"You’ve been given a sim of your very own to use for free for one year. However, there are 3 rules. It cannot be residential, it cannot be commercial, and it has to be open to the public. What do you do with it?"

I got excited seeing this question. It’s actually something I tried to do with BaileysReach, the island this blog was actually named in honor of.  BaileysReach was what is now called a Homestead and while it was partially my home, it was also a refuge for anyone who wanted to just get away and relax or escape.  My very good friend Rrishanna Regina landscaped the entire island and it was beautiful.  I hated getting rid of that island but I just couldn’t afford it anymore. So to get a sim tier free… well that would be fun. 

There are so many beautiful sims on the grid I think I’d rather do something totally frivolous.  I’ve loved fairy tales since I was a little girl, especially Cinderella.  If I’m totally honest, I liked the mice the best.   The whole idea that a poor un noticed girl could become a Princess is just about every little girls dream.  So, yeah this is my favorite fairy tale. 

My sim would be all about the fairy tales.  Cinderella, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and Jack and the Beanstalk.  I know there are hundreds more but it’s only one sim!

I’m a decent builder but there is no way I could properly do these justice by myself so I’d enlist the help of some good friends who are incredibly talented, Prad and Rrish.  Rrish would love the challenge, Prad would laugh at me.  He’d help though, he likes a challenge. 

Once it was all built I’d open it up to the public to just hang out in or even to RP in.  Anyone could come and act out the fairy tale as written or rewrite it for their amusment. 

I’d want to make it a place to have fun, take pictures, explore.  I’d  probably hide some cool freebies all over the sim for people to find.  Like half eaten apples on the snow white side, glass slippers for Cinderella, beans for Jack and little red hoods for Red Riding Hood.  These would be items donated that fit into the theme.  Not so much a hunt but items to help enjoy the sim.

Well there you go… my idea for a sim that’s not residential or commercial.  If anyone reads this and wants to help me make this dream a reality, let me know!  I really do want to do this someday….

This BBBC challenge is a blast, I’m really enjoying it.  I’ve missed writing here and hopefully this is just the kickstart to get back to it.

Ok, so I’m a day late starting this but I’m sure you’ll all forgive me.  I’ll even do 2 posts to day to make up for it.

I didn’t do this last year and wished I had so I’m going to participate this year.  Perhaps I’ll keep up blogging again after doing this.  So, go here and check it out.  Yesterday’s question which I missed was:

"How long have you been a blogger? How has it enriched your life?"
I’ve been blogging about a year I guess now, maybe a year and a half.  I’ve certainly not been regular about it.  Though for awhile, I wrote something every day.  You do start to run out of topics though.  I’m not a fashion blog so I’m usually just writing about stuff that happens to me in SL.  I’ll stick my nose in to some topics if I think I have something to say. 

Has blogging enriched my life?  That’s kinda tough.  Sometimes I think it has, others I think it’s just another thing I don’t have time for.  When I was writing daily I felt like I was contributing in some small way.  I had a few loyal readers with an occasional spike any time the word ’sex’ showed up.  I haven’t been writing daily and really miss it so this is a great way to  jump start back into it.

If I get a few new readers that’s awesome, and thank you and Welcome to my little corner of the world. ^^ 

Cheers!

oh…. don’t tell anyone but I’m doing this from work and while I can’t read blogs unless they are in my newsfeed or leave a comment, I can write in mine.  Go figure.  So I will leave a comment on Alicia’s blog later when I get home and aren’t behind the great firewall I sit behind everyday.

Every couple of months a new topic, or one revisited, comes up that gets blogged and sends everyone into fits.  The most recent is again the Great Debate on Freebies.  Prad stirred the pot quite a bit with his post, Entitlement and loads of other bloggers have commented or written on their own blogs about it.  I’m not gonna debate the worthiness of freebies with anyone.  They have their place and use and if someone works really hard at making something and then decides to just give it away…. Well who am I to tell them they can’t or shouldn’t? 

There are many things in the SL economy that annoy me to no end but I’m not going to waste a lot of time complaining to the internet about it.  I stopped doing hunts ages ago.  If my friends are doing one and want company, sure I’ll hop my way around with them but I don’t feel compelled to continue.  I have to say though, I’ve found a few new favorite stores through these things so they aren’t all bad.  But saying that, I won’t waste hours and  hours going to hundreds of stores for stuff that I may or may not end up keeping.  Just as an aside, a list of all the participating stores in a hunt would be great because even if I don’t go on the hunt, I can always visit these stores later when they aren’t as crowded and can do some serious shopping.  Just sayin…

The problem isn’t the freebie in my mind.  The problem is the people.  The consumers who have gotten so engrossed in the ‘hunts’ that they have forgotten that these are actually stores, not just buildings holding a hunt a gift that you have to find.  The designers in an effort to improve sales or traffic or both keeping improving the free gift they give out or join more hunts.  The quality of some of the free gifts I’ve seen is just stellar so kudos to all of you for the higher standards you’ve set.  But when your freebies are so damn good, I don’t need to buy anything!  Then there are the bloggers.  I use the fashion blogs just like everyone else to see what’s new and for ideas.  No, I don’t like seeing something on every single blog and usually those items i’ll avoid.  At least for a few months anyway.   The point I’m making here is that we ALL have contributed to this feeling of "Entitlement" as Prad puts it. 

For me, freebies taught me how to build.  I took things apart, figured out how they were done and then tried to duplicate them.  Once I realized I could make a copy, well then I had to make my ‘own’.  I don’t have a store and I don’t sell anything on Xstreet but I do know how to make some stuff.  Clothing and shoes and hair escape me mainly because of the amount of photoshop time and patience and frankly skill needed that I just don’t have right now.  Right now I’m focusing on making some animations for myself.  When I’m happy with them, maybe I’ll sell them or give some away, who knows.  The fact is I learned how to do things by pulling other peoples work apart and seeing what made it work or how it was put together.  I also spent hours watching Prad build and learned sooo much from him, seeing how he puts something together.  So, the freebie served a purpose for me.

All that being said, I’ll still grab a freebie that I see that is amazing or that I just simply have to have.  To be honest though, I’d pay for these items if they weren’t free. 

Instead of everyone getting angry with each other, designer and consumer alike, or attempting to point fingers or throw the blame around, why don’t you all start the designers consortium as someone suggested in Prad’s comments.  Get together and talk about how to increase business or traffic or marketing or PR.  Talk this stuff out together, ask your customers what they think, work together rather than against each other.  Get some folks together who know how to run a successful business in SL and RL.  Come up with new ways of doing things.  This is SL, if we can fly then surely there are different ways of marketing your product.

I’ve met quite a few designers in SL and without exception they are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.  They are also incredibly talented and busy and smart.   I’d love to see a group of them get together to sort out some of the issues with SL business. 

Look what they accomplish for RFL every year….

Imagine what they could do for the SL economy….

It’s that time of year again… the Relay for Life Kiosks are up, events are starting to be advertised and the teams are plotting and planning for the big Walk in July.

This is my second year participating in RFL.  Last year the Crown had a team of it’s own.  We started way late into the process and I had NO clue what I was doing.  Between Prad and I though we got stuff built(Ok he built, I watched and ran around getting stuff to be raffled off) and got people from the Crown involved.  We didn’t do too badly all things considered.  We raised money for a good cause, that’s what matters.

I don’t know too many people who haven’t been touched by Cancer.  I know my family has.  It’s an awful disease but we keep raising money and we keep fighting for a cure.

This year Dazy decided to get a team together in Midian.  Midian as a city has never participated before, at least not that I’m aware of.   Well, she got it together and created a team that I think represents all the factions in Midian.  At the end of the day, Midian is RP and IC drama should stay separate from OOC(I say should but that is another post).  Well we had our first event on the sim a week or two ago, and wow it was a success.  We raised over $100,000 lindens.  Not sure what that is in dollars but it’s a decent effort for only a few hours of time.  We crashed the sim, not hard to do in Midian and had a lot of really good, fun roleplay as well.  The best part, was seeing all the "citizens" of Midian getting in on it.  No one but the sim admins and team/participants knew about this and everyone got into it.  It was loads of fun!

There are more events planned, I’m not going to say what or when, cause that wouldn’t be fare.  Just hang around Midian, you’ll find out. 

There is a store on Angel Square selling RFL items made by members of the team.  Pretty cool stuff too so come down and take a look.  There’s a kiosk to donate too as well if your so inclined.

The team had a meeting last night.  We’ve raised a lot of money for a first year team.  Dazy is doing an amazing job!  Stay tuned for updates here and hopefully look forward to a Catwalker blog coming soon.

Well it’s that time of year again.   Time for the Crown and Pearl’s annual charity date auction.   That’s right, the regulars and staff are putting themselves up on the auction.   What do you get if you out bid everyone else and “win” one of these awesome folks?   You win a one hour date.  What you two do on your date is up to you.   We don’t wanna know.  No, really we don’t. 

So how does it work?  Well if you’d like to be “auctioned” off, then contact me by Thursday and I’ll add you to the list.   The you need to come to the C2P(the underground club on Angel Square) Sunday February 8^th by 1pm.   You’ll go up on the auction block and the winning bidder gets a date with you by paying the donation box.  

The event is always a lot of fun and we raise a lot of money for a good cause.  Last year over the course of a week we raised over $1million lindens for Cancer Research.   The event was dedicated to DeeDee Fadoodle, a regular of the Crown and Pearl and resident of Angel Square.   We lost DeeDee last year and she is sorely missed. 

If you can’t participate in the actual event, the donation box will be left up for a few days and you are welcome to throw some linden love in the box.   All the money raised will go to Cancer Research UK, we aren’t keeping a penny of it.

So you wanna know who is being auctioned off right?  Well, we’ve got 2 of SL’s hottest Male Avs, I’m not saying who.   I hear there is a rather sexy cat or two up for auction as well as a several other lovely regulars and staff.

If you want all the details you need to be in the Crown and Pearl group so sign up if you aren’t yet.   You’ll get all the details and notices about the event.

I’ll thank everyone in advance for their support for this very worth cause.

Yep, that’s me.  I’ve been a bad blogger.  Haven’t posted a thing in days.  Why you may ask?  Well, I’ve been sick in RL and really haven’t felt like writing anything.  I’ve also been busy doing other things.  What other things?  Oh, you’ll all find out at some point.  Just not now.

Back to blogging though.  I’ve missed it actually.  One of the blogs I read had a link to this website  and the premise sounded pretty good so I went to check it out.  Of course they want you to buy the video, the book, the tapes etc etc but the basic premise I like.  Here’s the idea, stop complaining and criticizing for 21 days.  If you catch yourself doing it, then start over for 21 days.

What an incredible concept no?  No complaints, no criticisms, no gossip, no drama for 21 days.  Have you ever stopped to think about how many times you complain about something in your day?  Being home sick for three days I’ve done a lot of complaining believe me.  But I’ve been sick so I decided to not even try this until I felt better.  I’ll start this weekend.  21 days, I think I can do it.

What about you?  Can you go 21 days without a complaint about someone or something?  21 days without criticizing someone’s behavior, clothing, attitude? 21 days without talking about someone negatively?

I’d love to hear what you think about this and whether or not you think you can do it.  I’ll post everyday to let you know how I’m doing.  Yes, I’ll be honest and not cheat!  Not that most of you would know if I did but I won’t.

I challenge anyone who wants to do this with me to comment here or drop me a note/IM in world.  Most of my IMs go to email and I’ll respond when I get it.

Even if you choose to not try this little experiment with me, think about how many times you’ve complained today.  It’s only 7am for me and I’ve ripped our building maintenance apart for not sanding the parking lot or handing out ice skates.  It’s a valid complaint granted but instead of complaining, I should call them, which I did.  I won’t tell you what they told me.  It wasn’t nice.

So, wow been a busy few days now hasn’t it.  To say that the grid had issues this past weekend would be an understatement.  Logins were on and off more often than…. well, it was a lot.  Don’t rezz no copy items, teleports down, stale transactions and I won’t even talk about what Midian was like.

I’ve been a resident for over 2 years now.  Way back when I was still in my Ruth skin this kind of behaviour was normal.  Hair and shoes hanging off your arse, unable to walk across a sim line.  It was awful.  But it got better.  It really did.  In fact the majority of 2008 was awesome.  Crashs happen but not often.  No weird attachments.  And if the grid went down, everyone got booted(well, except Prad).  In fact every Wednesday the grid would go down, we’d all log in to RL and eventually the grid came back up and life went on.  Glitches happened of course but they usually fixed themselves in an hour or two.

This last week and especially this past weekend has been the worst I’ve seen in 2 years.  People spamming their groups to not log out because logins were disabled.  Then once you inevitably crashed, trying in vain to log back in.  To say I was annoyed would be an understatement.  I don’t usually complain about LL.  I know they are doing the best they can.  At least I hope they are.  But whatever it is that sent the grid into a tailspin this past week needs to get fixed.  And soon. 

There are a lot of us paying a great deal of money every month.  We expect excellent service and a product that works.  Glitches will happen, we get that.  But I have to say I’d rather know the grid was gonna be down for 4 hours on one day then lose 4 hours in little bits and pieces over the course of 3 days. 

As far as the buyout of Xstreetxl and Onrez…. I’ll reserve judgement until I see what they intend to do with it.

Roleplay is a big deal in SL for many residents.  There are any number of areas you can roleplay in from the many Gorean sims to the medieval Avilion to the urban dark side of Midian and Toxian City.  If you’ve got an interest in roleplay then there is a place out there for you.

Now I’ve already confessed here that I’ve started roleplaying in Midian City and that I’m really enjoying it.  I’ve been a part of this for about a week now and thought I’d share my thoughts about role playing and Midian specifically. 

First, I realize many people look down on avs who roleplay.  Honestly I don’t know why though.  Even before I started I never looked down on anyone for it.  Personally I will never understand the Gor sims but that’s just me.  To each their own and as long as you don’t expect me to "roleplay" on a non-Gor sim, we’re all good.  If I’m on a roleplay sim taking pictures, I wear an observer or OOC(out of character) tag and respect those who are roleplaying.  Out in the rest of the world, I’m just me, no character to play.

I’ve come to learn that roleplay is not as easy as one might think who has never done it.  I would compare it to writing a play as it’s being acted out.  You are reacting to the other characters you encounter and many times you don’t know exactly what they are going to do or how they are going to react. 

I started roleplaying in Midian because several of my friends have and are and it struck me one night that it would be fun.  Since I started I’ve learned quite a bit and not just about roleplaying, about myself too.  See the character I’ve created in Midian has many of the traits I have so playing her isn’t much of a departure from just being myself.  I would think that to be successful in roleplay you need to identify with your character.  Unless you are a really good actor, playing someone contrary to your natural character is going to be difficult.

So now I’m roleplaying.  I’ve lots to learn still but I’m looking forward to the process.  I’m just thankful I managed to jump from roof to roof last night without making a total arse of myself in front of Elise.

I’m certainly not the expert on roleplaying but if you never have and think you want to, I say go for it.  If you want to hang out in Midian and get a feel for things, IM me I can show you around. 

=^.^=

Apparently confessions are good for the soul so I’m going to start this week off with one of my own.  So here it is:  I always thought roleplay in SL was silly and a waste of time.

Why am I blogging this *confession*?  Well, quite  simply because I started roleplaying this weekend.  So here’s what happened…

I have quite a few friends who roleplay.  For the most part, they are all roleplaying in Midian City.  Now I’d been to Midian in the past to take a few pictures but I was always there *out of character*.  Getting involved in roleplay held no interest for me.   Thru conversations they would have I’d hear about what was going on.  I’d see the pictures they would post to their Flickr streams along with the story that went behind it.  To be perfectly honest, I was fascinated.  I’ve been riveted by the stories I’ve seen and heard. 

Now anyone who has seen me lately knows I’m back to being a Neko.  Black fluffy tail, black ears and new tats.  This was going to be the year of taking some risks and stepping out of my comfort zone.  Frankly, I’m enjoying being a cat.  So the other night I popped over to Midian to take a few pictures while my friends were over there.   While I was snapping away a bit of roleplay started and I seemed to have landed in the middle of it.  I was out of character so I just sat and watched and listened and I have to say, totally enjoyed it.    So, when I was asked if I would consider roleplaying in Midian I said sure. 

I spent a good part of the weekend in Midian.  Met quite a few people, did some roleplaying and was given an invite to be a Catwalker Pledge.  And so it begins….  I’m looking forward to this.  It’s new, it’s different and for me, it’s stepping out of that comfort zone that I’ve been way to stuck in.  I know I’ve got a lot to learn when it comes to roleplay but I’m looking forward to it and I’m looking forward to getting to know my new family, the Catwalkers.

So, if you see "Bails" in Midian don’t be too surprised.

If you aren’t familiar with the poem by Robert Frost  I suggest reading it.  It’s really one of my favorite poems.  When I first logged in to SL, SL was the road not taken and as the last line in the poem says, *And I took the one less traveled by and it has made all the difference.*  For me SL was an unknown.  I saw it on TV and thought it looked cool so I logged in.  I picked up the basics of movement, flying, talking and changing my appearance fairly quickly.  I didn’t though know anything about this place, where I could go, what I could do.  I met some great people in the Welcome area who took me out shopping or dancing or just out for a wander but no one told me or even showed me that I could *DO* anything.  I had no idea that everything I saw was created by residents.  I had no idea that I had the same tools at my disposal that they did.  Perhaps I was just not paying attention.  Perhaps I wasn’t interested.  When I think back to those first few months, my focus was on people.  Meeting people.  People from all over the world that I would never have had a chance to meet or speak to otherwise.

Aribeth, my first and dearest friend, introduced me to a whole different world within this crazy world.  We crashed a wedding.  The after party was at the Three Lions Pub.  That one event sparked a year of making new friends, learning new things, exploring, love, loss, laughter, sadness, heartbreak, anger and above it all a sense of happiness and belonging.  These people came to be my family.  Many of them are gone or have wandered off on to other things but the ones I grew the closest too I still see and speak to every day.  They are family.

The Three Lions is gone but not forgotten.  In it’s place grew several pubs/bars/clubs.  A few remain and are still going strong.  New friends are made.  New memories made.  New experiences, trying new things.  We change, we grow, we learn and we are better for it.

I get IMs from people many times in world saying *I’m bored*.  Usually when I get these I’m at my busiest.  Either building something or DJing or talking to a resident.  Now there are times I log in and either don’t know what to do with myself or no one is around to talk to and I’ll feel *bored*.  That’s when I’ll either go look for places to take pictures, go shopping or just wander or even log back into RL.  What I use to entertain myself may not work for everyone but I learned long ago that SL is what you make of it.  If you don’t venture out of your comfort zone and try something new, you will eventually get bored.  Everytime I’ve started to get bored in SL i’ve learned something new.  Photoshop, making animations, torturing prims, and learning new building techniques and perfecting the ones I have.

I own 3 sims, a bar, a club, a Homeowner’s group that is growing every day, a fairly successful blog, I’m a decent photographer ;) and I’m planning all kinds of new stuff for the coming year. 

*Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less traveled by, …*

I plan to take the less traveled paths.  To forge my own path.