Fashion for the flatchested!

I was watching some documentaries on SL on Netflix and Youtube a while back and one of them commented on virtual worlds and MMOLRPGs in general as reinforcing gender stereotypes.  To a degree I think they may have a point, with the recent influx of mesh fashion, most vendors of men's clothes have made them for massive hulking muscled types.  And the vendors of womens clothes have tended toward the busty.  Even XXS sizes are often made for avatars chestier than what I consider ideal for mine.  And most vendors don't include a XXS.  Sometimes they stop at Small.  Which frankly would typically leave Betty Page enough room to bounce around in.

But there is hope!  Stinky Kitty & Razor Blade Jacket both have some of their mesh tops in a flat chested size!  Yep, totally flat.  Rejoice all ye fembois and grrls.

Razorblade Jacket's Half Sweater for the flatchested.

Still more sacred spaces

Lest you think me hopelessly Christian in my appreciation of sacred spaces in SL, or RL, here is a location that I found quite moving.  Especially given I lean toward Buddhist beliefs in many ways.

The snapshots here show me (in a new outfit from *slave* and shoes from Grumble) exploring the site in SL called Yogyakarta Borobudur.

These locations are based on real world sites that are truly ancient and awe inspiring.  You should stop by and see if you can't find a bit of inner peace.

Being Uhmerican

These days, being a patriotic American seems to almost require that you be a blind sided white bread "uhmericun."  But, as I sit thinking about it, and the pain and struggle that went into bringing together the unlikely confluence of genetics that gave rise to me and others of my generation, I just feel the need to give props to those that came before.

Uncle Angel who gave us pollo con arroz and other Puerto Rican and Columbian comfort food that warms the heart to this day.

Cousin Tony, and his family who gave us Capicola and Salami.  On big white bread buns with oil and vinegar.  Sandwiches that are equaled, but never bettered.

Aunt Betsy who gave us Kielbasa and sour kraut.  Grandma's chicken and dumplings with cracklin's in cornbread.  Etc. etc. 

Americans are not from America.  At least not the vast majority of us.  We are from "the old country."  And if, in this day and age we can't stop and relate to those who are recently come from there, wherever there is, or are still there, where ever there is, then that's on us.  And shame, shame on us.

Aint no cure for the summer time blues. And pinks. And...Other random stuff.

As is usual this time of year, not getting around to updating my blog as often as I might like.  And not exploring in SL all that much.  Mostly just hanging out at my usual haunts and shopping when I get time to be in world.  So, I've ended up with a bunch of random snapshots over the last few weeks.  For your enjoyment, hopefully, here they are.

Since I haven't been exploring it should come as no surprise that all these items are from favorite shops.  The pink beach wear is from Grumble, both hunt gifts.  The top from the Candy Girl Hunt, the bottom from Hot Summer Hunt.

Below that is the outfit from Plausible Body that I've had on before in red, now in white, with color change boots from *Slave*.  Next is a woman's tux from Grumble.  Beside that is an ensemble' made up of things from many places, top is from Baby Monkey, skirt Happy Undead and shoes Grumble

The red outfit is a group gift from Happy Undead.  I found the cute parasol I'd picked up somewhere and decided to do some shooting in the rain.

And last, a group gift from Belly Dance Goddess with shoes from Baby Monkey.

Last weekend for the Hair Fair.

I finally got to the hair fair.  And there are lots of bargains to be had.  About half the stalls have either a freebie or dollarbie.  Many have marked down items.  And everyone posts how much of your purchase goes to the charity.  My only complaints are, some vendors freebie/dollarbie offerings are basically useless and insulting pieces of crap.  For example, this ridiculous thing from Enigma.

Yes, those are swim fins stuck on my head.  And frankly the hair doesn't even look that good.  I find paying even one linden for this insulting and I wont be buying anything from this vendor again.  As usual the gifts from a few vendors are odd colors or rather unusual hair dos you probably wont wear often.  My only other complaint?  Well, they based the whole fair build on Legos.  It was a clever idea.  But the execution made for rather ugly overall build.  Hence, the lack of snapshots of the fair itself.  The swim fins are awful enough.

On the other hand, some vendors were giving away really nice items.  For example these two hair dos.  The fro is from EMO-Tion and the Pony Tail is from Miamai.  The retro cat suit is an old fav from SF Design.  The green shoes and everything I'm wearing in the pony tail shot are from Grumble.  The top and skirt are on special this weekend for 10L.

The afro is a lovely bouncy thing full of flexies, and sits on top of a well done hair base tattoo layer.  The pony tail is mesh, so it doesn't ever inter-penetrate your avatar, but it also tends to defy gravity if you end up in an odd position.  The rest of it is also a very nicely textured hair base.  As you might guess, this year, mesh and tattoo layer hair seem to be big.

Another surprise this year, some of the gifts are clothing items.  I don't remember ever getting any clothing at previous hair fairs.  Not that I'm complaining, they were mostly mesh and rather well done.

Hope you make it to the fair if you already haven't.

New Construction in Pair A Dice

Recently the owner of the sim I call home, Pair A Dice, decided to do a bit of remodeling.  She removed a smithy and stable, that were very nice builds, in the desire to have a chapel added to the island's buildings.  Well, thanks to the generosity of Belle Dejour, I happened to have a low prim mesh chapel in my inventory.  So I set that up and decorated it for Raychill and any of the visitors to the island.  Here's a couple of shots showing how it turned out.

Exterior view.  Miss Ray added the ivy, which I think is a nice touch.

The interior.  I made the pews and altar from scratch.  A friend, Prissy, made the bows.

After we finished this, Raychill still wanted a stable, so she left a few "furnishings" rezzed and I built a small two stall stable and smithy around them. Here's a shot of that.

A view of the new smaller stable and outdoor smithy.

In these shots I'm wearing a dress by *Slave* Dressing Room and some nice matching shoes from Grumble.  One of the things I like about building in SL, you don't have to get dirty or dress all construction worker.  I can build in a cocktail dress, slacks, gown, suit or nothing as it suits me.

SL on TV again, sort of.

The TV show on cable's TNT, called Perception, recently featured an episode called Calidescope.  To quote the episode synopsis, "Pierce and Moretti venture into virtual reality to investigate the murder of a man who obsessively played a multiplayer online game, causing the line between reality and fantasy to blur even more for Pierce."

They used a lot of cheating, unlike the old CSI episodes which actually used footage of SL, they simply shot the actors on different sets as their "virtual selves."  They also brought up some of the common, pop psych issues about spending time and having relationships online.  Some of which have some merit, but others just seem to miss the point. But I'd make a small wager that someone involved with writing and shooting the episode spent a least a little while in SL.

If you like oddball crime shows and are a frequenter of SL, you might find this episode interesting.  I'm sure it will be available on demand someplace if you don't catch it during a broadcast, or with your DVR.

Hope you are having a great life, in or out of virtual reality.

Great Goodies from Grumble

Well SL is acting better for me these days, but I had an RL setback that has made me scarce in SL for a bit.  I am looking forward to visiting the Hair Fair and the Food Fair and seeing all the neat new fashions, and picking up the bargains and freebies.  But until I get there, I'm making do with what is on hand.  And those are mostly some nice new items from Grumble.  The cute pink minidress and the ruffled skirt are from the selections for the Food Fair.  The over-sized T is from the recent Naughty & Nice promotion.  The Kerchief top is from LOoLOo, not Grumble, but it looks good with that skirt doesn't it. 

Locations are at Pair A Dice and Miko's Beach.  The bench above is something I put in a small court yard next to a chapel we recently setup on the island.  It's a lovely spot, you should come on by sometime and see it.

SL is behaving badly tonight.

I think we are seeing the first awful effects of the server side baking roll out.  Things were just plain weird in SL tonight for me.  In both Firestorm and Singularity, regardless of which sim or server type I was on.  The oddest thing was that new alpha layers would not bake, but old ones seemed to do OK.  If you can call taking two or three minutes to bake after they show as worn, OK.  Was going to upload some fashion shots and a snapshot of a bridal chapel I made for a friend, but SL was to annoying to stay in for long and take snapshots.  So that will have to wait till another night.

RGB Gowns

For the most part, while I like mesh, formals and gowns made mesh style are just now starting to develop some potential.  Below are three examples.  The red dress is from *Slave Dressing Room*.  The blue one is from Sassy and incorporates flexies for the flounce at the bottom which I think is a good idea.  And the green one is from Evensong at Grumble.  I like the clean lines of the Green one, the flexi of the blue one and the asymmetry of the red one.  But all of them have the inherent limitations of mesh and wont "work well" in all situations.  None the less, I wanted to show you that I think progress is being made.