New release from Inga Wind -- Yvonne

Overlooking the hideous angle at which I shot this (making my feet look like boats), this new version of Yvonne from Inga Wind is fantabulous! It's an absolutely perfect salsa dress with a wonderful ruffle and lovely lace detail. Inga's a total whiz at texturing and shadows and, as usual, the wrinkles and highlights are perfect.

Complete outfit sells for $600L but if you join her group, it's available for $350L. Includes hat, dress and matching shoes.

The outfit is also available in red but to me, this color way is much more striking. 

SLURL to Inga Wind Clothing:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pitreavie/195/249/375

Tiny Empires returns to (unreal) life

The Tiny Empires servers are back up and all those HUDs and alts are back online. The restore time was around 3am SLT with a brief hiccup of a few hours. You may now return to your regularly scheduled sabotage.

Oh and I'm still looking for more subjects so if you want to switch kingdoms to a fantastic one, IM me. :)

Our futures with Tiny Empires?

I dunno, what do you think?

The Great Tiny Empires Crash of 2012

As of this writing, the Tiny Empires servers for one of Second Life's most popular games are still offline. That's 2 days and counting. According to some, the last time they went down for longer than a few hours was in 2008 when they were toast for 3 days.

Let's hope Ultralite Soleil can get them back up soon. The natives are getting restless, bored and some have even been forced to play another game called Real Life.

Second Life launches Direct Delivery beta

The SL Commerce Team just launched the Direct Delivery Beta on the Aditi (Beta) grid for SL Marketplace.

See: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Direct-Delivery-Beta-Launch/m-p/1327243

Direct Delivery basically means merchants won't need Magic Boxes to hold their Marketplace items for inworld delivery. Assuming the bugs can be worked out, this is certainly a long-term good thing. At the same time, the old if it ain't broke, don't fix it rule applies. Magic Boxes, while a pain to deal with, seem to work at least 98% of the time for me. Good luck Lindens!

Tiny Empires server down!

OMG! I'm going through Tiny Empires withdrawal now. Ultralite Soleil's game server went down yesterday and as of this morning, it is still offline. From the official group notice:

Greetings all,
There is bad news and good news. Which shall I give first? <rolls dice>...

The bad news is that there has apparently been a catastrophic failure of some kind in the Tiny Empires servers and they will have to be rebuilt, which could take the rest of the day.

The good news is that I managed to grab a good backup before the failure, so nothing in the Tiny Empires games will be lost. Your acres and gold are safe.

I will update you more as I learn more. 

Ultralite Soleil

I guess I'll just have to go shopping.☻

P.S. If you are interested in playing Tiny Empires (in Second Life of course) or moving to a great kingdom (White Horse), please feel free to IM me in-world (Snickers Snook) or send me a PM on Twitter @snickitty.

A taste of Asia in Second Life

I'm not big on "exploring the world" blog posts (there are others who do that far better) but today is an exception. I just love the build so much and think it deserves a quick visit. It's a small shopping district called Virtual Asia (with a bunch of other keywords thrown in(like Tokyo, Japan, Singapore, Jakarta, etc. -- I'm sure to help search.) But really the flavor is mostly a gritty, run-down Tokyo.  Maanaf, the developer/owner/builder, has really captured the look quite well.

To get in the mood, I put on a cute little kawaii / cosplay Japanese outfit from BareRose and posed in front of a closed shop. Set for sunset, the feel is total urban grundge.

 

Next a view of the shops along one of the main streets. Most of the stores are fashion-oriented but there are also a couple of places to play games.

 

And another view along the street (see "Bread Talk" at the end?)

 

And finally a small urban park. Those big cone-like signs actually rotate. Very cool looking.

Keep in mind it's a small, compact build located on a sky platform. Unfortunately because there is residential on the ground, setting up local windlight for the build is not an option since it would be much better set to a sort of permanent sunset or twilight look.

Here's the SLURL to Virtual Asia -- http://slurl.com/secondlife/MaxStudio/178/150/4001

Let me know what you think!

Take the candidate match quiz!

For political junkies and undecideds alike. Results were a bit surprising for me, but on reflection, they probably fit.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/candidate-match-game

New poll about 2012 Second Life economy!

OK, apologies to all those who voted in my poll. I realized it was worded poorly. Please revote in the updated one. Thanks!

Poll about the Second Life economy for 2012

I just put up a short, simple poll asking people what they think the state of the economy in Second Life will be like for 2012 vs 2011. Whether you're an SL merchant or simply a shopper, feel free to express your thoughts with the click of a mouse. You can also comment on this post if you want to give more details!