Christmas 2012 is Starting to be Fun! Yes it’s Early I Know!

I must admit I couldn’t wait to start decorating for Christmas in the sim this year.  Everything is so depressing with the world economy and people are finding it difficult to make ends meet just to get by.  So with this thought I decided to start a 20 Lindens or less shop in SL this year selling Christmas Decorations  in Jamaica Inn.  I’ve made some new stuff too and both Hibiscus and I are giving away some freebies!   Hib has made a lovely job of her sim, it looks really pretty and the snow on the ground makes everything look magical.  I made a massive dome this year, a bit like a huge snow globe and put a couple of cosy cottages inside there, people can just walk straight into the dome!  The cottages are designed by brilliant builder Johnnytreadlightly Lightfire and they are ideal for a snowy winter scene.   I treated myself to a  Santa Claus figure plus  a beautiful sleigh that I can actually fly, both made by Phoebe Avro, who has a really lovely sim with lots of goodies for sale.  I took Drax for a ride in the sleigh and he was only a bit worried about my driving, but who can blame him!  We did land safely back down, which was quite an accomplishment on my part!  I also took Hib and Ed for a ride later on, they somehow got tangled up with each other and Hib was arguing with Ed about how heavy he was sitting on her lap!  Those two do nothing but bicker, like two big kids!!  Mind you, they were so busy arguing that they never noticed me nearly hitting the large tree as I flew past it; So I got away with that one!  Honestly though, the sleigh is dead easy to fly and very nicely made!  Hib even sat on Santa Claus’s knee in the cave grotto and she made a few Christmas wishes!   Hib has some free skis on her parcel and they are a real laugh, she has some steep hills, so be warned. We also enjoyed Hib’s carousel made of sl ice!  Neighbours Cliff and Whisper have also made a smashing winter landscape and it looks as if Whisper is setting up a Christmas market there, so be sure to visit us all.  I have another cosy cottage looking out over the ocean, so feel free to snuggle up by the fire and forget about the real life gloomy weather!!!  (p.s. there’s a bunch of mistletoe and a kiss pose just outside the door!)

A Blonde Evening!

I’ve been a bit of a ‘stick at home’ over the last few months, just love pottering around on my virtual  land and doing little bits and pieces, but prims are starting to run out! so I will have to curtail my buying new stuff and making new bits for a while.  The trouble is I like to change things all the time, I suppose doing a bit of creativity in SL is a calming and a pleasing thing, which takes your mind completely off of real life for a while.  so in a way it’s therapeutic, plus with a bit of luck you are happy with the results of what you have created.   I decided to go back out to the clubs this weekend though, and popped over to Janis Short’s HangOut for Truths’ Rez Day bash, which was great fun and then last night they had a wonderful formal Ball at the New West End Club.  I haven’t had a chance to put on a posh frock for ages, so I sorted through my inventory as I saw Hibiscus log on.  Hib wanted to go to the Ball too, so we both got ready.  For some reason I decided to have a change and go blonde for the night.  Is it true that blondes have more fun? well I’m not sure about that, but I did have a good time casting my dark long hair aside for the night.  The beauty of SL is that you don’t have to spend hours in the hairdressers, rezzing permitted of course, you can don completely different coloured hair and any style in a second (well you can just  hope you aren’t bald to the rest of the people and only seeing the hair on your viewer!)  I had a bright pink evening gown in my inventory, very glam looking, so I chose that and Hib looked stunning in a brown satin gown.  It was a lovely idea  having an Easter Ball and the club was crowded with owner/dj Cutewillow  playing some great music!  Everyone looked amazing and it’s nice to see the men in their smart tuxes too!  Yes this blonde had lots of fun, it was a really nice evening!!

Five years in SL – My Amazing 5th Rez Day!

I can’t believe it’s five years since I joined SL, yet somehow it seems as if I’ve always been a Second Life resident!  My Rez Day was yesterday and I woke up and saw that there was a new article on Virtually London (lite), curiously I turned to the front page and there was this picture of me in my tiny avatar and blue dress, yes my little red panda av! but who did this, put this on Virtually London (lite)? well naughty Hibiscus Hastings, that’s who!  My friend Hib had remembered my Rez Day and was asking readers to guess who the red panda with a Rez Day was!  Friend Ed put a comment on there and I added one too, telling Hib I would get her later for this publicity!  That evening I thought I would take some photos for my Rez Day, we were scheduled to play Greedy Greedy later so that was how I was to spend my Rez evening.  I put on a nice dress and went over to Run around Sue’s because it was open early and I danced around taking pictures.  As I danced friend Drax logged on and came over, we chatted and I continued to take more pics and I mentioned it was getting near the time arranged to play Greedy, as Ed, Hib, Web, Drax and I were all joining in the game.  However, Drax was saying, wait till it’s time to start before we teleport, so I said ok, but got a bit suspicious after it got late and we should have gone over to the Greedy table.  Drax kept making excuses and by this time I guessed something was up!  He gave me an adorable beagle puppy for my Rez Day and I really looked forward to seeing it later that night (I rezzed it later and it’s so cute! I’ve yet to pick a name for him!).  Finally Drax said we ought to go over and we teleported to Hib’s land!  well as I landed I saw that we were surrounded by our wonderful friends!  Yes Hib had arranged a surprise party for me and I had a lovely time, best ever!  Simon dj’d for us and we danced the night away.   It was a Rez Day to remember and I managed to take some pictures as you see!  I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who came along, TXBarb, Janis, Brie, Seany, Simon, Al, Poppy, Ed, Eliza, Pink, Nils, Truths, Nahi, Drax, and Hib (naughty Hib!).  (It was Eliza’s Rez Day a few days ago and I posted her celebration story on CNN .  I nearly put my Rez Day on there too, but CNN have hidden SL stories so far down into their new style  format that people can no longer just trip across our stories, so it looks like they have sidelined SL after all.  I read today that main media channels are losing a lot of their audiences to independent news channels because people think they aren’t getting the full real life news because they are being censored; apparently CNN have lost the most viewers, said to be 50%.  Maybe it’s time for the main media to realise that people are waking up to what is happening in the world today, it’s not only about them taking out the fun things like SL, it’s about them treating people like children who have to be fed the news they want them to read and not what is really going on. After all the world economy won’t make main media reporters, bosses etc exempt from the outcome that the governments plan for us all!)

As CNN Leave Second Life its Goodbye With a Party Tonight!

Picture by Courtesy of Henry ireport

CNN island is closing in SL soon, there will be a final party tonight at 2pm(slt), so we’ll go along and say our farewells to producers Nicole and Henry’s avatars, as they won’t be coming into the virtual world officially as reps of CNN any more.  A decision I think, which may have been made some time ago and finally it’s come about.  It doesn’t really make a lot of difference to me, as I will go on uploading stories and still have contact via the website if there is a problem, so it’s really only the meetings that have stopped, the articles will still be vetted by CNN who will still have  SL Assignments on the site.  It’s been a lovely time for both me and friend and writer Hibiscus Hastings, we met at CNN and formed a great friendship; we were both there from the very beginning when ireport started out in its Beta form back in 2007. We have contributed our own little bit of virtual history to the internet with our stories of what a real community SL is, complete with all its wonderful population of designers, artists, theatre people and creators of what ever you can imagine in the real world being brought into the virtual one.  It’s been an honour for me to meet so many clever and interesting people and I’ve enjoyed every step of the way writing about them!   So I will carry on and want to thank Nicole, Henry, and all the CNN peoples I met who came in world to chat to us mere mortals! lol!  Looking forward to the party tonight, so just type CNN island on your map in-world and pop along tonight and have some fun!

Nicole ireport

 

Eliza’s Winter Wonderland and Her Christmas Message!

It was lovely of  friend Eliza Janus to visit Jamaica Inn to see our Christmas display and I saw that she had her own little winter wonderland where she lives in SL, in Bay City, so I went over for a look!  Eliza is very artistic and she has made a beautiful job of her Christmas scene.  Well done Eliza it really feels like Christmas now and I hope you have a brillaint festive season!

Eliza also sent a notice round with Christmas wishes in all different languages, I hope she doesn’t mind me repeating what she said here, as I think it’s a lovely idea being that we share our Second Life with people from all over the world:

“I wish you a blessed and peaceful Christmas, may the peace and joy that only the Christchild brings be with you and your family always.

 Niech czas Bozego Narodzenia uplynie w atmosferze radosci i milosci, a Nowy Rok spelni wszystkie Wasze marzenia. Wszystkiego najlepszego.

 Gesegnete Weihnachten und ein glückliches neues Jahr !

 Glædelig jul og godt nytår !

 Veselé vánoce a šťastný nový rok !”

Christmas In Jamaica Inn – Hibiscus, Drax and I are in Showcase with our Festive sim!

I love SL at Christmas time and this year I had a bigger piece of land than I had ever had before with friends Hibiscus Hastings, Drax Ember, Whisper Fearne and Cliff Chesnokov as neighbours.  Hib and I decided to make our parcels into a winter wonderland this year and I started back in October to get organised.  Hib has done a great job, she has a bob-sleigh run, a horse and sleigh and lots of other pretty bits as well as the ever popular Greedy table.  I asked Drax if I could extend the Christmas bits to his land too and he kindly agreed, so it’s quite an area, with some freebies included too!  I’ve written about it all on CNN as well and it was with great delight that we got accepted for the Destination Guide, so we’ve had a fair amount of visitors popping in already!  So pop over to Jamaica Inn and have some fun!

Murray in Showcase

I saw Murray in showcase in SL and went back that day.  I decided to write about it, as it just isn’t the same as it was, we had such fun there!  You can catch the article at CNN

 

Excitement as I Get Accepted for SL8B

I heard about SL8B from Spooks Blackburn, who had entered his wonderful Whitechapel 1888 sim for the exhibition to celebrate SL’s birthday.  I was late applying and didn’t think I stood a chance, but then I got an email telling me that our Metaverse News Team had made it, we had a plot to call our own in the show.  I couldn’t wait to tell Hibiscus and I left a message with Ed as he is away. I’ve been working hard getting lots of pictures and stories into the site and the show opens on the 20th June, not long to go now!!  It’s all very exciting!!

Taking a Break

Of all mornings, when I wanted to put a message on Virtually London (lite) the blog site isn’t working and I can’t get into it!  So I’m starting here.  You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting quite so much lately, which I’ve hated, but I just haven’t had the time to do so much because of real life stuff.  So I’ve decided to have a break for a little while.  I’ll still be putting stuff on this blog occasionally, but the London blog and Our Virtual Trilogy will stop for a while until I get more time.  I plan to come back soon, as I know I won’t be giving up writing, which is a big part of my life.  However, I’ll still be in SL, but having fun, and catching up with my friends for the time being.

Big Hair and Where Have all the Storytellers Gone?

Sometimes you have to cheer yourself up, maybe real life is getting you down, or maybe Second Life gets a little humdrum sometimes, usually it’s because I’m busy with both and just reach a point where retail therapy is needed.  So the other day I went shopping and bought some hair.  I had wanted an ‘up’ style to go to the formal event at the New West End Club, but when I started looking around I couldn’t find anything better than the styles I already have.  In the end I settled for a luscious mane of curly reddish hair, which in hindsight made me look like I was going in for the Miss World competition on a bad hair day!  However I put it on and off I went to the Ball in my pretty pink dress, which was really a Christmas dress and has little trees all over it (I was hoping no one would look that close!).

Well no one said ‘I like your hair’ not that they should have done, but you know the sort of thing, you instantly think it looks horrible.  Hibiscus arrived and she did say it looked nice though, she is a good friend!  She looked lovely in her sleek evening dress!

Actually it is very nicely made hair and it has a re-sizer with it, so maybe I needed to shrink it quite a bit, hmmm, might try that next time!   Both Hibiscus and I went to the CNN meeting this week with Nicole the CNN Producer dropping in, yet no one else was there, very strange, maybe people are on holiday etc, but we seem to have lost some good writers.  It was a shock to see Any1 Gynoid had cancelled her CNN account, I hope she decides to come back, ireports are a lot duller without her!  In the meantime I’ll carry on as usual although real life is so very busy lately!