Xeriko's Attic: A mixed virtuality - Xeriko's Attic

Solstice

Yesterday, the temperature was pretty cool all day (thanks to some windy weather), but the day before it was damn high, almost to the point of melting down steel at sunset. At first, I didn't realize why (I guess my mind is longing for the early springtime mornings) but obviously we northerners are enduring the usual heat of summer, that hectic season of the year when all you think of is the refreshing breeze of a seaside panorama before the big storms of September tear everything down with their occasional fury. Anyway, I don't know why I digress so much... it may have been the heat. So considering the situation, I decided to try out some Ninikoboy shorts for the first time (believe it or not), and work the rest of this outfit from there.

Because I'm still loving the good-looking copper hair from the new TheAbyss Dave Gears skin, I decided to skip any prim hair once again and go with Dave's natural hairy scalp. But then I put on this Hunting cap from Argrace and FNKY!'s Jazz shades --which I believe look cool together and match the Laqroki vest pretty well--, and went with them without giving much thought. I have to mention I also tried Argrace's Very Short hair one (both black and blond), but didn't manage to properly fit the hair to the shape of my head. It either poke into the back of my skull, or its sides distanced too much from the temples (my fault of course, since I'm not a SL eight-feet wonder, nor do I walk around with a 70 points eggplant over my shoulders). Because resizing is done by means of  a script, modding is not allowed, so there's no way of manually editing the cap to adjust it with precision.

The shoes are from Ordinary Design, one of those shops you visit once in a while, but never buy anything from it because prices tend to be up, up, up the racks. And it is understandable (to a point) since they produce high quality items, but well, not everybody can afford them. Fortunately, the Japanese store is having a 50% off sale this week, so you better TP there and get the boots you were dying for but couldn't have until now. Sale lasts from June 23 (that was two days ago) until June 30, so you're two days late, hurry up!

The nice bag is a group exclusive gift from Aitui, while the bracelet is from Rawdolls. Both come with a resize script for easy fitting. It never occurred to me to wear a bag too, but for that tourist look, it comes in handy. Pictures were shot at Laqroki's subway station  (store entrance).

Hat: Artgrace - Hunting (cap only)
Vest+Shirt: Laqroki - "G" Vest and "W" Shirt with Scarf
Pants: Ninikoboy - Rollup Denim (black)
Shoes: Ordinary Design - Gorilla (black)
Gloves: SiniStyle - Taped Fingers
Glasses: FNKY! Cake - Jazz (black)

Earrings: Hämärä (I made them, yay!)
Mouth Piercing: FNKY! Cake - Bullring set (mouth)
Bracelet: Rawdolls - Nuthin' but trinkets

Skin: The Abyss - Dave Gears [Light]
Eyes: MADesigns (Awake)
Shape: my own

Avatar Rendering Cost: 740

Hair Fair in Candy Land

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This year's Hair Fair 2009 is on. It started last Saturday at midnight, and will go on until the 4th of July. As most of you may already know, it's been full since then, so getting in is quite a pain in the virtual you-know-what. Most people are very anxious to visit the Candy Land thinking about getting a new hairdo to impress their typist, some friends or any passersby, but anyone visiting the sugary installation should have another thing in mind: pleasing your consumerist desires  will help someone else smile. Hair designers will be donating part of the profits (from 50% to 100%) to Locks of Love, a RL non-profit organization dedicated to help disadvantaged children suffering medical hair loss by providing hair prosthetics (more or less what they say in their website).

Four sims with a limited capacity of 50 or so avatars at one time (that is some 200 people in total) is a real threat to  anyone's sanity if you consider that hair is one of the best-selling items in SL (that is, everybody wants some novelty when they see it at hand). With 1.3 million people logging in regularly and concurrency reaching 70-80 thousand people at peak hours, it's more than logical to assume a great-great number of them could be trying to access the fair as you read this... and failing miserably. But then, paradise is not what you find at the end of a TP. Once you're in, other issues await you, mainly an insurmountable lag that makes walking or flying around almost unbearable.

Every time there is such an event, someone repeats the same sentence over and over again: Please, use the most simple outfit and avoid wearing prim-based stuff, since they are one of the primary sources of lag. So for this fair (I don't know if they have done it before), the organizers are offering a "free lag kit" (includes skin a clothes) to render visitors into an homogeneous blob (if there's only one texture running around it makes things easier for your client), while other people keep their Avatar Rendering Cost under control. Yet, some others claim this so-called lag is just a myth (read this post or this one, both written by Gwyneth Llewelyn, for more information). Though it may seem they fail to explain the mystery convincingly, the difference lies between what causes the server to lag and what lags the client (the SL viewer in your machine). In either case, I preferred to follow the "superstitious" rules, and wear this simple outfit to attempt sim admittance. If it helps even a little, I would feel better with myself.

Shirt: Reek - Baseball Tees - Classics (black)
Pants: Weird Monkey Design (WMD) - Sugoi Outfit, "Ronin" Grey (jeans only)
Shoes: ROT - Test Boots
Gloves: SiniStyle - Taped Fingers

Skin: The Abyss - Dave Gears [Light]
Eyes: MADesigns - Awake
Shape: my own

Avatar Rendering Cost:  40.

I have had this Reek Baseball Tees pack for a couple of weeks now, and haven't had the chance to wear any of them, but I think they're perfect for this Hair Fair. And to say the pack costs only 199L and comes in ten different colors (and each in jacket and shirt layers) is a real bargain. There's another similar pack with Baseball Colored Tees for the same price, so you can buy both for great savings.

ROT boots are also an excellent item to have in your inventory (in my opinion). There are few 2 prim shoes out there with this amount of texture detail.

The skin I'm wearing is the new Dave Gears line from The Abyss designer, Khai Sinister. Since I was going hairless (prim-wise), I chose the skin with the best hair scalp (for my taste of course) in my inventory. First, this one is nicely painted with a copperish shade I'm particularly very fond of, and secondly, it has a very natural looking off center hair swirl no other skin has used before (or not among the ones I own). Besides hair and hairless, this one is also available with or without freckles (pictured below, freckled version).

Dave Gears has a twin brother called Steve Law (must be from a different father, judging by the last name --dual insemination?). Steve, the first to be born, is dark haired and kind of soft in the lower eyelid. You can see this second skin in Tact Arida's blog (see the Links section), or head to The Abyss and get it.

Pictures shot in Harold sim [slurl].

Hollowed Soul

Last night I was invited to a special premiere of Wretched Dollies and Club Lucidity's new home, Wretched Hollow. Owner, Ms. Star Fairymeadow, expects to open the sim to the general public this Friday, with a grand opening in a couple of weeks, once she and partner Mr. Viktor Kronos officially give that 3D canvas the final touches.

Since my cerebral activity was in the lows, I had to quit early, just when the music was in its peak. Here is what my sleepy brain managed to put together for the occasion:

Vest+Shirt: Laqroki - "B" Vest and "R" Shirt with Scarf (the red shirt shows better in the photo below)
Pants: Mechanism - Stripped Pants (black)
Shoes: Shiny Things - Flare Oxfords (black)
Gloves: SiniStyle - Taped Fingers

Earrings: Cyanide - Methanol
Nose Sticks: Primitive Design - Naughty
Mouth Piercing: Primitive Design - Sweet Sin
Cuffs: Hoorenbeek - Leather Cuffs - John (black)

Tattoo: Aitui - Dire

Skin: Aitui - The Redeemer
Eyes: MADesigns (new Intense eyes)
Shape: my own

Avatar Rendering Cost:  900

And no, this isn't Rihanna's cockatoo haircut. booN's XXX555 has been around for quite some time.

Green... giant

Some people are really serious about protection, isn't it? This one deserves a WTF! award. Picture taken from behind (the what?) to protect (hello!) her identity.

Lag kills you, beauty

This is what lag does to you...

LL loves you... yikes

This picture was shot in Truth Island [slurl]. The place was horribly crowded despite the fact that you see no one else around the square. In any case, there's a lesson to be learned: You don't show up in a sim so full with so many attachments.