BTW

I have no idea why two of my background images had turned into !! signs. I have uploaded my blog images to my own web gallery myself, so it was not about stolen images. Sorry for the inconvenience, I have now replaced the broken links.

Summertime

I have been working way too hard lately, on this blog. (Not on the stuff I was supposed to, lol). Well, I just realized, I'm my own boss. So here it is: I am now officially on vacation!

I can't be doing reviews on your items for the duration of my vacation, I'm sorry for any inconvenience.

Do not despair, though, blog fans. I will have a summer intern entertaining you while I am away. She is a traveling journalist though, and not too interested in biggy fashions (unless they have pictures of waffles), so back with the cheapie and freebie tips when I'm good and sun soaked.

Here is a song for the summer:


Rope - deadmau5 mix, Foo Fighters, Wasting Light (Deluxe Version)
Listen to this amazing mix on Spotify.

xoxo, Alana

PS. Always know where your towel is.

Outfit details:

Skin: HoWear (SLurl) Mystic Night sunkissed ink 3
Jacket: Milk motion (SLurl) Jellyfish blouse, 50l Fridays
Eyes: Shine (Website) Monet Iris, freebie
Hair: Raw house (SLurl) Emily hot 10, group gift
Bag: The Secret Store (SLurl) Girly briefcase, Beeswax
Top and pants: Whippet & Buck (SLurl) Saeya Resort Suit, 50l Fridays


Props: Awesome blossoms (Website) Lizzy's Garden Table for SBS
Towel: Hitchiker beach towel by Lironah Daviau

By The Way: Info about Imprudence, Beautiful pictures

Did you see the amazing winner pictures of Where it begins?

Love the talent. Congrats. :)

Imprudence users need to get the newest version. Here is a quote from their site.

Imprudence 1.3.2 is now available. This is a maintenance release to addresses several issues in the 1.3-series Imprudence viewer, including an exploit that could allow griefers to crash the viewer with a specially-constructed ogg-vorbis file. If you are using Imprudence 1.3, you should definitely update to 1.3.2! If you are using Imprudence Experimental 1.4, you should consider using 1.3.2 until we release Imprudence 1.4 beta 1 (expected later this week or next week).

By the way: Bloom dolls and filter cam hud

Cadence of writes about two very interesting things at once.

First of all, the photographic tool, called Filter Cam HUD, from MechanizedLife (SLurl), sounds really interesting. You can use a great set of tools within SL, no need for editing afterwards.

And the second interesting thing are the Surf Co's (SLurl) Bloom Dolls. SL's newest craze, as many blogs call them.

Payment issues

If you have payment issues, it might be because Linden Labs has released a new payment plan that is a beta version (website). At least for me, none of my  L$ purchases have gone through since the change. So what to do?

One way I have found very effective is to go to a Virwox automat inworld, and pay with a credit card. They allow at least Visa Electron and the most common credit cards. There is a list of locations at the website, but an easy one for all Rag Dollz fans is outside their store (SLurl). Through Virwox you can move money between game worlds (for example Giant grid, Spoton3d, etc). There is also a Paypal automat next to the VirWox one by Rag Dollz.

By the way

Todays 25l first day special is gorgeous at Howear (SLurl)!

Question, and answers

Here is an important question, and answers by some interesting Metaverse personalities.

Can content creators be safe in Open Sims? Blog post by Prim Perfect featuring an episode of the Designing Worlds video series.

Pink with hearts, yellow star

Simple but sweet outfit for today.

Outfit details:

Home of Sanu (SLurl) Kawaii star set shoes, star, bow and lollipop

Kat Johnston of Sanu fame also has a rl website here.

Wetherby's (SLurl) butterfly zen dress

!MU Genki eyes from MU.shop (SLurl)

Beauty Avatar hair, Alva, white platinum, Glam affair (SLurl)

Smoking gun tan skin, Garded secret (SLurl)

Btw Garded secret is having a 50% sale atm and they made the group join fee smaller too. :)

Im on a boat!

Guess what bishes..

And we're letting the raindeer steer, lol.

Seriously?

Let's try this again. I know it's difficult to keep a business running on SL. I know there is a lot of smut and "everyone else is doing it", so why should this and that business do something to stop it? But to me it just feels sad that under "mature content" you can just support any idea your mind comes up with, make it look candylicious and no one is allowed to say that hey, wait, this is wrong?!

Maybe this was just a bad joke, maybe they just did not think it through or to someone's mind it's SL and anything goes here. But as a customer this thing made me sick. I was spending money at the club, and at the mall, where I ran into this sign. I felt that as a customer I had the right to comment on the content I was seeing.

I know this is a vendor product and my main complaint is to the designer, not the mall. But where does the line go? I think I have a place for complaint to anyone who displays this, not just the person who designs it.

If you read my blog at all you notice that I don't go around looking for things to complain about, just the opposite. I promote things I like, for free, and just for fun. Do I get to have a negative opinion about something clearly negative? It is a personal blog so I think I do. I am a customer, so in that way too I think I do. I am not trying to take down someones business or start drama, I am trying to make a point I think is lost in SL. It's sad. I know it is frustratingly big, the smut industry, but do we really just have to surrender to it completely? And do we need to become part of it to survive on SL or does it just look that way?

Are the smut dealers using the fact that SL is a difficult place to run a business, to their gain? Or are we just getting so blind to what is right and wrong that people think it should be just taken for granted that "these things happen", they "just are around us"?

And who are "they" really? Isn't this a collection of us? Us people, us individuals. Us customers, users, players, personalities. If you support a thing you become part of the culture it represents. That's how I see it. 

I think the politically correct -bullshit is making the world in to a fucked up place. We have the pg areas at SL and they are a joke. It's ok to go to the mature side and bunch your lover but in the next sim you aren't allowed to say a curseword?

I repeat:

Seriously?

Edit:

I had a talk with a representative of the designer and they assured me this product is not meant to support rape. I ended up agreeing with a lot of their views but we agreed to disagree on the product. :)

D for Demo's

Dunneh writes in her post on Narcissism is my forte about product demo's. She has important and interesting points.

I myself have not used demo's much yet. I came to SL without any money and have only recently gotten some SL income. So I would not have had the money for the product, so I did not use the demo's much. I might have tried something just because it looked awesome, of course. :)

See the post and make up your own mind. Should demo's be always free? I agree with Dunneh in that a free demo gives a generous impression of the store owner. But now that I have some money to spend, I like the idea of supporting the designers and 1l for one demo is kind of a nice way to say thanks, if I end up not buying the product. But that's also why there are donation jars at stores and Dunneh makes good points about demo's when you are someone who uses a lot of them.

Maybe there could be a group for demo users? You could get demo's for free if you were a member? Joining a group requires some initiative and for that I think it's a good thing to give them a free demo. And I guess as the group tag allows the freebie, it gives the seller a way to track how many demo's they have sold for free.

What do you guys think?

R.E.S.P.E.C.T

I recommend this blog post "New York Fashion Week . . . in Second Life", by Johanna Blakley in her blog, about how the rl fashion industry should come to SL. She makes some interesting points.

And speaking of designers, while I was checking out stores that had taken part on Wear Gray (see sidebar), I found myself at !SSUS! (SLurl). They had a box next to the front door with the option to get some materials for a designer rights campaign called Step Up! The campaign website is a good source of information as well.

My blog showcases a lot of stores that offer freebies and cheap items for newbies and other players working with a low budget. But these stores are featured also for their quality items and to support their business.

I want to remind my readers to respect the designers. Do not buy stolen goods or take unwarranted copies. When you have a better income in the future, please remember the stores that were kind enough to assist with lucky games and freebies when you had less to spend. I know a lot of people go to the stores to buy things and are not just reading for the freebies, but still I think it's a good thing to remind us all of. The designers put a lot of effort to their work and we should treat them well.

Back to recommending stores. Besides a large selection of nice items, !SSUS! has a MM-board and lucky games for us. Good luck!

Party 'till you shop

Randomly expoloring again, I found this place with a club and shops.

Choonz: Blog - SLurl

MM boards by the club.

India: Fashion designs. Lovely gifties and a lucky board.

Hopeless designs: Great gift. Demo's are free and the shoes look good.

And BTW:

India has a wall space at Wowww too, and more gifts and products there. (SLurl). ( Found that too by random exploring. Funny.)

By the way: MM fit for men too

There are freebies and lucky games for men as well, on SL.

How about this for a prize? There was a clothing one for men, close by.

The place is called Willow's marketplace and it has nice stores with some lucky barrels, freebie gifts and MM boards all around. (SLurl)

Walking around the market place.

Oh, saw the first Optics store I have seen on SL. They have nice freebie gifts too.

BTW: a better picture and SLurl

BTW, here is a better picture and the SLurl to a store I have shown earlier. It's called Rockberry skins and shapes (SLurl), and it has some lovely things. You can also win pretty skins from a lucky letter game.

Lucky letters. You can also see someone whose avatar is not showing yet as more than a cloud. A beginner loading.