Bitch Bitch Moan Moan Whine Whine! or… Thank a Linden!

Heya folks! I originally had this posted over on my more personal blog but thought it just as relevant to be posted here (with minor revisions). So if you are one of the 5 people that already read it, my apologies. There is never a bad time to re-evaluate your reality or virtuality. (Like that word? I just made that shit up, off the top of my head & everything).

Look I get it – SL is not the most stable virtual world on the world wide web. In all honesty there’s not many that I have played that are (Ultima Online, The Sims Online, Rose, Laguna Beach, THERE, World of Warcraft, Auto Assault, Free Realms, Open Life, etc). The point is that these worlds, IMHO were created for entertainment purposes only. They weren’t created to take place of real life jobs, real life interactions or real life *gasp* lives. They were created to give you enjoyment & a nice little reality break.

However people have found ways to turn what they love to do into a way to make money within the virtual worlds that they play. Well hell – that’s awesome. If I had talent other than spewing my thoughts onto a page for my few readers and *I* could make money at it, you better bet I’d be boarding that gravy train in a heartbeat. So I’d like to say Kudos to those that manage to do that on a daily basis. I’m sure it beats my 45 min commute each way & being forced to listen to Kegan sing his little diddys Mon-Fri.

What I have noticed though is a rash of bitchy, moany, whiney comments regarding SecondLife across the blogosphere lately. This is broken, that is broken, I crashed again, LL should get their shit together, yada yada yada blah blah. I know that most people pay for their accounts and you have every right as a paying customer to complain about the service you recieve, but do you ever thank Linden Labs when the service is good? Do you ever say “hey thanks for allowing me to log in to the world you created?” Do you ever think about the life you had before SL? SL has not been around *that* long that you knew nothing before it.

I guess my honest opinion comes from the opposite end of this bitch-fest spectrum. I’m no longer a paid account in SL (I use to be up til 2 years ago) and I feel as a non-membership fee paying resident that I have no right to bitch. The rest of you that are on free accounts should also think about that – LL owes you nothing.

All I’m saying is look, if you don’t like it… leave. No one is holding a gun to your head making you stay and bitch daily about everything that you feel is wrong with SecondLife and/or LL. Here’s a positive spin on things… remember why you’re there in the first place and the things you do actually enjoy there. If you can’t think of anything then mayhaps it’s time to move on.

If by any chance a Linden reads this (which is super slim)… THANK YOU!

Coolest Thing Ever!

I’m the first person to scoff at certain roleplay…

Vampires? Really? You are asking me for permission to bite me? In my sick & sometimes twisted Vampire fantasies, the vamps never ask, they just take me all romantically hard & stuff. There’s other RP that I could mention here & also spew my opinions about but then I’d just digress from telling you about the Coolest Thing Ever Ever Ever ever ever ever.

All over plurk I’ve been seeing “doll skins”. At first I was like “o-kay” and then I move on. I’m not a big fan of lined doll skins. In my opinion dolls don’t have lines because they want to, dolls have lines because of function, they have to! (Yes, I know I am talking about dolls like they’re real, shup!) So if I’m going to be a doll in SL, I’m not going to have lines or buy a skin. Instead I’m going to find a cute updo hair style, wear my regular skin, throw on a tutu & get myself a wind up key… And so I did.

And I’m freaking adorable!

The thing about this key is that it was made to work with a sub collar for doll play. So you can’t just buy the Doll Key and expect it to work. You have to either buy a compatible collar or the “container”. Since it’s a proven fact that I do not make a good sub, slave or pet from past experiences, I went with the “container” (it’s located on the left hand side wall next to the Doll Keys). The instructions are a bit intense, and set up is a bit tricky. The good news is that Briggit & Peggy are awesome with customer service. Briggit helped me get my key up & spinning in no time and she explained to me exactly what I needed to do in terms I could understand.

So I haven’t even told you what I find to be the coolest bit about the key. First of all, you cannot wind yourself. Nope, you are at the mercy of others around you, or screwed if you’re alone. That’s my favorite part. When you aren’t wound, you cannot move/walk, you’re slumped, cannot speak in general chat, key is not spinning, and you cannot tp. Your best bet is to IM someone & ask for a wind up. This is great for anyone looking to make new friends, don’t you think? What better ice breaker do you need other than “Hi I know you don’t know me but could you possibly touch the key on my back and wind me up?” Each wind up is good for 30 minutes so it could also help curb your need to shop for long periods of time.

As with most collars (which is the premise for the “container”, you get to choose a Master that can control you if you choose via blue drop down menu or command words. If you attempt to remove the key, your Master will be notified just like with any standard collar.

A lil from the notecard:

dollsit (forces the doll to sit)

dolloff (Shuts the doll down manually)

dollwave (make the doll wave)

dollfollow (makes the doll follow you.)

There’s much more but since I’m blogging from work & Hawks isn’t my errand boy, you’ll just have to go check it out for yourself. Below are the SLURLS to the things I used to put this look together & make it functionable…

Doll Key & Container: Brigitt and Peggy’s store
A little shop with Amethyst collar plugins, Clockwork Doll keys, Jewelry, Dungeon Torches, piecing gag, collars, Land Rentals on the waterfront.

AO: ANAMATIONS – Music Dancer AO

TUTU: Sn@tch – Murder Ballet

Shoes: Shiny Things – Ballet flat – black

Hair: Truth – Rose – bubblegum

A big thank you and shout out to the one & only Inclinations Moody who had this look first and was nice enough to let me copy her.

Thank you also to HawksRock for grabbing the SLURLS for me and being my new more lenient Master.

-JellyBean-

JellyBean vs. SL Hunts

This is an Op/Ed which means that this is my opinion, and yes, it’s open for debatical.

🙂

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who gets annoyed, frustrated, angered, bothered, disturbed, irked, provoked, and troubled by certain SL crap. The latest? SL Hunts!

I am not a huge fan of hunts. I do remember I participated in my first one a few years back & I thought it was fun. However lately it seems there’s 10 hunts going at any given time now in SL. At what point do we say “Enough is enough!” either as designers or hunters?

Hunters will bitch about the hunts stating that the freebie items they receive are craptastic, and/or that they only kept 5 out of 100 items out of the last hunt that they felt were worthy of remaining in their already bloated inventory. They bitch about it being a waste of time comparative to what they actually “got” out of the hunt.

Designers will also bitch that they have spent x amount of time on this hunt, are getting ready for the next hunt, people not appreciating the time put in, or the items.

With both sides bitching, why are there still hunts popping up on a daily basis? Is it because there are more people not bitching that make hunts still worthwhile?

Growing up I was taught, as many others have been, that the less you have the more you are able to appreciate. I feel this may be the same type of deal with hunts. There are just so many now that any sense of appreciation has flown out the window.

One can argue that these hunts give exposure to new upcoming designers, and I’m all for supporting new designers. I think a lot of newer content creators get discouraged & give up before tapping into their full potential… but I’m not sure hunts are the best way for such exposure. Especially when the hunts get “cherry picked.” Every hunt I’ve participated in lately has in one form or another had a “cheat” list attached to it letting you know exactly where to find each item via a notecard or a blog post complete with SLURLs. Cheat lists & word of mouth are perfect for anyone willing to cherry pick a hunt to acquire those worthy items without sifting thru tons of crap. So just as hunts have become as common as lag, so have the cherry pickers. This seems counter productive to the New Designer Exposure argument unless the “new” designer is busting out some kick ass stuff.

Also, what happened to the “exclusive” hunt items? That was one of my motivators, and probably remains one of the biggest motivators out there for reasons to participate as hunters. If I’m not able to just stroll into the store & buy this “must have” item and it is only offered up in a hunt – I will cherry pick that like nobody’s business. I guess this question is for the designers. I wonder if there are just so many hunts now that it’s just become too hard to keep up with an exclusive item for each hunt, keeping up with regular store releases & still finding time to not go crazy from it all?

I have no solution to all this madness but I do think that too much is really too much. You can’t honestly think that anyone will appreciate cotton candy if they’re on a cotton candy diet and you can’t honestly expect the cotton candy makers to step it up if they’re not appreciated. From where I stand I don’t see much of a win-win sitch here. I do feel it’s a great topic to debate though.

What do you think? Hunter perspective vs. Designer perspective.

Have you had enough of the SL Hunts?

-JellyBean Madison-

Introducing the Plurk Drinking Game: Plink!

As anyone who has me on their plurk knows, I’m very opposed to today’s International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Especially on Plurk, oh gawd I hate it so much! However to help me get through it and maintain my karma, Rosie Shark  & I have devised a new game called “Plink”, a Plurk drinking game.

Here’s what you’ll need if you decide to play along at home…

The drink of choice will be Lemon Drop Shots (if you use anything else, we’ll silently judge you, so don’t tell us! *wink*).

Vodka of your choice
1 lemon cut into slices
Sugar

Place sugar on your hand (like you do with a Tequila shot with salt), place lemon slice in same hand, lick off sugar and take shot, then bite down on the lemon.

It’s as easy as that.

Now for the Rules:

(Our names will be in place here but feel free to mod your game to fit you or leave your plurk name in comments & we’ll include you in our game)

• If anyone plurks about food. (example: Daila I have fruity pebbles…) [JellyBean drinks]
• If anyone plurks about feeling emo. (example: Rosie says I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize for being so self-absorbed…) [Rosie drinks]
• If anyone plurks a complaint about SecondLife. (example: alarm Isa cock is furious with her own inability to stay on sl.) [JellyBean drinks]
• If anyone plurks “Talks Like a Pirate” lingo. (example: Dancien says Ahoy ye Scrogs! Myself and me mates be playin some Champions today then we be going on the account to some pubs,flirtin with the wenches) [everybody drinks]

Please post any other suggestions in the comments. 😀 Happy whatever day you wanna make it. I call it KU Football Day! :p

-Jell-

Introducing ANiMO!!!

So in the old style of MGG2SL I bring you newness. Anyone can blog Maitreya, Truth, etc. It’s a given that you see the same people with different shit day after day on the feeds. It gets sorta monotonous and very unvarying. So as I said, I bring you… *drum roll* NEWNESS worthy of a spot on the feeds. ANiMO!

ANiMO is a collaboration between Morrigan Polanski and her RL/SL boyfriend, Ando Karu. ANiMO is fresh, only about two months old but age is nothing, they also have fresh ideas. Don’t let the name ANiMO fool you into thinking it’s just a pose shop. (ANiMO = it’s called AN i (which is “and” in polish) MO) ANiMO is fun, they are trying a different approach on poses – trying to create something different than what you bump into in every other shop.

Both Morri & Ando are kinda eclectic, so don’t ask what to expect of ANiMO, because like she told me, “we have no idea ourselves.” You might see anything from early medieval to Star Wars – anything is possible. Right now the assortment of items they offer isn’t huge, but they’re working on it. Morri shared that they are also thinking of a collection of scripted gizmos that make no sense but are so cool that you can’t resist them. Everyone loves gizmos, right!?

Morri told me last night that she is working on Bollywood poses, which completely made me *squeee*. I love Bollywood & have yet to see poses in SecondLife. This will be the second set for girls, and should be complete in a day or two. Don’t fret guys, you aren’t left out – Ando has made some cool male poses like football, basketball and that kind of guys’ stuff. ANiMO also has the cutest off-beat couple poses like eva’R. (below is one of my favorites)

The great thing about Morri & Ando is that they are constantly improving on their skills. Morri is starting animation course in computer arts school this month. She says learning is like a drug & she can’t seem to get enough. Also keep your eye out for a brand called “stitched” that they’ve also started which is for sculpted items.

About Animo

GENESIS: Animo = Take 2 letters from Ando and 2 from Morri. I = And in Polish.

VISION: Create more and more and more and more… Just for fun!

PURPOSE: 314159 Poses and Animations (312126 left)

ANDO & MORRI

Here’s your linky loos:

ANiMO blog

ANiMO Main Store

ANiMO on Xstreet

Itchin for a Fight…

It’s been a very long time since I’ve been very interested in anything related to SecondLife. I basically log in, play Zyngo, and log out. Sometimes I’ll buy hair but by the next time I log in, I’m lucky if I remmy that I bought it, let alone what it was named. I use to follow my bloglines religiously – Oh I need to remmy to buy that, there’s a new release, oh that’s cute! Slowly but surely my real life blog subscrips started outnumbering my SL blog subscrips… and now? Well now I barely even check in on that. I feel like I should feel ashamed, but nope, there’s no shame here.

I was thinking today that the only thing that seems to spark my interest lately in SL is a good fight, some dramz or pretty much any conflict I can find. I don’t always need SL for that though as there is plenty of it on plurk. Mostly SL folks too. It’s where I’m planted, where I can feel connected without actually logging in & it appears to be SFW.

In any society be it online, offline etc. there’s always going to be conflict. There’s some that embrace it (raises her hand high), some that cry about it, victims, and the victimizers. The ones that are the biggest dramites, we love to hate them. I bet you can name 3-4 off the top of your head right now. I’ll give you a second to think on it.

I guess we can call these shit starters, dramites and llamas necessary evils.  A necessary evil is anything which, despite being considered to have undesirable qualities, is preferable to its absence. We have those people in SL and on plurk. I’ve seen a lot of dramz lately and I’m just eating it up. As ya’ll know I’m one of the few that actually admit that I loves me some drama, as said many times before. I love drama in a box, with a fox and all while wearing socks… or even just with my morning coffee.

Basically it comes down to this… although everybody loves to whine about the shit stirrers, they are a large part of what makes us keep coming back. So mayhaps just mayhaps we should stop publically hating, blocking & muting the necessary evils, grab some popcorn & watch the show. After all everyone loves a good show.

Have you hugged your llama today?

The Best & the Worst of SecondLife…

1. Windlight

I was thinking last night before I went to bed pissy with the sound of cloppity clinkity prim boots this girl was annoying me with, that my Rez Day is coming up. Woah! The big 5 years of SLife. What better way to reflect on my SLifetime than poll plurk for the Best & Worst SL additions over the years.

We all know that even though we rarely give credit to the Lindens, that LL does improve upon itself with the help of it’s most talented residents. We’ve seen numerous improvements over the years & even if you’re still a nooblet, thank a Linden or a content creator for being born into such a wonderfully advanced world as opposed to what it was 5 years ago.

Let’s start with the Best First in no particular date order of introduction.

1. Windlight (pictured above) –  In May of 2007  LL released the Second Life WindLight First Look viewer containing brand-new atmospheric rendering with killer skies and kickass environments. The world became a prettier place for everyone with a fairly decent graphics card. No longer did we feel we lived in a flat world with flat colors, we now had personally controlled atmosphere to play with. Pictures became art & romantic dates became even more dreamy.

2. Voice

2. Voice – Also in March of 2007, the new voice feature inside Second Life was ready for open beta testing! It was rough in the beginning, especially for me (Anyone remmy my “No Bean Left Behind” campaign? Prob not, that’s ok). We all learned the affect voice has had on our perception of others and had our share of annoying experiences & growing pains but after 2 years, could you imagine SLife without it?

3. Flexi Prims

3. Flexi Prims – In May of 2006, we saw the introduction of flexi prims. Again there were some growing pains, but it wasn’t too long before SL’s top designers were manipulating them into submission & creating some of the best fashion & builds that SL had ever seen. Our skirts started to flow, as did our hair and jewelry began to really dangle.

4. Sculpted Prims

4. Sculpties – 2007 saw a lot of additions, as well as the Sculpted Prim… created externally using a 3D modeling tool such as Blender, Maya, or Wings 3D, and then uploaded to Second Life, where they are applied to a prim with the build tools. With the new prims, we saw awesome builds from prefabs using less primmage, art sculptures that take your breath away, and of course the all mighty sculptie shoes & hair. However did we manage to look even remotely presentable without them?

5. Havok™4

5. Havok™4 (Second Life Simulator v1.20.0.83683) – In March of 2008 the new simulator known as Havok was being dubbed as the “more Stable Second Life Simulator (Tastes Great, Less Crashing)”. The release was the result of the Havok™4 project, a project that updated the physics engine used to determine all movement of objects in Second Life. I’m not exactly sure how awesome it was/is but the more technical of people seem to like it.

As always people will find something they hate even with the many things that they love. LL will always be to blame because after all how dare they create this virtual world for you to play in & not keep complete stability and no lag while you are there gracing it with your pixels, right?

I now present you with some of the Worst of SL additions, not all completely LL’s fault:

1. Clickity Shoes

1. Clickity Shoes – This has got to be the most annoying, IMHO, addition to SL ever. Sadly the clickity cloppity prim shoe was introduced around the same time as voice. Talk about being forced to let your ears bleed as well as grinding your teeth down to bits as you hear these babies walk by you in a store while voicing it up with your best friend. Like I said yesterday… Nothing in SL has ever caused me to cringe in RL like the sound of these freaking annoying ass shoes!

2. Talking Tummies

2. Talking Tummies – I know a lot has been said on this subject from those who have/had/ are in favor of the whole SL pregnancy gig to those like me that hate hearing them. To quote one of my posts from MGG2SL on the subject… “So like I was at Tringo yesterday & I hear a tummy talk. No problem, I muted it. Bleh, but then the “vitamin” she took spoke. So I muted that too. How much shit must I mute?! My mute list is full of talking tummies, babies, etc.” That was back in April of 2007 and the shit has just gotten more & more advanced over the last two years.

3. Bling

3. Bling – Bling has been around for as long as I have. You know those fashion trends that you really wish would die a quick death? This is definitely one of them on my top 3 list right above babydoll shirts. Jewelry and attachments scripted, particle based shimmering “bling” effects that are suppose to do what? Make you look rich? Give you some type of virtual status? I’m not sure but just as quickly as nooblets could snatch up the “shiny shiny”, we came up with the term “Blingtards”.

4. Free Accounts

4. Free Accounts – In September of 2005 LL opened up a can of worms with “FREE Membership Accounts.” LL said, “because free membership will likely prompt a significant number of people to join Second Life, revenue from virtual land the new members buy will probably make up for the loss of subscription fees.” Four years later & we see more cobybots, more kids, alts and more camping bots. Good call there LL.

5. Zindra

5. Adult Continent  Zindra – As it became clear that some Residents are interested in pursuing certain “Adult” activities in Second Life that others would rather not casually encounter, the brainchild of LL… Zindra came to be. The SecondLife Adult Continent. My issue with this is that at the same time rumors of  LL to keep the Teen Grid running or close it down are circling as well as complaints of Teen Grid regions showing up on the main grid sporadically reported to the Jira. There has to be a better way to police the logins for adults & those who want adult content on their land or around their common haunts shouldn’t feel herded to Zindra.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree? Do you have a Top 5 Best & Worst of SL? If yours differ, how did you make up your lists?

What Does Your Profile Say About You?

Today I asked a question on plurk –

JellyBean™ asks

do you read profiles? do you judge people or make assumptions by what the profile says?

A lot of plurkers replied, more than I had thought would & a discussion took place. Imagine that! I wonder how often people actually think about their profiles. I know I look at profiles regularly when I’m in world and sometimes when I’m not, but I’m bored. I guess until today I haven’t thought about my profile lately. I would hope that it would say just enough about me that a person reading it would feel comfortable enough to IM me and say “hello” but not too much that the person would think they have a firm grasp of the jumbled ball of stuffs that makes me – me. Cause honestly where is the mystery in that? Right?

The profile above was one I read last night from a guy I saw standing at KMADD with no shirt, jeans, bare feet & piercings all over. Aside from the pic, that I find to be “over-share”, I honestly feel he would be an occassionally fun guy to hang with. Really. In all actuality if I had my way, I’d collect gay men like pokemon. I wanna catch them all and be best friends forever.

This isn’t a blog post as much as it is a discussion…

• How often do you update your profile?
• Would you consider your profile to be funny, informative, business like, friendly, blank, boring, sexy…?
• What would you hope others get out of your profile?
• Do you read others profiles?
• Do you make assumptions or judgments on what you read there?

Please leave your answers in comments or do a blog post… if you post, please link back, I’d love to read what you all think.

The Lighter Side of SL: The Key Note

People have some serious anger issues this week, so here I am to bring you some freaking sunshine with a new segment here at the Rev – The Lighter Side of SL! *sports her sparkly smile*

Last week I was privileged to be invited to Karaoke night at the Key Note. This intimate little club (owned & operated by Cori Offcourse)  is home to karaoke, open mic, comedy, poetry, spoken word, book club and more. Since July of 2008, TKN has been doing what we all knew & hoped would happen since the introduction of voice. Cori started her baby, TKN hoping to help beginning acts in SL get their foot in the door. Cori says, “I know its nerve racking to get on stage, and I’ve tried a few other karaoke places that were big and kind of intimidating. I wanted something cozy and small where people would be comfortable.” She has definitely set out & accomplished that goal. The cozy atmosphere is exactly why I love TKN and even felt comfy enough to belt out a song or 3 of my own. I will admit Vodka was involved but hey we all get our courage somewhere.

If you’re wondering how it works, it’s simple. You just need to have voice enabled in SL. This isn’t just for those who want to sing their little hearts out but also if you plan on listening in. The whole event is handled through voice and text for those that are just spectating. Don’t have Karaoke tracks on your computer? No worries! Just play any song you have on your computer that you’d like to sing & viola you’re good to go!

Miike Mikoyan, a regular at TKN adds, “It’s totally laid back and just about fun.  If I can go from Ludacris to John Meyer to Zac Brown Band to WHAM, obviously entertainment is what we’re looking for. It’s totally just about fun.” Right now TKN only has the karaoke on schedule. Cori is working on getting a few book clubs started, and TKN always welcomes open mic acts, they just have to IM her and she’ll set it up.

The Key Note group is open enrollment… So look em up,  just click join and never miss out on the fun! Discover something new or get discovered!

KARAOKE
Fridays & Sundays 7 – 9 PM SLT

But the door is always open! C’mon in, tp some friends and throw yourself an impromptu karaoke party!

Small, intimate atmosphere
150 listener stream available
Tip jar for performers
Fun games, cuddles and dance balls in the loft!
Win lindens at Trivia and Scramble!

You can also Follow Cori on plurk: here

Hope to see ya at the Key Note!

– JellyBean –

Who is James Schwarz?

Good question. I may have an answer for you… James Schwarz is an avatar with an amazing artistic eye and bright ideas (also a blogger). I first heard of James on Plurk (I cannot remmy who plurked it first) and how he had an amazing photostream on Flickr. Instantly I went there and found this lil gem:

100 Avatars – One pic! Amazing! I am lucky to get two avatars in the same sim to rezz (one being me) let alone a bunch. Well he approached it with a photo-shopped eye and the end result is just absolutely amazing. If you get a chance to check out some of his “art”, it is just Wowness!

Obviously I was instantly drawn to his art and subscribed to his Flickr feed on my Bloglines. I was so excited to see the Headshot Series pouring in on my reader.

He described this series…

This series is all about the faces of our avatars and how they look, how we adorn them with personal touches, our eyes, noses, lips, facial structure and shit. I like doing headshots because they’re easy in a sense that there’s not much conceptualization involved, once you have your initial vision or mental prototype the rest will…actually that’s it.

Of course this was my chance to IM him inworld and ask to participate, right? Well I was nervous. Mayhaps he’s only doing shots of his friends? They all look so unique and great, how will I fit in? Yes, believe it or not, I was suffering from the color of shy. True story. I finally built up my courage and followed the instructions on his blog:

I don’t charge zilch for this (although tips are welcome & appreciated lol), anyone can IM me and we can arrange something out with regards to time of shooting ; I’m usually on from 12 PM to 4 PM SLT. I suggest keeping things it as minimal as possible, you can wear some jewelry (no bling pls or gtfo) but nothing too WTF-ish as to not distract the focus from your face. You can take them on from my flickr and upload them to yours just link it back on the description, you can also upload them in-world for whatever purposes, oh what the hell do whatever you want with them.

I was extremely “SQUEEEEE” when last Friday I was off work in RL and able to be inworld within his schedule. I love looking at all the new uploads on this series because no two avatars are the same. It’s like virtual Cabbage Patch Kids. Everyone is always bitching about SecondLife, Lindens, and virtual life… it’s refreshing to stop and admire the artistic, like smelling the pixelated flowers.

My end result:

And I didn’t even have to get naked! Hey, thanks James… Keep creating and I’ll keep watching. You are one talented guy! ❤

♥JellyBean♥