After the long wait Miriel Enfield has finished building her sim and it is now opened to the public.  After following Miriel’s blog entries over the past few months, about her struggles and achievements with prims, sculptie cliffs and trees etc, I was very excited to be finally going to see the sim I read so much about.

I was not disappointed!!

The build is absolutly beautiful. In the forground is Miriel’s store, housing jewelry, eyes, hair and shapes.

Miriel’s sim contains a treasure hunt, with a sad story.  Click on the poster “The Golden Cage” to receive a notecard, that tells the sad tale of Charlotte West and also contains the first clue to finding the 5 pieces of jewelry hidden about the island, and maybe even solve the mystery of Charlotte West.

Take some time to have a good explore, and don’t forget to bring your camera!!

Enclosed Rose Garden

Book Tower

To visit Miriel’s fantastic sim click here.

Everyone Loves a wedding, so I was delighted to receive a TP from my pal Timothy Lilliehook to attend the wedding of Tymmerie Throne and Jerremy Darwin

Tymmere and Jerremy

Rik Rake officiated the ceremony

Rik Rake

There was not a dry eye in the house, when Rik Rake pronounced the happy couple ‘Man and Wife”

The First Kiss

And then the party started!

The First Dance

Haley Salomon and Arminasx Saiman

GoSpeed Racer and Ravishal Bentham

Eshi Otawara has amazed us all yet again, with another fantastic 1 hour build at the Desperado sim. I think this has to be my favorite.

Sitting in Eshi's Lilly

At the Desperado Sim

If you did not get a chance to visit this build, Osiris Pfalz has captured it on video.

Wait till morning lillies, wait till morning from Osiris Pfalz on Vimeo.

Tempura Island, IMHO, has to be one of the most romantic islands to be found on ‘The Grid’. My partner Rik Pflaz happened upon the SLurl in Torley Lindens Blog.

Rik and Rox relaxing at Tempura Island

Tempura Island is one sim, but has soo much packed into it, it will need more than one visit!

Egg sitting in the giant bird's nest

And if, like myself, you want to practice your photography, this is the place! As Torley says “you can’t possibly take a bad picture”.

Watching the Sun set on Tempura Island

There are a many little hide aways, like this fantastic crystal cave, hidden away behind waterfalls.

Exploring the crystal cave

As I said at the begining of this post, Tempura Island is a romantic island, a fantatic place to explore, and great for photographing those ‘magic’ moments.

Rik and Rox at Tempura Island

First saw this on Chestnut Rau’s Flickr page, and the craze is growing! It’s very interesting and fun to. Other Flickr memes by Rik, Tim, Raul and DakotaB.

1. Wallpaper Roxette, 2. A Sunflower of Mangoes…, 3. Saint Brigids Cross – Feast Day Feb. 1st., 4. water droplets in the shower – o.k. bokeh, 5. Jonny Depp, 6. pentacon six tl wannabe edward hopper edward olive, 7. ~ Mauritius ~, 8. Meringue nests, 9. Lower Lough Erne, 10. Tree of Light, 11. spontaneous sunshine, 12. Roxette Wise

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

You type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr search. Then, using only the first page, pick an image. bighugelabs.com/flickr/ Mosaic Maker
Then, copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into this mosaic maker fd’s Flickr Toys.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

Have fun!

You are The Lovers

Saw this on Willow’s blog, and gave it a try.  The result was this…….

Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.

The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made.

Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that’s actually more apt than "Lovers." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can’t understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that the you have or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it you will never be complete.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Well it looks like I’m getting the blame of getting Rik Pflaz hooked on Second Life™.  So, if I got Rik hooked, how did I drawn into the wonderful, frustrating, sim crashing, rezzing world of Second Life ™ ?  Simply,  word of mouth.

OK, that’s too simple. Lets start at the begining.  I had sustained an injury to my hand at work, making it difficult to carry out my regular duties. So my company decided to send me home until they could find a job more suitable for me to do without sustaining further injury.  So I was at home, on long term sick, not sure if I would have a job to go back to or not.  As I was feeling a bit down, a friend, Claudia Crabb, suggested I try out a new online game called Second Life ™ (and we did not need ™’s then), as a way to chear me up, and to help pass the time.

So I joined on the 23rd January 2007, found me a reasonable name, (and that’s another story!) and headed off into a pixel generated world.  I soon discovered that there was more to SL™ than a game. Infact I would not describe it as a game at all! It is an environment that offers endless opportunities for creating anything from ‘physical’ objects, scripts (software), photography.. well I could go on, and on.

Any hoo, for me, the best part of joining Second Life™ is all the fantastic people I have met. My friends are from all across the globe. Thank you Claudia Crabb!!

The summer has finally arrived!! (quick definition of an Irish summer = 3 or more days with no rain!) So I took myself, my new pet Sox and bestest friend Rik off to the Weather Sim to try out the surfing. 

You arrive on the Monan’Ina beach at the Weather Island. A quick stroll down the beach brings you to Sebastian’s Surf Shack where you can pick up a free surf board.

Armed with said freebie, you are ready to test out the waves!! 

So this is me, and my lovely puppy Sox, atop our new surf board. OH! did I introduce you to Sox?? No?? Naughty me!! Well Socks was a gift from my dear friend Willow Caldera, and the pup is a keen surfer!

And Rik certainly cuts the waves!  It does take a bit of practice to catch the waves at the correct angle.  The large scripted waves are fantastic. and very ‘real’.

Of course it’s also fun just to relax and take in the scenery, and beauty of the sim. There are a total of five sims in the collection, and three of the sims offer a different extreme sport. Big wave surfing, Extreme sking, and Moab desert biking.

But for me and Sox the best part of all this was relaxing and watching the sun go down on a beautiful sim.

Pass me another pina colada please?

Ok, saw this on a few blogs, namely Rik’s and Tim’s Enjoyed reading those you guys!

So here is a lot of stuff about me, that you did not want to know, and never asked!

 

1. What time did you get up this morning?
4:20am. Well I got bored

2. Diamonds or pearls?
Diamonds! I like sparkle.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Can’t remember. But I did go once this year.

4. Favourite TV show?
Holby City. I am this show’s one and only fan!

5. What do you usually have for breakfast?
Hot water with lemon, then cereal and orange juice.

6. What is your middle name?
Anne.

7. What food do you dislike?
Coconuts!

8. What is your favourite CD at the moment?
Life in Cartoon Motion by Mika

9. Favourite sandwich?
Prawn Salad.

10. What characteristic do you despise?
Arrogance.

11. Favourite item of clothing?
My cotton Jammies!

12. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would it be?
New Zealand.

13. What colour is your bathroom?
The bathroom suit is burgundy. The walls are white.

14. Do you make friends easily?
I do.

15. Where would you retire to?
Co Fermanagh. Ireland’s own Lake district.

16. What was your most recent memorable birthday?
When I was 6. I had a big cake with candle holders in the shape of ballet dancers on it.

17. Favourite sport to watch?
Rugby.

18. How many towns have you lived in?
6.

19. How many do you think will send this back?
No idea.

20. What’s on your bedroom floor right now?
Slippers and current reading book. (Life Expectancy by Dean Koonz)

21. Favourite saying?
No probs.

22. When is your birthday?
RL – 1st April SL – January

23. Are you a morning person or a night person?
Morning!

24. What is your shoe size?
British 6 ½ European size 40

25. Pets?
2 Yorkshire terriers.

26. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share with us?
I ain’t telling!!

27. What did you want to be when you were little?
A ballerina

28. Which talent would you most like to have?
To sing.

29. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
No Probs

30. What is your favourite flower?
Bluebells.

31. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to?
Monday May 19th.

32. What colour are your eyes?
Hazel I think.

33. What was your favourite toy as a child?
Tiny Tears.

34. Summer or winter?
Summer.

35. Hugs or kisses?
HUGS!!!

36. Chocolate or Vanilla?
If it’s ice cream – vanilla!

37. Do you want your friends to send this back to you?
If they want.

38. When was the last time you cried?
Cant remember. Probably at a movie.

39. What is under your bed?
Shoes!

40. Who is the friend you have had the longest in SL?
Claudia Crabb. My friend in RL and introduced me to SL.

41. What did you do last night?
Watched some telly, and logged into SL for a bit.

42. Favourite smell?
A turf fire and roast chicken. (Both at the same time reminds me of arriving in Ireland for the first time)

43. What are you afraid of?
The dark.

44. Plain, sweet, or salted Popcorn?
SALTED!!

45. How many keys on your key ring?
Which set? Personal – 2 Work – 6 (3 of which I cant remember what they are for)

46. How many years at your current job?
10 years and 3 months when they shut the doors on the 31st October.

47. Do you have any scars?
Yes. Lots!

48. Favourite day of the week?
FRIDAY!!!

49. How many people will you be sending this to?
None!

50. Who’s answers are you looking forward the most?
Anybody’s!

After the great success of last weeks twitter meet up, it was quickly decided to have another one!! This one was to have a theme, and after much debate between turning up as a vegetable or your favorite movie star.  Thankfully the movie theme won out!!

The delightful Kitty Lalonde provided the venue, with help from the talented Willow Caldera!! (She made one of the best circles to be found on the grid!) There was much debate and confusion regarding the time of the party, converting from BST to SL time, but it was finally settled that 1:30 SLT was in fact 9:30pm BST.

The turn out was great! The avatars/costumes were fantastic!! Some of the best loved and well know showed up!!

Johan Yuge as Dr Who

Osiris Pfalz as Audrey Hepburn

Willow Caledra Alice of Resident Evil

For myself, I finally decided to go as Morticia Adams of The Adams Family. There then followed some very frantic shopping for skin, hair and poses/animations.  The outfit I decided to do myself.  (Oh the joys of being a fashion designer!)  And here is the finished result.

 

• Hair by Sirena – Spirit Black Pack
• Skin by Fleur – Vivant Gothique Corbeau 1
• Nails by Fleur – Claret Nails
• Shape – custom made
• Eyebrows – custom made
• Dress by Bluebell Productions
• Pose by Digital Dragon – Man Pose 3
• Smoke generator script – found in the bottom of a freebie box

Pictures can be found here