Look of the Day 30 October

Look of the Day 30 October, originally uploaded by Tessa Zalivstok.
Androgynous doesn't quite describe how Tessa feels today. But I was wandering through Bryce Designs and this boys' hair was just screaming to be bought. So I did. I prefer to think of it as more Princess Di than David Bowie. Be prepared for a rash of irrational and possibly self-destructive behavior.

Hair from Bryce Designs
Glasses Faust from Kalnin's (what else but Kalnin's would you put on your eyes?)
Skin Jesse Sunkissed from Belleza
Shirt from Cubic Effect

Urban

Isn't this jacket just the best in SL? It's from Aoharu. Hair from Dernier Cri, Skin "Jesse" from Belleza, Corset "Laure" from Insolence, Jeans a freebie, Glasses Danielle from Insolence

http://slurl.com/secondlife/AOHARU/112/125/23
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dernier%20Cri/111/105/28
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Venom/93/133/28http://slurl.com/secondlife/Belleza/128/128/27

Fall

Suddenly it's mid October. A cool wind blowing from the north and leaves turning deep red, then brown, then drifting to the ground. My green thumb is in its element. There's a particular spring in my step as I seize my rake and pile the leaves into neat rows in the gutter. My long suffering hubby disappears next door with a large crate of beer to distract and disable our greenie neighbors, a noted bunch of spoil sports and complainers. Then, as the laughter gets louder and more raucous, I sneakily bend over, light a match, and watch the white smoke curl heavenwards. There is no sweeter smell than the smoke of burning autumn leaves. May all opponents of leaf burning be condemned to rot away in a lower circle of Hell.
Of course my wardrobe has to take the earth colors too. That's a no-brainer.
Dress from Mrs Wetherby of course
Hair from Analog Dog
Skin Jesse from Belleza

How Green was my Thumb

Tessa is always out there in search of the perfect garden. Not an easy thing but we persist. We are homestead people so prim reduction is priority number one. And we really had to do something about our dependence on four prim cycads to fill out those empty spots in the garden bed. Just won't do to dedicate 300 prims to landfill when they could be so much better used for intimate poseballs.
Which was what led us to Maria's Garden Center.
Owner mariarowena Mayo claims to have "The biggest collection of 1 Prim Plants, 1 Prim Trees 1 Prim Flowers 1 Prim Tropicals". Also on offer is "Gothic Aquarium" - ewe! black sharks with blood dribbling down their cheeks? and Gorean Food. We don't claim to be experts on the ways of Gor but we had always cherished the illusion that they ate each other.
We quickly found our cycad and it was terrific. Much more realistic than our previous one although a real cycad tends to slightly squatter than the one we got (except in sprouting season of course). We tried to fix this by fiddling with the z axis but it just looked distorted. But all in all it was more than acceptable.

Then we went a little nutty. We bought several one primmers, a hibiscus which has now been converted into a hedge, a bromeliad (Tessa LOVES bromeliads) a sunflower, a sago plam and even a money tree just like the one that Tess's pilot has in RL.

Wow!
In a moment of folly I even bought a beehive which emits terrifying clouds of bees. No stings as yet.
Off-prim islands and mountains seem to be the landscaping thing of the moment and Maria has plenty, replete with appropriately seething waters and crashing waves. A castle wouldn't be a castle without one. Tess's sim is sadly littered with such items so she declined the opportunity to buy. But there were some interesting ones there including an enormous iceberg for only L$600. Tess had visions of Cap'n Jack Aubrey chasing through the Roaring Forties and once more walked away.
No wonder the Naiman guy, who is always bemoaning his fate, gets pissed. Still, it works in fashion and any other field of human endeavor. If you've worked out how to do something, so can everybody else. This brings prices down and guess who benefits? Yes, everybody.
A word about one prim plants. They're getting better all the time but am I alone in thinking that it's hard to beat the more conventional multi prim versions with flex. But the prims...................
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Marias%20Garden%20Center/63/119/21

How We Look and Feel, 17 October 2009

Now let's not accuse Tessa of goddess illusions. It was just that I was cruising through Liliana Bethune's fabulous Lilypili garden center and happened to come upon this scene of unbridled depravity by some obscure artist or other. (Memo to Tessa: DETAIL, Tessa, DETAIL!)It was lust at first sight and now it's in pride of place on the wall.
Meanwhile the Lilypili Garden Center is a riot of ever expanding color. They have gone the way of all flesh and replaced most of their multi-prim plants with sculpties. One result of this is that you can now fill your garden with four or five times as many plants as previously and become hopelessly lost in your own jungle (Memo to Tessa: find that freakin sculpty tiger you lost in the undergrowth before it's too late)
The downside is that, with several squillion plants, all sculpty, Mr Lag is in his element and movement is nigh impossible (am I seeing a theme here?). Tessa advises checking the position of what you want in search before rezzing and navigating blind. Works for me, should work for you. The owners are disturbingly New Age but this means that Tess got a fabulous set of Buddha gates in brass and gold and they are now standing at the front entrance to her house in the Better Half of Weekend Retreat. There is also a 15 foot statue (one prim) of the god Nike (no silly, the god of Victory, not the god of Sports Shoes) blocking my view of the ocean.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Bbang/242/45/50

Look of the Day 16 October 2009

A slightly rough and ready look for today. Tessa's feeling frazzled and needs to assert herself a little
Hair Lykke from Analog Dog
Jeans, t-shirt and shoes, freebies from somewhere or other. Don't bother me with details. I'm feeling a little on edge.

That butch bomber jacket is Roll-up Riders (brown) with denim from Aoharu. While we’re at it, have a look at Aoharu. It’s very Tokyo, clean glass boxes filled with goodies. If it wasn’t for the absence of trees I’d imagine that I was there walking down Omotesando with a quivering purse. In fact one of my few criticisms is the absence of trees which makes it all look a bit windswept. Actually, to do it justice, if you walk back down the Omotesando-imitation boulevard (mind the sim crossing! Tessa seems to be becoming very familiar with the feeling of walking through the floor lately) there is a moderately pleasant promenade with the sea on both sides, a few scrawny palms and some nice lighting at night. Give it a try.

Why are the Japs so good at this sort of stuff? Why is it that whenever you find something quirky and nice at a good price, it has a tag in Japanese? We’re supposed to be the smart ones. They’re just supposed to screw things together and squirrel away the money. Maybe that’s yet another thing that the academic economists need to revisit. But wait! Wouldn’t that mean leaving their desks?

http://slurl.com/secondlife/AOHARU/112/124/23

W*TF 1

*
That's "why" btw.
I tp to my fave shop, hot in expectation of orgasmic shopping experiences.
Everything is grey.
Grey
A few grey boxes rezz.
I wait
I wait
I go and make a cup of tea
I have a smoke
I go back to my computer. Some promisingly fuzzy shapes have appeared on the boxes. I go into edit. A shape appears. Suddenly it's clear. But it's not what I'm after.
At this stage there are two possible scenarios. The first is in the imagination of the vendor. In this one I hang round for ages just loving the experience and waiting for the promised goods to appear. Along the way I buy several dozen other items. After all it's only cents. My goodness! Where did that hour go? Doesn't time fly when you're having fun.
The second happens in reality land where I swear profusely and sign in to the nearest lesbian club.
Moral.
You don't need to upload high resolution pics for your ads and vendors. Keep the pics as low res as possible. In that way they'll rezz quickly and you'll keep your customers. They look just the same.

Look of the day 15 October 2009

This is today's freebie from Wetherby's. Alejandra (Mrs Wetherby) has an eccentric approach to just about everything technical about SLCommerce. It's a bit like when you were a kid and people would give you a Christmas gift of a pea wrapped in 500 layers of tissue paper in an enormous box. If you're not careful, within a week or so you'll have boxes and bags littlering the whole sim. And sometimes it arrives in your invo, sometimes in your Objects folder. Who knows? Who cares? All part of SLife's rich tapestry.
But her dresses and shoes are just exquisite. And you don't have to borrow Mr Obama's ever growing debt to get them. A new beautiful freebie every day with shoes and bag for L$20?
In keeping with her unusual technical approach, joining her group to get the daily freebie is an IQ test. No. You don't just click on something obvious and join. First find the dress of the day. You'll rezz with your back to a wall. In a couple of hours when everything's rezzed enough to see where you're going, walk over to the three or four circular steps. Climb them. Walk past the gloomy looking staircase, turn left and continue on five or six yards up to where there are always several thousand milling screaming fans. This is the dress of the day.
In front of it, if all the planets are in alignment, you should find a ball hanging there expectantly and inviting you to join the group. Click on it. Then. Go to your chat history. At the bottom as the latest entry (unless you're particularly talkative) you'll see a link to her group.
Click on it. The group dialogue box will pop up like magic. press "join for L$0" and Bob's your uncle.
Now comes the interesting bit, actually getting the dress. Go back to the milling throngs. Make sure you have Wetherby's group active. Right click on the picture at which stage a touch circle should materialise. Touch. The dress, wrapped in multitudinous layers, should appear in your invo.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wetherbys/105/252/23
Speaking of faves, my hair is Lykke from Analog Dog. Don't you just love AD. I like the walking on water feel as you paddle lightly through and inch of water to get your prized hair. Thank God it isn't a shoe sim.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Analog%20Dog%20Hair/96/190/21

Vade Mecum

Sad isn't it?
Wikipedia tells me that vademecum is now not only merely a "type of reference work, or other collection of instructions, that is intended to provide ready reference" but that it is "now considered to be archaic and is not in general use any more".
Sad

I prefer its original use, the mediaeval Latin "go with me", a guide and companion not only to physical travel but to life. And that's what I intend to give you.
I'm Tessa, Palermo native, five feet three in my stockinged feet. I live in Second Life. I live a second life. I travel, usually by tp in a twinkling of an eye. I will show you what I see and tell you what I feel.