Like a Good Neighbor, Stay Over There

I'm back after a short holiday break. Did anyone miss me? Anyone?

*Tap Tap* Is this thing even ON?

Anywho...

I came back to new neighbors, one of which built a ginormous, full bright, brick, monstrosity caddy corner from my deck.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not someone who wants to block everything from my view. I kind of like the quirkiness of living on the mainland, but this... thing... was a bit much. I finally came to the conclusion that the only way to camouflage that corner of the property was to either put up one of those giant cliffs and plant palm trees on top of it or move from my hi-rise beach house to one closer to the water.

It wasn't a problem. As I've said before, I have an embarrassingly large collection of houses in my inventory. Trompe Loeil gets most of my L$. 

I soon noticed someone flying around the glowy building and decided to be neighborly and say hi.

I knew this was a mistake the moment I started typing. The logical part of my brain started nagging at me to stop. This wouldn't end well. But the flighty, trying-to-be-a-better-person part of my brain told me to go for it.

 I should have listened to logic.

The new guy seemed nice enough at first, although the first thing out of his mouth was some comment about having sexy neighbors.

Red flag number one.

We spoke for a few minutes, exchanged niceties, then I excused myself to get back to building. I popped up to my platform and got to work. It was less than a minute before he showed up, 3000m in the air.

"What are you building? Do you want some advice?"

Oh gawd yes, could you please mansplain to me how to build a roof, when your giant, square, glow box is the bane of the neighborhood.

The next thing I know, he's raised his own platform beside mine and demanded my attention as he showed me an example of how I should be putting my prims together.

He also suggested that I should try building naked and after more sexual innuendo than I can handle in one day, especially while trying to do math and cobble textures together, he got mad and left.

The messages continued the next day. I finally just blocked him.

I'm not a prude, I swear. I was clearly preoccupied with something, yet he expected me to just drop everything and follow him to his... lair... to bump uglies. What is with people? Don't they know there are adult rated sims where you can pretty much just walk down the road and find whatever kink tickles your pixels?

Anywho...

Ya'll have a great one. I'll be around.

The Problem with Mesh, Blender and Second Life

Enter "Second  Life" in to any search engine and the same question will eventually pop up.

"How do I make money in Second Life?"

Linden Labs promotes the platform as a way to "Earn Money: Start a business & earn real profits from the virtual world."

There is plenty of money to be made as an escort, real estate flipper, builder or fashionista. And sure, you can be a fashion designer, like the avatar pictured on the front page of the Second Life website.

But to the new user, it's a little misleading.

If you've already mastered Photoshop or Gimp, you can probably manipulate textures well enough to create clothing by purchasing blank mesh items from the Marketplace and applying your own. The same applies to fashion, accessories, furniture... just about anything.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, it's a business model that supports the mesh creator and allows more Second Life residents to express their creativity without having to learn complicated software.

But do you really want to sell the exact same dress (or couch) that everyone else is selling?

If you truly want to design your own mesh creations (and mesh is what sells) then you'll have to learn Blender.

I dabbled with Blender back in the day, when sculpties were just coming out. I got pretty good at it. Then I fell in love and lost my mind, following someone else around, looking cute and playing dumb. I left after that, and when I came back, mesh had happened and I really didn't have a clue what was going on.

Now, I could probably relearn the software. I've watched some videos and read more forum posts and blogs than I care to admit. I come from a technical background. I've spent a significant portion of my adulthood staring at blueprints and manipulating 3D models during my career in industrial sales.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I know I could do it, but why would I want to? That's a significant time investment, spent off the grid, to learn something that I could only use outside of SL.

And that is the problem.

I feel like LL is shooting themselves in the foot. They advertise SL as a platform where you can make "real money" but the popularity of mesh has resulted in most residents spending all their time either off the grid trying to learn a new skill or logged on and not speaking to anyone because they're so caught up in running the business that LL promised them.

Is anyone having fun anymore? Second Life shouldn't be as stressful as the first.

Plus, there's the added problem of really bad mesh strewn around everywhere, effecting performance, due to an increasing number of residents who only care if they can sell what they've made, not if it is of good quality. There's one well known furniture designer who makes beautiful stuff, but it takes forever to rez beyond  a giant triangle.

For myself, I'm content buying enough $L each month to feed my house buying addiction, exploring the grid for blog fodder and hanging out on my front porch, seeing what the neighbors have been up to. There are already plenty of mesh creators out there who are leaps and bounds more talented than I will ever be and I'm happy to pay them for their skills.

Admittedly, I'd love to find a way to make some extra grid cash so I could justify paying additional land fees. There's a neighboring abandoned parcel I've had my eye on.

I guess I could invest in a headset and do the voice escort thing, but I'm afraid I'd crack up laughing. Also, all the moaning and unnnnnngggggg sounds might scare the dogs.

Anywho, that's what I think. What's your take? Let me know in the comments!

Escapades, Rubber Duckies and Whacking Sticks

Today I took a quick tour around Escapades. It's a cute little seaside build with a quirky, monster killing adventure. Anything that involves a whacking stick has to be fun.

I figure, most of you have probably already been, but I'm so behind on things. If I'd stop buying houses, then re-landscaping, then re-decorating I'd probably be up to speed. It's probably for the best. Nicotine withdrawal has me fantasizing about riding naked through an infohub, giving everyone the finger while screaming like a banshee.

It's okay though, I think I finally found someone I can get along with, for the time being.

There Goes The Neighborhood

Yes it's another house. Don't judge me.

My neighbors are disappearing. The lot to the south is still for sale, but with new owners. It's still pretty cheap, the buyer only raised the price by L$1000. If they don't sell it fast, they're going to spend more in fees than they'll make. It'll be a deal for someone.

I thought about buying it, it's much larger than what I have, but I'm content with my little plot (and my monthly bill) for now. I'm holding out for the 1024m between me and protected water. I'm hoping it gets abandoned eventually. 

Plus, I've finally sorted out my wandering horse falling in the water. It was a little disturbing to log on and find him chilling on the ocean floor.

The one friendly neighbor I had abandoned her land for a Linden houseboat. I'm happy for her, but I  miss seeing her over there.

There were brief border wars between folks on adjacent parcels. One eventually packed up and left, after the angry returning of property invading prims and ugly border markers, then put their parcel up for rent. It went fast, but the new tenant was even worse. She invaded on everyone's lines, even partially blocking protected waterways.

It's fun sitting back on my deck and watching uglier and uglier markers, signs and obnoxious builds going up between angry neighbors, until someone gets a cob up their ass, packs up and leaves.

As I've said before, I'm easily entertained. It's what I love about living on the mainland.

The property behind me is abandoned too. I can probably lower my cliffs for now, I can't remove them or Coal will try going for a swim. He thinks he's a Kelpie, apparently. I was amazed the first time I saw him actually swimming. Who knew? Second Life horses have evolved by leaps and bounds since the early days.

So for now, I'm enjoying the peace and solitude with the sound of waves rolling up on the shore, reading a bit and relaxing.

My second life, is a good life.