omg i so NOT wanted to do this, but here is my say about the latest events. I 'll try to keep it simple and easy, and I hope it can be of help for anyone who happens to read this.

Here in Second Life we get stuck in all the wonderful and unexpected things that come our way. It really is fun, joy and entertainment. Sometimes it can be tricky, because the boundaries between who you are and "who you want to be" can be easily lost, and it's sad to realise you've ended up out of bounds when it's too late. It can even get WORSE, when among the unexpected things SL has brought to you, there is that crazy little thing called LOVE (excuse the quote).

In case you fall in love with someone, feel free to enjoy it at the fullest. Hop on the poseballs, dance or just hug, find the places you love the most and hang out. Emotions will run fast, while everything around freezes and the pixelled world feels so real that you just want to fly to San Francisco and go shake hands with Philip Rosedale.
THEN, if after a while you feel like pixels aren't enough anymore and start consideridering an eventual RL development to your perfect, wonderful romance, you 'd better start unfreezing the atomic world around you and well ponder the concept that all you 're doing is..going back to the place where it all started.

Your REAL LIFE.

Most importantly, you need to consider how much of that pixel-boosted excitement and joy you are able to transpose into your flesh and bones, your everyday needs and your habits. Being in front of a computer screen is just a RL habit, but then, it's all we do when living our full Second Life.

And even MORE important at that stage is...to stop for a moment and be really, really honest with yourself. Inside the computer screen you 've found everything you need. Mainly love, which can lead to EXPECTATIONS. (In this case it did. )

Love can grow fast, expectations can grow just as fast as love. Look inside yourself and recognise the role that expectations played in your commitment to the person involved. If it's love playing the biggest part, then be ready to firmly believe in love, and keep the expectations on hold for a while. Short or long while, it shouldn't matter. In case it's the expectations playing the main role, then think twice about making the big move. Expectations can come true, they can change, they can fade. In any case, in the end you 're left with nothing more to look forward to, because that's exactly the moment when you realise that love wasn't the main reason that pushed you into such an adventure. All of sudden you would start to look differently at things, and find yourself committed to a person you hardly know for real, a person who hasn't given you any of those things you were expecting to receive, and maybe you even let some unjustified resentment grow and eventually influence your words and actions towards him.

And probably hurt him, too. Especially if that person had put love in First Place, and...his expectations weren't even close to First Place - to what he had been dreaming about all his life.

I know most of you know what the beta grid is, but since I only found out about it a short while ago, I thought it could be useful to post a short 'how to' get inside this kinda 'hidden grid' also known as preview grid. The reason for this alternative Second Life (I 'd call it third life) is...testing. Linden Lab tests almost everything there and so can you.

To log into the beta grid, just launch SL normally, and then press CTRL-SHIFT-G. You will get a different login menu, that will look like this:



Each of those names in the dropdown menu represent a different grid, but only 2 of them are actually public access. The Agni grid is... Second Life main grid. Aditi grid is the beta. Choose Aditi and login!
Oooops...having troubles loggin in?? Erm, there is something more that you should now. The beta grid status is not up to date. The servers aren't 'refreshed' often so all your present-time data may not be available, such as your...password for example. So if you change your password frequently, you may have to try to remember all of the past ones and try them one at a time until you finally get the one you were using at the time of the last beta grid update.

So...let's say you made it into Beta..

For sure the first thing you notice is...that you 're awesomely RICH!! (oh well, some of you may think of 14,384 L$ as being poor, lol)


The red upper tab is just there to remind you that you are using beta, and the money balance is just...for you to spend the way you want! Unfortunately, there aren't many ways to spend money because there is nothing you can buy...no shops, no malls, nothing. But yes, you can upload EVERYTHING you want for testing purposes and 14K L$ sound like heaven to me. Poses, animations, prims, sounds, textures, and whatever else.Considering that if you're working with sculpties they may require quite a number of sculpty maps uploads before reaching perfection, in the end you can save some good money by doing it on beta. You can work on them, then save them onto your hard drive (all except prims, obviously) so that once you 've finished, you only actually pay the amount necessary to bring your completed items inside the main grid. Isn't it just COOL??

But anyway, if you think it's worth to wander around Beta, just expect to find yourself...BACK IN THE PAST...lol. As I mentioned above, everything on Beta is frozen to some point in the past, so it can be kinda funny to have a look at what you were like back then. Here is me!


GAWD, that is so....tall and skinny! And my good old favorite tux too!!!
Unfortunately, your inventory will look old too, not as old as your avatar, but kinda, so don't you worry if you 're missing some of your recently purchased stuff, they 'll still be there once you log back into the main grid.
If you are a profile sneaker, then click on all of your friends list to remind yourself of the good old times...it may bring back good memories and probably give you an idea of how far back in time you are..Mine looked like this...



Ehm...what do you mean 30 years old?? argh now THAT is a long while ago, lol.
As for your friends list, you may find names of people you 've deleted/forgotten by now, but no worries, they won't show online unless they deliberately decide to log into Beta too..;)
Now let's have a look at the world map..some say Second Life is a small world, so what about Beta grid..is it smaller than small?

This is all you can see by completely zooming out. There's a welcome area and a few sandboxes...and can you count the green dots?? I only managed to count 20 of them, so...small world, a few guys in there and no LAG! So small that I randon TP'ed somewhere and bumped into a friend...



The pic is intentionally taken from a wide angle so that you won't notice her being bald and half naked while working on bed pose animations..lol. she didn't expect me to bug her there too and kinda freaked out at my sight, so I escaped quick before being badly told off.

Okay, what's next? I went to the other neighbouring sandbox and there were no signs of life, except this big sign of warning:

OK, no weapons, but please tell me, even if I carried one, what am I supposed to shoot at??



Maybe this guy knows more...he is a living weapon, or maybe just a transformer, I dunno..



so, no shootings, but WHERE IS THE SEXXXX? no sex at all, weird eh?

and where is the FUN?? I 'll tell you where the fun is..



TOTALLY UNCONTROLLED GRIEFING!!! Omg I couldn't remember the last time I saw the old sim-wide particle shower trick...it used to be a superMario jumping and bumping on you from all sides...now it's just some RL pics of an unlucky (and unaware, I suppose)nerdy looking lady who got caught while in a bad mood..lol


And in case you 're just as naive as someone I know, feel free to accept a random 'ANIMATE YOUR AVATAR' offer to just find out that...

you 're getting owned....omg funny...sad....CRAP. Thanks a lot Estella Starostin, I hope I made your day on the Beta grid, and yes, I most definitely think you're a male in RL, lol.

So to sum things up...Beta grid is useful for a lot of things, mostly for builders and developers.
But in case you haven't got the chance to experience zero lag in SL, its worth a try. It's a very pleasant feeling.
Or, if you 're somehow interested in the feeling of time travelling (lol) that's just what you might be looking for.
Or, if you just need to hang-out/party with a few close friends and no one else around in a huge and empty full sim, just get them all inside Beta grid and have fun!!

Ciao to all :)

I haven't had much time to write on here lately, mostly because I am becoming very busy with building something in SL..plus I resumed teaching after the Christmas break and despite loving it, it just makes me want to jump in bed right after the bell rings. Oh well, my night owl days are over....kinda over, lol.

My passion for building is growing anyway, and I can't stop dreaming of building whatever comes in my mind when I wake up in the morning. This attitude doesn't match well with my renowned 'dishwasher approach' in anything I do. I am sure some of you know what I am talking about, that is....I hate instruction manuals. When it comes to learn how to make the new dishwasher work for the first time, I prefer just to press the 'ON' button and wait for something/anything to happen, rather than go sit in the lounge and read the 234 pages instruction manual, safety precautions included. So, same for building in Second Life. I have been given hint notecards, shortcuts manuals, starter's guides from my builder friends but never read any. It's crazy, I know. I just click on the build button and start learning by experience.
Plus, lately I have been focusing on just ONE project, and of course it's the hardest one to achieve.

So hard that I want to complete it as soon as possible, lol. I know I can make it all by myself, as one of the few things I don't lack is optimism. But after the initial boost of confidence, I have come to the conclusion that I need at least a little help in dealing with the textures I need. Building is fun, no matter what you do. You make things right, and you 're happy. You screw everything up, and you 're happy anyway, 'cause at least it gives you a smile and after all, you can't screw things up twice in a row (or can I? lol).
But textures, TEXTURES are BITCHES!! Textures don't forgive. No second chance, nothing left to do when you 've uploaded the wrong one than spend another half hour searching for the good one, hoping it will be THE good one. You have no time to look at how beautiful your linked prims are, when you're rushed to make them appear as something more than a few wooden cubes glued together in such an unpredictable shape.
So, I thought maybe I could get professional help..lol. Time to pay for your dreams, Midd. I contacted some famous builders/custom texture designers, helped by the endless patience of my dear friend Rohana, and it's not making things easier at all.
As Rohana said, being a talented builder herself, "In Second Life there is no worst bitch than a builder, me included". I didn't give it much credit at first, but now I think

I should, lol. What's wrong with you guys?? This is just simply wearing me out. All of them, and I say ALL of them, have put me through the same tiring process of a corporate job interview. And no, I didn't play the part of the interviewer.

So here's a short explanation of what I need to be done. I will put it here, so next time I can redirect you guys here, instead of spending another couple of hours in lagging IM windows. :

1) Yes, I DO need custom textures. Custom made, for me means, made appositely for me, from scratch. Custom made, for me, means that you have to launch you photoshoppy thingee and hit "Create New File". New file, blank sheet of paper, and start working on it.

2) Yes, I will provide you with RL pictures explaining precisely what I'd like the final result to be. But I don't want you to use those same pictures to actually create the texture. I can do that myself with Microsoft Paint, it wouldn't even need Photoshop. You look at the picture I give to you, and then start drawing the texture the best you can, to make it look as real as possible. You think you can do it? Then, do it. You can't do it? Then tell me.

3)Yes, I know such a thing requires a lot of work. Yes I know it's a hard work. Yes I know it's not quite like the simplest thing you 've ever made in your career. But please, tell me how much it will cost. I am not asking the precise amount, I just want to have an indication.

4)No, I won't place a big order at first. I want to know the average cost per 'unit'. As in, one texture costs....and then make the count myself. You don't need to know how big my Sim is, you don't need to know how many textures I need, you don't need to ask ME how much I would spend for it. I want you to make a first (paid)work sample so that I can judge and eventually consider if you are worth my trust for the remaining parts of the job.

5) Yes, I agree you may need some time to think about it. But If you call yourself a custom texture maker, I guess you know that people come to you when they have no other option left, and that they have already spent a while searching for "normal" textures. So please, think about it, but think quick.

6)Yes, I know you are obviously busy right at this moment. You are building half a dozen other sims, you deal with Im hell as well, but please make some sense of what you're saying. I am the one asking, I am the customer, so please reduce your 'diva' attitude to the first couple of minutes in the convo and then go straight to the point..."WILL YOU FRIGGIN DO THE JOB FOR ME OR WHAT?????"

7) Yes I know my profile shows 'No payment info on file". This is none of your business. It's mine. Just please tell me how much you cost, do a good job and you'll get the money. The end, lol.

oh, please tell me guys, am I asking for too much?? ;)

Happy new year to everyone, and may all your wishes and dreams come true.
I think 2010 will be a good one. I just love the way it sounds.

Ciao!