January 2008 Archives

While everybody in SL is getting excited about Valentine's Day, I'm excited because the Chinese Lunar New Year is nearly upon us. It falls on February 7, and the extended family (I mean RL family of course, lol) are gathering for our family reunion dinner as usual! Yep, I have Chinese blood flowing in my veins, how did you guess?

In honour of the occasion, I decided to go looking for a cheongsam (or qipao) to wear.

First I went through Fabulously Free in SL's archives. Hehehe.

I was pained to see this pink outfit by Fireflies Boutique. I know it's now chic to blend Easten & Western influences, but seriously, sometimes when you do that, you just end up looking confused. I thought the dress looked like a disaster. Some things are so classic, they shouldn't be messed with, you know?

Luckily, when I tried it on, it didn't look as bad as it did pictured on the Fabfree blog. The short version of the dress was fairly good. But it still wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

Then there was the horrid, horrid dress by Orchid Dreams, also blogged by Fabfree. Calling this dress a cheongsam is an insult to Chinese culture! Bleargh! However, I managed to 'rescue' it by removing the ugly prims at the bottom. ZOMG, so much better. *phew*

Still, it wasn't ideal, so I went on looking, and chanced upon this cheongsam by Cartunno Clothing, another Fabfree find. I have to say that this one was not bad, except... you're not supposed to wear anything black during Chinese New Year -- black is the colour of mourning. Red, on the other hand, is considered an auspicious colour. The Chinese are quite superstitious and believe strongly in all kinds of symbolism, so this didn't fit the bill either.

I turned to the good ol' trusty "search" function. A search for "cheongsam" yielded 6 results:

• House of Zen
• Nippon 'E' Marketplace
• Cherry Tokyo's Kimonos
• International House of Style
• Asian Inspiration
• Vintuition at Bejala Far East Market

Don't ask me how kimonos and cheongsams got lumped together, since kimonos are Japanese and cheongsams are Chinese (hello! Did you not study history? China and Japan were ENEMIES!).

The only place that yielded anything worth talking about was the House of Zen. They offered this "oriental ensemble" as a freebie -- and it's wonderful, great texture, lovely attention to detail, everything... except... cheongsams are a dress. What's with the pants? If it's supposed to be a samfoo, the tunic shouldn't go beyond the hips. The Vietnamese ao dai has a tunic that reaches to the knees, but they don't use this sort of brocade cloth, at least not as far as I know. Another case of confusion.

My search continued. This time I looked for "Beijing", figuring that Chinese designers might know best how to design Chinese clothes. No luck there either. I went to the Forbidden City, among other places, but it was deserted and many of the stores vacant :(

A search for "Shanghai" also yielded nothing, so in desperation, I typed in "China". Lo and behold, I managed to find this dress called Delia for 210L. Love the colour -- bought it on the spot! Yay!!!

** Yes, I know my pictures are all rather dark. But, as my mother used to say: Practice makes perfect!! hehehe...

UPDATE: I read on the Pixeldolls blog that they are having a 50% sale for shoes until the end of the week, so I TP-ed over to the store -- and guess what? I found this sweet pearl violet cheongsam in the retiring items section for 100L!! I'm soooo happy!!

But I still love Delia the best :))))

There comes a time in every girl's life when she would like to have a place in which to change. Oh, and to go home to, of course :)

The thought first came to me when I stepped into the village of Sterling Grove and was given their "Welcome!" notecard. The notecard mentioned that there were places to rent. So I contacted the people listed on the notecard... and Mr Kam Carson of BHB Rentals showed me around the place.

It was my first time talking to a property owner / manager / agent. I was soooo surprised to see him all dressed up in a suit, and he called me Ms Questi! Nobody on SL has ever called me that! Very professional, but it took some getting used to :)

I acted just like I would in RL and asked all sorts of questions about the property, the sim, the neighbourhood and the lease conditions. "This house is a little too large for just one person," I commented, sounding for all the world like an experienced businesswoman. lol

Then I searched the Classifieds. Holy kamoly, look at some of the places I found!

1. Green Room Rentals, 25L per week, zero prims:

MY GOD! You mean this is it? Or is it just not rezzing?

Nope, no mistake: they really are trying to rent an ugly empty green room to me for 25L a week. o.O

And it's ZERO PRIMS! You can't even do anything to make it more livable!

2. Golden Meadow, 100L per week, 24 prims:

*blinks* Is this the ugliest building you've ever seen, or what? Once again I wondered if it was just not rezzing properly. But nope, it really is that hideous colour. Even the door is just a block of solid red. And of course everybody wants to look out of their window at huge "For Sale" signs dotting the landscape. Yessir.

3. Cristalle Properties, 100L per week, 10 prims:

No picture, I'm afraid. I walked into a vacant apartment to view the place, and hardly had time to look left and right when I got the message:

Quaintly Questi, I am afraid that Keepdown (150, 220, 77) is a restricted area. Please leave within the next 30 seconds, or I will have to remove you. Many thanks!

WTF! If they're so unfriendly to potential residents, I certainly have no wish to make my home there.

After these disappointing experiences, I was seriously considering going back to Sky Mark Two, where I used to live for awhile. The studio apartments are 50L per week, zero prims, but they come furnished (sofa, lamp, and coffee table) and the floor & wall textures are changeable at a click. Unfortunately if you accidentally click anything, you'll have to go through the whole cycle to get the one you like back again lol. Also unfortunately, most of the textures are not that great -_-

So I posted on the SL forums, asking more experienced residents for suggestions on a place to live. Lo and behold.... I received the message: "Quaintly - I saw your post in RA that you are looking for a house to rent. I offer folks less than 90 days old FREE cottages for 90 days. I have 1 available right now. Please IM me if you would be interested."

I was like, WOW!!! You bet your britches I'm interested!!!

So I hotfooted it over to have a look at the place and chat with the owner, IBME Swindlehurst. I was like, what's up with this amazing deal? He said he likes to help folks start out. He even advised me, "I think it is a good deal for you to take the free cottage for now and explore SL a bit before you make any big investments."

It's a cosy little cottage, just what I wanted -- not too big, not too small. Perfect! Of course I jumped at the offer :) When I noted that the windows had clear glass in them and anybody could see into the house, IBME offered to build blinds in for FREE. I tell you, you couldn't have a better landlord!

My lovely house (yes I ended up adding my own windows, which the awesome IcyQueen helped make for me!):

*cough* This post may be a bit R-rated... or at least PG-13. *grin*

I vividly remember that when IcyQueen first joined SL, she told me her avatar didn't have nipples. It became a running joke between us... every time I spoke to her, I'd ask, "So, do you have nipples yet?"

We found out later that most skins come with nipples. Only the default SL skin left out that little detail (they must be G-rated, unlike this blog *giggles*)

Well, today I got a notice through Fashion Consolidated. Di Yifu of Inca Temple has designed realistic nipples!

Tired of default SL breasts? Annoyed to see just the texture of the nipples, and not the nipples? Want to be unforgettable? Make him to fall in love with you? Break his heart forever? This set is for you! Full 3D photorealistic set of nipples made from real RL photo! Looks so good that it just couldn't be better!

I won't attach a photo here in hopes of staying just PG instead of PG-13 lol. But in case you were wondering, they're not just realistic-looking nipples, they're also SOUND-PRODUCING nipples!

Just to add the fun, the nipples are scripted with sounds! Any time anyone touches the nipple, a sound is it produced. Each on five presets contains a different sound, try them all!

When asked, Di Yifu said they make "all kinds of erotic sounds". Oooh. And they come in five different skin tones: Caucasion, sun-kissed, Asian, Latin, and African. Fully modifiable, too, so you can make sure they fit you perfectly. As long as your idea of "perfect" is not this or this. (Arrgh! My eyes! My eyes!)

Wanna have a look? Go check out the Inca Temple store. They're $420L a pair... unfortunately no demos available :(

So, I have been busy shopping... what's new?

Sorry about the template, we (or rather IcyQueen) is still tweaking it to get it to look pretty (which is why she isn't posting. Between tweaking the template, being on SL and having a RL there is no time to post lol)

I spent a ton at the Last Call sale, but since the items are going to be discontinued and they're all going for 100L I thought it was well worth it. The detailing on those clothes are incredible. I wish I'd discovered the store earlier. Well, considering my rez day is 17 Dec 2007 I suppose I there wasn't a chance to discover it earlier :(

Ivalde is having a sale too (ZOMG) and I am going broke. You know how it is... first you go broke in SL, then you go broke in RL *grin*

I'm now trying very hard to organise my inventory so that I can find the stuff I want to wear. Have a ton of boxes I haven't opened yet -_-"

And we are LIVE! ...at least, I think we are. IcyQueen? Are we live?

So I was telling IcyQueen, when I first got into Second Life I googled and saw people writing blogs about their second life, like what they do, where they go and everything -- just like how we do about our real lives. I was shocked, because, I mean, it's not REAL, you know! It's Second Life!

But then I got into it, and I was like, damn, I want to blog about Second Life too. Because who else apart from other SL residents are going to understand how happy I am that ETD had a sale and that I finally managed to TP in? And who else is going to understand how funny it is that the ETD staff were telling us to take off our clothes and shop in bikinis to reduce lag? Of course I wore the sexiest bikini I had. :P

Here you are then... our Second Life stories lol. I'll probably write a lot about shopping since that's mainly what I seem to do in Second Life -- shop!!! (I'm such a girl, I know)