Your SLife Story

I started telling my SLife story in this thread, and thought I should start a thread dedicated to telling each of our SLife stories.. So.. Heres mine..

When I first came to SL on my first night I went to a building class, and on my second to a scripting class.. I never picked up scripting, but I really enjoyed building.

So one of the main places I spent time when I first arrived was Cordova Sandbox.. And "Outkast - Hey Ya" was constantly playing from a prim CD the week I came in..

I then stumbled across Venice Bonifacio, by going to an event hosted by Taylor Thompson, who showed me round SL, and rented me my first apartment, I later held my first event in Venice, and found something I loved doing

It was there I also found out that I wanted to be a Mentor, and signed up as soon as I was able.

The first land I bought was in De Haro, the camp site sim, which wasn't much good because you could sell anything, and the only structures you were sposed to have were cabins or tents.. But I built a house! I didn't know about select texture, so my walls were 2 prims thick, so I could have brick outside and paint inside. And I used all the prims on the house, so it was a big room with no furniture.

I later bought a Boardman stall, to sell some apauling clothes, and discovered Darque Grimms free market in purple, where I also put out the same clothes.

After that I started building furniture, and started selling that more and more, and the clothing less and less..

I then sold my De Haro land and bought some land in Cowell, where I had my second house, a lot better, with a lot less prims .. Soon after, I bought more land in Cowell and build Cowell Mall. My first mall in SL.. It had a tiny door on the wrong side of the telehub, and not a lot of prims left for vendors..

After that I bought land in Magenta, and remodelled Cowell and built a mall on Magenta, which were both open air.. They were tiny by todays standards, about 2500 sq m each.. But we were nearly always full

After that I sold the malls, and bought land in Hina, where I first build Zapoteths Beach House.. And I had my first "whole day of events".. Basically, 12 hours of non stop events.. We came second on popular places..

After that I ripped it down and build Gothic Towers, my first club. It was very dark, and had a shop selling gothic items above. And I had it for quite a while.

At the same time I started hosting events for FairChang Island, like the Texturing Contests I later had to stop due to RL stuff (always gets in the way).

I soon sold all my land (except for the Boardman stall and prim land), and started to rent from Hiro Queso (as I do now) and kept getting better and better at furniture. And thats what I do to this day..

I soon hope to start holding occasional events again


-----

I sound like an old person rambling on! But at least I won't forget anymore than I have already

So whats your SLife Story?

What a fantastik idea for a thread, Zap! I've told mine before a number of times... I'm not quite sure what to say here... but I'm gonna clip-'n'-save this thread so I can read about the SLife Stories of my fellow Residents! w00t w00t w00t!

Glad to hear it!

I can't half ramble on a bit when I've got a thread to do it in

But at least people won't be worries they're rambling on

Once upon a time there was a bored college student. He was reading Wired magazine in July of 2003, and came upon a sundry article on the wild and wooly world of Second Life.


He downloaded the client and immediately got lost after being uncerimoniously dumped from the Orientation Island.

Welcome to Second Life, population ~500. Concurrent Users: 30?

So, he IMd the person that was quoted in the article: Darwin Appleby. Fortunately Darwin was extremely friendly and managed to navigate him to an event going on.

The only event going on.

A campfire story event.

After playing supernoob for a while, standing in the fire, asking inane questions (did someone really make this cabin? Who made these marshmellows? How are the physics?), Darwin decided to show him around his "lab" in Teal. The lab was filled with wonders, gadgets and gizmos that defied explanation and sent the poor newbie's head a spinning; cloaking devices, perpetual motion machines, security keypads, a war-room style map, and an answering machine were all star attractions in the poorly constructed lab.

After collecting his jaw off the floor, the newbie decided to log for the night.

Day 2 saw his attempts at finding some nice land to build a house on. He had found Boardman, but was unaware of the strict zoning codes in this strange zone... you could only build linden-made prefabs on the lots. He wandered over to the Nomad's wonderful store in Kissling and rifled through the free boxes of stuff.

Then he found Slate. Amazed by the sights of the river valley and the natural setting, he immediately bought a sizable plot on a hill overlooking the river.

His neighbors included such SL characters as Kenzington Fairlight, Ezhar Fairlight, Ananda Sandgrain, Bob Bunderfeld, Beryl Greenacre, and Athos Murphy. The neighborhood was quiet, well-kept, and extremely lovely. Ananda and Ezhar both lived in trees. Kenzington had constructed a gigantic castle overlooking Slate, with a gigantic floating pirate ship at the height of the castle, over 100m in the air. Slate at this point was the northeastern most part of the Grid. Athos was busy constructing the very first parts of the Second Life Railway.

To the west lay Olive, the Sandbox. The only sandbox. The original sandbox.

It was in Slate that Lordfly The Newbie began building. Or rather, learning to build under various harsh tutelages. Being surrounded by Ezhar, Kenzington, Ananda, and Bob, all accomplished builders, made the bar very high indeed. Ezhar was almost always online (due to an extended vacation that he decided to spend almost entirely in SL), and as such became Lordfly's favorite building guru punching bag. Ezhar drilled into LF the important concept of numbers-based building, texture alignment, and avoiding z-flutter. Kenzington continued to dazzle with crazy inventions and ideas. Bob built dazzlingly detailed pieces of homes and furniture.

It was being surrounded by this rich soup of unbridled creativity that Lordfly's love of SL took off.

Then he found the forums.

At first, the forums were an extremely inviting and welcoming place. LF's tones in his posts were of wide-eyed innocence, bewilderment, and unbridled enthusiasm; they were met with encouraging remarks, great ideas, and friendly faces.

Soon Lordfly tried his hands in many things; scripting (giving up after being unable to make a physical clock), creating a newspaper (only one edition was ever released), releasing his music compositions on SL record objects (10-second chopped wav files looped just right to play a song continuously.

As months went on, Lordfly realized his true calling, and keen interest, was in architecture. After several false starts, he finally found a patient client, Beryl Greenacre, and built his first commissioned work: Beryl's in Tan.

Soon he was building many different structures for many different people in many different styles. He was gaining a small reputation as a decent builder; indeed, this wasn't hard, as the pool of "decent, hirable builders" was perhaps three other people, all as new as Lordfly.

As time marched on, friendships were forged, buildings were built, and the former newbie began to leave his mark on the SL community.

As the world grew, so did the forums. They became a testing ground for new ideas; still generally friendly and encouraging, but busier and busier with new people. Occasionally debates started, but most remained civil.

Then came "The Day The Grid Stood Still": Version 1.2.

Initially quietly announced only to a few dozen residents in a conference call with Philip, rumor soon spread around the grid (at this point still a few thousand people at the very most) that something big, something huge was coming, and the only clues given were to buy a Lifetime Membership (note: during 1.1, there were two types of accounts: flat monthly fee accounts at 15 bucks a month for all-you-can-eat land, or a $225 US Lifetime Account, with no monthly fees and all-you-can-eat land.) to avoid the panic.

Then the panic.

When the announcement was finally given, the world erupted in chaos. The forums had achieved critical mass.

Protests were held, rallies were given, vocal speeches were ballied about, and the forums continued to boil over.

In the end, when 1.2 hit, the grid was changed forever.

Gone was the concept of "public land" (a term that is puzzling to 95% of today's currentl SL population).

By a coincidence, 1.2 was when GOM and IGe arrived on SL's scene, forever changing the economic landscape, and turning SL into a monetary wealth engine.

Also gone was the civil virginity of the forums.

It was around this point that Lordfly's persona developed a kind of schism.

In-world, he was at most times an extremely cordial, social person, full of creativity and nice remarks, and always helpful to newbies (ie Torley Syndrome).

On the forums, he became a bitter Forum Warrior, waging battles for battles' sake. He became a vociferous poster on things he considered "right".

As time wore on, the schism deepened. People seemed taken a bit aback as the in-world Lordfly was much different than the foul-tongued, acid-spitting forum persona.

The rest of Lordfly's story is well-documented in the forum archives, and whispers of his accomplishments in-world are still heard from time to time. But they are just that; whispers.

What is he today? He is as he has always been, defined best by two concepts: His architecture and his forum posts.


While his building prowess is still well-regarded in various circles (mostly of older players), he has become obsolete. Unable to compete with semi-professional content creation teams as well as professional, "real" architects, and lacking the time to invest in significant projects, his skills as an architect have stagnated. While still technically proficient, the inability of Lordfly to create custom textures or bake realistic lighting have shunted his ability to dazzle people. Furthermore, creative burnout has exacerbated the issue, as taking orders from demanding people to build them yet another 3-bedroom barbie beach house takes its creative and mental toll.

College isn't helping either.

He still plows into the forums on a daily basis, fighting the Good Fight, whatever that happens to be on that day. Generally he is shouted down or ignored.

He still loves SL, for all its faults.

He still builds, tinkering when he can with prims to create exciting spaces for a virtual world populated by drab cubehouses and Dwellingo ClubParlors. His personal projects and triumphs go unnoticed except by a few willing to put up with him and his "craft" in the name of niceness.

He is an ananchronism.

He is aloof.

He is an historical relic who abhors losing, yet manages to do so a little bit every day.

He's just Lordfly.

LF

I am not really much of a babbler so I won't post mine unless anyone wants free sleeping medication.

Well, I came into SL not knowing what to expect. I quickly found that it had a large club scene, LOADS of shopping, and always good times in the sandbox. I came in planning to do something with languages. Maybe translate into Romany or Hebrew or Japanese for some people( Why somebody would want Romany I have no clue ). However, I quickly found out that wasn't where any money was so on my first day I flew over to Club Elite, and became a dancer. Bought a nice skin, hair, and a slutty outfit and off I was. I didn't enjoy that club. Not enough clients. Later, I joined Titty Twisters in Trannsylvania, which, I am now workin at again.

I love it! Lol, its fun, great pay, cute outfits. In any case, then I met Luc Aubret, who changed my SLife in a very special way. We met in the sandbox, and I said Id love to buy his product( a wand ). One thing led to another, and, I TPed to his store! I bought one in rosewood and a couple spells. Watashi no kame I love em!

But,he influenced me in a much greater way I saw he rented land from Jesrad Seraph and I decided to rent in that sim too! I got a nice 1536 plot next to Scarlet Singer & Calypso Hauptman. Now, me and Scar are roomies! And co-employees at three places, lol. Now, we rent a nice plot from Anshe, a nice Arabian themed parcel. It works, cause Im part Armenian, and shes Turkish/Egyptian ^.^.

When I met Scarlet, my SL vanity rose. I looooooved her hair( Which I found out was the divine child of BabyBoo Glitterbuck! ). I bought it in black, because I wanted my avatar to look like me in RL( a mix of Sicilian, Irish, Armenian, and Japanese blood ). Good luck trying to find a japanese skin. However, I did buy a GREAT Nomines skin, and, it looks sort of Indian, which is good too I spose, since the Armenian side is Roma, and Roma originate from northern India, like Punjab.

My favorite things are Mischief, Caliente Designs, Here Comes Trouble, Tickled Pink, Pixel Dolls, Simone!, Ricx, Camie Cooper, and like, so much more!!!

Now, I am a model at Nu Image. I like modelling. I remember how psyched I was when I first saw myself in a vendor at Dwellgats ( for Esprite Xavier ). I also hostess at Dark Secrets, which I love, because its really fun. I also report fashion for the Metaverse Messenger. I looooved interviewing Simone Stern. I wore her clothes before, but listening to how she works and why was just so cool! I am a Dark Lady Of The Sith with my sweetie Gurdian, and, of course, a dancer at Trannsylvannia.

What do I do? I go around SL, shopping, hanging with friends, Scarlet, Tomo, Gur, Mira, Gothy Boy, Ea, etc. Terrorize the sandbox.

I <3 Sl!

-Ayame Sapeur

*singing off key* Just sit right back and I'll tell you a tale, a tale of a fateful trip .....

actually, my story is too long, hehe ... I'll do the edited version.

TSO for 3 years, yawn, SL ... YAY !!!! Dragged my friends and family to SL with me and we live happily ever after *courtsies*

my SL story has alot of war and fighting with others, but if you guys want me to post it i will

I saw an SL banner ad on Gizmodo and was surprised to note they had a Mac client. Probably the only banner that has ever converted me on the internet.

I logged in at 1:30 in the morning and must have screwed around for hours before going to bed. Definitely hooked me pretty quickly.

I bought some land and made a small sky apartment based made from a cut-apart Juro Kothari L$1 prefab tubular house. I was obsessed with creating an elevator that would go from the hillside where my plot was to the 600m apartment. Good times.

I bought a lot of goodies and found some quality and some not. I was really impressed with Cubey Terra and other hard-core branders in SL -- and I never expected to try and follow in their footsteps.

Today I'm still pretty surprised that now I'm the one being approached in the sandboxes by people who have bought my products.

"Hey, you're the siegeBot guy!"

Yeah, I guess I am.

Today I'm really, really fulfilled knowing that I can give folks a product that gives them a lot of fun for not much money. I know the sting of disappointment when, as a newbie, spending your sparse cash on what turns out to be unworkable junk. Someone told me the other day that his siegeBot was his "favorite object."

I'm doing what I came here to do, I think.

That reminds me of when Tethys was a free build sim, that wasn't cleared.. And I had a club in the sky.. About 500m up, and I tried to build an elevator with a call button, with my scripting skills on the wrong side of mediocre, and my brain not in gear.. So I put the shaft and elevatar in place, and put together a lot of, shout/listens on a private channel.. And forgot to use different commands/channels.. Almost crashed the sim, I've never deleted objects so fast in my life..

And that time I filled Cordova to the brim (picture enclosed), and almost crashed it.. I was a baaaad little newbie..


And everyone, we don't care how long or boring (yeah right, this is SL) they are, post them!!

I was browsing G4 (www.thescreensavers.com) for multiplayer games that I could play, and team up with, my family. Just before SL I was playing Guild Wars in my spare time. GW was great. But talk about limited.
I spend $150 on 3 licence keys because I wanted to get my family in on it.
Thats money I now wish I had stashed away in Ginko Financial.

Anyway, after I was sick and tired of the Guild Wars issues and found myself ranting and raving about it instead of enjoying my free time there, I dropped it. I hit the G4 site for something else. Anything else.

I found SL. "Make real money. Hmm. I'll check this out."
Now all that ranting in Guildwars seems so childish.
Right from the start I found SL to have many more issues to yell about.
But something was different. Something kept me here. Could it be that it was actually fun with a sense of purpose?

The first thing I thought when entering the preperation sim was "OH, My graphic card is screwed up already."
Well it turns out it wasn't. Thats just how it looks.
I just had to deal with it.

I Picked up the controls fairly quick, and got the basic idea of how to fly. I learned how to slam into a tree, a boat (which presumed I was lost), and then suddenly took a swim for no apparent reason.
Shortly after that I finally figured I was alone. "The player base on this must really stink."
Eventually I found a TP and ended up in WA2.
I quickly learned to embrace lag. Hurray for LAG! I'm still looking for the (I love lag) T-shirt I saw on someone.

For the first hour or so I didn't have the currage to explore beyond the WA.
I thought I'd get shot or have a giant Hydra eat me alive. And possibly regret it from that point on.
After seeing some of the avatars walking around, I felt like asking "What happened to you?!" and "Tell me where so I don't go there!"

Eventually someone (whom I lost contact with) took me from the WA to a nearby sandbox. They showed me the basics. And I suddenly knew where I was. I knew these tools from working in graphic arts. Such as Blender, Bryce, Poser.
The sandbox was my home.

Soon after playing around there, and building the ultimate box, my avatar decided to explore and became a superboy/peeping-tom. Completly on it's own with no reguard to what my input was on the matter.
Or maybe that was the other way around.
Well no matter, I found myself outside of someones window watching them share real photo's of some vacation in real life. Members of the group "Thunder!"
Within the next hour of playing I recived a bike and learned how to drive it anywhere, except on the road.
Because apparently bikes in SL have a mind of their own also. Just like my avatar.

Everything went black after that. I can't remember what happened.
Seriously I think I fell asleep.
I hate it when that happens.

Update: I learned the player base is much higher than I first thought. So it doesn't suck.
Oh and I eventually got to where I am now, somehow, and finally started a group/business called the Vetox Project. And we are starting to sell on www.slexchange.com Horray!

On my 1 year Anniversery in July, I posted my SL life up to that point here.. /140/a4/54414/1.html#post574349

The only thing that has changed since then, was I switched to MJ Hathor as my primary avatar.

MJ

The days before Realistic Skin, Prim Hair, and Custom Animations, How I miss thee.

Hm, this seems like a good way to procrastinate...

Back in early 2004, I started seeing Livejournal posts by a longtime friend of my hubby's with pictures of his Superhero Second Life avatars. Soon, he had convinced my hubby to download and log on to attend an 80s party, and within days I was convinced to join in, as I was already addicted to building in The Sims (not online).

I struggled through Orientation, emerged to a WA with a couple of motorcycles and hoverboards but no people. I was a little scared of crossing the road in case I got run over! I was teleported to a club, which took forever to rez, and then went exploring and ended up in someone's well-built home. I found the Land Sales tab, and was frustrated by not being able to buy a tiny strip of land that was listed for L$0.

My first hangout place was Taggy's Chaos Theory Games in Tan, where I attended nightly events and gambled merrily away. Within days, I had posted my request for Land for the Landless in the forums and waited a full 8 hours before being allocated a hillside lot in Solang. I plonked down a Linden-supplied free house, built an under-deck disco and waited for my neighbor, Whisper Lily, to claim her land.

That night, I saw Whisper at Taggy's and greeted her happily! She was bemused, as she'd not received the notice that her Land was available. We became good neighbors and both spent far too much time at 'home' experimenting with builds. (I think her first house was Juro's Alpine Lodge).

Two days later, I discovered the Auctions and I became a lost cause! I bid on, and won, land in the new Sim of Baku. I asked Whisper if she'd like to buy my first lot from me to expand, but she told me that she, too, had won an auction and was moving on. Our talented neighbor Rysidian Rubio happily bought our lots for a good price.

I flew to my new land to claim it - a lovely 1008 m2 beachfront lot facing "not-a-sim-yet"., with a road on the other side. The lot to the south was yet to be auctioned, but the lot to the north had been won and claimed by .... Whisper Lily! Yes, we were still neighbors.

There on the beach, we both discovered a passion for SL architecture and went into the prefab housing business. I ran a few garage sales, rebuilt and then discarded my disco, and finally settled on simply building houses to live in, and sell. I started bidding on other auctions, and won a few - which I'd use for larger build projects before reselling. One lot that I won in Shaka became the location for my Shaka Shopping Mall, which grew ... and grew ... and grew ... to almost half the Sim! Only 1.5 Sims away from the Shinda telehub, it became a popular place to rent and dwell grew steadily.

I started a little real estate office opposite the mall, where I would place brochures for my land for sale in the window. I tried to be as realistic as possible in my business. I launched a rather pathetic little thread on the forums where I tried to present the "friendly face" of land baroning, only to get into a heated argument with His Grace. Down the road, I was to discover that His Grace was actually someone my hubby had known online for 14 years... it's a small world!

Meanwhile, I sold up in Baku at an insane price to someone with more money than sense - actually, I was glad to get away from the W-Hat HQ on the other side of the road, and the laggy club run by the infamous One Song. (Diamond Casino?) I moved briefly to Mooaleo, pondered building a steamboat ride based out of Mokualii, and then the Snow Sims were launched.

My first Snow Sim purchase was in Verbier. I was so happy to finally find a great hillside location for my Honeymoon Mountain cabin rental, and spent almost a day getting everything in place, and landscaped. Then an influential group bought the land up the mountain from me, and wanted to buy me out. They were very insistent. They offered a lot of money. A huge amount of money. They cited their impressive building project which they were paying great amounts for, together with ski lift. They really needed my little lot.

I gave in. I moved to Isere. I put down my heart-shaped house, and started buying up the surrounding lots. I built 10 rental apartments, and found renters. I ended up with half a Sim there too. I bought additional land in Cottonwood, including a choice lot by Ryan Linden's waterfall. More renters moved into apartments there. I moved on to Orwood, and built my first non-snow apartments. This was less successful, as one day I arrived home to find the Sim moving at a snail's pace, and Andrew Linden floating in mid-air behind my land. He was trying to do something about the pile of 250 unlinked rocks my neighbor had put down, and then turned physical... You should have seen the sparks!

Then RL intervened. I no longer had the time to devote to running the mall and apartments. My projects to tie in-world rental payments to my web-based tenant database system stalled. I sold the mall in Shaka, then the land in Isere. Orwood followed quickly, and eventually Cottonwood. All I was left with was my RV park in Derwent, which had become the new location of Honeymoon Mountain.

An 8 month hiatus followed. When I returned, I found that Derwent had turned into the best possible place to live. To the north, I have the Spencer Family rental homes with the nicest tenants, to the northwest is Zyrrah Falcone's land with the Roadhouse and many other friends from Cape Destiny. To the west is the Linden-owned sim of Hawkshead, empty for the foreseeable future. To the south and east is the road, and more wonderful neighbors. Land does not get bought and sold on a weekly basis here!

So I slowly got back into the swing of things. First, by running some of the old-style events - trivia, primtionary, texuring contests. Next, I cautiously tried updating my line of prefabs and selling them only through the Classifieds and with two vendors both on my own land. To fill out my tier, I started buying cheap land again, and building on it, before selling as a developed parcel. I even won an auction last month! A couple of weeks ago, I just accepted my first building commission since my return.

I still IM with Whisper from time to time. I see very few people these days from my early life. I've made new friends, play new games (Tringo, Quintzee) and try to make my tier payments from my in-world income. I've introduced someone (Annie Malaprop!) to Second Life through my own Livejournal posts.

In conclusion, I'd like to thank Random Twilight for his initial Livejournal postings, His Grace (now Stoneself Karuna) for his friendship and encouragement, and everyone else who has ever attended one of my events or bought one of my houses or pieces of land. There's so much I have not included in the above story, and it's all been an important part of my life!

I would tell you my SL story, but you wouldn't believe me. Really, I don't believe it myself.

I would tell you my SL story, but it's rated XXX

I started a couple of months ago, weighing only 120 lbs.. That needed to change. Soon I had gathered all the free food objects in primboxes and had a delicious repast. Eventually I had reached about 375-400 lbs., but clearly this was the limit the sliders would take me. (The slider bars, not the White Castle sliders.)

I started working on a "fat suit" primatar, but at this point realism went out the window, so I put that project on hold.

Plus, it had become annoying to build the fat suit in public sandboxes, so I resolved to buy land and make my own house in which to conduct private experiments.

The first place, in Menophra, was a great place in which to learn the basics of building and even some scripting. The house (a lovely shade of pink, suggested by A---- S----) was looking very pre-fab and preposterous with my name in lights over the front door and a sub-basement with a dungeon.

Soon I trashed it and started building a skyscraper, using a very small number of prims. It looked lovely. I was able to start my art gallery as well, though my fractal art had not yet been uploaded to any large degree.

My plans for the skyscraper were dependent upon being able to buy adjacent parcels, but a huge bug in my account made it impossible for me to change tiers and thus buy the cheap land to my north. I was crushed when my neighbor bought it first and was intending to use it. I ended up selling my property to that neighbor because he clearly wanted it and I could always move.

So, off to Cass, where I bought 2048m² of land. Now I had room to work. After making the largest below-grass-prims sub-basement I ever saw, there then followed a laboratory building, a seven-story skyscraper (the penthouse was really something, it had a pool and everything!) and a working elevator (though it wouldn't go up more than four floors at a time). I started designing spiral staircases and really learned a lot about building here.

Then, one day, tiring of working on the skyscraper and dreading having to add furniture to it, I got the opt-out I needed: A local wag was complaining about how my skyscraper was an "eyesore"! Though I disagreed, saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I could now start over with something else.

That "something else" turned out to be Castlemania (yes, that's spelled correctly with an 'm'). It was the architectural fashion of the day. I needed a bigger plot to make one though, and incredibly I found it; a square 4096m² in the corner of Sawrey.

The castle went great guns. Huge and black and red-bricked and blue-floored. A massive throne room with a green throne that would even fit my fat suit. A large dungeon and nice towers with walkways and parapets.

But, having finished most of the structure, even to the large bedroom in the center tower, the working drawbridge, the round dinner table, and even having worked on the particles, I had lost my appetite for being Queen. Everything was either prim-wasteful or bad design. The stairs seemed unnecessary and difficult to navigate.

Finally I just gave the whole thing a miss and deleted the mess. Why be Queen if nobody will be your subjects?

I also have land in Achlya where I built a functioning TARDIS, but it only goes to two places. I also built the meeting hall for the Dr. Who group there, but I don't think anyone uses it.

My new skybox project in Sawrey is a secret, but it might be obvious if someone puts all the clues together. Right now only J------ Q-- has a few of the clues...

My major unrealized goal, of course, is to buy a decent "fat suit" primatar.

Oh please tell. I want to hear.

I have a feeling it involves sheep, sheep and more sheep

MJ

I started after coming across a link for SL on a games site whre I was searching for online games, expecting to come across something like "Bookworm" or "Glinx", so I thought i'd give it a go, I was your typical n00b, huge boobs, bright red hair, looked a bit like a pitbulls arse whilst I fiddled around with my sliders, sitting around the WA with my playboy bunny shorts and ears on, meeting a TON of fab ppl along the way.

Then I met a few people that I clung to, as we were all pretty new, they helped me learn to do snapshots etc etc, and then it began... off work with flu for a week, I sat at my PC desk dribbling and sniffling dancing around half naked at Club Divine, where I met who were to become my best friends, my sanity in this crazy game. Alot have left now, or don't come on much anymore due to RL commitments etc (Missdee that baby is SO CUTE).. But I still manage to get a hi to them somehow and the ones that are still left, well we are as tight as ever (been over a year now you crazy dorks!) and I love them just as much as I ever did, if not more, and we will always have that unbreakable "n00b" bond

Then of course I bought land, and it expanded, and expanded and expanded until I was offered the chance to have a Sim, so I did! Then Slootsville was born "YAY", and my friends and I all moved on, set up stores, homes, dojo's, pools, whatever we wanted to, it was OUR home. Of course I had already met another group of great people that I now call my best friends and family.

And thats where it stops for now... I still have my best friends, the best friends in the world, I have met so many fascinating and colourful people on SL, far too many to name, but anyone that knows me and has my card knows I think the world of them, each and every one, even if we don't talk often, they know I am and always will be there for them.

So I thank SL for the good times, the friends, the laughter, hell I even thank SL for the pain, the drama and the tears, cos I believe its made the who I am today, and thanks to everyone thats helped me along the way, I am finally where I want to be, and it feels good

I wrote a little post on how I started SL once

/120/77/46339/1.html

It's been a little over two and a half years but I'm back. *waves*.

The grid is slightly larger.

First there was the sex box. Then came the sex balls. End.

Quite interesting to hear 'bout the olden days. I joined only a little over a year ago when two TSO friends were pestering me to come check it out. I was reluctant, having a fair bit of time and effort invested in my "large lot" in Alphaville, but came, nonetheless to SL.

My first day there was actually noone in the welcome area (must've gotten in world quite late maybe?) and so I stood there and went through some of the library folders to see what I had in terms of a wardrobe and was thrilled! I loved the little red riding hood puff sleeves and wore those as I flew around for a bit. It seemed like a vast desert with odd red columns in the distance. I couldn't manage to get where I wanted to be, but kept seeing these odd columns of red light, far off.

I landed to ask a resident some questions about the red lights and how to find things and this turned into a comedy routine akin to who's on first. I asked what the red lines were, and the fellow said those represent my goal. I asked what is my goal? He said he didn't know. I was most confused.

I next landed at the house of a very nice young man, young enough to be my son irl (just turned 1 who taught me how to do a number of things, gave me P's Poses and some other lovely inventory items. another new player stopped to join us and, when he passed me the chicken dance, I chicken danced merrily, thinking myself the height of fashion in my odd puffed sleeves, leather pants and plain white shirt texture. Sensing my look could use some work, that young man gave me a copyable pvc skirt and top (and also answered me a week later how to get things out of boxes in a way that was comprehensible!) I wish I remembered his name to thank him, but I didn't see him around after and it was a difficult name. (I'm sure mine seems so to most, also.)

The next people I met, some pole dancers at an underwater club, had the most amazing avies ever. And were so nice! I tipped them a little money and they gave me every conceivable copyable item, from lingerie to jeans. Now I could strut my stuff, and I did: at several clubs. Many of those early acquaintances became SL-long friends and allies. I also took snapshots like crazy, sending them back to friends in TSO and did my part in the TSO exodus of 2004/2005. I counted around 15 or 16 new members in my referrals (which I kept most of as it was my only income, but also gave some back to referrees in the form of objects, and made good on the promise to buy them their first 'bits' in sl). Only about 45 days after joining, I got an email notifying me that I won the Vive La Evolution contest, giving me a free lifetime account and I actually Wooted in class (startling my students who were taking exams).

In January of 2005 we opened the spa. I had been running events at another club and anxious to do that on my own land, where I could kick out griefers (my poetry night had visitors with smoke bombs and burning crosses to contend with). Right about then, events funding was discontinued, though, so I began the long and arduous task of trying to find another income since traffic, even with no teir to pay, wouldn't meet the needs of staffing a spa or even letting me shop as I would like. I considered the spa what I would give back to SL as a result of being able to win the Vive La Evolution contest, and still try to do one or two educational or arts/culture events every week. The spa is now most of a sim in sylvina, and my sl income (selling eyes and a few other items) pays for the staffing of it. We have events most every night of the week including storytelling events, screenpic contests, dances and classes.

Coming in to SL with no building or scripting skills, but with event organizing skills was a mixed blessing. It took me a long time to have an income other than vive la evolution. But I did end up meeting a large number of people, so if nothing else, there is never a shortage of people to talk to. The spa has been on the dwellnor awards list since February of last year and we still keep plugging. Learning to make textures for my clothing and body items (working on a skin, too) has helped me to appreciate those who made my life easier with templates (Thanks L. Svarog and C. Midnight).

I got an email the other day from a woman who made her first blouse using gimp after taking my avatar customization class. That made me feel great and very nearly completely overshadowed the fact that that same class was halted in the middle by a griefer shooting students and setting off a weapon that made all of us need to relog.
I'd love to see an SL with just a little less grief and a lot more of living up to its potential as a tool for teaching and making art. All in all though, I do love my second life.

it's not all that interesting.

and neither are you.