A Looooooooooong Weekend

I was supposed to work half the day tomorrow, but I have taken the day off, Friday is a holiday and then there is the weekend, so now I get f-o-u-r whole wonderful days off from work! WooT!!!

And boy do I need it!

Since my last visit with my sweet Hungarian doctor a month ago I am under instructions to reduce my normal daily dose of antidepressants from 20 mg to 10 mg. I have done that quiet successfully without any major setbacks. I do however feel unfocused, tired and in need of more sleep and I also feel an increased melancholy. Although my doctor told me that I can increase the dosage to 15 mg or 20 mg if and when I feel the need, I still want to give the lower dosage a chance to stabilize so I can get a sense of how I will feel.

I am going to use the long weekend in first life to relax, rest, sleep more and visit with mother once or twice. My laziness during these four days will break every existing record, I can promise you that!

In SecondLife I am going to kick-start the immense "Organize Your Inventory"-project. It hasn't been done before during my more than eight years here, so it is really high time to take control of it and get it in some order. Every time my well organized hubby gets a glimpse of my Inventory he cries out in shock and amazement "You have everything stored in the root folder, that is crazy!" or something to that effect...

Furthermore I am hoping that Botanical will finally release it's new products so that we can finally finish Project -15, the landscaping project in the South-East corner of the sim. It already looks wonderful and I am extremely happy with the results so far of the toils of Samuel Fallen, of Lytton & Fallen, and Tomais Ashdene and Butch Diavolo, of Southern Charm.

Once the landscaping is all done Tomais and I are going to throw a party to celebrate. You will all receive an invitation through the blog and/or personally.

The Amazing Samuel

As you all know by now, I have engaged the skilled landscaper Samuel Fallen, of Lytton & Fallen, to help with some landscaping around the new mansion.

Shabby-chic stuff from Apple Fall combined with a
Quidditch set from somewhere else in a beautiful way.

Well, you should also know that Samuel isn't "only" a landscaper and gardener, he in fact designed The Luton Manor (the new house I have bought) for Redgrave Houses & Homes and is also a marvelous interior decorator.

I got clear and irrefutable proof of the latter when I logged into SecondLife the other day,

The evening before I had dragged out some things by Apple Fall, that I knew I wanted to use in the decoration of the house, out of my Inventory and just left them in a mess on the floor to deal with another time. Well, when I logged in, the things had been tastefully arranged in a shabby-chic display by Samuel. I couldn't in a million years have done anything as good or better with them.

My new strategy will be to - sort of recklessly - leave things floating around and see what marvelous things Samuel will come up with. Please do not tell Samuel!

Otherwise the landscaping project is at somewhat of a semi-standstill as we are awaiting the arrival of spring and new stuff to arrive at Botanical. Tomais is busy interior decorating, while I tag along and help where I can, mostly by carrying the heavy stuff around and saying "Oooooo" and "Aaaaaa" at suitable intervals.

Thank You, Phoenix Firestorm Team!

There I was, a couple of days ago, in my wonderful mansion, deleting stuff I had pulled out from Inventory to take a look at, while I was talking with Tomais on Skype. Tomais had gone to La Galleria to pick up some plant or other.

Suddenly I noticed a change in the light where I was sitting. Almost at the same time I realized I was seeing a lot more of the sea outside the sim. It took about ten seconds for my brain to process the information it was receiving before I consciously understood what had happened.

- "Tomais", I shouted, "I just took the house back into Inventory!"
- "You didn't lock it in place, babe?", my lover asked in the way that comes natural for those who know it all.
- "No!", I said sullenly and guilt-ridden.
- "OK, I'm on my way home soon. We will sort it out!", the second-most patient man in the world said calmly.

While I was sitting there, feeling devastated for having yet again pulled a home into Inventory (I think I have done that with almost every home I have lived in) I vaguely remembered the thing saying "Restore to last position" that I see when I click about in my Inventory.

"What about 'Restore to last position´, Tomais?", I asked.
"You could try it, but it doesn't always work...", he answered.

So I looked for the house under my Recent tab, and sure enough there it was in the Trash. I right-clicked it and chose "Restore to last position".

Nothing happened. I took a deep breath and started thinking of all the time consuming work that had gone to waste due to my imprudent action. And hoped that it would work...

"I tried it but nothing's happening!", I informed my hubby.

The seconds passed slowly by and I was waiting for a miracle to occur, but still nothing. Then suddenly after ninety seconds - at least - and just as Tomais arrived home the I saw a big shadow looming over me and the house appeared in place. In the exact same place as it should be and where it had been before. I sighed with great relief and the tension that had been building up left my body. Jubilation and laughter!

"Woot! It's back!"
"Yes, I see and exactly where it should be", Tomais confirmed. He continued, "We are very lucky that you are on the Firestorm viewer, none of the other viewers have that feature!"

I sent the little geniuses at the Firestorm team many grateful thoughts, while I hastened to lock the mansion in place.

---
I would like to say a heartfelt "Thank you so much!" to all the marvelous and wonderful people who are involved in the Phoenix Firestorm Project, for having the foresight to create such a wonderful feature for those of us who are klutzes sometimes. If you ever feel in need of praise or a hug, just come by Southern Charm and I will lavish you with kisses, hugs and compliments.

It's Time for A Change

Those of you who have been following my blog may already have understood that major changes aren't really my forte. Or as my stepson Guyke bluntly tells me, "You don't like changes!" 

I don't completely disagree with him, but I would hasten to add that my qualms with change are mainly on an emotional level. When I feel safe and loved I don't mind changes in other areas of my life one bit.

It's a new year and time for a new project at Southern Charm! Faithful readers may remember the last major change on the sim happened during the summer of 2013 when the old ugly house I had been living in since 2008 was torn down and a new modern house was erected in it's place.

This year I got a new house as a Christmas gift from Guyke, after he had carefully showed it to me twice beforehand. The first time I saw the villa I was adamant and told him I didn't like it at all and that I wasn't ready to go through the hassle of moving again so soon after the last rebuild. The second time I saw it I absolutely fell in love with it!

It is a classic french villa with large open spaces called Luton Manor and is made by Redgrave Houses & Homes.

My building team this time around consists of the royal consort and the royal groundskeeper, Tomais and Butch. The two have also benevolently agreed to advise me concerning decorating and other interior design niceties.

The old house has been emptied and taken into Inventory, the beautiful villa has been placed in a preliminary spot, I am awaiting advice on the definite placement from a landscaper who has been contacted, but not yet contracted. He will hopefully also be hired to help with the necessary work on the immediate surroundings of the villa.

Relaxing

It's been a hectic time with much going on in both my lives. When my husband yesterday came up with the amazing idea that we should just sit on the back porch of the barn and relax I jumped at it.

My English Bulldog Bilbo was there also, whimpering and pining for Dej, who is visiting with his mother and first life family over the holidays. After a while he realized it wasn't helping and went to lie down and catch some sleep.

After Tomais had logged for dinner, I went up into the skies and took into Inventory all the summer and autumn landscaping we had stored up at 1,500 m and 2,000 m in the hopes that the lag that has hit Southern Charm since we started the snowing would lessen, at least a bit.

Strange Habits

Every third month - on the first few days of the month - the scene above is not uncommon.

What you see are all the avatars that cannot get into The Arcade sim itself filling the skies of the surrounding sims. From there we/they cam in to the Arcade and play the gachas of the best designers and creators in SecondLife to get the prizes we simply cannot wait to have in our Inventory.

Read more about The Arcade on its webpage The Arcade Gacha Events. 

Tomais Saves Zeus

After having attended a wonderful masqued ball at Dimi and Mark Tarantello's Venetian palazzo yesterday, I felt like being alone with my husband for a bit of heavy breathing. Little did I know...

When we arrived at our summer house we changed into appropriate attire, i.e. buttnaked, and decided that we would go out into the woods to play. As we arrived at the camping site my ever alert Tomais noticed that something was wrong and pointed it out to me.

The strait between the Zeus sim and our summer home was completely covered by globular prims that had been rezzed by a griefer - and kept on rezzing. The huge spherical prims went far up into the sky and deep down into the ground, covering most of the strait and much of the Zeus sim.

As Tomais started searching for the source of the attack (which was later located to a corner of the Zeus sim that was empty and listed as for rent), I pointed out to him that he was naked and would need to put something on before going over to handle the emergency.

My valiant and fearless superhero went right into the middle of the mess created by the griefer and located the source and also came up with a working solution on how to solve it.

The solution in this case, after it had turned out that Tomais despite having managerial rights could not return the objects belonging to the hacked account, was for someone to rent the parcel and with owner rights return the prims and disallow building.

Later when I talked with Tomais' brother Nikolai, he asked me if Tomais was wearing one of his superhero outfits while performing the heroic deed. I had to confess that he had not.

I made a mental note - as the superhero's official sidekick - to be more specific in my instructions in the future. Instead of just reminding him to get dressed I had to tell him to wear his Superman, Batman or any of the many other superhero outfits in his Inventory.

Memories of Bygone Days

In preparation for the upcoming week long celebration of the life and times of Marcus Steeplechase, who recently passed away, old treasures have been unearthed and again see the light of day. The old Ironworks Club is being erected again at this location and friends of mine have already visited.

When I logged into my Facebook-account today I was first struck by the amount of pictures my name had been tagged in, but soon realized why. A display from 2007 has been found in Marcus' Inventory showing frequent visitors to the club or maybe it was participants in a photo contest? I cannot remember anymore. 

Among those shown in the display is the 6-8 months old me (third row from top, seventh from the left in the top picture). I still remember the hair and skin I am in very well, they were among the very first things I ever bought in SecondLife. To my left you see my then friend Drizz and fifth to my right is my brother in-law Dej. The whole display is full of familiar names, some of whom are still with us to this day.

A few months in SecondLife had finally made it clear to me that camping was not a worthwhile way to earn the money I needed. After having briefly considered the sex-trade I shrugged it off and decided to plug in my credit card instead, promising myself dearly that I would never ever spend more than  L$5,000 a month. Ah, the sweet innocence of youth...

In the beginning I did not at all want to look one bit like a Swede, but instead chose dark brown hairs and skins with California suntans (I seem to remember that this particular skin was named Hermes, but I am not sure.).

It wasn't until later, during my first year with Ars, that my appearance started to revert more to my first life looks with blond hair and lighter skin tones, because I realised I felt more comfortable that way. Of course the fact that blond hair finally stopped being a strange yellowish may have helped.

At "Villa Kakelbont"

My stepson Guyke Lundquist is very unlike me in many ways. One of them is that he c-o-n-s-t-a-n-t-l-y remodels his home, while I do so very rarely. Guyke must have about 200 buildings in his Inventory of all conceivable styles imagined or encountered through all the history of mankind and the furnishing and accessories to match them all.

While I was away Guyke has completely remodelled his home, aided and abetted in his work by the brilliant and talented - yet surprisingly humble - builder/interior designer/window decorator Butch Diavolo.

This time Guyke has gone for a Scandinavian countryside/peasant villa, which is a vast contrast to the ultramodern design of the home he had before. He has named the new home "Villa Kakelbont", which is the Dutch version of the name of Pippi Longstocking's home "Villa Villekulla".

The guys have done some amazing work and created an extremely cozy home using a lot of the nooks and crannies of the wonderful building for reading, work, play etc.

At the back of the house there is a wonderful balcony and - as is the case everywhere in Second Norway - one is never far from the wonderful water.

Another Pet Peeve: Tinting Skin

Let me start this post by posting a (somewhat shortened) conversation I had with my dear friend Starlight Gentil today. The conversation reminded me of how long I have had this pet peeve.

s ţ α rℓ ίg ђ ţ: Hey Bock ! thank you for the invite ....  I'll be there ! yay !! hugs Star

Bock McMillan: YAY! You're so welcome sweetie, so happy we will see each other  again!

s ţ α rℓ ίg ђ ţ: :)))

Bock McMillan: Now begone please, I have to fit a bulge on my swimsuit and get the skin color  on the penis bit right... LOL

s ţ α rℓ ίg ђ ţ: OMG !! haha ...I'm picturing that !!

s ţ α rℓ ίg ђ ţ: Enjoy!!

Bock McMillan: ROFL - I cannot understand why the stores don't hand out cards with the RGB of the skins: Would that be so damned difficult?

s ţ α rℓ ίg ђ ţ: Haha... you do make me smile :)))

Bock McMillan: It's pet peeve of mine, drat the merchants

s ţ α rℓ ίg ђ ţ: Can you imagine telling peeps at work on Monday what you did on Sunday >?

Bock McMillan: LOL nooooooooooooo

s ţ α rℓ ίg ђ ţ: Exactlyyyy .haha. But these are such important issues here

s ţ α rℓ ίg ђ ţ: OK I'll be gone and let you start tinting ^^

Bock McMillan: It's a crazy world we are living in sweetie, can you believe we are here by choice?

s ţ α rℓ ίg ђ ţ: We're all weirdos .. who cares ..just enjoy

Bock McMillan: Haha will do! See you soon! Ohhh by the way this conversation is going on the blog....

s ţ α rℓ ίg ђ ţ: Oops ! ;D

Bock McMillan: ROFL

s ţ α rℓ ίg ђ ţ: grinz

No, it's not my own "attachment"

Ever since I rezzed in SecondLife some 6 + years ago I have had a problem with tinting the skin of penises, or rather six days after I rezzed. Before that I was hanging around at the arrival place trying to get myself to look half-decent.

Can you imagine what the first thing I looked for in Inventory was once I had seen myself naked? Yup, you got it - a penis. I couldn't for the life of me understand the cruelty of people letting a male avatar rez without having a penis handy, not even a flaccid one. "Damn holier-than-thou Yanks" I thought and then calmed myself with the thought that surely there must be a solution to this major malfunction.

Well, within an hour of venturing out of the arrival place, I had been handed three atrocious penises by male avatars who wanted me to service them. The penises were absolutely ugly, both in shape and especially coloring.  Is there really anything uglier in the whole world than a mismatched penile-attachment?

This problem has remained all through my SecondLife. While Ars lived he would help me with tinting, but since he passed away I am on my own with this and not doing great I am not afraid to tell you.

One of the earliest skins I bought in SecondLife was the Dante skin, I think it was sold by something called Naughty Designs. That skin came with a flaccid penis matched to the skin tone, but other than that I have only encountered  one more merchant that supplied skins with penises and that is The Fallen Gods, who supply penile-attachments free of charge in the correct tints.

The skin tinting problem used to be only a problem for male avatars, women did not have similar appendages - as we all knew long before we took Biology 101. That was true until mesh came along, with mesh feet and shoes that need to be matched with the skin the problem is now one that both genders struggle with.

Skin-merchants, when will you take responsibility and realize that it is a serious problem for residents because it is so difficult to properly match the skin of the body with the skin of the penis and other attachments? Why the hell can't you supply us with a card telling us the RGB of the skin  or a texture so that we can tint our penises and other attachments with some ease?

Eddi Strikes Again

My friend Eddi Haskell is rummaging through his vast inventories on various social forums and has struck gold!

Clip description: Photographer Eddi Haskell and his partner Jago Constantine celebrated their first anniversary on November 20, 2009 at Eddi's Gallery in Second Life. Eddi was showing his photography of the new virtual world of Blue Mars at the time. This video by Cuno Fluno shows some really hot people dancing to the music of Ars Northmead while celebrating Eddi and Jago's anniversary.

I remember going to that party with Ars, we had a great time. The video must have been shot after I left for bed (darn time zones). While I was watching it I suddenly realised that I was hoping to hear Ars speak or laugh, but alas no such luck - not this time.

While I Was Waiting for Dejerrity

I haven´t seen or spoken with my brother in-law Dej since we met at Second Pride. Partly because I haven´t been in-world that much due to the spell of fatigue, but partly also because of the time difference. So when I got an IM from him relayed to my e-mail during the the night before yesterday telling me he needed to talk with me, I decided to see if I could connect with him yesterday around noon SLT.

As soon as I logged in-world I saw his yellow dot lighting up the southeast corner of the sim on my mini-map and thought to myself, "Good, he is here!" After flying over to his house I found him lying at his new favorite spot. I greeted him, but got no response so I assumed he was away from his keyboard for some reason and sat down to wait for his return. Like many others in SecondLife, Dej often leaves himself parked in-world while he runs errands, works, eats, naps or whatever other reason he may have to occupy him in first life.

"What shall I do while I wait?", I wondered. As everyone knows I have a reputation of being "the most patient man in SecondLife". Everyone tells me that constantly and even if they do not always come straight-out and say it, I am convinced that they think it.

So after standing around a few minutes I decided to pass the time with a cigarette, thinking he would surely be back from whatever he was doing when I returned. No such luck though, he still wasn't there when I returned after seven minutes. My restlessness started creeping up on me and I thought that perhaps I should do something else while I waited, but I could not decide on anything so in the end I turned on the music and sat down by the camp fire. I also sent him an IM hoping that he would come to his computer when he heard the sound of the incoming IM.

Another few minutes went by without a reaction. I looked around the place of the camp fire and noticed that Dej had changed the textures on the pillows. it looked much better than before. I also noticed that he had laid out stepping stones to the little island behind me so that one could walk across without getting ones feet wet (Well, that was what would have happened in first life but not in SecondLife).

There was still no sign of activity so I turned on the music and sat down to wait a bit more. Waiting is not a thing I am good at, as Ars often liked to point out to me. "OK", I thought, "he may have gone to the store to get some food and condoms. Be patient, he will soon be back."

Sitting there, listening to the music, my eyes passed across the suitcase symbol at the bottom of my screen indicating my Inventory. "Good, there is a long overdue task I can occupy myself with", I told myself and looked at the number telling me I had more than 22,000 items in it.

Clearing Inventory is a delicate matter that needs thought and consideration and should not be done hastily. So I attacked the task at hand by starting with the system folders.

Animations folder was easy to sort, there were not that many and I knew which ones I did not want to keep anymore.
Body Parts folder was a bit trickier, because there were a lot of stuff I did not wanted to trash, for sentimental reasons. I also sorted some stuff into the different folders here for Skin, Shape, Eyes, Hair, Penises etc and other categories.
Calling Cards folder, I left untouched, especially after a previous experience where I had deleted a card by mistake (Cross my heart and hope to die!) and the other person was so pissed with me that she refused to renew our friendship.

Lastly - on this occasion - I started on the Clothing folder. I knew pretty well which stuff I did not like at all and would never ever under any circumstances use, those were deleted. The ones I was unsure of I left alone to take a look at another time.

Doing this took me about an hour and a half - without any sign from by brother in-law. I plan to go on with it next time I have some time over. I reduced my Inventory with 1,500 items with this operation alone. Imagine how much shit is still hiding in the other nine system folders, not to mention the user folders. I should think I could bring my Inventory down to 6,000-7,500 items.

So thank you Dej, sweetie, for not being there, but I still hope to see you next time I log in!

It Ain't Cheap To Look Good

Bock as a noob dancing at Badboy Plaza

My buddy Eddi Haskell has a new poll running on his blog Eddi Haskell´s Second Life, asking How Much Do You Spend To Look Good in SecondLife?

Take the poll, please, I am so looking forward to see the final results.

I will not share with you how much I spend, but if you look at the picture above I am sure you can guess it took some hard work, many cosmetic surgeries (with shape and skin changes), AO´s to get rid of the "duckwalk" and a more than a few Lindens on a decent wardrobe and accessories to make that hideous noob look as halfway good as I do today.

The picture above shows me in my third or fourth month in SecondLife. I had just managed to buy the Pride Flag after about 25 hours of "camping". Soon afterwards I plugged in my credit card to SecondLife and the ugly duckling turned into the swan you see today, or close.

This is the only snapshot from my early days that I have found in my Inventory yet, I know there should be some more but I haven't taken the time to go through my 2,000+ snapshots and textures yet. Unfortunately I also remember how I at one point started deleting things from my early days (I will never do that again), but I am hoping there may still be some I overlooked