A Bicycle Built for Two

Jerremy and I had a relaxing night -- we needed it. We sort of search hopped and landed at Backwoods Bicycle Trail. The bikes are free to use. Just hop on one. Since I jumped onto the bike first, at first Jerremy thought I was steering the bike and was impressed that I wasn't driving us off cliffs and into rivers. But the bike steers itself -- you just have to sit back and enjoy the ride. The pictures on my post today were taken by Jerremy.

There is actually a lot to do here (for some reason I think we went skiing here a while back) -- you can bike, ride horses and take a balloon ride. That is what we are doing in the picture below -- taking a romantic balloon ride. Except the balloon did not steer itself and I made the mistake of sitting in it first -- it made me the driver. I struggled so hard to keep us going in one direction that I'm surprised Jerremy didn't get motion sickness. But, since he didn't have to drive, he had a chance to take pictures and I love his pictures. <3

Reminder! SL Blogger Party is TODAY!

This is a reminder not to forget that the SL Blogger Meet-up party is today!! See? I even have a ribbon tied around my finger to remind myself.

Our theme this month is "Fast, Easy and Fun" and there will be prizes for those who exemplify the theme best! Plus, we'll have a special gift for everyone from Metavirtual blog feed owner Kesseret Steeplechase from her shop MIAO! And there might be even more surprises.

What: Music, dancing, conversation and fun!
When: Saturday, August 28th from 1-3 PM SLT
Where: Azure Jazz Club  
Theme: Fast, Easy and Fun

August SL Blogger Group Meet-Up Party Info!

I will be the first to admit that this is not an exciting picture -- but it is an exciting post. This post is where I announce the details of the SL Blogger Meet-Up Party!
Graine Macbain, owner of the Azure Jazz Club, is hosting the group! I am sitting on the bar at Azure in the picture above.

Our theme this month is "Fast, Easy and Fun" and there will be prizes for those who exemplify the theme best! 

What: Music, dancing, conversation and fun!
When: Saturday, August 28th from 1-3 PM SLT
Where: Azure Jazz Club  
Theme: Fast, Easy and Fun
DJ: TBA

We hope you will come by and meet your fellow bloggers! Spread the word to bloggers who are not in the group and encourage them to join us!

You must be this tall to ride this ride.

This is me waiting for other Plurkers (Add me!) to arrive at Prim Hearts for a Plurkers' Field Trip tonight at 6:30 PM SLT. I know I am early, but I wanted to find decent parking. I have my balloon and I am all ready to go on the rides....even the really scary ones I usually avoid in RL.

I can't see Uranus.

And you can't see mine either since I am facing the camera. OMG I am 12 years old, I know. But who can resist anus jokes when you have your very own solar system diorama circling you? I know I can't.

You know? Out of the the eight annual science fair projects I did in grade school, not one of them was a spray-painted-Styrofoam-ball solar system. I may be the only person in America who didn't make one.

So where did I get this one? I needed something to distract me while I waited for Jerremy to log in yesterday, so I did the For the Love of Science Hunt. It was only 50 stores and I am a science nerd, so I thought I'd pick up some cool stuff. This solar system was part of the first hunt gift (starting point -- It's Cake). 

Just don't go around with Uranus showing. - it might get laggy.

Baby's First Avatar

Ever since LL announced that children are allowed on the grid, our son, Blocky, has been pestering us to sign up for an account. I decided to show him the ropes today.

It turns out that just like Jerremy, he is a whiz at building! But, he is also a prim hog. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree! Sadly, he is an awful typist. Luckily there is SL voice, which will be quite handy once he learns to talk.

His profile is so adorable! It says:

*:-.,_,.-:*'´ `*.¸.*´`'*:-.,_,.-:* 
New to SL, exploring and learning the game.
Drama free zone! Just here to have fun. Save the drama for your momma!
I'm not here for romance or a partner.
RL is RL and SL is SL.
Don't be shy - IM me. I don't bite...unless you want me to.  Mommy told me not to.
My IMs cap daily, so send a notecard.
Don't mess with me! You have been warned!!!!
If you have a problem or any issues with my parents, speak to me!
I am not interested in renting space at your mall.
*:-.,_,.-:*'´ `*.¸.*´`'*:-.,_,.-:*

For our baby, Blocky, there is no AFK...it's GDC (getting diaper changed) so if he doesn't IM you back right away, please be patient. 

With Apologies to Katy Perry...

SL Girls

I know a place
Where the grass is really sculpty
Fast, Easy, Fun
There's somthin' 'bout the Linden water
Sippin' prim champagne
AFK under the palm trees
The boys
Break their mice
Try'na cam a little sneak peek (at us)

You could travel the interwebs
But nothing comes close
To our island coasts
Once you party with us
You'll be falling in SLove
Ooooooh oh ooooooh

SL, SL Girls
We're unforgettable
Cleavage layers
Flex-y hair on top
Pixel skin
So hot
We'll melt your graphics card
Ooooooh oh ooooooh

SL, SL Girls
We're undeniable
Friends, FRAPS, FIC
We got it on lock
Mainland represent
Now put your hands up
Ooooooh oh ooooooh

TP to the beach
We don't mind sand in our Maitreyas
We freak
In my sim
Snoop Doggy Dog on the music stream

SL, SL Girls
We're unforgettable
Cleavage layers
Flex-y hair on top
Pixel skin
So hot
We'll melt your graphics card
Ooooooh oh ooooooh

The original song is here! Many thanks to my Plurk friends (Add me!) who helped me think of some words to substitute (in particular, 'f' words)!

Say My Name

Screwing with the naming convention has a lot more impact than I think the folks at the Lab realize. My picture today sort of illustrates that we residents have been expressing creativity with our names, group tags, titles, etc. already. We don't need a new naming system to do that. (You can get your own customizable "Hello, my name is..." sticker for $1L on XStreetSL. Copy version  Transfer version )

Here is the blog post that explains the new soon to be rolled out function called Display Names. In addition, new players will be able to choose their own name rather than selecting it from a list of available names - since for some unknown reason some of the Labbies think that scares off new players. The naming convention change takes something away from the rich SL culture.

The naming convention was put into place originally in order to help foster a sense of community. There was always a small group of people who joined SL at roughly the same time as you with whom you shared a name. There was an odd sense of family with those folks. I know I get all excited and try to say hi to any of the rare Thornes I see while out and about. My husband's "family" even had Darwin Clan meetings for a while!

I loved that there are historic names. The system of retiring names lent a sense of history to the place. You know how when you hear certain last names you know that person was a pioneer, etc? That was unique about SL.

I sincerely doubt that choosing a last name from a list drives people to never sign up for SL. What I think the Lab is seeing is people who hear about a cool new last name and try to get it to make an alt. If you don't get the last name you like in the list when you sign up, you can abandon that try and start over and get a new mix of names to choose from. I know this since I tried unsuccessfully to make an alt once when the last name Blogger was available. I must have abandoned the process a dozen times and the name never came up for me.

Dear LL - Please fix the things that are broken (Premium benefits, customer service, search, TPs group chat, group limits, etc.) and stop wasting resources on frivolous things. We do not need a change in the naming conventions.  It doesn't mean poop if you have a nice display name when you crash every time you try to TP. Fixing what is broken will keep new players.

Luv, 

Tymmerie Thorne

I wish we had a basement.

This is me - right where I kept landing each time I tried unsuccessfully to TP to Maitreya for their Back-To-School sale.

I think the sale goes until the weekend - which is good since the sim is full and the closest I can get to it for now seems to be under our house. I'm standing underwater in one of the tunnels that my husband Jerremy built down here. (He is my sexy Mole Man.) 

OK - The sale is not technically called a Back-To-School sale, but I am going to call it that because every sale at this time is year is a Back-To-School sale. It's just a regular old, half-off everything sale. Yawn.

Of course by "yawn" I mean, "OMG!!!!!!!!!! I can finally justify buying all the shoes I know I would only wear a few times so I am getting everything I don't already own!! SCREAMMM!!!!"

(And because it is a sale, that will leave me with plenty of money to buy even more shoes at the Shoe Fair.)

The Price of Beauty

This is me, sitting on a dinosaur. I sat here to ponder why I throw things away so efficiently.

I wanted to tell you the story of how, today, I tried to use a homemade pore strip recipe that SL people were Plurking (Add me!) about enthusiastically. And I wanted to illustrate that story with a picture of my avatar wearing a pore strip.

Now, I clearly remember owning a prim pore strip. If I remember correctly, it came with a set that included a bathrobe, hair turban and cucumbers for my eyes. But was it in my inventory? No. I searched everywhere and finally came to the conclusion that I must have thrown it out, thinking foolishly that I would never use it. Or the asset server ate it. I am not sure which happened. (And actually, now that I think about it, I never would have thrown out the robe and I could not find that either...so it was the asset server after all! Damned asset server!!!! Keeping my inventory small against my will!!!!)

After my napalm-like finger burns heal and the skin grows back on my nose, I will probably email a very sad note to the evil girl who made the video below. (Ok - I may have left it in the microwave for way too long and used my fingers instead of a brush and let it get too dry. Oops.) Trust me -- $10/box for the real pore strips is a bargain. (OMG! I just realized that the Bioré® people are totally behind this video!)

Just in case you are a masochist and want to try it yourself, here is the video:

Beauty is so much easier to maintain in Second Life.

Thinking and thinking...

Tonight I am trying very hard to come up with an interesting write-up for my next Shoe Fair blog post... without using the word "maggots" (You'll see.). This pic was sort of a throw-away since you cannot see my shoes in it - but I still liked it. You can see my fancy-dancy microphone pretty well here.

ETA: I have been asked a few times about this blouse so I wanted to put a note here that I bought it at Zenith Fashions. It's on the second floor of the shop and comes with the jean shorts.

Thank ya, thank ya vera much.

I got a wild hair today and bought a new piece of art from XStreetSL. I wasn't sure where to hang it. But then, I realized that if I squinted my eyes, it sort of matched our bedroom. So I hung it up to see. I'm still not sure if I like it there yet, but I might leave it there until Jerremy notices it and says something.

Mmmmmmm! Visa!

I am here at the Shoe Fair, drooling all over my debit card as I shop for delicious, delicious shoes. I just wish it was more absorbent.

I headed back to the Shoe Fair tonight because I wanted to see if I had missed anything and, more importantly, grab a landmark for the Olive Juice pose vendor at the fair. I used a pose of theirs on a Shoe Fair blog post I did today and I had forgotten to grab the landmark when I was there. The organizers are letting me blog the fair in my own way, and I'm having fun with it.

Just an FYI, the lag is not bad at all. If you were afraid to brave the crowds earlier, this is a good time to visit.

Trivial Pursuit

I'm just killing time while I wait for Jerremy to come in-world tonight. I'm surfing the web in search of fun shoe trivia so that I can get inspiration for some Shoe Fair blog posts. Nothing terribly interesting is coming up. However, I have other ideas up my sleeves. For example, considering the theme of the sims, maybe there is fun farm trivia out there. Fun corn trivia? Fun tractor trivia? 

Baby, I Got Your Money

Oh SL....it's not fast, easy or fun to cherry pick the $10L-per-gift  Platinum Hunt when you keep telling me that I owe you a space buck. It is simply not true.

How on grid can I have -$1? It's a relatively easy fix (have someone give you a free item or $1 or relog), but ZOMG it is so annoying. 

SL? Stop swiping my money like some bully in a schoolyard! Pretty please?

Don't tell! Shhhh!!

In RL, I finally got around to reading The Secret. So, I decided I should read it in world, too. 

A long time ago, I had reserved it at my local library. I mean AGES ago. I am not sure why I didn't just go buy it at the time. Duh! I was, like, 3,427th on the waiting list.

On a side note, can you imagine how many cooties would have been on a copy of the book from the library by the time it got to me? Out of 3,426 people ahead of me, how many would you guess took it into their bathroom to read? Eww. (Am I too paranoid?)

Anyhoo, I'm going to get busy asking the universe for some shoes from the 2010 Shoe Fair now.

Smoothe News

I am late to posting today. But that's because I just got out of a steamy bath where I made sure my legs were silky soft so that when I go to the 2010 Shoe Fair tomorrow, my legs will look amazing!

Do I need more shoes? No. But shoes are mostly a matter of want, anyway. 

Make sure you catch my late breaking Action Shoe News report for tonight on the Shoe Fair's official blog! Hint: Shiny Things.

 

I "started" my own news service for the occasion. This is my logo:

It's not fancy, but it works. Happily, the free microphone I picked up from CNN iReport Island was mod! I slapped the logo on the mic and I look almost official!

I might be looking for Shoe Fair attendees to interview while the fair is on (noon SLT August 7-22) - just a heads up!

Snark Week

This is a picture of me, trying to let my fish know that I am peaceful and mean them no harm. They have been a little agitated and skittish this week since it's Shark Week.  

I've been racking my brain trying to think of a way to give a SL-style nod to the cultural phenomenon that is Shark Week. I ended up celebrating by rubbing one of my fish on it's "special place" so it would make me a second fish. It worked! (This fish bowl, from Awesome Blossom, comes with only one fish. But it is mod, so I was able to play Fish Hatchery.)

Rankled by Cankles

Cankles are neither fast nor easy nor fun.

It seems a minor thing - cankles that result from wearing a pant layer. But gawd, they spoil the fun of a nice outfit. See how my pretty Maitreya feet are peeking out from underneath pitifully?

This glitch is especially annoying when there isn't an underwear layer for the shorts/glitch pants/hot pants/bloomers/panties/lederhosen/capris that you are trying to wear. For some reason this problem only comes up when wearing a pant layer, never an underwear layer. No matter what is done to try to make them go away, the cankles stay. 

Some CEOs *cough* *cough* who never wear shorts/glitch pants/hot pants/bloomers/panties/lederhosen/capris might not even be aware of this issue since it doesn't seem to affect their..ummm...sparkly, multi-colored cod pieces, for example.

"The One Where Tymmerie Sorts Poses"

With Jerremy still not able to log in, I have found a lot of time for mundane tasks like pose sorting. I filled our bedroom floor with my pose containers and sorted all my new ones into the correct ones. It's not sexy or glamorous, but it must be done. 

Is it bad that I am sorting while listening to the Intruder Song in a constant loop?  

"Ok we get it. Today is your birthday."

Yea. I love my birthday. And I am trying not to be obnoxious about it. However, I am not succeeding. But, it is only one day of the year and I will certainly indulge you on yours. I promise. 

Here is my favorite version of the Happy Birthday song:

Altered Images' version of the song!




That song is much much happier than the traditional version. In fact, I believe the 80's as a whole were pretty damned happy. Actually, I will go even further and declare the entire decade Fast, Easy and Fun.

In other news, I now own about $1000L worth of new balloons. That is what it took to find one I could work with for the picture. I still had to modify it. And I don't really like it all that much. I'd picked up a balloon animal on a stick last month at the Zombie Carnival that would have been beyond perfect. But, when I was sorting inventory some weeks ago, I trashed it thinking, "I'll never use this!" Grrrr. (That's one reason to get zen about my inventory and let it go over 20K.)

My rez day is later this month, also. I promise to not be as obnoxious about that. 

Mmmmm....BBQ and Waffles!

I did the House & Garden Hunt today. I have not done a hunt in ages. But this one was only 50 stores. When I was done, I went out to what Jerremy calls our "back 40" and opened everything and decided what to keep. (I am so efficient today!) One of my favorite hunt items? The Reek waffle iron! Can you believe that I didn't have one? I was waffle-less! (It is truly adorable.)

Well, that prim food item find reminded me to go pick up the new group gift from Kitchen something-or-other. I call it that because I am very confused. I'll explain.

Once upon a time, there was this store called Kitchen Korner. And then there was a store called Kitchen Kreations. I assumed that they were completely different stores - one copying the other. But, I was never clear which was the original.

One day, one of them started to give neat group gifts. And then the next day, the other started to give neat gifts. But then they got together (??) and decided to become a joint group so that people would only have to use one group slot. But then, there was drama and now there are two groups again.

I am all kinds of confused, to be honest. But, I do know this: you can get a free picnic platter of BBQ beef ribs when you join the group. Head to the shop, KK Foods - Kitchen Kreations, join and get the gift. The group gives lots of gifts so it is a fun one to be in...

...and so is the other group (KK Foods - Kitchen Korner). This is crazy.