in RL, but in SL this style of building is not what I prefer.

7. SLRR Lunalis, Lunalis (34, 78, 90)

I continued following the track towards Lunalis station, but before I reached that I saw a jeep with four girls in it. They were following the tracks in the opposite direction and they were planning to crash their jeep into a train...

At the wheel was "my favorite cookie". (i.e. Mystical Cookie, the creator of the wonderful Mystitool.) She invited me to join them and I sat on the hood of the jeep. Maybe not the safest place in case of crashing into a train, but I felt pretty confident that was not going to happen ;)

So we followed the tracks back in the direction I came from, all the way to the rosty tank engine by the side of the tracks. Then it was time for me to go to bed.

I still have a wish list of stations I want to go and see:

7. SLRR Lunalis, Lunalis (34, 78, 90)
8. SLRR Spini Station, Spini (98, 10, 81)
9. SLRR Jubata Station, Jubata (200, 237, 82)
10. SLRR Epirrhoe Station, Epirrhoe (172, 225, 81)
11. SLRR Zale Station, Zale (72, 194, 31)

I am sure I will get back to the railroad some day and have a look at those places!

The Isle of Zakiya

2007-03-19T20:26:00.000Z

Today we found a very beautiful island: The Isle of Zakiya. The island features the citadel of Aleppo one of the oldest inhabited cities of the world (since 5000 BC). The similarity between the sim and the real world is striking.

Above is a picture from the citadel in Second Life, to the left is a picture of the citadel in Real Life as it can be found on Wikipedia...
We met the owner, Zakiya Khalifa and she showed us around. The island is built with the needs of a young loving couple in mind: You never have to walk far to find another pair of pose balls in a romantic spot.
The tour started with a look at the citadel itself. On the inner court of this impressive building a very friendly atmosphere invites you to dance, to lounge or to cuddle. Ample poseballs are available for these activities.
But there are many more places on the island where you can show your affection to each other. During the tour we stopped at several places to try out some of the pose balls.
And there is also a lot to see in the tunnels below the citadel.
Like this underground lake for example.
Or this hall under restauration, which is again a high-fidelity depiction of the situation in Real Life.
Of course there are also plenty of shops to rent on the island and some very beautiful residential villa's. And finally there is Club Z: A nice undergound discotheque with plenty of dances and even a dance pole.

I no longer work in a club, but pole dancing is always fun, so I just had to try it.

We had a lot of fun this evening and I am sure Tull and I will be frequent visitors on this island.

Fashion Show

2007-02-26T10:21:00.001Z

Today when I logged into SL again after dinner, I got a notice from the Fashion Consolidated group about a fashion show that was about to begin. Without much thinking I clicked on the landmark and plunged into the event.

I landed in a beautiful scene: In a forest-like environment a nice catwalk was ready for the show and there were many logs for the audience to sit on. After some failed attempts I managed to sit on a log with my head facing the right way ;)
I never new this, but aparently you will sit down facing in the direction where you came from, unless the chair has been prepared for a fixed orientation to sit.

While I was waiting for the event to begin my boyfriend IM'ed me: "Are you busy?" So I explained where I was and he wanted to join in! I never thought a guy would want to watch a fashion show...

By the time he was seated the event began. And we watched the most beautiful outfits for more than an hour. The area was packed with avatars, I counted at least 40, and that made things a little laggy, but there were no real problems and I crashed only one time.

It was a good exercise in handling the SL camera. The trick is to click on the models while holding the <ALT>-key as soon as they enter the catwalk. Then you can zoom in and out with the mouse wheel and your camera will follow the model along the catwalk. But when they go off-stage again, your camera is dragged along into the dressing room! ;)

Being a member of the Fashion Consolidated group turned out to be really useful for keeping up-to-date with fashion releases: I saw several things that had already been announced to the group.
[If you want to know the details of what we got to see, please refer to the Second Style blog. They have a very good and detailed report on this event.]

Octopus's Garden

2007-02-16T23:59:00.000Z

Today my boyfriend Tull took me to an underwater garden in the Evocative sim.

It reminded me of a song by The Beatles:

I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus's garden in the shade
He'd let us in, knows where we've been
In his octopus's garden in the shade
I'd ask my friends to come and see
In an octopus's garden with me
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus's garden in the shade

We would be warm below the storm
In our little hideaway beneath the waves
Resting our head on the sea bed
In an octopus's garden near a cave
We would sing and dance around
because we know we can't be found
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus's garden in the shade

We would shout and swim about
The coral that lies beneath the waves
Oh what joy for every girl and boy
Knowing they're happy and they're safe
We would be so happy you and me
No one there to tell us what to do

I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus's garden with you
in an octopus's garden with you
in an octopus's garden with you

What a wonderful evening!

Jane

2006-12-27T23:59:00.000Z

Today's theme at The Lava Pit was "Tarzan and Jane". You know how it works: Best dressed male and female get a prize of L$ 250. The winners are chosen with a voting system.
I never won a contest like that before, so I decided to try my best and I went shopping for the best Jane-costume available in SL. So I found "SD Jane Costume Single Pack (furu)" at Stellar Designs for L$ 275.

Now anyone with half a brain can calculate I had already spent more than the prize there was to be won, but I was not satisfied yet; I also wanted a new hair: "!TAUNT >> Santa Barbara > Pirate Pack". A nice hair with three long flexi ponytails. The pirate pack holds nine different colors, the color I wear in the picture is called wheat_lick.

Of course I did not win the prize. I am beginning to understand these contests are not won by the best looking avatar, but by the one with most friends...

Stellar Designs

2006-12-22T23:59:00.000Z

This job as a dancer is a wonderful excuse to buy more and more sexy clothing. And my colleagues know just where to shop for it. So they pointed me to Stellar Designs. That shop is absolutely packed with nice stuff. I wanted to buy everything I saw there, but I had to make a choice. So I bought:

SD Melrose Flex (furu) (see picture)
SD Bandeau Top Fat Pack (furu)
SD FLEX SKIRT FAT PACK (furu)

In the picture my top is already off. Underneath the top and the skirt is a very nice bikini...

Skin

2006-12-19T23:59:00.000Z

I got the job as a dancer, but I soon found out that my avatar was not quite ready for it. If you work as a dancer in a nightclub, a good skin is a must-have.
But skins are terribly expensive. I cannot afford to make a mistake with this, so I have thoroughly studied several fashion blogs, looking for skin reviews, until I thought I knew which skin a wanted. Then I got several demo skins and tried them on.

And here is the skin I finally selected: HYBRID II - Nymphet - Face #16 by Santana Lumiere. I picked one with a moderate amount of make-up on the face, so it can be worn both during the day and in the evening. I am not going to buy several make-up options of the same skin! If you do that you buy the same skin over and over again with just a little difference in the face. I think that is just not fair. L$ 1000 is a lot of money, but a good skin is worth it. I will not pay that same amount again for just a different lipstick and eyeliner.

As you can see this skin is a real quality product. I have decided not to 'do pink' in my blog, but I can assure you the kitty looks just as well as the rest of it...

More from Dazzle

2006-12-17T14:54:00.000Z

I have applied for a job as a dancer at the Lava Pit club. That is a very good excuse to go shopping for some more clothing, because I need to look my best...

I bought four new outfits...

*DAZZLE: Paon (green)
*DAZZLE: Deesse (maitresse)
*DAZZLE: Minx Bikini
*DAZZLE: Katia (neptune)

More land

2006-12-08T23:59:00.000Z

I have bought more land. I know this is gonna cost me a monthly amount of tier, but a 512 sqm plot is just too small for me. I am a builder and I want to run a business! So I have found myself a 1024 sqm plot in the Yeodeol sim for L$ 16999. It is expensive, but the prices of land seem to be moving in only one way: Up!

Sale at Dazzle

2006-12-01T23:59:00.000Z

Dazzle is a shop full of high quality dresses.
They are going to close the shop down...
So now they have a final sale.
All items are now (Dec. 2006) available for only L$ 100.

I have no idea why they close down, but it is a good opportunity to get my hands on some nice garments. So I bought three dresses:

*DAZZLE: Eurydice (flame) (see picture)
*DAZZLE: Eurydice (inkwell)
*DAZZLE: Attention

Second Life on the Internet

2006-11-22T23:59:00.000Z

There is a lot of information about second life available on the Internet. I have been Googling for it today and I am sure I have just scratched the surface, but still I found some very interesting things already:

Second Life Herald
An online Newspaper about what is happening in Second Life. Sometimes with breaking news, sometimes with background information and sometimes just for fun.

Natalia's Second Life Diary Blog
This girl's blog makes me turn green with envy! How on Earth does she manage to spend so much time on Second Life? Where on Earth did she acquire the skills she is teaching to us in the blog?
I guess I will just have to accept she started SL earlier than I did and she does not have two RL jobs like I do.

Ariane
seems to be active in more than one virtual world. The link points to a great document for learning about Second Life for both newbies and people who have been around somewhat longer.

I bought some land!

2006-11-21T23:59:00.000Z

Yes, I very soon decided to sign up for a premium account and then I started to check for "first land" for sale several times a day. But there was never any available. Maybe first land is a thing of the past?

So I stopped waiting and started looking for any type of land. It would have to be mainland (no convenant!) and reasonably priced. And I found it! A nice 512 sqm plot in the Wards sim. The price was a lot more than I had been hoping to pay (first land would have cost me only L$ 512), but at least I can start building now!

I had found a very nice freebie house that should fit on a 512 sqm plot. My friend A. yelled: "No! No!" because it consists of 61 prims. He thinks that eats too much out of the 117 prims allowed on a 512-lot. But it turned out to be even worse: The house would not fit: It is designed for a square lot and mine is oblong :(

OK then! I will rebuild it myself using a lot less prims. The creator of this house must have thought a beautiful look counts more than the number of prims, but I see many ways I can reduce it without making it look less beautiful.

For a start I broke off the part that will not fit on my land.

A Girl Is Born!

2006-11-14T07:59:00.000Z

Hello, World!

My name is White Hyacinth and I rezzed just now.

I have always been very interested in virtual reality. In the past I have used Digital Space, a 3D-world with audio chat. Unfortunately I could not build anything in there: I did have the knowledge, but I could not find out how to make the things I built available on a server for public viewing.

Later I found out about There: Another virtual world, but without voice chat. Unfortunately the video board in my PC (Matrox; yucky!) was not suitable for that system.

Since a few years there is also Second Life. I have hesitated for a long time, but nowadays you hear so much about it! I could no longer withstand my curiosity and I went to have a look. And I was amazed. This is so much better than Digital Space and There! I am instantly hooked!

I have started with a free account, just to try things out, but I like what I see so much I think I will soon upgrade to premium member.

I have been a blogger for years but I want to keep my Second Life seperate from my Real Life, so I have decided to start a separate blog for it. That is what you are reading right now...