Wanderstill

Tessa has been threatening for quite a while to write about the garden sims of SL. So many, so varied and never put together in one place. But the Muse........ She's either given up the drugs or been on holiday or both. So no action. But there've been a few inklings lately that she may be prepared to cooperate. So Tess tuned up her tp, sharpened the pen, and prepared to boogie.
The first place we landed was Random Calliope's Wanderstill.
At the outset we should say that one of Tessa's many failings is her absolute tendency to over-rely on her bullshit detectors, a pair of large and unsightly antennae which periodically stick out from behind her ears. But he must agree that it wasn't a promising start when we saw the sim advertised as "an immersive art experience".
Picture yourself... waking from a dream. Confusion. Blurs. Gray.

Gradually things start to take shape. The calico curtains. The stone fireplace. Oh shit! A teddy bear. A slow realisation that yes, you're awake but trapped in a picture somewhere between Whistler and Norman Rockwell. Nope. Sorry. Definitely Norman. Except isn't there something up there in the attic. Eagerly in the expectation of something of real interest you clamber up the ladder. Several pictures rezz with the despatch of a mighty Alpine glacier. Ah! A self-described diorama of the rise of a Shetland clan from well-deserved obscurity to become one of the leading trading houses of restoration Scotland. Hmm... Maybe there is something here....
You walk out the door and those hopes are quickly dashed. Acres and acres of wildflowers. At this stage we should declare a prejudice. We never warmed to AM Radio's stuff. We always felt a bit like Ruth among the waving fields of alien corn. So an apparent 256 x 256 of nothing but wildflowers interrupted by the odd sculpty tree filled us with apprehension.

Still we plugged on, moving from pink wildflower to white wildflower to purple wildflower.
We encountered a slow rezzing stick, part hidden amidst a particularly nasty clump of purple wildflowers. Tess has always been noted for her patience, a virtue which she practises with great assiduity. So after a year or two when the stick had fully rezzed, she discovered the reward of her virtue when the stick revealed itself to be a "Peace Pole". You know. One of those extremely effective devices which bring peace on earth and goodwill to all men by the simple expedient of proclaiming their message in a polyglot fashion to whichever citizen or citizeness who happens by. Tessa was particularly impressed by the fact that the message, "May Peace prevail on earth", was in English, French, Spanish and Lakota. Tess feels a particular affinity with the Sioux people and considers herself a sister. So she made an immediate donation, as requested, of 200 sheets of wampum. Tess is a deeply spiritual being and communes with all of the better and deeper beings although, of course, none which call their home anywhere west of Karachi.
So she wandered off chanting  alternately "May peace prevail on earth" (presumably what General Custer proclaimed just before he opened fire on the Sioux) and ""Wa'wa'hwa la ma'ka a'karv u'nun'we" (presumably what Sitting Bull said just before he took General Custer's scalp). Oh Jesus Tess! You've done it again. For "Sitting Bull" read "Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake" throughout.
I think you get the picture. Unrelieved waving fields of flowers. The odd sculpty tree. A white picket fence around the edge of the sim for God's sake. A white picket fence bridge over a notably terrifying abyss which looked rather out of place when seen against the general blandness of the place. A piece of utterly unalloyed Americana in the shape of a stable.
The horse inside was small, presumably a Shetland in keeping with the "diorama" in the attic but nothing else.

A white picket bandstand. We met a pleasant lady in the bandstand. Her name was Rosebud Magic and somehow we felt she was in the right place. Her demeanour wwas that there had to be something else but she wasn't yet prepared to give up on it.

Then Tessa jumped over the cliff
Things immediately started to look up.
We had previously cammed out over the edge of the sim where it appeared that the whole thing was built on an enormous mega prim some 200 metres in the air. But as Tess slowly tumbled seawards, it rapidly became apparent that the garden was on a plain above giant 200 metre high cliffs. Now we were really in the Shetlands. giant waves crashed on great jagged rocks and whirlpools swirled in the scariest way that Naiman Broome and Antreas Alter have been able to achieve.
Soon we were at sea level, staring back up the cliffs. A rocky stepping stone pathway rezzed before us and we were tripping across water in the way made famous by our Lord and Saviour, surely one of the most fun things in SL. A hnt. Whatever you do don't fall off those invisible prims because if you do you're screwed. Ask Tess. She knows. It's one of those annoying no tp sims so even the double click tp invented by those wonderful if illiterate people at Emerald isn't enough to get you out of trouble. We went past a floor where you can dance on the water (no record so far of Our Lord and Saviour doing that. You'll have to learn on the job). Bunns Maggs and Lacey Claridge were either dancing or humping on the dance floor. We couldn't be sure because they were both puffs of smoke (Memo to Bunns and Lacey. If you were humping, our profoundest apologies for even contemplating the possibility that you were dancing). Tess paused for a moment and thought about taking a pic of the mermaid statue which she found amidst crashing waves. Naaaaaaaaaaaah. Naked, would have to be marked "restricted" on flickr.

One of the characteristics of this sim is that there don't appear to be any signs telling you where to go. Fair enough. Discovery is one of the joys of travel. And Tessa has been around. She noticed from the map that there was an area near the edge of the sim which appeared to have some buildings. No real path to it and tping was out so she flew over to find one of the most delightful places that it's been her pleasure to see on SL.
Willows by the sea? Well OK, it's SL and the combination of the sea, the willows, the rustic adobe house and one of the best waterfalls we've seen in SL made this a restful and calming experience. We might even say spiritual but we'd been spirited out already. Let us take a moment to say that this area had some of the best use of Botanical groundcovers, trees and rocks that we'd ever seen, certainly much better than anything youll se at Botanical. Tessa loves her RL beach house and found walking on the wet rocks here as close to the RL experience as anything she's previously seen.
We mentioned before that Tess had cammed out over the abyss when she was up on the plateau. There didn't appear to be much to see, a lone cherry tree which, in best SL fashion, against all the laws of gardening, was permanently in bloom. But there did seem to be a path and it became an obsession, now that we were at the bottom of the path, to find it and climb it. We flew round for a bit, found a track which seemed to lead upwards, and set out on out voyage of discovery.

Zigzagging ever upwards, ever deeper into the folds of the abyss. A wonderful waterfall which appeared to be the work of the sim owner random Calliope. Are you selling Randy? Tess is in the market for sure. Past the lone cherry tree, buzzing with insects. Or was it falling cherry blossom? Tessa hummed "Sakura" to herself and contemplated the important question, who gives a shit? Always curious, Tessa checked out just how they managed to make this amazing path and  was astounded to discover that the whole thing was made up entirely of 10 X 10 X 60 megaprims. Wow! Obviously not a homestead.

This was the closest we'd ever got in SL to real mountain climbing. One false step and you were toast and every new corner brought expansive views of not very much. We weren't even sure that we were on the right path (Memo to Random Calliope: a yellow brick road? Would help.) In fact the whole thing reminded us of a famous Chinese Communist play of the thirties, a stinging denunciation of Mountain-topism, that noted blockbuster, "Comrade, You're Taking the Wrong Path". But eventually after many adventures we got to the top. And were overcome by ennui at the very thought of more waving fields of wildflowers. Which is why we decided to stop here.
Wanderstill
On balance worth the trip. But a serious ennui warning for the wildflowers. If you must visit, BYO  naughty poseballs. it's the only possible remedy that Tess can think of.

Spot Changer

 Tess IMed only this morning on the important subject of Mikil Tiki. It appears that, although she has not yet had the pleasure of meeting that multi-formed avi, she has developed a degree of admiration for her polyglot, multi-hued ways. Tessa is essentially white bread with occasional forays into nougat and she is quite overwhelmed by those who have the ability to turn purple or brindle at will. And apart from her native Sicilian, and the Latin which she took at college, only Englysshe trips from her tongue. Well, actually, a little French

" - Frenssh she spake full fayre and fetisly,

After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,

For Frenssh of Paris was to hir unknowe."

 So immediately when Mikil expressed some interest in learning about this look, Tess was straight on the IM with suggestions of one's removing oneself from one's donkey or somesuch.

So, Mikil, here it all is.

The hair's really lovely. it's Tukinowaguma Blackheat cloth. It comes in red and black colors, each with a choice of camouflage, leopard, reptile or zebra ribbon. The spoilsports have taken big game hunting away from us so we'll just have to be satisfied with Tukinowaguma.

Once again from the land of VirtualNippon and all that implies in terms of design and price. Tessa speculates that there are several totally separate economies in SL because that is the only thing which would explain the pricing discrepancies between Jap sims and the rest of SL.To be brief, Jap means cheaper. But certainly not poorer quality. None of the above can explain why the Japanese quality and design is so much better. We're prepared to wade through any amount of anime cute and Hello Kitty! crap to get to the many design jewels to be found in cyber Nippon.

Plus and minus scores on the glasses which are Rodeo Drive from Second Eyes Optical.

On the plus side they look great and make Tess feel like she's super cool and executive. On the minus side, the textures are decidedly spotty. They appear to be hand drawn and suffer from aliassed jagged edges which necessitated quite a bit of time with the blur brush on 3 pixels to get the effect shown in the piccy. Also we don't like the HUD which comes with the glasses and requires a PhD to operate. Complicated should at least have usable results Look at the Solar HUDs which are as complicated as an American tax form but have terrific results.

The Jacket is a real gem.It''s the Winter Jacket black from FDD Creations. FDD appears to specialise in just about everything but clothes. They have prefabs, skyboxes, log cabins ....... and tucked in a corner just a few clothes of which this is one. Wonderfully textured and sculpted with scripted resizing. Don't miss it.